One good thing about the Fernley Chamber of Commerce

A new thing to be thankful for. Since we are members of the Chamber of Commerce here in Fernley, we get to use their Bulk Mailing License. Which means in the mailing that we are going to be doing in the next couple of days, we get to pay only $0.26 per envelope! Yay! That dramatically decreases our cost. The Chamber of Commerce is good for something...FINALLY!

Carol wanted to see the trophy

Here it is...in all of its glory!

The 4th of July Parade

It took a village but we all pulled it off. First, the people Justin and I would like to thank and why (and in no particular order because each one provided invaluable service):

1. Melanie's sister, Carol, and her husband, Shawn: Thank you so much for driving 3 hours just to drive another 2 miles in the parade that lasted an hour. And thank you for making a 7-11 run while we were all standing around sweltering in the heat of the morning waiting to get onto Main Street.
2. Justin's parents, Mike and Barbara: Thank you for providing the fundage to buy something so extravagant for us and for Hanly's Hounds. The "floats" could not have turned out this great from just paper mache and paint. The movement that the material provides absolutely makes the floats come alive.
3. Melanie's Mom and Step-Dad, Loretta and Ken: Thank you for baring the heat and sun and standing on Main Street for over two hours just to capture several minutes of video of us in the parade. Just the gesture warms our hearts.
4. Lea, Jeff, Sapphire and Hailey: Lea and Jeff, thank you for letting your two, very well behaved, I might add, young ladies be in the parade and throw candy to the crowd. They were such an added asset to our float.
5. Scott and Amy: thank you for always being willing to do anything to help us out. You both are just such great friends. Amy, thank you for taking wonderful photos and bearing the sun and heat just to do so. Scott, thank you for driving the other float and bearing the heat as well.

Now that we have established that it takes a village...it could not have happened without Justin. He of course, was the designer and master engineer. I did as he told me to. The floats took only a couple of days to complete...actually that is an over statement...1 1/2 days to be exact. Another 1/2 day to complain about the heat and the smell of Justin's farts. I do not know what the hell he ate but really the garage was full of Justin's stinky farts...by far the worst smelling farts since he and I have been together. Really. It was that bad.

The parade was a blast, just like last year except more so because we actually knew more than 3 people in the town. That was so much fun for me to see people, we actually know, cheering for us and calling us by name. I loved it. It made me realize that we are making friends here and getting to be fairly well known. Although it is easy when "you have the most famous car in Fernley" (as someone just told me recently).

To the photos:



These are the two buggies/Hanly's Hounds Dogs:


In the parade:








And for how we fared in the parade awards...

We won FIRST PLACE again this year. Last year we won first in the Novelty category...this year first in COMMERCIAL VEHICLES. Which means, we beat out AMAZON.COM. Thats right...Amazon came in 2nd...we came in first. How cool is that????

Your Marketing Ideas

Justin and I drove around Reno yesterday, all day, going to the houses he pooper scoops on his normal Tuesday/Wednesday route. He came up with the idea of sending a direct mailing to all all of the people on the street in which he already has a customer: target the area where you already have customers. So we went to each customers street, Justin drove and called out house numbers while I wrote them down; up one side of the street and down the other. So now we have about 600 houses in Reno that we can do a direct mailer to.

Other marketing ideas we have had and done:

• Newsletters to customers
• Flyers around town (Reno and Sparks) at people's houses (that didn't work very well)
• Flyers on community mailboxes
• Flyers on bulletin boards at stores where they have bulletin boards (like grocery stores, the vet, etc.)
• Referral program for current customers, they refer a client to us and after the new client pays their first invoice, then the person who referred gets a week of pooper scooper for free
• Referral program for non current customers and businesses, they refer a client to us and after the new client pays their first invoice, they receive a check from us for $10.00
• Signs placed around Fernley and Reno advertising pooper scooper...these are signs that are either placed in the ground (like ones you see for new housing developments or gardeners, etc.) or on telephone poles.
• Driving around town in our Hanly's Hounds wrapped vehicle...parking at places like Costco (where if we get front row parking, we stay there for hours because there is no place busier than Costco on the weekends.) We've also parked and driven by dog parks, all of our customers houses looking for people who may be walking their dogs.
• Justin put in a PA system in the wrapped vehicle so that when people are outside he can press a button and the sound of a dog barking happens (to grab their attention).
• We are members and attend all Chamber of Commerce events. In fact we are hosting a Chamber of Commerce Mixer (party) at our house in May.
  

This is not a comprehensive list, but we are looking for more creative ideas. So if you have a marketing idea for Hanly's Hounds, please let us know. (Advertising in the newspaper and in the phone books do not work around here. And we don't have much money to spend.) We would be very, very grateful!

Lilo

We are watching a Chiuaua at our house for a week. Her name is Lilo. She is adorable. However, Olive (our youngest Pug) is so completely jealous of her...now Olive knows how Pugzilla feels. Anywho...this Chiuaua has her own play pen (because she is so tiny, we don't let her run around for fear of stepping on her.) I do not think, however that I could have such a small dog, Pugs, I think are the smallest I could go.


By the way, she has super sharp claws!





She is not much bigger than my mouse.

My Hanly's Hounds intentions...

The past few days have been busy for me and Justin. Especially Justin.

In the past three weeks, since we had our Hanly's Hounds car wrapped...we have increased business by 35%. Justin was busy from 7:00 am until after 5:00 pm for his Reno clients on Tuesday. And he is feeling it. His neck hurts (from looking down on the ground for over 8 hours), his elbow hurts from carrying the pooper scooper. He had to go back down to Reno yesterday to finish up two first time clean ups (the most time consuming).

Justin makes me laugh...he is like House. You know how House had the motto that all patients lie? Well, Justin thinks that of all of his new customers...they apparently lie about how long it has been since they have cleaned their back yard of dog poop. He just wants them to be honest, like going to confession..."Forgive me Mr. Hanly, it has really been 8 months since I last cleaned, not 1 week like I told you originally."

I know that our business is going to take off...and I'm ready. We have had the business for about a year now and it has steadily increased. But I can feel a boom coming. A huge boom. And I'm ready to be busier than I have ever been~ ready to work at my regular job and Hanly's Hounds. I have already worked it out with my boss that I can take Hanly's Hounds phone calls if Justin can no longer pooper scoop and answer his cell phone. I'm ready for all of our bills to be paid off. I'm ready for my job to be a true secondary income to pay off those bills and then transfer to a healthy savings and for vacations. I'm so ready.

It's funny; I have been on this self exploration journey, hence my posted contract with myself: I am a fun, caring, loveable, honest woman. And through this self exploration, I have never felt more grounded. The next thing I am going to be doing is creating my top 10 values...comparing those with Justin's top 10 values and then merge them for a unified value system for me and him. I feel that I need solidify our values for a higher purpose, although I am not sure what that is yet. In some ways I feel I am grounding myself, preparing for having children (this is by no way a declaration of being pregnant or actually wanting to have children right down…)

Anyway. Enough thinking and declarations for today.

Hanly's Hounds Car Wrap

We are going to wrap our Subaru Baja (advertising car wrap). We have a couple of idea but are looking for more. If you have any ideas of what you would like to see on our car (example: dogs all over it or poop everywhere [which won't happen, by the way]) go ahead and post it on here...we need some other ideas so we can figure out what would scream: Pooper Scooper!!!

Thanks for any help you could offer.