Starting A Flyer Delivery Business

[Visitor2007]

Originally Posted by DJboutit

I will have nobody elese to pay

Go to local restaurants and ask them if you can help them deliver these menus. You probably get paid per menu delivered, which might equal to about $10 to $15 per hour. You have to get their trust though. How do they know that you actually deliver the 1,000 menus they give you, instead of trashing 800 of them and deliver 200?

[ElkHunter]

Originally Posted by Visitor2007

Go to local restaurants and ask them if you can help them deliver these menus. You probably get paid per menu delivered, which might equal to about $10 to $15 per hour. You have to get their trust though. How do they know that you actually deliver the 1,000 menus they give you, instead of trashing 800 of them and deliver 200?

That's why it's important to talk the restaurant into putting some sort of coupon on it. That way they can see some sort of gauge on what their return is. Buy one meal and get a second for half off, or a free entree, or side, or something so they can monitor their results.

[DJboutit]

That is a good idea

[Topaz]

Originally Posted by chris_ut

It is difficult to make much money in a business with no employees.

I am not sure about that. I made great money until I hired a staff and then they made great money and I was paid what was left.

[chris_ut]

Ok here is some solid advice on starting a business since it sounds like you might be in a bit over your head. I own my own business and my wife and I co-own 2 others so I hope I have a little insight to share.

First of all is this a hobby business to dabble in self employment or do you need to actually make money from this? If the former your all good. If the latter read on:

1. You must do some research before you jump into a business. Locate someone who is in the same business but a different area that would not be a competitor to you. Ask them advice on how the price, get clients, operate.

2. Determine who your customers will be and ask them if they need a service like yours. Find out how they handle flyer deliveries currently. Ask yourself why they would use you instead.

3. Figure out your selling point. Flyer delivery is a business with no barrier to entry. Anybody and everyone can instantly become your competitor. You need to have a reason people use you. Typically in a business like this you can either compete on price or service. If you compete on price your already out of business so you need to compete on service. Are you good in sales and customer service? If not I suggest you rethink this.

4. You plan to run your business by yourself. This will be very difficult. Let me give you a little secret; every business is about sales. You can always hire someone to do any type of work you need done, the key is to have paying customers for that work. If your delivering flyers all day who is cold calling potential customers to get you deliveries for tomorrow?

5. Ya I just said cold calling. Maybe you know a ton of business owners who are lined up for your flyer delivery. If not then you need to be comfortable cold calling strangers and asking for their business. If not then you should rethink this idea.

6. Make sure your pricing reflects your true costs. You need to factor in gas and wear and tear on your vehicle and not just your time for your price. Otherwise all your doing is cashing in the working life of your vehicle and when that wears out you wont have money to replace it.

Hope this helps.

[chris_ut]

Originally Posted by Topaz

I am not sure about that. I made great money until I hired a staff and then they made great money and I was paid what was left.

You need to have sales growth to support the staff of course. If your making x dollars with just you and then you hire someone and still make x dollars then that is not gonna work. The reason to hire staff is to generate more work for you (sales staff) or free you up to make more sales (administrative staff).

[Topaz]

Originally Posted by chris_ut

You need to have sales growth to support the staff of course. If your making x dollars with just you and then you hire someone and still make x dollars then that is not gonna work. The reason to hire staff is to generate more work for you (sales staff) or free you up to make more sales (administrative staff).

Totally true. You also need to pay market rate and that was one mistake that I made...I overpaid my staff. It felt good to do that as long as sales were growing quickly but when sales flattened because I moved away from the main location of the business, I felt stuck because I thought it would be awful for morale to lower salaries. This was during a good economy. Now in this economy, I see that business owners don't worry so much about lowering salaries to match flat or falling sales! They just do it and that's likely what I should have done, but I was tired of managing a business long-distance.

Back to the OP's question: chris_ut is giving you great advice, for free! I'd listen.

[DJboutit]

What would be a good price to charge pre flyer??

[AtHomeinHouston]

I can't imagine the money a flyer distribution one-man operation would make could ever be worth trudging around outside, going from door to door during a Houston summer! I hope you do well as things start to cool off.