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Follow on TwitterThis is the first post in a series of seven inspired by the third episode of the current series of The Apprentice on BBC. These business ideas are aimed at anyone wanting to start a business on a budget of £200 or less.
One business opportunity is to set yourself up as a leaflet distributor. It’s a service that many businesses need, just look at the number of leaflets that come through your door from free newspapers, insurance firms, local takeaways, restaurants, or property developers.
Typically most businesses expect to pay between £25 and £40 per one thousand leaflets depending on the area (terraced houses versus widely distributed properties). The main cost of distribution is your time and some travel to the target area if you can’t walk there. It should be possible to deliver between 200 and 400 leaflets per hour depending upon the area.
The £200 startup budget would be used to get some leaflets and business cards printed and a cheap pay as you go mobile phone, you can then approach local businesses and offer your services, providing them with the mobile phone number to contact you.
You can run this business totally by yourself or scale it up by employing other people to do the deliveries for you and concentrating your efforts on sales and marketing of the service. A simple scalable business, all for under £200.
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This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
Good business idea, I’ve done some research into this area as I’m looking at doing some leafleting for my Utility Warehouse business, Piggy Bank Savings.
From my research, you can get 1000 leaflets dropped for as little as £20, however they will be dropped with other leaflets, or you can have them dropped individually for about £35 / thousand.
While it’s possible to get £20 per thousand when dropped with other leaflets it can be a false economy as they are more likely to be binned without being read.
Hi,
Im very interested in the leaflet distribution business myself, I tried it about 6 years back, and was scared by the response I received after posting 500 leaflets to shops and companies locally advertising my business.
Whilst posting, a carpet shop immediately offered me me £75 to deliver 5000 of their leaflets (£15 per thousand at that time! When I reached home the phone rang, a Balti house wanted me to deliver 20,000 of their leaflets locally, and another carpet shop wanted 2000 delivered.
The calls kept coming, but being a one man band I started refusing jobs, I was scared by the sheer volumn that my leaflets pulled in.
I hope this will encourage you rather than scare you off.
I now have a couple of freiends who like the idea, and so we might take up the challenge again.
Rob.
Anyone who thinks that they can deliver leaflets at a rate of 400 per hour is in cloud cuckoo land. Realistic numbers are more in the region of 120 per hour but even this figure is optimistic over an 8hour day, 5 days a week. In order to conform to National Minimum Wage rates you should expect to pay a single distributor about £45.00 per day. A bona fide distribution company would charge around £70.00+ per 1,000 for a genuinely solus distribution. If you are happy to share with other items then this cost can be reduced significantly but ask all the right questions at the enquiry stage or you may end up disappointed.
Chris
Are there any laws to get past regarding putting leaflets through peoples doors?
I am not an expert on laws to answer the question above posted by Matt. May I leave my comment that leaflets dropping through people’s doors is a way of marketing products or services on a budget while the consumers have the choice to use or bin the advertisement.
All advertising needs to conform to ASA standards – ie. legal, decent, honest and truthful. There are commonsense restrictions on what you can put through a letterbox such as samples containing nut traces, or any other ingredient regarded as potentially harmful to a child or animal. If in doubt contact the ASA.
I deliver my own leaflets fo my own business, and it is NOT easy, unless you ere pretty fit and have a good battery in your ipod give it a miss, it is mind numbing, repetitive and dangerous!!… (at least 1 in a hundred houses will have a stealth dog…the ones that dont bark or move until your finger is in sight!!)
I recently started as a leaflet distributor and i have just completed my first order of 5000 leaflets. This took me and my husband 2 days to do, i charge £35 per 1000 leaflets. In my opinion this is a great business to get into. Its a repeat business as well as gathering new business.
Hi Sam,
I am delighted with your news, im glad you have d
tried this very interesting business.
£175 ain’t bad for two days work I reckon.
Take no notice ofsome of the comments on this
blog, some people want money for doing nothing!
When establised and proven yourself, up your
price a tenner per thousand, your customers will pay willingly pay the extra … as they can afford
it for a good and reliable service.
Keep me posted. All the best for 2009.
Rob.
I started up in May 2007 Last Year with a budget of £700.
My first order was for 60,000 leaflets for Sutton college, and they wanted it done in a week!
yes it was scary and a terrifying prospect, but once i built up my post teams, and developed some automation routines, we have been going from strength to strength ever since.
we now have a fleet of x2 cars and a van, have just had our website revamped, and are looking to expand our operations throughout the entire West Midlands.
Leigh Wilson
Hi,
Can I just ask those of you in the know…do your clients expect you to deliver to residential properties that specifically state via a notice on the front door/surrounding area that they do not want, for want of a better phrase, “junkmail”? Or, to word the question differently, do you respect the wishes of those residents or to you deliver regardless?
I’m thinking of starting a leaflet distribution business and I wouldn’t want to get clients into trouble with residents – as it would be me who would be made to suffer in the end…
When I was leaflet dropping for my utilities business, I did see quite a few signs on people’s letter boxes saying they didn’t want junk mail, but there were more that stated that they didn’t buy from “door to door” salesmen.
I respected the wishes of those that didn’t want junk mail and didn’t put my leaflets through.
Oooh, another question. How does one go about mappping routes for distributors. In time I would like to hire staff but am at a loss as to how to instruct them to deliver to particular roads. Would I have to find out individual road names in the town that I wish to distribute to, and the number of properties on each road? This is the only way that I can think of to enable me to give the distributors a list of roads to work on. Is there a more practical way or is there any software (cheap) that I could use?
So glad i found this site as i am thinking of starting my own leaflet distribution business also. Lots of good questions and like Leon im thinking exactly the same. I want to start off doing this alone and then when i get a big order get people to help me. The mapping routes is also an issue i want to get around. Someone said to me you can contact yoyr local council for a map of the area and also a break down of the number of houses in that area, is this correct?
Im in the process of getting a website up and running. I work in my local take away doing deliveries so have already got my first customer! Also is £35 per thousand the going rate for 1000 on average?
I also run my own e lottery syndicate and can build this by handing out flyers when im out delivering the flyers so i can build my other business at the same time which is great!
I really want this to work as im peeved off working for someone else and would love to run my own business and this to me is a great idea, a simple one as well
Sam on January 2nd, 2009
Is it just you and your husband running the business?
Do you have a website? How do you get your business?
Hi
Yes it is just me and my husband doing this at the mo. I have now completed 3 jobs by 2 different companies. I haven’t got a website just yet as i have been so busy with my everyday job and studying and looking after my daughter, but it is something i want to get up and running soon its just finding the right people to go with. Anyone got any recommendations?
Grant: You can contact your council for an area population report, they should then give you details of how many houses etc are in a particular area.
To promote my business: All i have done at the moment is advertise on Gumtree and various business directories for my local area, you can find these by just a search. I also have a linege ad on Yell.com which costs £9 a month to be at the top of the page all the time.
thanks Sam. Where do you currently live? If its local to me we could team up!
I am getting things ready to go. What do you do if you get an order for 30,000 flyers say?
How long does it take you to deliver to 1000 addresses?
I will contact the council for the population reports, thanks
Good luck with your business
I live in Portsmouth.
If i got an order for 30,000 i would get some trust worthy people to help out before relying on people phoning me up for jobs.
1,000 leaflets would take us 4-5 hours to deliver (depending on types of houses and flats etc)
Brilliant – Well good luck with it Sam keep us posted here how you do. Nice knowing we are both in the same boat
Sam, when you say 1000 leaflets would take you 4/5 hours to complete do you mean between you and your husband i.e. 500 each, or that it takes one of you to deliver them in that time?
By the way, I contacted my council for a population report (thanks for the tip) but nobody knew what I was on about. Do you know what department deals with them?
I dont know if I’m allowed to post websites but if you google “scriptlance” you will be able to get a freelance webdesigner for a very good price. I got one for my old business and saved myself hundreds! You can also get logo’s designed should you need one.
Leon,
You’re welcome to post websites if they are relevant to the conversation and aren’t posted purely for self promotion.
So in this case a link to http://www.scriptlance.com would be fine.
It would take 4/5 hours for us to deliver 1000 leaflets each, but like i said it really does depend on the types of houses. Where i live there is a lot of terraced housing and flats so this would be realistic to say a 1000 each. But where houses with front gardens is concerned it could take a bit longer.
Bit strange that your council haven’t heard of an area population report, i emailed my local council and i got it that way. Maybe have a good look around your councils website it should be on there somewhere.
Thanx for the tip on the website i will check it out.
sam, if a client wanted say 5000 delivered would you do it over a few days or try to do it all at once and would you tell the client how long it would take?
sorry to pick your brains but this seems like a good oppotunity but unsure how everything would work.most companys near me charge £45per 1000 and can deliver upto 10000 per day! at this price cant see how i could compete!
If a client wanted me to deliver 5000 leaflets i would normarlly do this with my husband over a couple of days. The clients would probably have a deadline for the delivery, so we would work to that.
For these other companies to deliver those types of volumes in one day they would have to have a fairly big team as it takes 4/5 hours for one person to deliver a 1000.
this forum has really helped me make up my mind about starting my own business,
but other than fast food resturaunts im not sure whitch businesses to target, any ideas?
most of the local businesses i think dont have fliers to deliver.
and would you charge the same for fliers as you would, say business cards.
Hello
How do you guys/girls plan your delivery route?
Seems like a great business idea.
I’ve just found out I’m going to be out of work in 3 weeks. Have you any advice on how to get started quickly on this, and do you think it’s possible to earn a good living doing only this full time?
Also, how do business know they can trust you to deliver the leaflets? I imagine this may be a possible objection while trying to sell your services?
I all,
I started my own leaflet/flyer company after reading this site. I got 500 business cards from 123print.com that cost about £25, tshirt £10, then went around all the takeaways/fianace etc businesses in the area (Cardiff) and just handed them to the managers and waited for phone calls, within 1st week had 3 contracts, and i also taken on 2 more contracts since then. Booked up till mid april already. Its just about going out there and speakin to the people, the work will come. Just be honset with them, show them a map of the area you done for them. There is alot of trust with this business, just dont break it. Good luck.
If you are looking for a simple way to do a leaflet site go to http://www.moonfruit.com they have a free package with google adwords banner or you can pay £2.99 per month (what I pay) to have a banner free site and it is really easy once you get the hang of it to design your own professional site.
drew every company needs to advertise so don’t think your restricted to just doing take away’s we have distributed for estate agents, taxi companies, health clubs, pubs and clubs, restaurants, printing companies, local authorities (i.e. police missing persons, council, fire brigade safety checks) etc. We think that flyers are the best form of advertising and I have been approached by companies we never thought would use this method so don’t be afraid to approach anyone.
Enyone know, if you really need a license for distribution leaflets ?
only for static Hand-to-hand jobs
update :
I now have a contract with a large fast food chain for 400,000 per month !!!
Hi Jack
You don’t need a licence to distribute leaflets. There really is no limits with this business. Things are going great, i now have a monthly booking to deliver 15,000 mini directories.
Hi all, only just come across this site so thanks for all the excellent info and cheers John for setting the whole thing up.
I’m currently delivering leaflets on behalf of TNT for a national company but as I am self employed and my usual line of work is producing little, reading this has encouraged me to seriously look at doing this full time for local companies.
Do any of you live in a small town as I do (10,000) and still able to create enough business?
Hi,
Sam and Leigh, how many people do you employ then to deal with these larger contracts? I imagine it causes a few headaches.
How did you manage to deliver 60,000 in one week when you first started without the resources – that’s a lot!!
Glad that things are going well.
Still thinking about starting up myself. Just been laid off, so timing is right. Bit nervous though as I’m used to a steady salary, and I think there is a lot of competition here in W.London.
Wow, Leigh that is excellent. If you don’t mind me asking who its with and how you bagged it?
Tony,
My pleasure, I’m glad it’s proving so useful for so many people.
Dean : I basically called everybody i knew! all hands on deck was required to get it done. i was just lucky i have a supportive group of friends and family! ( even had my mum out!!! )
Sam : Thats the thing, THEY found me rather than vice-versa. they found my website, liked it, and contacted me. all of my biggest jobs have been from clients finding me. although i do sent out 1,000 piece mail shots once per month, and hand out business cards like confetti!
Tony : I started off only offering distribution within my town ( although my first job wasn’t ) and eventually realised that there just wasn’t enough work going at a decent price ( lots of idiots offering to do work for £15 per k ) so i eventually began to offer distribution accross the whole of the west midlands.
cast a big net.. catch many fish!
Ok, so i need to get me a website. Did you do your own website or did you get someone else to do it?
I did it myself.. its currently V3.0 as the first was terrible. i just improved it as and when i had more time. to my advantage, i am already familiar with HTML and basic webdesign.
another titbit of advice LASER PRINTER! nothing looks worse than having faded blurry invoices and letterheads printed off from a deskjet/inkjet printer, get an old cheap one off ebay for pennies, it may be slow, but the quality is so much better.
I also use OpenOffice to do my daily admin.. its like MS Office… only its free!
I’ll second Leigh recommendation of Open Office, I much prefer it, it’s free and it’s able to open, edit and save MS Office documents.
Heart Internet provide some free web templates with their hosting, you could probably do your own simple site using that.
Hey,
I really like this idea because i bet more companies need to advertise at the moment.
Quick question how do you go about paying tax and do you have to register the bussiness just to tell you i am a complete beginner at this starting your bussiness thing thanks
Wez,
That depends on how you operate the business (sole trader, partnership or limited company).
You have three months from the start of trading to register with HMRC and despite what many people think your local HMRC office will provide you with friendly advice on how to do so – for FREE.
Most accountants will also offer an initial consultation for free too in the hope that you’ll use their services.
In short, talk to a local accountant or two for advice on how to structure your business, then if you like them use their services otherwise talk directly to the tax man.
Like I said before go to http://www.moonfruit.com easy to set up free (with ads only google adwords) or you can have a paid site from £2.99 an month.
Just had a look at moonfruit.com, all looks good. Quick question though, can you upload logos/pictures etc??
Thanks for the advice this sounds really intresting ive been driving my missus mad about it for 3 hiurs solid lol
yeah when you go into it you can upload your pics plus they have a library of pictures you can use once you get used to it, it is dead easy to use no html knowledge needed.
just want to say thanks to this site i am about to go live with this idea.
I also negotiated 5000 free leaflets for my business so i will be distrbuting them soon.
While i’m waiting for them any ideas on who to target online
Thanks again
Hi all,
I have been involved in leaflet distribution, one way or other, for 18 years. Used to have takeaways and did employ distributors, managed them myself, gave the job to contractors etc.
I have sold my takeaways now and decided to start a leaflet distribution business in November 2008. I,ve had few guys/girls doing the distribution and myself or my partner managed them.
The quickest time 1000 leaflets were delivered by us so far has been 5 hours, in Catford, London (congested area). Done by 17,18 year Olds and they were almost running while distributing. I think in average you should allow 6 hours for distribution if you are doing a few, 3-4 leaflets together.
The problem that I am facing right now is that in my area,Croydon, finding that potential customers do not want to pay my prices. My prices are: if the job is 20K or more £30 per 1000. 10k- 20k, price £40 and 5k-10k is £50 per 1000.
Please post you opinions. I would appreciate it.
Hi Nico,
Im seeing the same thing, I do leaflet distribution in london, and since the crisis, ive seen people wanting discounts on 1000,
You have probably come across our site, but id not say which one is it… This nuts out there.
Im going to ask a really stupid question, im considering starting up as a sole trader for leaflet distribution, ive worked most things out, done the research, the numbers etc, but there is one thing puzzleing my. How do you all accept payment, i assumed alot of it would be cheque and cash, (which my business account may charge me for). it would be a great help if you could all share with me you’re methods of accepting payment, im terribly puzzled. many thanks, Gavin.
Im seriously considering setting up as a sole trader with my own leaflet ditribution business, now this may seem like a stupid question, but what methods do you all use to accept payment?
Hi all,
I set up as a sole trader with Barclays its free business banking for 12months, and after that then its really cheap any ways to make payments.
I accept cash and cheque, but will be looking now at account transfers.
The best advice i could give is get into business networking its really works, go along for the breakfast and chat to as many people as you can. It might not be that person that buys from you, but they might know someone who will.
I have just secured myself a contract and already will have to look at taking on staff, i only set up 2 months ago. Door to Door distribution does work, just make sure they can trust you.
In reply to you having probelms with prices, what are your prices per 1000? Do you offer a shareplan? What are your competiors prices?
Hope that helps.
Hey guys, sounds like this can really work! I am new in the country and cannot get work! One thing… you all talk of contracts? Will the client need to sign a contract with you the distributor, or do they simply phone you up when they have work and you do it?
This is a business i have been looking into for just over a year. I think this is a good opportunity as this is a service that businesses want to use as this is one of the best ways of direct advertising and it does not cost much to get running.
I lost my job last month like a lot of people are so i have been working on this in more detail as i was before. I have looked at the market for this service, the big competitors and the small ones and found out how much they charge per 1000 for a solo and shared service by emailing them saying im interested in the service. I have also contacted distributors to find out how much they pay people who deliver the leaflets when they advertise for distributors. This has gave me a bigger picture of how it works – and now ive no job lots of time and more knowledge im going to go for it. I live in Norfolk and i have found a lot of smaller distributors in this area who distribute in Norwich and all the surrounding areas for prices that vary. From £25.00 to £40 for shared and from £50 to £90.00 for solo. I saw about three different distributors advertising on ebay in the Norwich area at the same time and there are lots advertised on the internet.
My home town is in Lincolnshire and i have found only the big national distributors to cover the town and surrounding area , and one smaller one that is based in the midlands. I want to start it there for that reason plus i know the area and i have a friend who is interested in having some leaflets distributed so thats a start!.
There is some questions i would like to ask and would be greatful for some advice
Marketing the service= – I would send out letter to businesses with information about the service . One thing im not sure on is how many do i do at a time? I noticed one chap on here said he sent out 500 letters then got overloaded!It wouldnt be right to send a letter to every business at the same time would it , you could maintain some consistency by doing a set amount over a set time Should i send say 50 out then wait to see what sort of response i get? I have worked in marketing so im not to bothered about talking directly with people as i could hand the letters out directly and speak to the people who i deliver to directly.
Having a website set up = This would make it so much easier for businesses to look for you as well as making the service more professional. I have a friend who can help me set a web site up. What would you say should be on this web site and how should it be laid out? One thing im not sure on > should the prices on the website or should you reqire a quote for businesses?
Staff ==== Should you get busy or recive a huge order that involves more labour whats the best way to get people to distribute for you? I thought to have people who are self employed working for you as and when required , people say who are flexible. Is this a business that anyone has found to have some consistency? So you could maintain a mumber of distributors with regular work?
And is there anything within the law you need to know about having people work for you on a self employed basis
Thats all my questions for now! Thanks for any advice in advance Regards Jon
i am want to start this leaflet business, it sounds so good. what happens to someone who does not have a car, how can they cope and what is the best to maximise profit?
Secondly, this 1000 drops would entail how many areas? is that basically a neighbourhood where you can walk to?
thanks
again, how long does the company usually expect you to finish the work? do they ask you for any proof of delivery?
Hi Mike,
My prices are between £30 per 1000 on a quantity of 20k or more and £40 per 1000 for below 20k.
I put out a maximum of 4 leaflets together.
The competition varies between £22 and £45 per 1000 according to their prices on their websites.
My neighbour has been doing leaflet distribution for 3 years now. He charges £15 per 1000 flat fee for any size up to A3. He puts out 8-15 leaflets together. He is very busy.
I, now, have to choose which way to go on prices.
This is a good idea and ive been looking into it for over a year and now ive just lost my job im going to go for it
Jon – In ref to your question about staff, i can only give you the advice that has worked for me, at the mo, as its a new company, i have self employed people who will be working for me, lucky i have to few friends who are doing this as they have been laid off work, and what better job to do that walking around in the summer handing out leaflets and getting paid. With being self employed now it is much easier now all done online.
Nico – In ref to your neighbour puting out between 8-15 at a time, that is a hell of a lot in one go. The most i have done is 4 and there was 10,000 of each. Puting all those leaflets together in one is not easy, its takes hours folding them all 2gether, as its just to hard to carry 4 at once, so how he is doing 8-15 in one go is good work, he must spend hours and hours putting them all 2gether and then hours trying to fit 8-15 thought a letter box….Plus there isnt (or at least in cardiff) companies who would want there leaflets/flyers going out with that many others at once.
Best of luck to all.
Mike – thanks for the advice
Another thing which i keep thinking about is say a business wants you to deliver 4000, then another business wants 5000, then another say 10000 within the shared service how would you get round that?, you have 1000 on their own even if you distribute the 5000 with 5000 from the 10000 order and the 4000 with 4000 from the 10000 order. I hope ive explained that one ok? lol
And another thing, what is a good price to charge for the shared and solo?
And another question what if you have a business who wants say 50000 leaflets distributed shared in a certain week – and you cant get anymore leaflets to go with them, or a smaller amount?
If you are already committed to a shared delivery then you will have to bite the bullet and deliver them. I personally tell all my customers that their leaflets will be delivered in 7-14 days (gives me enough time to organise more deliveries.) But is it a bad thing? Look I would charge £35 per 000 for 50000 leaflets that’s £1750. Wages for 3 distributors with me would be £750 £50 per day for an eight hour day for 5 days plus myself and £50 for fuel cost. You would make sure your distributors are self-employed this would leave you a profit of £950 hell you could employ another distributor for £250 and get it done quicker and still have £700 profit!
Charlie – thanks for all the info on that i see your point, just one thing how many leaflets can you expect one person to deliver in 8 hours? 50000 distributed by 4 people over 5 days sounds a lot that means each person would have to distribute 2500 a day for 5 days. The profit mark up you pointed out would be the only way it could be achived, by delivering 50000 in 5 days? Thats 312 lealets an hour can this be done? How many leaflets would you expect one person to deliver in an 8 hour day – i was thinking about 1300 to 1600!
Even if you employ another worker (4 + you) you will make £750 profit (yes you will have to take out your wage from this). It can be done but it is a lot of legwork. Then I am forgeting during that week you may have a couple of 5000 or 10000 orders no extra leg work just combine them with the 50000 you are already delivering you staff still have the same wage but you end up with a bigger profit margin. This is what makes this business so good. Yes it is long hours hard work but it is such a rewarding business with little overheads.
Jon, can one achieve all this without owning a car
Secondly, the company you would be sharing 50000 leaflets for, what distance would you be getting up to?
Im not sure if this is the right wording for it
“312 lealets an hour can this be done?”
NO Chance! not round here anyway!
the best any of my guys ( me included ) can get is an average of about 250 per hour ( and that is HARD WORK! )
of course it depends on what the houses are like in your area.
terrace housing with no front gardens, i’d be supprised if you didnt get 500 per hr
affluent areas, or large front gardened council areas ( LOTS of fences, LOTS of fiddly gates ) its going to be sllllow going
As I said you employ an extra distributor still you will be pulling in £700 ok you have to take your wages out of this, but this is not including if you r taking in any other orders in the week. it is win win win
Charlie = thanks for the info i didnt realise you was including 5000 to 10000 more from another customer but i was refering to you suggesting that 50000 can be delivered by 4 people in 5 days. I just couldnt belive that one person could deliver so many – if they have to work extra days then you have to pay more so the profit drops?. With 10000 to go with the 50000 would take longer too? But i do know its a good business anyway. I was just asking about having a large number of leaflets that the customer wants to be delivered shared but there are no other customers who are giving you any more leaflets to go with the order.
Ashley i would say it would make it a lot easier to have a car as you would need to pick the leaflets up from the businesses – if there is 10000 or so or depending on the size they would be dificult to carry. If you are having other people distributing for you then you would have to drop the leaflets off or take the distributors to the locations. It depends though on how many you want to distribute>? If you got an order for tens of thousands and you had no car it could make it difficult. I would say without a car you would be limited to an area and the amount of leaflets you could distribute.
And with the distance with the 50000 well that would depend on the area as to haw far you will travel like how many properties are within a certain area.
Im new to this anyway im just getting some information from people on here ive got most of what i need!
Leigh Wilson = I thought 312 leaflets an hour was to many for an average – i worked that out on Charlies leaflet per person in 5 days i couldnt thats what i worked it out at. I know with terraced housed you could get loads of them done in a short amount of time. My home town where im starting up does have a lot of the terraced houses with no fronts and the majority of the other houses are just average 3 bed semis.
So what should i charge for solo and shared ? i think from £30 to £35 for shared and £50 to £55 for solo?
thanks! but wld it be the companies telling you what areas they want and how do you get 3 or 4 companies to choose the same areas you are distributing in?
Also how do you approach companies because i have called a couple of the delivery houses and they say that their staffs handle the distribution for them!
Ashley – i would say the companies could tell you where they want the leafets distributed and others would say that they just want them distributed in a certain area and leave you to decide where to distribute them and some would just hand them to you and let you make the decision as they would rely on you to choose where to distribute them. If you are approaching businesses in a certain area and you get 3 or 4 wanting you to distribute the leaflets you would be distributing the leaflets in the same area anyway as the businesses are in the same area.
About approaching the businesses – this is something i would like to know more about – like the best way to approach, how many at once – do you phone them? approach them directly?- send them a letter?
You did mention that you approached a couple of delivery houses? did you mean businesses you want to distribute leaflets for ? as in take aways?
Well i have worked in marketing and i would have to phone up 20 to 30 businesses before i got a lead so just by approaching a couple of businesses and them saying that they dont require your services should not put you off. You would have to approach a large number of businesses before you get any interest. Like with the leaflets you distribute – your not going to get the business a sale by just delivering 2 of their leaflets if you see what i mean?
My method of marketing the leaflet distribution service would be to set up a web site as well as sending out say 50 letters to businesses then see what happens and send more out as and when required. I know that the web site would be exellent as this would ensure that people could find you when they browse the web for the service within their area
I would like to know from people out there on a good method of marketing the service? I have worked in marketing as i worked for a company that reclaimed exess bank charges for businesses. I phoned businesses directly and i got a response or say 1 in 20 so im only basing this on my experience. I would approach companies by sending a letter and would start with say 50 and see what sort of response i get is this a good idea or is there anyone who knows a better way? regards Jon
Im going to have a web site set up to and i would like to have an idea of how much this would cost?
Jon
Hi,
I’ve been doing leaflet distribution on a piece-meal service for some time now, but am looking to step it up to make a full-time business out of it. I am thinking of printing some leaflets off to drop around local businesses, but would like to know how many leaflets I should print and deliver to make a return on my advertising. Anyone had any experience with this before?
Also, as a side note, there is a large Asian community in my area, which harbours a large number of temporary/illegal immigrants – most of which are involved in leaflet distribution, some for as low as 10 pound per thousand, and some do it in exchange for food! Does anyone else have experience of this “competition” from illegals?
Dave im about to start up a leaflet distributing business and im thinking like you about how to advertise, like how many letters to send out to businesses and what sort of response to get.
I have worked in marketing and i would say the best thing to do is write a letter which you would introduce your self and offer your services and give a some information about leaflet distribution eg a certain percent of people look at leaflets, a certain percent of people keep leaflets and a certain percent of people have bought a product or service as a result of having a leaflet posted through their letterbox. This ensures the service looks attractive to them and makes you look more proffesional.
When your happy with your letter print 50 off, place them all in seperate envelopes ready to deliver to businesses. With the 50 businesses you choose to take them to categorise the businesses like 15 take aways , 15 car garages , shops and say 5 others?
This ensures you even the types of businees out .
Then take them to them and see if you can speak to the business owner and hand the letters to them
What you say about illegals makes my blood boil! Even the influx from eastern europe who are legal.
In my home town where im in the process of starting this business there is a high number of immigrants legal and i would say some who are illegal but while i have been doing my research i havent found anyone round here who i would say would be difficult to compete with.
I have only looked for my competitors by looking on the internet and through directories, there is only one small company that covers this area and only offers a ’solo’ service. The rest are delivered by bigger boys like royal mail and the nationwide distributors but they do tend to distribute material which large companies want distributing in hundreds of thousnads accross the country. I might well find when i get out there i could find that there are people distributing for peanuts……by what you said ‘litterally’!
Dave….. dont let it put you off try and focus on the positives. Think of it this way – You are a business owner and you want 10000 leaflets distributing and you do not know of any company at the top of your head where would be the first place you looked? i would say the internet or a business directory – would you find illegal immigrants advertising on the internet or in a directory for such a small price or them offereing their services in return for food?
Another thing i would say that the sort of businesses that would use illegal immigrants to distribute their leaflets are take aways owned by legal immigrants who probarbly harbour the illegals. I cant see businesses like the council, lesiure centres, travel agencies etc using them.
Say i wanted some leaflets distributing and i had to choose from an illegal immigrant and a small company with a £25 price difference per 1000 i dont think it would be the price that bothered me i would want a reliable service. I would want to know that the leaflets were distributed – i would be gratful for a map to be returned to me afterwards showing where the leaflets have been distributed- i would like to see a name and contact number for the distributor as well as a website and seeing the distributor in a directory as all this would reassure me that this distributor is reliable. I would want to use a distributor who i could trust which would inspire me to use them again and again.
Dave… are these immigrants advertising their services on the internet or in a directory?
Thanks for the tips.
Another issue I have thought of is how to recruit reliable distributors? Usually I just rely on family and friends to do part time work, but this isn’t a long-term solution if I want to grow the business. Does anyone have any tips for tracking your distributors and ensuring you get trust-worthy employees?
Hi all
Thanks for this page, I have also been thinking about the leaflet distribution company and want to get started asap. I am currently in a full time job and want to get to the stage to give up and go full time with this. Can you all help me with how to start up i.e what insurances do I need to have before I start do I need to register a company name (I know I have to let the tax office know within 3 months of starting) If I wanted to employ staff what would you suggest to pay them and is it better to employ self employed people.
Also a question earlier on which was not answered posted by two people is how would you break the areas up to deliver and what is the best method.
Thank you all for the great advice
Jay hello im in the same boat as you as i want to start a leaflet distribution business only i dont have a full time job anymore!
I dont think you will need any insurances and even when you take people on if they are self employed i dont think you would have to either. You ask if self employed is the right way i would say it is due to the nature of the business. And my research says to pay by the 1000 letterboxes distributed to.
Ive been looking into this for over a year and since i lost my job in march ive spent a lot of time researching the leaflet distribution business and i want to get my business started in within another month.
About areas covered- well map out your area and the surrounding villages and get a settlement report from your local council
Ive gathered a lot of information and i need to start building my business like price, marketing etc.
I going to talk with a business adviser later so i will share any information you want with you. You can contact me by email jonnys5sathotmail.co.uk as it will be easier to chat to you
Jon
hi jon thanks a lot for your last comment I am new at this ,I absolutely like the idea of a leaflet distributing business. however I have done a bit of research and have noticed that most of the illegals are doing for peanuts , anyway how long do you think the planning of this kind of endeovour can take ?
Casey
im too interested in starting up my own leaflet distribution service in the southampton area ive currently been working on the technicalities of building my own website, but am puzzled concerning what to write when promoting my business to potential clients. what would i offer that someone else cant? sure i could boast, trustworthy, reliable, hardworking. But what else is there and what prices should i expect to charge per 1000, at a standard rate sholuld i be offering maybe the first 1000 are free ???!! something that may distinguish my business from others? Also how would i go about registering my business and do i have to before i can begin? also concerning liability when it comes to setting up an employee base and whether or not i would require some kind of insurance.
Hi Allan,
In ref to your post, i wouldn’t go offering people 1st 1000 free, unless that is they give you an order of at least 6/7 thousand, just so you can cover the costs, but i would do it as an intro offer only, otherwise people might take the mick.
With setting up, i just went into barclays and set up with free banking and reg as a sole trader a few days before i took my 1st contract, the people i employ are all classed as self employed, so it means u dont have to mess around with there tax etc.
Best advice i can give tho is get loads of business cards printed, walk around every business going and hand it out, people need to advertise and theres nothing better than leaflet distribution, direct to the customer. I would also say sign up to a networking group i.e 4networking, its free and they also do forums and breakfast meetings, i have gained good work from those and not directly from the people i was speaking to, some are friends of the people who where there.
Just be honset with who every you deal with, but dont let people take the mick out of you and try and get more because you new. Best of luck.
What type of buisness’s shall I ring up to get leaflet jobs?
Take Aways and …
Hey,
Just noticed this thread and I’ve been really interested reading everyone’s experiences. I would like to do something like this because I don’t have alot of capital to invest and im sick of being unemployed!
I have scouted round the internet and noticed there are a few big boys in the leaflet dropping game and just wonder how people have differentiated their service from the big companies?
Also noticed they offer distribution strategies but suppose local takeaways etc are not bothered about paying loads for all this stuff.
Any updates on how ppl are getting on with their distribution ventures?
Hi Guys
I am starting a Post-Graduate course in September which will mean leaving my 9-5 Financial Services job of 3 years. Bit of a scary proposition going back to Uni and being skint again. I had resigned myself to getting bar/cafe work for just above min wage.
I have been a (quiet) member of this great site for a while now and have been thinking about this thread for several months. I have decided to go for it and start up a leaflet distribution service. If it works i should make a decent bit above min wage and if I can scale it up to have students working for me doing the deliveries in a few months then it is absolutley ideal!
I’m quite confident I’ll be able to acquire some clients as I live in Glasgow which is full of takeaways and local businesses. I’m going to get some business cards made and go in and talk (if poss) to the business managers and explain the new business and the services I’ll offer.
I’m excited about this opportunity and will post here again with an update to let you know how I’ve got on.
I set up my own Leaflet distribution some years ago as a side-line and it has proved to be very successful. I have read the articles posted here and there is only one thing I would say to all you people who are thinking about starting – DO IT. The world is full of procrastinators, while you are all procrastinating the rest of us are out there doing it and making money. Stop worrying about what problems you will face before they happen. If you start as I did then concentrate on the smaller quantities of 4000 and 5000 which is easily managed, I did not and still don’t offer ‘Solus’, the more leaflets you can get booked on each drop – the more money you make. We have a minimum fee of £100.00 so if someone only wants 1000 or 2000 delivered then it will cost them £100.00. We still keep ours all in-house with family members and have built up an excellent reputation because of that, the clients know that their leaflets go through the letterboxes and not into a skip. We get loads of repeat business on a regular basis. We do not over-promise, we tell our customers that their 5000 leaflets will be delivered over a two-week period, that keeps the pressure off, we charge £38.00 per 1000 and would usually have 6 to 10 leaflets per drop. We have now set up mini-franchises of our Leaflet drop business and my idea is to build up a network of people like yourselves who will all run their own leaflet distribution business in your own areas. The reason we market it as a ‘mini-franchise’ is that we promote it as a part-time, home-based business, we provide all the info to get you started and it is up to you how large you want to grow. My advice to all who are ‘thinking’ about it is GO FOR IT, get started and keep a totally open mind as to who your clients will be, takeaways, all retail shops, alternative medicines, garages, taxi companies, garden centres, electrical and plumbing companies, Cinemas, Pubs/hotels, restaurants, you name it and they need promotion, this is probably the best time to get into leaflet distribution as the company who will survive this so-called recession is the ones who are still promoting themselves, this is targeted marketing, you are getting their message straight into the hands of their prospective customer direct to their home. I love this business and it certainly pays for our little luxuries in life. I am not touting for business here, it is up to the individual how he/she sets up their business, all I am offering is reassurance that this is probably one of the least expensive businesses to set up, overheads are minimal, is home-based, if you have a husband/wife and/or children and all are reasonably fit and active then this is a serious business to get into. Best wishes in all your endeavours.
I decided to have a go at this and am disheartened as Ive been advertising for 2 months and nothing where am I going wrong
I would love to know how you are approaching the business, how and where you are advertising and how you are contacting your local business owners as we are very successful at it and it turns in a good profit. Unfortunately I am new to these forums so I do not know how you can contact me directly, apparently I cannot put my website on here or leave my e-mail address. Any suggestions?
Drew,
Anyone interested in contacting you can click on your name, which is a link to your website.
Regards, John
Thanks for that John, you learn something new every day
Regards, Drew
Hi,
one question that has not been fully answered is how you plan your route I have been doing this for a few months now and have a few big orders on the way how do you plan the routes I contacted my council for area population report but got nothing back
After readin this blog only 4 days ago I decided to give it a go. I got 100 business cards printed and visited all the businesses in my local area on Saturday, on monday I managed to secure 2 on going contracts from businesses requireing 5000 delivering each until christmas.
Thanks everyone for posting on the forum as it has given me the push to do it.
Can I ask anyone, apart from spending the day visiting every business in the area, what other marketing stratagies do people find most effective and how do you go about it.
I obviously want this to grow and last as myself and my husband have both been made redundant.
Thanks again everyone.
Kelly,
On your website it says:
“We have distributed for local authorities, charities, finance companies, take aways, police, and most other business types…”
which seems to be rather a different story to what you’ve posted… So my marketing tip is this: be honest. In this case, as your domain is newly registered I assume that this is more a case of over enthusiasm than deliberate dishonesty.
Kelly,
The important thing is that you have made a start. You know your area best therefore you have to establish your own routes which is easy, go from estate to estate or housing development to housing development. Don’t depend on someone else supplying you data. This is all common sense stuff. I totally agree with John, be totally honest and build up a reputation for dependability and honesty, deliver the service that you are promising you will do. We tend to under-promise and over-deliver, it is the best way.
Best wishes, Drew
best thing to do with in the situation dave was in during may 2009 where facing competition from illegals or legals on low wage because of family business is too recruit them offer them more and expand into bigger areas now that you got a bigger team
@ Leigh Wilson
How did you setup your automation routes?
Its mainly admin tasks that ive done that with. producing templates, and scripts to do repetitive tasks for me.
as well as producing myself my own database of routes that are 1,000 leaflets long.
coming from an I.T background, that is something that comes second nature to me.
Thanks for answering that,
How did you go about knowing the amount of houses on each street? – I am Stuck here
Some of the comments being left I find hard to take in or take seriously. If you want to succeed at this get back to basics, don’t look for the difficult ways to do things. You should be concentrating on your own local areas first and it is best to have local knowledge, drive the streets, count the houses, mark down the Terraced, semi-detached and detached streets, work out your routes from that. If you don’t possess a wee bit of common sense then this may not be the line of work for you. You do have to do some local groundwork to get started and on-the-ground is the best place to learn it.
Hi all im really excited about this im planning on setting up my business plan and sending out my feelers, in this credit crunch many small businesses wwill be very interested and if anybody knows a program for planning routes in Middlesbrough england that would be awesome, im not bad on computers but I dont have the knowledge to create my own route planner. An Email would be so helpful, thanks all and good luck to yas.
Gaz.
How great I rang my local council and they basically laughed at me down the phone and passed me around every person there and they all said they had never heard of an area population map and they didnt have anything close to having the number of houses on each road. Nightmare !
Gaz.
Hi we have just started a leaflet distribution business today and after reading this site it gave us the confidence to have a go at it.
We have just moved to a new area on the east coast and thought we could do with a little business,so we thought why not leaflet distribution?
Anyway we went to a local printers shop and asked about leaflets,we got talking to the man and he asked “what business you want leaflets for?”
we said leaftlet distribution.
he laughed and said you don’t need leaflets i can give you as much work as you require.
we have 2000 for tommorow at £25 a 1000 and have as much as we want next week as he has atleast 30000 for just next week to do,and says they will always have work for us!
We will do 2000 for him tommorow but have had some leaflets done elsewhere and are gonna send them around as we feel we can earn more for ourselves.
I work full time nights so really it is just for my wife to do mainly but i will do a bit but we can get others to help us if we got busy!
How quick was that hey?
We will just do there work as a learning curve for when we need distributers working for us.
Gaz try http://www.mouseprice.com these are very useful for how many houses are on a road very accurate the only downside is it goes by postcode.
Kev i can understand your exctiement but for that price i would kindly tell the printers to get stuffed it will take all day to do 2000 (if not longer) i would charge a shared distribution for that price try and charge at least £40 per K for solo distribution or you will quickly find out its not worth it and anyone charging less than this are not doing it properly if you need any help contact me via my website
Totally agree with Wesley, we charge £38.00 per 1000 with absolutely no problems, our clients know we do a good job, are reliable and on time so they don’t mind paying £38.00. Kev, you will not survive on £25.00 per 1000, I reckon that Printer saw you coming!
We are considering putting our prices up to £42.00 per 1000 from Jan 2010.
Just found this website and read through the link as it’s something I’ve been thinking about having a go at.
From my research into the subject the biggest problem customers seem to have is wanting to be confident leaflets ARE actually getting in doors and not dumped. How do you back check this if you are employing others to deliver?
Hi, I’m in south London and I’ll shortly be starting a leaflet distribution business.
In the past I’ve done carpet cleaning and I’ve delivered many leaflets myself and I’ve also used leaflet companies.
Over the next few days I’ll be visiting local businesses to speak to the owners and to leave them my cards – which are postcard size.
Anyway, I’ll be employing several people hopefully, and I’m not sure how to pay them. In my area it can take 10 hours to deliver 1000 leaflets or it can take 5 hours, depending where you are. I used to average about 7/8 hours in ’semi detached’ land, which a local distribution business said was quicker than they could do.
The difficulty I have is working out how much to pay people. If I pay per thousand then some people will earn this in say 5 hours and others in say 10 hours which doesn’t sound right. If I pay per hour, then that might also cause problems.
I’d be interested in anyone’s comments on this.
Thanks, Peter
In my area it might take say 5 hours to deliver 1000 leaflets or it could take 10 hours. Is it best therefore to pay people by the hour or by the thousand leaflet?
Thanks,
Peter
Hi All,
We have started a leaflet distribution and design business in Aberdeen and we are very excited. We have advertised heavily in various forms and results are good. We have launched our website, used white-hat marketing, listing in business websites, face-to-face marketing and it is really working! Thank you for all the comments, they have really helped us. Great forum. Best regards,
Nick (LEMON Marketing Company)
HI All,
As some of you might know from my previous comments on this site a few months ago, I distribute leaflets in Croydon, Surrey.
I have a client who wants medium to high income houses done every 8-10 weeks. They are looking for distributors Between M4 to the West and M2 to the East; Bromley, croydon,Sutton, Kingston and Stains to the North and the South coast between Bognor Regis and East Bourne to the South.
The pay less than usual prices but have ongoing, large quantities and their leaflets weigh like a business card. About 1.6 kg per 1000.
If you do not mind to include another one and are within the above mentioned areas, give me a call on 07533 525293 and I will give you their number to contact direct.
Nico
Peter, best to pay by the 1000. If you pay by the hour they could stretch it out and do less per hour therefore it will cost you more. If you pay me by the hour I suppose I could stretch it out to maybe distribute 100 per hour or even 50 per hour and have a few cups of tea in between. Do you see what I mean. Pay by the 1000.
Regards, Drew Gregg
Drew, yes I see what you mean. Paying by the 1000 is much simpler.
Thanks,
Peter
Hi,
I have just set up a leaflet distribution service in Southampton.
I was hoping to do the delivering myself but it looks like I am going to have to pay other people to do some of it too.
Can anyone please advise me as to whether I would need to take out any insurance if I am getting people to deliver leaflets for me on a self-employed, part-time basis.
Thanks
Daniel
Hi,
I was just wondering what sort of jet-pack some people are using to say one person can deliver to 1000 houses in 4-5 hours? If each house takes only 30 seconds (which is optimistic) it takes over 8 hours to post 1000!!! (do the maths) I have been in the leaflet business for 7 years (on and off) and enjoy it but don’t be fooled….IT ISN’T EASY!!!
Dave,
when i first started on average it was taking me 8 hours to do 1500 this was including a break (Was not easy though).
Guys it all depends on the areas i have been in areas where you can do 500 per hour at walking pace but then i have been in areas where 1000 can take you 8-10 hrs.
You have to very much study the areas before you do them FAIL TO PREPARE, PREPARE TO FAIL!
I have done a few leaflets drops working for a leaflet distribution company and I would say work on a average of 125 – 150 per hour. You will do more if terraces and less if there are big gaps between houses. About route planning I use google maps which is on the google home page. What I like about this is you can zoom right in and almost count the houses without visiting the area. At least you get a rough idea of the area. I working for a company this week and been thinking of starting up myself. I getting £5-80 an hour so the company must be getting more to cover my wages so consider this when pricing. If doing it yourself you have got to earn at least minimum wage if not more so dont undercharge the client. Fot eg if you charge £20 per 1000 and you average 125 leaflets per hour so it would take you 8 hours which works out at £2-50 an hour which is less than minimum wage. would you accept a job less tha minimum wage. You could get round this by delivering more than 1 leaflet at a time to each house but it may take you longer to sort them all out which is still work and must be charged for so think about all this when setting your prices. Hope that may help someone.
Hi what sort of pay do you pay people by the 1000 just curious
Some great stuff on here lads.
I’m thinking of starting a distribution business to run alongside my cleaning business.
Does anyone know if there is any additional insurance needed for this line of work?
any one doing gutters companies
I’ve just started to try and get some sales. So far I’ve visited about 30 business, dropped off leaflets to 15 more, and posted leaflets to about 35.
I’ve had several enquiries, nothing confirmed yet.
Having talked to a few potential customers, I can’t really see how people can deliver say 4/5 leaflets at the same time to make some decent money. The customers seem to want deliveries at different places at different times. It seems difficult to find customers who are flexible in their requirements. I’ll keep trying though.
Thanks,
Peter
Peter
Hi, I recently set up a leaflet distribution business and have had to start to pay other people to deliver for me. Are there any implications regarding minimum wage when paying people to distribute? I pay £25 per 1000 leaflets for people to distribute for me but someone queried that it would take them maybe 6 or 7 hours so it is under the minimum hourly wage. I pointed out that I was paying them for per job, not per hour. Any info please??
I work out my distributors’ wages by paying them for every hour I expect it will take them to distribute. They get paid minimum wage per hour.
For instance, I know 10000 leaflets usually take in the vicinity of 70-80 hours, so 3 distributors get paid 3 day wages each to distribute it. They usually get just over a week’s time in which to do it, and I don’t need to know about when they do their hours or if they do slightly more or slightly less hours.
This way I don’t have to count shared leaflets separately, or come up with a different rate for solo leaflets. Whether they hand out 1000 solo leaflets or 4000 shared leaflets they earn the same.
£25 per 1000 leaflets works out to £3.50-4.00 an hour which is well below minimum wage. Less, even, depending on where you distribute. That is, unless they alternate between distributing several leaflets and distributing one at a time. Otherwise I don’t see how anyone would work for that much.
Hi, I was wondering how you track your employees whether they are distributing properly the leaflets? For 3 weeks I had 6 employees and I already fired 4 of them because they didn’t distribute the leaflets. Also it is very difficult to find a person to distribute leaflets for more than 4 hours per day, I have around 20 CV with people asking to distribute leaflets only at weekends. And I am paying them 29 per 1000! What more can I offer them? Any advice…
I’ve recently set up a leaflet distribution business. I’ve now got a business account and the people at the bank say that I’ll need insurance.
They say that I’ll need public liability which is fair enough, but they also say that I’ll need employers liability insurance.
I explained that I’ll only use part time self employed people but they said that unless these people have their own public liability insurance ( which they won’t ) then legally, I have to have employers liability.
Anyone else had experience of this?
Thanks,
Peter
What are the tax implications of employing casual staff to deliver leaflets? Also what insurance is needed if any to carry out leaflet deliveries?
‘And I am paying them 29 per 1000! What more can I offer them?’
Thats bordering on slave labour in my opinion.
That will be the reason you cant get/keep reliable staff
I have been distributing leaflets in Croydon, Surrey, for over a year now.
It was tough in the beginning to get jobs, reliable staff and 3-4 jobs in the same area at the same time.
I see above that some of you are experiencing the same problems.
I would say when you find reliable staff, pay them well and generally look after them as they are hard to come by.
On getting a few leaflets together at the same time, you better do a deal with one or two customers who do not mind what area and how many of their leaflets you put out. When you have a couple of jobs like that then you can do any area which you get the next job. These customers who do massive leaflet drops are looking for reliable service and want to make deal.
I have one customer like that right now who want to do anywhere in the south and south east. Anyone interested can cal me on 07533 525293 and I will give you their number to contact direct.
They want medium to high income houses done every 6-8 weeks.
The pay less than usual prices but have ongoing, large quantities and their leaflets weigh like a business card. About 1.6 kg per 1000.
Nico
i have done everything so far from opening business account to sending out letters to potential customers and meeting some but nothing seems to work out for me. i’m ii going wrong anywhere?
Depends on what you are doing and how you are doing it. You mention ‘letters’, what is content of letter?, who are you targeting? etc. If you care to e-mail me a copy through my website I will give you my opinions for what they are worth.
Afternoon all,
Have been following this thread over the last few months and have been slowly starting up my own distribution business.
My biggest concern is payment, does everyone accept only cash? I haven’t opened a business account as yet so would only be able to accept cheques in my own name which I feel might seem slightly unprofessional?
Also, How is everyone getting on? any updates from previous posters?
Gregg
can you please give me you email address so i can send you a copy?
thanks
Not permitted to print e-mail address here I believe but if you click on my name it will take you to my website and then use the ‘Contact’ section and you will get my e-mail address there
Hi Drew,
Great piece of information. I will let you know how i get on.
Tah.
hiya am ery interested in starting my own business in leaflet distribution sound really cool and as i am a door to door canvasser i think this will be a good thing to start up, but only concern is do the companies give you the leaflets or do you have to make them. If someone got any answers id be very grateful.
Thanks.
I’m thinking of doing something similar.
Now, i have a somewhat obvious seeming question but i don’t know the answer! Do you let the business you’r working for print the leaflets themselves? The £40/1k is purely delivery right?
Do any of you design leaflets for your customers? I am quite competent in photoshop so wwas thinking i could offer a design service for x-amount, or offer free design on orders over x thousand deliveries etc. Just a little bit more incentive…
Also, not sure if i’m allowed to say this here but if anyone needs design services I’d be happy to help.
(I’m from Cardiff)
does anyone need maps of areas that show how many 1000’s of houses per post code. its subject to availbility because i only own a limited amount of post codes.
Joe, I think it is best to offer both services, we do. You can deliver leaflets supplied by your client OR you can offer to design, print AND deliver. This is what we recommend to all our franchisees. There is a profit opportunity in offering the full service, but stick to your guns on delivery price, don’t offer to deliver them cheaper if they give you the print job. There is no point in offering a design service and a delivery service without providing the bit in between, the actual printing of the leaflets. Contact me if I can be of further help.
Hi, Great discussions here and I though I’d share my story so far.
Having graduated from uni last year, I’ve taken a gap year to try my hand at business. Started reading this blog post 4 weeks ago and thought I’d give it a shot. I’ve worked on the other side as an distribution employee so got a good grasp of how things work.
First thing Monday will be day 1 of marketing. Got my business cards and sales letters ready. Feeling good/great/scared as I’ve been planning and designing the company image/website, sales letters, employee contracts, etc with little sleep for the past 3 weeks. So much work for a one man team at the moment.
I’ve been doing some number crunching and well I just hope I can bring in high volumes to offer cheap rates like everyone else. It would be great offer in-house printing, but production printing systems are out of the question so that’s another 3rd party making of with the money. On the subject of in-house I will be offering design services, although nice and cheap to undercut (horrible word, but its a mad world). With regards to Joe, that looks like a good approach too make a customer bump up the volume just a bit more. Better incentive as you say.
Has anyone here bought the Royal Mail PAF data? And do you promote yourself online through yellow pages etc or is your website just to have online presence
I’ll post back when I get my first £1. Big Thanks to everyone who has been posting here.
Hello, I would like to start leaflet business.. I can find a workers without a bigger problem.. But how can I start it? If someone can say me how find a customers I will be really gratefull,, thank you.
how do you make/ get invoices for companies?
I must say that I came across this thread by accident and I am pleased to know that there are seemingly some honest mail drop companies out there. I was let down by Royal Mail once they had 25,000 leaflets and I trusted them to deliver because of their size and status. They ignore the signs on the door because the leaflet and mail are sometimes delivered together. Sadly they only delivered around 3000. I had already paid them so I was the looser. Complaints procedure is crap.
I then entrusted a local guy who promised he would do the job properly, he did about a thousand out of 12,000 and I never heard from him again. Again I did pay him upfront so I am the looser, AGAIN! The sad thing was I was prepared to give him more work because the little area that he said he had done did produce enough work for me and I was so encourage, I had a 40,000 drop planned for him all of Great Barr +
I decided to do the distribution myself, the problem with that is I have to stop to deal with enquiries and do the jobs. So I am always looking for good companies in the Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield or Solihull areas to help me out. I must say I will sue the next toss pot that waste my flyers. I shouldn’t have to go around knocking doors with sample of my flyers asking people if they have received one.
On a lighter note, I do push my leaflets through all doors, why? Well as mentioned before when Royal Mail does it they don’t skip doors everything goes in, leaflets and letters together. So I see myself as no different, people have the choice read it or bin or do both. These days there are recycle bins and bags so these people need to change with time. When the government have important information to distribute they use royal mail and they want it to go to everyone so these people with signs on their doors have no choice. The dog problem mentioned earlier is a good point, they make me jump all the time. What make me laugh is when I hear them fighting with the leaflet, shredding it to bits. So with that in mind I tend to avoid letter boxes with signs warning about dogs unless there is a clear porch area where the dog can’t get to. I have even had a gentle man chase me down the street and give me back the flyer asking me if I can’t read, I said no this is why I am doing this job, I only need to put leaflets in the letter box not read them. Oh my God, you should have seen his face. I have had them post back without any stamp with “f off” written across them.
The majority is fine and that is the point. I get my enquiries and my jobs so it’s all good. I am doing more internet marketing now though, even though PPC is a killer but it works.
Happy Delivery Guys.
hi, i would like to know how much to pay distributers i am charging £36 per 1000, how much shouyld i give to the person delivering them for me? many thanks for any replys (i am in west sussex)
hi, im new to all this and just want to ask people experienced in the leaflet distributing game some questions.
1. how do you plan your route?
2. do you need to print the leaflets as well as deliver them?
3. is a website nescessary?
4. do you have to prove you dropped all the leaflets?
I too have been thinking about starting this.
How though do you check back on your distributors to ensure they are delivering properly and trustworthy?
I’m sorry to sound slightly negative however as one who started a Leaflet Distribution business under my own steam from scratch and has built it up to a nice level (for us anyway as it is only a side business to our core business) I am amazed at some of the comments. This business is for someone who can plan ahead, can think on their feet and make decisions, can fulfill the promise made to your client, etc, when I see comments like ‘How much should I pay my distributors?, where will I get my customers from? How do I plan my routes? etc etc then I am thinking ‘These guys are in the wrong job, they need to be in a basic 9.00 to 5.00 job where all the thinking is done for them. Sorry for being blunt but you need to have a entrepreneur mindset to set up your own business and leaflet distribution is no different other than you can set up a leaflet distribution business with NO capital outlay or certainly for very little or as the Header says ‘for less than £200.00′
Russell, to start you off I would say stick to minimum wage however there are a lot of variables you have to consider. Are you Solus or delivering a number at a time. Is your area predominantly Detached, semi-detached, terraced, rural etc. How long will it take YOU to deliver 1000 in your area, will you be delivering ONE leaflet to 5000 homes for example OR will you be delivering TEN leaflets to 5000 homes, work out the sums, if you are charging client £36.00 per 1000 (we charge £39.00 per 1000 at present and are thinking of increasing that to £40.00) then you will RECEIVE £180.00 for that drop, if you are delivering TEN to those same 5000 homes you will RECEIVE £1800.00, hell of a difference for the same walking. Always pay your distributors by the 1000, not by the hour but only you know what they are worth to you and how much profit you need to make. Hope this helps a wee bit Russell.
Hi everyone. I very much agree with Drew regarding planning and trying to get as many jobs as you can so that you can do the delivery at the same time. This is the way to make money in this business otherwise your wages bill will more than what you charge customers.
Another thing is to be proactive and equip yourselves with as much local knowledge as you can.
hi we as a driving school are paying for 20000 a week as extra advertising and to save money we pay our pupils £30 for 3000 and a commision of £10 per job converted(leaflets have a code on) we are seriously considering setting up our own company to distribute leaflets,has any one any thoughts on commision payments?thanks stu
Interesting Reading, back in 1996 I started leaflet distribution and within my first month was turning £1200 with clients booking me in advance. Within the first six months I was pulling in £150-£250 per day with bookings of upto a month in advance and I was only delivering the leaflets 3 days a week. In the end I had two distibutors and myself and sold the buiness on to one of the distributors so i could pursue other business ventures. As mentioned by Drew (comment 146) you need to plan ahead and do what you have told your client, this alone WILL get you repeat business. with regards to pricing Its not always about being the cheapest out there its about the quality of the service, even in todays market people will pay look at comment (142), the guy did deliver about 1000 leaflets and the client (Goldfinch) was so pleased by the response, now imagaine if he did the other 11,000 how do you think Goldfinch would feel now! Where it went wrong was the distributor never done what he said he would do, if he did he had another order for 40,000 leaflets. think about it that was a potential 52,000 drops and that was only one client. Glad to help with info
Johnny
I just want to thank everybody for your comments. They helped me a lot in improving leaflet distribution business.
Zoran
hey guys just be careful about not getting too carried away, a small killer is weather??? your going to struggle when it rains and given its britain that happens alot. 2) safety, is it actually safe to be constantly walking the streets alone? specially if your a girl. 3) what about when the seasons change and its pitch black by 6:30pm and you got a big load to do? 4) fitness, some people cant walk a dog in a park for an hour without being exhausted, carrying round thousands of flyers for 5/6 hours a day isit really what your after 5/6 days per week? ALSO a smart business owner would keep track of clients who buy from him, he would put in place a system for capturing details this would tell him who never buys from him. hence no need to deliver to 5000 homes when i have my 300 weekly regular customers addresses that i could do myself and save huge money on AND if your a real bright spark plug of a business owner you put your menu or flyer on your website so that people download and it costs virtually nothing. Saving the business owner thousands of pounds over a year, you could then use the saved money resulting in cheaper products for your goods to undercut other businesses prices because other businesses who are using leaflets wont be able to understand how theyre smart competitor is 15% cheaper and is smiling to himself whilst harvesting new customers and slaughtering the competition.
There are a lot of ‘what ifs’ in Scott’s message, which I find unusual in any entrepreneur’s language. In our business you do not allow yourself to think like that otherwise you will NEVER succeed. While Scott and like-minded people are thinking about all the negatives, the rest of us are getting on with it and making money. Yes, it rains, but life goes on, we don’t sit in and wait for a sunny day, we adapt and use resources to keep the leaflets and ourselves dry. Anyone who is not fit, doesn’t do this work. Majority of companies do not and never will have the systems in place as he suggests. Take my advice and ignore all those negative comments of Scott’s and go ahead and make yourself good money.
well said drew..im still sifting through this site and re-reading drinking in as much of the advice, good and bad, before eventually going live.
That time is maybe a month away but i’ll report back and let you know how it goes…cheers all
just one more thing..goldfinch, why on earth did you give a bloke, who has probably binned 11,000 of your leaflets more work, just because you had a degree of success from the 1,000 he could be bothered to deliver?
oops sorry goldfinch..my fault for not paying full attention, you didnt actually give him the work..apologies
Im not saying dont start one drew, what im saying is that there will be alot of people who will think great! easy money! come up with a plan of 100 leaflets @ 5/6 hours a day over 6days and ill rake in the cash. What my comment has is PERSPECTIVE, the things that most business owners dont have. Also the reason why a ridiculous amount of businesses fail to begin with, just dive in without coming up with ways to reply to sudden mishaps that affect them, that they dont think about in advance. Im all for people doing this, i was trying to give a little help so they could see possible challenges that they may not be aware of. ANY ONE can start a business, very few know how to operate it to make a profit, hence why this country has few big businesses and alot of 0-24month failures. Im not trying to be all doom and gloom though, entrepreneurism’s the way to go, for sure.
Again, deffineteley have unlimited determination, but all the determination aint going to get you far if you dont understand whats going to make you succeed. Knowledge is NOT power, knowing how to do what you know is power, knowledge wont get you anywhere if you dont know how to use it.
Anyway if there are leaflet distributors who maybe struggling cos the businesses wont accept theyre rate, explain to them that its still cost effective to use you than do it themselves as its going to cost x amount to hire someone, along with the hours they then have to put in, explain the gains by outsourcing to you.
Also for the people that maybe want to charge extra my advice that you probably shouldnt listen to cos its complete shite is this… explain the guy your dealing with that you guarantee your service, explain that when they hire you that as part of the agreement, you would like them to knock ten random doors in the area to prove you deliver on your promise. Trust is obviously a big issue and this is what will win it for you. explain you want to offer not necessarily the biggest operation but the best and most reliable and so as part of your agreement you strongly advise your client to check your work. TESTIMONIALS use them then as they will help you win work that you wont have to do for peanuts, quality service has no substitute guys.
For businesses that are being cheap just explain how you operate and that, thats a win/win for both of you, also maybe you would like to explain to them that you wont do the work to start with for peanuts BUT if they are interested in Longer term savings then aslong as they use you, you will then lower your price, you should be able to do this as long as youve worked smartly because you would have used your testimonials etc to get business and grow profitably.
Ive never personally done mail drops, id rather walk dogs as they are a passion, but i do know how to make money and operate profitably. like i only work a few hours on a monday, i provide certain reports at £130 each that businesses use to grow and profit, i sell between 10-20 on a monday making between £1300-2600 and do this maybe 5-6 days per month and then dont bother working then for a few weeks. paper for the report costs a few pence and i bag a fortune and people are more than happy to use me. Only because i offer quality service though. my advice is free take it or leave it, but its sound advice that means you wont have to work yourself to death at an unfair price.
all the best guys, scott
P.S didnt mean to piss you off drew, maybe i should have clarified the post
also guys, never say your cheap, use the words cost effective, also never say the word COST instead its the word investment, an investment brings back a form of personal advantage or profit, cost however is a financial outlay that is negative, i.e a business is an investment (as long as you know how to operate it profitably) not a cost, or shouldnt be.
Maybe youll find it easier to operate with this mindset… its impossible for a business to fail, a business is only something you create, the entrepreneur fails, not the business. you see a entrepreneur fails by choosing not to invest in himself, not learning and paying for an education he can use, not knowing his competitors inside out and upside down, not creating more value that benefits clients.
Hey also maybe this will help you, may sound strange but its how i operate and find ways to be better and increase my business skills. Go to your local toy shop, grab a bag of the little plastic soldiers, now pick your guy and then create a sort of battlefield. Act like a war general and use the other soldiers as competitors and objectives to conquer. so maybe glue cocktail sticks and a bit of paper so you have a flag and write the names of local businesses and competitors on them. come up with strategies to beat them and when you gain new business of your battlefield, shift the soldier to behind you. this will give you awesome focus and awareness in the real world.
Also keep in touch with your clients at least once a week, report problems if there is any, if for some reason youve delivered 500 less for some reason tell them, but explain your doing so cos you have integrity and its good business as again this will build trust and confidence, if you hear of something that they maybe interested in then let them know about it. Do absoluteley everything that can rule the battlefield for you.
scott
Jesus Scott, did you ever think of writing a book. I know where you’re coming from BUT my philosophy is ‘keep things simple – don’t look for the hard ways’. I can assure you that you didn’t piss me off however I felt that you were clouding the issue by suggesting difficulties. We started leaflet dropping some 7 or 8 years ago and are very successful at it locally, we are now offering mini-franchises of our business model throughout the UK and Ireland. This is a good business to be in, we only operate it part time and the overheads are minimal, it’s not a bricks and mortar business as you can do it professionally from your spare room. We would use the term ‘we offer top quality service at very competitive prices’ and we give our clients a list of addresses who received their leaflets after completion, it is up to them if they want to check individual houses. Yes, we use Testimonials to good effect, every company should use them. I would worry about you and those soldiers though. Gordon Brown could do with you as his battle strategy is non-existent.
As strange as it may seem its what puts things into perspective for me personally lol. you have to wonder just what sort of business men general patton and other war genius’s would have made had they built businesses rather than war. If you really think about it, business is a war, and its he whos the best wins the profits.
Funny you should mention a book, not as yet though i will be releasing one that business owners could use to make instant changes to out profit and out sell the competition. For now i produce reports for certain businesses that want that service.
Everybody knows where the real money is in for this business. Thats teaching every one else how to do it profitably. maybe you should publish a book to sell to these people.
good for you getting to the point of franchising awesome stuff.
Although i do have an opinion on keeping it simple, everybody else has the exact same plan, now i wouldnt personally want what every one else gets, i want to get what i want. See most of britain has the keep it simple plan it goes like this. work for someone else for forty years and hopefully when i retire ill have a bit of moeny to see me through and rely on the government to look after me (it aint going to happen) the other way is ill start a business because im good at something but theres no way im going to invest in myself to learn how to do it properly to attract customers even though i do have thousandsof pounds riding on this and if it dont work out ill be financially screwed. Then theres my way – Learn how to do something very well, make more money than most, eliminate the risk of owning a business, grow it, get out of it, employ a manager and live the life. Thats the only reason why i play with toy soldiers, thats why i reccomend them.
Also most business owners or entrepreneurs cant even tell me what a business actually is, you see when a self employed plumber or mobile hairdresser or any self employed person says i ‘own my own business’ they dont. You see all these people are is walking self made jobs. if they stopped working, they have no income, same as being employed, you have a business when you get out of working in the business and employ someone to do your job and you make money regardless. Different mindset and thought process to most, bit more complicated? yes BUT its worth breaking away from the ’simple system’ but only if you want the fantastic lifestyle of money whether you work or not and the knowledge and ability to generate cash by clicking your fingers. If people just learnt how to do that then 90% of british business would succeed rather than flop, our economy would be a world beater, and we wouldnt have clueless gob gobs spouting off shit that owning a business is risky. I love this website mind its got some decent stuff on here.
With reference to Testimonials previously, here are some of ours to give you an idea on how they can be very important to you when approaching a new client.
It is best to use ones from a wide range of businesses as it shows the diversity of your customer base. We also provide a client list to any new business enquiries. Nothing beats your customers giving you praise. Oh, by the way Scott, I have written my own book ‘Would You Employ You?’ by David A Gregg. Preview it on my website.
What some of our existing customers say
I used Ryan International for the first time in 2009 and have benefited from a substantial return on investment. Independent friends and colleagues confirmed they received leaflets across a wide geographical spread and within the timeframe laid out by RI. Reliable, efficient and very effective.
Brian Byrne, Summerhill Photography, Banbridge.
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I have been doing business with Ryan International for more than 7 years for the Halfway House bar & restaurant. I have always found their service very reliable and professional. I would have no hesitation on recommending Drew and his team to any business, requiring their services.
Anne Marie McCrory – Halfway House, Banbridge
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As the only Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Clinic in Banbridge, Dr Shi’s TCM Clinic has benefited greatly from delivering our messages to the local community through Ryan International Leaflet Distribution service in the past years. The service covers most homes in Banbridge and Gilford which has not only expanded our customer group but also let more local people know more about Traditional Chinese Medicine. The staffs in Ryan International are also very friendly and helpful. They always come up to your door to collect the leaflets no matter how big the boxes are. I would recommend this brilliant and smart service to any new businesses who are trying to establish their products and any existing businesses who wants to expand.. Lin Hou, Clinic Manager, (Honeysuckle) Dr Shi’s TCM Clinics UK
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I have used Ryan International on a few occasions and have been very impressed with the quality of their professional and reliable service. I look forward to working with them again in the future.
Jill McKeown Opticians, Banbridge
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We use Ryan International to distribute our brochures and leaflets in a number of areas. To date we are delighted with the response and we can recommend Ryan International to any company who is thinking of leaflet distribution. They are a reliable and trustworthy company.
Motorsport Wheels (Belfast & Lisburn)
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I was very impressed with how promptly Drew and his team at Ryan International responded to my queries regarding artwork, printing and distribution of my leaflets. The service is very professional but they also provide that personal touch with recommendations that may help your particular line of business. I would highly recommend using this company for your printing and advertising requirements. Christine Doyle, Chrissy’s Reflexology, Reiki and Nail Care , Banbridge
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We have used Ryan International on numerous occasions, and found their service second to none. We would recommend their service, and personal touch to any business. We get a lot of feedback and business through their service. We found this form of advertising a good, cost effective way to get our message across to the public and other business’s, a lot cheaper than local papers and magazines, and more effective.
Lawrence Gibson
Gibson Autos Ltd, Banbridge
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Having used another company for a mail drop in the Banbridge area with very poor results we decided to give Ryan International an opportunity to put our faith back into Direct Mail. Following the drop the results were instant with lots of telephone enquiries and more importantly sales. I would have no hesitation in using Ryan International again as they offer a very professional, reliable and cost effective service. Stephen Shaw, Sales and Marketing Manager Modern Tyre Service.
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Guys – you do know there’s a forum on here too right?
Drew and Scott – I’d like to invite you both to consider writing a guest post – guidelines are here.
Regards, John
Sorry John, I never think of Forums but will have a look
Regards, Drew
No need to apologise Drew, just wanted to reminder everyone there’s a forum and we’d appreciate your input there too.
Regards, John
What a great discussion – lots of tips and good advice on here.
I started my business a year ago, and it is going slow but steady. I haven’t invested much time into it, and I work full time in an employed job, so I only do a few hours per week, but I am turning a good profit, and am planning to gear things up over the next few months and work at my leaflet business full time.
One tip I would give to other people starting out, is to talk to your competition. You may be able to help each other out – You may have a drop to do that you cannot group together with others to make it profitable, and vice versus, and you may be able to help each other out. Agree on a discounted rate so you can make a small profit, and away you go. That is what I did when I first started out. I was making a profit of £10 per 1,000. Lead would come in from my website, and very little work was involved, other then dropping them off to the other leaflet company.
The other company did all my distribution for about 4 months until I had enough work to employ my own distributor.
hi you lot can type for england im too busy trying to setup a leaflet company lol,our 1st day what a disaster we thought keep it simple drop 3 guys off let them deliver whatever streets they want write the names down,if you cant do 2000 dont worry or dump the leaflets,they looked the part high vis jackets ,company name on,big problem no brains,we got a phone call off a little old lady who has been saving our leaflets from blowing all over ,the lads blamed the bags im not convinced,lesson learnt have a manager/supervisor/team leader whatever ,also they said all the houses lookked the same ,this wont happen again trust no one and supervise but it wont get me down roll on next week
hi guys thank you all for inspiring to start my own leaflet distribution, i have just started nmy first order of 20 thousand leaflets and i am finishing them in a weeks time from now , i was helped by a few relatives but i pulled through , my great advise would be , guys take your time to market and once the marketing is done get really fit people to do the job, warning though ,
hi guys thank you all for inspiring to start my own leaflet distribution, i have just started nmy first order of 20 thousand leaflets and i am finishing them in a weeks time from now , i was helped by a few relatives but i pulled through , my great advise would be , guys take your time to market and once the marketing is done get really fit people to do the job, warning though , THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED, i have delivered over 10 thousand to date and am struggling, my legs are killing me , if you do it i would suggest you get some guys to help you, to john , greg nico and all the guys who contributed here , all i can say to you is keep giving the good advice, io will stay here and update all. i would like to learn all the tricks of the trade, how to get multiple drops and all the other things i may want to know
POST 166
“hi you lot can type for england im too busy trying to setup a leaflet company lol,our 1st day what a disaster we thought keep it simple drop 3 guys off let them deliver whatever streets they want write the names down,if you cant do 2000 dont worry or dump the leaflets,they looked the part high vis jackets ,company name on,big problem no brains,we got a phone call off a little old lady who has been saving our leaflets from blowing all over ,the lads blamed the bags im not convinced,lesson learnt have a manager/supervisor/team leader whatever ,also they said all the houses lookked the same ,this wont happen again trust no one and supervise but it wont get me down roll on next week”
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Now this is the thing that makes me angry. It’s ok if client is a multinational they don’t suffer because they have the budget to back up there leaflet campaign with TV or national newspaper ads. The small guys like myself can’t afford for this to happen, we can’t absorb the cost or possible loss of business. I must say that if I was the company that used this service and someone called to complained that my leaflets are littering the street or they are been dumped in bundles through letter boxes, I would take the distributor to court, first to recoup my cost and second, to stop irresponsible companies damaging my business’s reputation. Dumping (leaflet spamming) or litter on the street does not reflects positively on the company that has its details printed on the paper. Both the company offering the service and the company buying the service would be expected to act in a responsible and respectful way. Imaging targeting upmarket or gated areas and this sort of thing was to happen? Leaflet printing isn’t cheap and £30+ per thousand is not cheap. There is no guaranteed of any response but I strongly feel there should be a guarantee from the delivery company and this should be legally binding. Now find me that company in Birmingham and I have some work waiting.
hi i have just recently started my leaflet business about a week ago and i have just advertised it thru yell.com and so far i have not received any responses, what other types of marketing do you use?
Hi Tee,
If you are starting out, you will need to get yourself a few regular customers. The first port of call should be to pop into all of your local takeaways. These types of businesses have their menu’s delivered on a regular basis.
You can’t sit there and wait for the phone to ring. You need to get out there and find business. I get quite a few leaflets delivered through my door, and I ring up everyone to see if I can deliver leaflets for them.
Have a think about why companies should use your company instead of anybody else. If you do not have any reasons why you can do it better, then it will just come down to price!
I have recently invested in some GPS trackers. I am not the cheapest company in my area, but I offer something my competition do not. I track my distributors so that I can prove to my customers that their leaflets are being delivered, and not dumped somewhere.
Good luck with your business.
Which area have you started up in?
Hi,
I have been looking into this for a while now and am about to get going in the next few weeks.
I just wanted to make sure I had got everything on the right tracks. I plan to get some business cards and leaflets printed and go round all of my local businesses to introduce myself face to face.
To start with I plan to charge £35 per 1000. would it be a good idea to phone around some local distributors and ask them for prices too?
Also is there anything else I can do to help get some business?
Thanks
Hi Tom,
I think the best thing you can do is just get out there and get started. There are so many people that spend so much time planning and researching, trying to get everything perfect, and then never actually get started because they haven’t found ‘ALL’ of the right answers.
£35 sounds about right for a shared delivery – some people charge a little more, some a little less. Don’t go spending loads of money at this stage – as the title suggests, its a business that you can start for under £200. Yes, get some business cards printed, and then go round and talk to people face to face. It is quite a simple business, and you do not need to leave people with lots of info on a leaflet about what you do.
After you have got a few customers, and a few deliveries, you will then have some money coming in, and you will also have less time as you will need to deliver these leaflets. At this stage get some leaflets printed and distributed.
Good luck with your business.
Never truer words spoken John, when you look back through some of the previous comments and you see some of the questions some people are asking all I can say is God help them, they have no mission in starting any business, they want others to explain everything for them, if they haven’t an entrepreneurial brain and a bit of get-up-and-go then they couldn’t start any business. This business is one of the easiest ones to start and be profitable from day 1. I think I said the same thing as you to someone in a previous comment, just get on with it and iron out the problems if and when they arise, start small and build. We charge £39.00 per 1000 for shared delivery. The main thing is ‘GIVE THE SERVICE’ and ‘DELIVER EVERY SINGLE LEAFLET’, Deliver what you promise and you will get the repeat business, there is a lot of repeat business in this business if you do a good job
hi in response to comment 169 r stephens ,the leaflets delivered where my own company leaflets so the cost is twice as much because of printing cost and lost work, we are paying so much to get leaflets delivered we have set up a leaflet company,we have used a few companys til now the biggest complaint i have is they dont give enough feedback,as for future leaflet deliveries the team will be supervised ,lesson learnt the hard way i think
Yeah i have realised that. Just need to get on and do it, go out and visit the places in person. I think round here the takeaways get do it themselves so i just need to go and see lots of types of businesses and persuade the takeaways i am better. Thanks for your help guys.
hi does any one know a printer that can do 100 000 a5 double sided full colour leaflets,ive been quoted £800,the area is newcastle upon tyne but collection or delivery can be arranged depending on price quoted,ideally i would place an order for 1000 000,this may rise to 2 or 3 million,also a standing order for weekly payment is prefered any help i would be grateful thanks
Hi guys,
Like many of you i have been reading this with great interest as it sounds like a fantastic journey to start. I think I’ve pretty much gathered alot of info on this but there’s one thing thats still puzzling me.
I know much of it is down to local geographics but Im struggling to accept that there is so much demand for this. I mean going of the maths (and i might be wrong!) @ £35 per thousand (wich i’ve gathered is about reasonable)i understand it would take 10 000 drops a week to make £350? That sounds fine but every week? week in week out?
Perhaps im being naive but going off my own home and the leaflets i recieve i cant see how the demand is there without having to cover a massive area. I probably only recieve 1 – 3 a week?
I live in Bury (8 miles north of Manchester) so its pretty populated in my area. Probably about 90 000 households at a guess. Just so you know my circumstances if you’re kind enough to answer!
But yeah if i could be convinced its possible to get the volume of work required i think its definately an idea i’d look into!
Many thanks
We have just completed a drop to 4000 homes for 7 companies. We charge £39.00 per 1000, now do the sums;- £39.00 x 4 = £156 per company x 7 = £1092.00. That was done in evenings spread over a two week period.
Thanks for the reply Greg,
But does that sort of work come in often or is it a one off?
We only operate this on a part-time basis but we do it monthly, some months we could have 10 or 12 companies on board, some months as low as 4 or 5 but as I say it is part-time for us. If you click on my name you can check out my website and look at ‘Business Opportunities’. Best wishes in your start up.
Hi Brendan,
I also only operate part time. There is plenty of work out there, you just need to go and find it. It is one thing getting a website, or placing an advert somewhere, but as with most companies, they have have sales team and have to generate their own business.
Last week I picked up an order for 68,000 leaflets, and another for 10,000.
As you say, £35 per 1,000 is going to be a lot of hard work for not a lot of money. But £35 would be the price for a shared delivery – i.e. several companies leaflets going out to the same addresses at the same time, meaning you do the same amount of work for a lot more money.
I operate in Kent, which is nowhere near as populated as Manchester, and I have got 12 distributors working for me, who I manage to keep busy most of the time.
Great discussion and tips.
When first starting, what would everyone say was their best way of obtaining customers…cold calling? visiting businesses or just plain advertising???
Hi James,
I do all of those methods, and more. Cold calling is not easy, but essential. I have got many larger clients from cold calling that wanted distribution in my area, but are not based in my area. Cold calling is not the easiest thing in the world, but it is a numbers game. The more people you ring, the more customers you are going to find.
You should esspecially visit local businesses, as this does not take to much effort, and it is much easier to talk to people face to face then it is on the phone. It is easy to put the phone down, but people are a lot less likely to be rude if you are stood infront of them.
You should also do some advertising, but don’t go spending loads of money yet, as if you get it wrong it can be very costly. Don’t pay to be listed in directories, there are plenty of free ones!
Wonderful Idea, Thanks for this info. have been looking for a detailed stuff on leaflet distribution service.
hi guys
thanks again for all the info, i have a client who wants me to deliver business leaflets to industrial estates in my area , the trouble is were do i find information about industrial areas , and againg i am trying to comply a least of street names in the area i live, i have tried the site mentioned above , mouseprice. but they seem not to have the info am looking for , is therre any other site that can help me or can anyone help me compile a list of streets
thank you all
watson
Hi Watson,
Industrial areas are harder to plan for, as they vary in size and density. I have had a few customers who wanted deliveries like this, and I have to price it per job depnding on which industrial estates they want. Best bet is to take a drive around where they want them delivered first and work out roughly how many businesses there are and how long you think it will take you to deliver there.
Guys, I’ve been reading this forum and I have to say that if you are considering running a leaflet delivery company, then either do it properly or don’t do it at all.
There is more and more competition appearing everyday and you need to either be professional and stand out above the crowd, otherwise you will not succeed.
When I started my business we invested heavily in the technology and infrastructure. For example,
£2000 for the mapping system (We can get immediate household counts from anywhere in the country,
£1500 for our website and copy – If you do this yourself then unless you have web skills, it will look amaturish.
£600 Insurances for our distributor
£600 HR advice and contracts
£200 Logo Design
£300 Stationary – Proper business cards and letterheads – If you give out cheap vistaprint cards, you will look cheap and unprofessional
£1600 – Back office system – We have a bespoke back office system which helps us automate the logistics and reporting to our clients.
£5000 in Satelitte tracking units.
I’ve just commissioned my marketing person at £1000 per month and I expect to be spending over £500 per month on marketing materials.
That may seem to be alot, but there isn’t any leaflet company in our area that can touch us.We know in our area who the cheap start ups are and we win contracts over them every single day. We recently one a contract for 50,000 leaflets on a shareplan basis even though we were up against someone who was offering solus at £10 per month cheaper than us. We won this because of the quality of service we offer, the professionalism that we insist on and the fact that we show we are a serious business.
With regards to costings – Our shareplan is £40 and solus we are just increasing to £110. Those offering solus at less than £80 are deluded if they think they can operate at a that level and still think they can make a worthwhile profit.
With regards to paying your distributors – We pay well above average and we get decent people. Our average is 135 leaflets per hour so we know how long it takes to deliver 1000 leaflets and we pay a fair amount for the work. We retain some great staff who work well because they are treated well.
Hi, I’m a uni student and am looking to set up a business over the summer to make a bit of quick cash! This sort of thing would definitely interest me. I have a car and would be able to perhaps pull a few mates into helping me out on larger deliveries. I’m really just looking for some advise on whether you think I’d actually receive any business at all with such immense competition and approaching it in such an amateurish and casual manner. As Trevor said “There is more and more competition appearing everyday and you need to either be professional and stand out above the crowd, otherwise you will not succeed.” I will obviously not be trying to compete with such large scale operations but even if I target the local (smaller) businesses to make a quick buck, I’d be happy. Is this the way it works? or does everyone just go through the big firms nowadays? Is it worth it? or shall I just go back to stacking shelves? I’d be really grateful if you’d let me know what you think.
Cheers
We have been distributing since 2003 there are many companies now popping up scamming businesses this is the biggest problem we are now facing business worried about trusting distribution companies
i am only 15 but i am really into this idea of making money but i am a bit clueless in how i should get the leaflets from company’s in the first place. should i just go into my local Indian and ask if they need leaflets delivered??? or should i go about it in a different manor????
Hello everybody,
I am also new to this business and have only been doing it a few months.
A few questions and points.
Firstly, what are the best businesses to deliver for? All tips, advice and industries are very much welcome as i naturally want to maximize earnings per round. I currently do 1 round at 30 pounds/1500 and another at 35/1500, but I know that that is cheap and need another contract to raise efficiency.
Secondly, and following on from that, how does one go about negotiating a pay rise after a few weeks/months of service? I dont want to sound rude but I want more
Thirdly, I can average a leaflet every 12 seconds in my area (if I run, which gives 3hours 20mintues for 1000) and one every 18 seconds on a brisk walk (5hours)
Lastly, What is the maximum number of leaflets recommended per drop (or what is most appealing to shops?)
Thanks,
Do I take payment for delivery up front or invoice the company after.
I take payment after delivery. It increases trust.
Put it this way, if you ask for the money and the leaflets at the same time, it looks like you are going to bin them!
But i’m only amatuer, dont know about professionals.
chris
hi chris just a kwik one on the times of delivery i would suggest you take your time on delivering the leaflets as this is a long term bussiness, if you run and average a leaflet every 12 seconds i think that will have an impact on your future deliveries, and what worries me is when you will no longer be doing it you will expect your guys to do what you used to , that will kill them if they do that everyday,this is a hard job not for the faint hearted, i did it like that wen i started and after sometime i had to the days off to recover . in my area i have not delivered a 1000 in less than 4 hours , maybe were you live you have a lot pf terraced house and flats.
i find it hard to negotiate a price rise , instead wen yoou mention that they start looking around for less , so my advice on that would be all new contracts you get now start with the right price , if you charge less they will not accept a price rise, instead they will want a price reduction.
may i ask chris were about are yu and how is the competion there , i think your charges a re a bit below average, i think its wiser to charge leaflets per thousand, for the rounr of 1500 for 30 it means you are charging 20 pounds per thousand , which is very good but the problem is when the business grows and you need somebody to help you distribute that order , how much will you pay that person per thousand and how much will you be left with. so its good to be cheap but do not forget your guys who will actually do the job
thanks
watson
Hey Watson,
I am just a young guy, and not really one of the other guys above that run this business seriously. I am just on my own or occassionally with mates, but then I just split profits half or third (as I did the admin etc.)
Yes, I am experiencing this difficulty now. I plan to get a third contract soon, which I plan to start at no less than £25/1000, ideally 30 or even 35. When I started I approached with 15/1000 (Which is frankly horrific!) and soon learnt to rise to 20 or 25. Unfortunately I had started one contract at 20 already, and was unable to rise it. My other is, as you rightly say, at 35/1000 or 23/1000. Not bad, it means I can get up to £8/hour in some areas (but of course down to £6.50 in other areas)
I have little competition here other than the distributors from my employees, and single postmen. I live in a small village of about 2300 houses that I can cover in a fortnight if I really try. (I am part time)
Consequently the problem of wages is not really a problem. My main problem at the moment is that many clients-to-be are taking their time with printing/designing etc., and this has put a huge lag on time efficiency. Ahh well. two contracts isnt that bad. A third would be ideal, as long as it isnt heavy or large :L
I am searching for a good industry/business type to approach for leafletting…any tips?
Thanks,
In the past I have delivered for:
-Takeaways.
-Beauty shops (you know the ones that do nails etc).
-Powerleague soccerdome.
-Joiners etc.
-Interior design.
I got all of these because I either knew the people or just approached them and asked. But I’ve started to enter myself into online directories and have just started to deliver my own leaflets to businesses too. I charge 20 pounds per 1000 shared and 40 pounds per 1000 for solus. The houses around me are about 50% terraced, 50% leafy suburbs so I probably average about 200 per hour.
The problems I face are getting shared distribution drops in the same places at the same times, and the fact that not many people want to pay for the premium service. Some of these people ringing me up seem to have no idea just how long it takes to deliver 1000 leaflets, they want people to work for 3 pound an hour.
I’ve noticed alot of people who are interested in this, why are you so caught up in price for guys? At the end of the day, if your going to compete on price then your never going to make money because you’l be dropped as soon as someone stoops lower. people only compete on price because they lack business skills. One of the biggest opportunities to make money from this isn’t even delivering leaflets.
The money is in the relationship and value added services. It wasn’t the ipad that sold 150 million worth of its goods on its opening day, it was apples relationship and the trust it built with it’s customers for continually releasing fantastic products and services. So when the ipad had it’s hype it’s backed up with 20years of fantastic products that came before the ipad.
If you want to be making money from all of this, then you should approach a few copywriters. set up Joint Ventures with them and explain you have contacts that could use their services. You introduce them and take a cut of any profits made.
You contact printers and pretty much do the same sort of thing. Hi I have contacts that would be valuable to you, you introduce them and then take a cut of the profits.
Now to businesses this would make it advantageous for them to use you as they will realise that you are someone who becomes useful beyond dropping leaflets. You can start saving them on printing costs and get them better results from their flyers by getting them a good copywriter.
With those benefits added on, they will be happy to pay your rates.
Another way of doing it would be saying here’s my rates, were not the cheapest or the most expensive but here’s why were the best then explain the benifits of dealing with you. Now say you operate completely different and that everytime they spend x amount with you, they get a free 1000 drop or something. Set up that sort of operation where it makes sense for them to commit to a certain number of drops.
At the end of the day good quality knowledge has no substitutes. You want to be devouring hours and hours of business knowledge on joint ventures, host benficiaries, crafting offers, I mean just knowing how much an average customer is worth to you over their lifetime will give you an insight of how to explode your business.
your business skills determine your income, not the prices you set. That’s why Henry Ford said that if he ever lost his fortune he’d have it all back within five years. I don’t doubt he would have.
Scott,
Most people are going to focus on the price because it’s hard, particularly for those who have little or no business experience to differentiate what is essentially a very simple service.
As you rightly point out there are ways, but it takes experience to find out what works and what doesn’t and that’s something that most people starting out don’t have.
I am setting leaflet distribution company as I have been doing leafleting for my own business, recruiting self-employed staff, for last few months. So to progress into leaflet distribution business seems like natural progress. I have idea about pricing – I agree with some comments here that you don’t want to sell yourself cheap and if you want to get decent people working, pay at least NMW and make profit you can’t charge too little. Otherwise you find out you either won’t make money or people won’t do job properly becuase they are not paid enough.
However I’d like to ask someone what percentage of houses should be checked. I’m doing spot checks now on my own leaflets that are delivered by guys I am employing but I don’t know what % should checked so I can produce report to clients. For example 5% which means 50 houses for 1000 leaflets? And what should such report contain?
thank you for any advice.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while
I am considering getting my guys to wear a GPS tracker
so i can give clients a map with the houses that were delivered to perfectly
i also know that they are not dumping them this way
anyone else use trackers?
I like to start leaflet dist business but bit scared what to do exactly and how to start as i will be one man band..please give me a some advise what to do please..thank you..
Altin,
I am a bit of a one man band too, just go to your nearest shops and talk to them! Get in touch with printers too, its not usually that they need one but it could be a ‘fear’ or obstacle to them actually doing it.
What I did was I just went on google maps, and searched through all the different genres of shop -restaurant, pub, florist etc. I got numbers, rang around, and withing a few days I had one contract. After another week I had a second. I had a few pending too. Always go for more!
Track and log everywhere you go, and in what quantity. It may also be interesting to log how long it took too. You can determine your hourly rate from this. Note, your hourly rate INCREASES if you stay out delivering longer, as you dont have to come back to your base to get more. So try to take as many as you can with you.
Hope this helps,
Chris.
HI Ste Hughes
We use GPS trackers and they’re invaluable. But the decent ones are not cheap.
We find that it really helps us win bigger contracts as we take all the fear away from the client.
Because of this we are able to offer a 100% money back guarantee – If for any reason the client is not satisfied with the delivery, they simply get their money back. We put this in writing and it is on our website.
Be careful when buying your trackers though. Pick a system that is live – i.e. that is not just a data logger, and narrow down the refresh rate as far as you can. (One that tells you where it is at least every 10 seconds) This way you get more detail with the maps.
Also, get your systems in place that will make it easy for you to report this to your clients. We’ve developed our back office systems so that it takes the info from the Sat Track system and automatically emails the client with copies of the maps etc.
This does however sometimes cause queries from the client – If for example a distributor hasn’t charged the unit and we lose the track halfway through the round, that is clear for all to see and some clients will query the fact that only half the round is showing – In this example we do back checks etc to ensure completion.
Hi all
I am planning to start this leaflet/flyer distribution job for many days but the only thing scaring me is that whether is it not an illegal thing to start a job without paying tax, i mean without using your NI number….
Can anyone guide me whether should i start this straight away or do i need to use my NI number???
thanks all
hi all, just a question regarding website how will people see and know about my website apart from being on business cards, will it show on google…
Hi there, I would like to start my own leaflet distribution company. I am currently at 6th form and am only 17 so I aren’t sure if people will take me seriously, although I am serious about it. What do you think about this? Also, what would be a good price to charge per 1000, I was thinking around £40 per thousand and then if they were to be shared with other leaflets, maybe £30. What do you think about my prices?
Also, what steps would I have to go through to set up? Like would I have to register the business with the council? Also, what advice could you give me?
Thanks for your help!
inti shah,
In the UK you are required to inform HMRC that you’ve started a business within 3 months of starting to trade. If you’re unsure about this speak to a local accountant.
Ryan,
It will be listed on Google if you either submit it to Google or get links to it (a better way). How much traffic it gets will depend on well it ranks, which depends on how good you are at promoting it online.
jacob,
You do not need to inform the council, but as above you do need to inform HMRC. Don’t let age put you off or be an excuse, most free newspapers are distributed by people your age.
Trevor,
i’m looking to set up something, along the same principles as your business, and have some capital to invest in a full time professional setup. I’m looking for some advice, really on the back office and GPS systems, would you be willing to help me out, if i contacted you via your site?
Regards
Chris
HI Chris,
of course. Give me a call.
thanks for the heads up on GPS systems
my next question is about leaflets them self
i currently have 2 small contracts – one came from family one came through a local chippy i use regularly – i want to put more time into this and one day go full time so i am looking at getting my own leaflets made
does leaflet quality matter?
for example i can get 5000 single sided 130gsm A5 leaflets for £115 delivered (solopress)
i asked for a sample pack from them and the 130gsm paper is very thin
will it actually make a noticeable difference in the success of the leaflets
will thicker, meatier leaflets get me more leads for jobs basically?
would I be better off ordering 2000 leaflets on thicker paper than 5000 on 130gsm paper
cheers
ste
hey ste,
The only way your really going to find out is by testing. Test absolutely everything in your business, come up with 2/3 different style flyers, different colours on your flyers, different quality of papers.
If your interested in any business, the best investment you’ll ever make is to research the whole subject, copywriting for sure as you want to be able to have someone pick up your flyer and think ‘I want that service’. Things such as Lifetime Customer value’s, creating added value services, Joint Ventures etc. Do the whole ten yards my man.
An hour or two per night per subject and within a month you will be on your way to better business skills you can use.
Your business skill level is the only difference to making a good little earner and not making a living.
Also check out guarantee’s the psychology behind how they work and look up info on perception.
It might all sound alot but I can assure you, If every business owner had to do all this stuff, a gigantic proportion of small businesses would thrive instead of dive.
Remember TEST EVERYTHING
best a luck,
Scott
Thanks Scott
certainly got me motivated now.
i have been keeping the money earned so far to one side to expand (hence GPS questions and this)
cheers
Another bit of useful info for you ste is everytime you gain a new source of work, just go and speak to that business ask them for a testimonial and also any business contacts that maybe helpful to grow your distribution.
Personally the way I would go about it is this:
Hit up my current clients and explain that I’m looking to expand and if they give me a testimonial and referrals then everytime a referral becomes a client, I will either give them a drop of so many thousand leaflets for free or I will give them a percent of every service the referral client uses.
Don’t bother advertising as most small biz owners can’t write effective ads and don’t track how well the ads do. Instead maybe what you would be better off doing is either writing a letter explaining the benefits of doing an inexpensive flyer drop then go onto explain your incentive or you could design your own flyers to that effect. With flyers, rather than give a load of Bullet points, set it up as a few short easy to read 1 or 2 benefit driven sentences.
On your flyers, avoid the typical use of your business name ltd with a contact number etc, put instead something like ‘How to win customers… using well designed, low cost flyers’ then go in with your short paragraphs.
Also instead of doing what everyone else does, state on your flyer ‘I think you would be particularly interested as to why I’m not bothered about this recession. Please contact me, I’d love to send you my business game plan because I think it would benefit you, even if you don’t use me.’
It’s a call to action that will attract curiosity and at least get people to make contact. Once they make contact, get important names etc and build a database of these people because they have shown an interest in you.
write up a short report about yourself and your business then go onto explain your strategies for referrals and go onto remind them of referrals being low-no cost business growth. Even if they don’t use you straight away, keep in touch becuase you’ll build a relationship so that when they do need a leaflet drop, you will come to mind.
Hit up local printers and make them the offer for referrals that they will get some sort of good beneficial deal. Explain that you can open up an opportunity for them to make extra profits from their customers.
Something you may also want to check out, particularly on takeaway leaflets is normally in tiny print, there will be the name of the printing company, this will give you an idea of who people are using.
Be extremely generous in your offering because you want to keep in mind, long term gain rather than a quick buck, also if the incentive aint compelling enough, they won’t work.
Use other people’s resources because it’s so much easier to become successful as they’ve done all your hard work. The more money you have to plow into marketing to gain a customer, the less profitable each customer will be.
Here’s my email bud scottmathieson87@livve.co.uk It’s hard to help you out fully on here but if you get in touch then maybe we can sort something out where I’ll talk it over with you on the phone or something.
Either way I hope this post will be of good use to you and others.
Best a luck,
Scott
Hi all just looking for abit of advice on employing people to drop the leaflets, what sort of pay shud i be looking to pay i was thinking in the range of like £5.90/£6 ph are is it better to pay them per 1000 and when shared do you pay them less per 1000 as you charge less.
Also quick question about the pricing for my services would you say solus around £60 and shared £40 does that sound right, and currently im 20 years old would you say people would take me serious about this if i look and act professional are would they think im scaming them.
Starting any business will involve costs and no matter what the market sector or service and in most cases if not all, costs are far greater than first envisaged.
I am a firm believer that with any new business you need to set out a solid business plan, one that considers all possible challenges that you will encounter and of course detailed financial planning.
The reason why a structured business plan is so vital is that this will get you thinking about all the different areas within your business and how you will go about these within your business and allocating your budget to these different areas.
There is lots of information online about how to complete a detailed and structured business plan however you can’t go wrong if you follow the HSBC FREE business plan.
Anyway I digress the subject here is starting a leaflet distribution company for under £200 and I can ensure you that this is virtually impossible. Even if you do not offer the same level of GPS Tracked service as we do you still have costs such as marketing, transportation and communication?
So my advice to anyone who is looking to start a business in this or any industry is do your research and make a plan as failing to plan is planning to fail.
is it true you need permits to distribute leaflets are you could be fined???
also do you pay your distributors the same rate per 1000 for shared as you do solus???
Rob, I will have to disagree with on the point that it is virtually impossible to set up this sort of business for under £200. When I started, I didn’t have trackers, I didn’t advertise, and I spent hardly anything, and I didn’t have a business plan either. The only thing I paid for was to have some business cards printed. Why do you need a business plan, you are not going to the bank and asking for funding?
As I got some sales in, I then improved the business as I went along, and I then GPS Trackers etc…
John, I totally agree with you, I started my Leaflet Drop business for a damn sight less than £200.00. If all these people would just get on with it and earn themselves money. I used to contribute a lot of comments and give tips on this site but I got fed up reading all the nonsense that people write in about, the majority of you will NEVER start ANY business as most are procrastinators. Most of the questions you are asking have already been answered on this page earlier, you don’t need ‘trackers’, ‘business plans’ or ‘allocation of budgets’ etc etc to start this business. I sell mini-franchises of my own business for £75.95 which explains how to start this business, details on my website, if you do it my way or John’s way you will be in PROFIT in 1st month, if you go to accountants, solicitors, business advisers, etc for advice you might be in profit in the 1st YEAR. Cut out all this talk of delivering cheap, we charge £39.00 per 1000 and get it all day long, we don’t offer solus and no one minds, you make a lot more profit from shared drops. Now just get on with it and you will make money and it will not cost you even £200.00 to get started.
this site has helped me so much but theres just 2 things im not shor about i am 17 and my dad will not let me register a buesiness under his name so can i go a hed with out regestring has a buesiness
last of all how do i go about makeing a contracts with the clinic
Hello john, What sort of GPS tracker are you using and what sort of cost is involve? Any help on how you plan your routes would also be appreciated as we reply heavily on Google map at the moment
Carl
you need not register a business
go as self employed
if you need stay make sure they are self employed as well
makes life easier – seriously
most accountants will give you an hour of their time free to give advise
use them
Hi Yomi,
I use trackers from http://www.bluetreeservices.co.uk/
They are not cheap @ just under £400 each (or £30 a month), but they are they are much better then the cheapy ones, and I can track my guys in real time.
With regards to planning routes I use Microsoft Mappoint. I also have a massive database on properties numbers for all sub postcodes (i.e CT1 1, CT1 2 etc…) which I again was not cheap to purchase, but has been well worth while.
But as I and others have said before, you don’t need trackers to start. Most people start off delivering themselves, so you know that the leaflets are being delivered. I have 15 people working for me, so I need to make sure they are doing what I tell them, hence the need for me have trackers.
Hello Trevor,
I have been around for a wee while now and I pretty much have a good client base. We are pretty much ready to invest in GPS and the Back Office software you mentioned (could be one at a time)
Can you please advise on the kind of software you use for back office. Someone once told me about a CRM software.
Contribution will be appreciated
HI Yomi,
the backoffice system is one that I’ve had designed – It has CRM capabilities and enables us to do all the logistics of round planning and automatic reporting to the clients. Basically is has enabled us to systemise just about every aspect of our business and saves countless hours in route planning and reporting.
Hi all, when offering referral bonuses to printing companies, is it better to offer for a period of time say the first 3 months are just a one off bonus of 15% from each referral. thanks
does anybody (experienced in this business) open to having a quick chat on MSN or something, ive got a fair few questions that i wouldn’t mind running past someone, and i know a few have been answered in some degree or another but id like to sit and pick someones brains, if they’re open to it…
Cheers,
Chris
p.s. can i post my email addy here??
HI Chris, more than happy to have a chat/ Give me a call. Pick up my number from my site, http://www.theleafletdeliveryoompany.com
Hi could someone with abit of experience in leaflet distribution please check my prices on my website and see if they are reasonable as i dont seem to be getting any work at the moment. thanks
Ryan,
There is nothing wrong with your prices, but the issue isn’ your prices, it is that you are not getting any traffic to your websit, and if nobody knows you exist, then they cannot place any orders with you. You cannot just create a free template website and expect people to come. You need to promote your business quite hard both off line and online to generate sales.
You only registered the domain on the 22/06/10, so you cannot expect instant results, and you cannot just rely on a website to generate you business.
Have you had your website optimised? Have you submitted it to the search engines? One thing I noticed, is that you do not have any inbound links!
You will need sort these issues out first before you can expect any website sales.
I actually generate quite a few sales from my site, but I have spent many hours optimising it, and getting inbound links so that it appears on the first page of google.
If you want a price for me to optimise your website, then please drop me an email.
Hi Ryan,
I liked your website and nice to see someone else from Lancs. I operate in Blackburn and have done for the last 18 months. The market is extremely overcrowded from my experience, there seem to be businesses springing up everywhere. Some big, some small like myself and others just immigrants going shop-to-shop for work.
You have to consider which one of these three models you fit into, or want to fit into: the big operations that cover whole regions/the nation, these usually have a lot of technology and money behind them or the small outfits like myself who do this part time.
You should aim to give yourself an hourly rate from the work you do – doesn’t matter what, that’s up to you to decide how much you think your time is worth. From this you then need to work out how long it will take you to deliver your leaflets. If you want 10 pounds per hour and it takes you an hour to deliver 200, then you should charge around 50 pounds per thousand.
Any questions contact me as I can probably give you better info than most given we operate in the same county (my website should be linked… hopefully).
Hi john thanks for your advice i will take that on board, dont think i want the website optimised.
Anybody know any good places to get demographics of your areas and population reports.
I have obtained population reports for my chosen area so I now know the approx house numbers, but I don’t have any post code data or post code boundaries, so how do you guys actually go about mapping out the street routes including the number of houses on each route?
I also have a question on management and workflow software
Does anyone use any sort of software to track & manage their daily tasks, if so is this bespoke or are there any off the shelf products? Trying to build this into my current budget.
HI Chris,
I couldn’t find an off the shelf package so I created one myself. I’ve now automated all the round planning, mapping, customer reporting, staff payments in the system, save me hours. But it did take a fair bit of cash in getting this system developed.
With regards to mapping and postcodes, Geoplan offer an off the shelve package – It’s about £2K per annum
Hello, in regards to the web site optimisation – this is a must. Otherwise you can forget any business coming through your web site. This means to submit lots of links of your website to other places on the web such as forums, blogs, search engines, directories etc. You can do this yourself but it will take hours. You can however hire a professional to do it, but it will then cost money. In regards to the demographic data and software to the the rounds and maps the best to use is Mappoint from Microsoft. However this is paid.
Hi All,
Like many others here, I have been inspired to start this business too.
Please could someone advise if what i am proposing to do would work?
I am thinking of drumming up business in the form of new clients, joiners, take aways, salons etc whilst still having a full time job.
Then employing a few freinds to deliver, shared and solus deliveries, whilst I look to build upon the customer base.
I understand how shareplan can be very profitable, for example delivering 4 leaflets per house at £30 per 1k = £120 and wages for this for example at £50, leaving you with a £70 profit.
What i don’t understand at the moment is how solus delivery can be profitable, say if you received a 20k order, if you are employing someone to deliver them.
I really like the this business idea but am just wanting to be a little more clued up before I start promoting my business any advice from the more experienced would be greatly appriecated.
Hi Chris,
How did you manage to obtain the population reports?
Kind Regards
J.
James, simply charge more for your solus deliveries
Hi Dave – Thanks
Obviously being new to the business I want to ensure I receive orders and don’t want to repel my prospects with high rates.
Initially I was thinking
£35.00 per 1k (less than 10k)shared
£30.00 per 1k (orders over 10k)
And with regards to solus, i was thinking around £80.00 – £100.00 Not sure on this though.
One of my main concernes atm is that Tax situation being already in a full time job, also employees on a self employed basis, are employees going to want to register as self employed to do this job?
Any Help greatly appricated
KR
J.
All,
I’m currently writing a book on business ideas and will be including a section of leaflet distribution. I’d like to interview a few people that are up and trading for the book. If anyone is interested and happy to answer a few questions please either use the contact form or reply here and I’ll use the email address you post with to contact you.
James,
You should be able to find lots of people willing to work for cash-in-hand on a job like this.
Your rates seem reasonable although I guess this would depend on what area you are operating in. Delivering to terraced houses it is possible to do 350 leaflets per hour, 180 for semi-detached and around 100-120 for really slow areas.
Regards,
Dave
Dave,
Thanks for your help,
There is actually quite a lot of terreced housing in the area, which I guess is a good thing.
Regarding pay for employees, I was thinking paying around £4.50 – £5.00 per 100 delivered, so giving an incentive to deliver more leaflets / or I may take Drews advices and pay per 1,000.
Just need to think of a decent name to trade as, set up a simple site and get cracking!
Thanks
Quick Question,
When doing a shared delivery if company (A) want you to deliver in a certain area and company (B) want their leaflets in anouther area and company (C) anouther diffrant area, how do you combat this situation without hiking up your prices for a solus distribution.
I understand you can oporate an “Anywhere Shared” which you could dictate the area of the drops, but certain companies are bound to have conflicting intrests when it comes to the areas they want their leaflets to be delivered?
Any help would be noice! ^^.
Kind Regards,
J.
James,
With regards to the tax situation, you can be employed and self employed at the same time. Your tax free allowance will be taken up by your employed job, and then you will have to pay tax on your earning from your self employment. I think it is somewhere in the region of 20% (I use an accountant to do mine).
With regards to the shared deliveries, the ideal situation is to have several customers wanting deliveries in the same area. You will either need to cover an area that is not too large so that is possible, find customers that don’t mind waiting several weeks for the deliveries to start while you find additional work in the same areas, or just deliver what you orders you have and take the hit on the money.
Regards,
John
Hi John,
Thank you very much for your advices, I think I’m ready to set up properly, one thing I would like to mention is HMRC would like new business to rigister straight away, the within 3 month rule doesn’t apply any more, this is after I spoke to someone over the phone at HMRC.
I will post updates on here regarding my progress.
Or come back if any other querys pop up, thanks again.
Hi,
My name is Andres and I am selfemployed distributor since 2004.
I charge 35-40pounds per 1000 Leaflets for solus(London and Greater London Area)
Anybody who charge less is not trusted as the maximum amount you can distribute in London is 250pc per hour, and I am talking about hard working East Europians who work without break.If anybody is interesting in my services,you can contact me on 07552344966,
Best Regards
Andres Nemcik
I have just started for TNT post in Devon as I was looking for some extra cash.
I got £45 for 1500 properties, but in the area there are a lot of back streets and front gardens, a very much loaded area with houses at least £400k+, so for 1500 leaflets it took me about 15hrs on my first run, I had to find the properties and alleyways as well though so took longer but I think I would still struggle to get around in 10 hours so I will be getting at most £4.50 p/hr which is shameful but for me it’s extra income nothing more so I cannot complain.
But I think offering a service of delivering in my local area of 2500 households for £225 for only Solus delivery would be acceptable and then £40 for shared due to very slow process of delivering in this inefficient area!
15 hours work for 45 pounds is downright illegal even leaflet distributors have a right to the minimum wage. You should probably seek some free legal advice if you have time.