Selling Oil Changes Door-to-Door

One of the things I’ve done for money in the past is work with this local entrepreneur guru I met quite by accident. (I was cold calling his business back when I was selling pre-paid legal… oh, those were the days!)

He had put together a biz opp package to show people how to sell ten oil changes (or a number close to that) for $59. We were selling this biz opp package (or “how-to” kit) for $500 or so. He had ads running in USA Today for the kit and I was one of the sales people selling it.

We sold lots of kits because the proof was in the pudding. He was actually doing what he was showing other people to do via the kit. Our office had telephone sales people (like me) who were selling the biz opp kit and we had door-to-door sales people working out of the same office, selling the oil change coupons. He was bringing in about $500 to $1000 a day just selling the coupons door-to-door.

This is how it worked, in a nut shell. He went around to some local car maintenance garages and got them to agree to give a free oil change to anyone presenting his coupons. (Limited to one, per customer, per month or something like that.) When he got 10 or so garages to agree to this, he had professional coupons made up that gave the bearer 10 free oil changes, spelling out the redemption terms… etc.

He sold these coupons for $60 to people door-to-door. The customers were getting a great deal since 10 oil changes will cost you at least $250 in most places. He got to pocket this entire amount. His only overhead was the cost of printing the coupons and paying his sales people that went door-to-door for him.

The garages got a cheap way to get people into their garages. Once the customers came in to the garage, it gave them the opportunity to establish a trusting relationship and hopefully the customer would come in for other maintenance needs in the future. It would be the same as the garage taking an ad out in the local paper for $500, offering a free oil change (or 50% off… or whatever) but in this case, the garage didn’t have to pay anything until a customer actually came in to their garage.

This is an idea that anyone can do with very little money. As with anything, there are details that are important to know… legal issues with going door-to-door and coupon laws… etc. But that’s why he was selling his biz opp kit telling people how to do it.

I loved the idea when I was working there. Although, my door-to-door days are long gone (unless I own the company… then I’d do pretty much anything to further the cause.)

He’s still doing the coupon sales, as far as I know. I think he gave up on the biz opp sales. Too many people expecting to get rich and when they didn’t after 2 weeks, they were too insistent in getting their money back. Lazy farts. 🙂