advertising

Re: advertising

hi,
as a home based repairer assuming your on your own, its a difficult step to move away from free estimates, have you?

Also as a single repairer do you need 40 jobs a week? If so why? So are you already falling into the trap many of us have before you, that is over advertising. As a home based repairer you can earn a good living with 20 well paid jobs a week, delivering super service and slowly building a reputation for speed of service and quality work.
The truth is we all strive for more work and it takes a few knocks before we learn……

My advice, grow slowly and don’t spend the hard earned on advertising too much, read contracts and get advice before you sign them, all that glitters etc etc
And if your stuck, there’s plenty of help in these pages all you have to do is ask…

kevin

Re: advertising

hi ya
A little question for you… What is your letter writing like ????

the best advice I can give is write a good letter promoting yourself and offer to give a little back and then get out that YP or even better go online to yell.com and search and get a list of all the local letting agencys and property management companys in the area you want to cover.

I did this after YP and Thompson took out my advert becase a competitor phoned up pretending to be me and said we’d closed down and would not be needing the advert, Customer remember your name, not your number, so word of mouth is great but having your number in the book helps them find your number when they go round to cousin Bettys house for tea at the very point her hotpoint WDs inlet valve jams open :o)

if you write to 40 you may get 2 interested, but remember they will almost always want Public Liability insurance. as it’s only £63 per year ( unless anyone knows a cheaper one) and although not a legal requirment you really shouldn’t be without it.

Charge sensible rates, Offer 10{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} to the letting agency (add it on the bill first) as they will pass your invoice to the landlord. they are happy, your happy and so’s mr bank manager…

the downside is, many want free estimates all I do is get the machine details and problem and give them an estimate on the phone bassed on that,and state if its not that or works out more expensive than that the estimate is free, you will also get crap off the tennants occasionally.

Re: advertising

Not meaning to hijack Simons thread,

It is more dificult to do it now, but they still try, this happend to me 3 years ago, I only had the free linage as my company name is really well known I didn’t need an advert, my customers used the book to get my number only. so YP didn’t bother to check as the cancelation call was made in the last week before the book was closed.

First I knew was when I looked in the book to check it was in as usual and phoned to find out why, they told me the date they were called to cancel it and explained that if a cancelation is made in the few days then they don’t always have tme to check.

The next year they were great they gave me a really good deal on a decent sized advert, and I couldn’t believe it when the YP rep called to ask why i’d cancelled it. I explained this had happend before and under no circumstances are they to cancel it. and if anyone calls to change the account details they must quote my date of birth and a password.

Last year someone tried to cancel it again and the rep warned me, now there is notes on my account not to let anyone do anything to my account without MY rep, who now knows me quite well, confirming it is genuine.

The sad thing is I know 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} who it was that was canceling it, but there is no way of proving it.

I will advise anyone who relys on free linage to check in the last week that the your details are being printed correctly.

Sorry Simon for stealing your thread and going off topic

Re: advertising

Remember not all electrical shops carry out their own repairs, some are just retailers only. When I started, I approached three shops in my local service area and they passed me work for a comission. It accounted for about 40{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of my work in the first eighteen months so it might be worth trying still. I agree with the other lads about not spending too much on YP, but a small ad in the local paper doesnt hurt. far better to keep it small and regular rather than large and sporadic.

Best of Luck Del

P.S. Remember the harder you work at it, the luckier you get !

Re: advertising

simonb wrote:so can you be totaly honest and still make a living?

Yes. But not easily these days.

I tend to tell customers up front the charges we make, which are fixed and charged regardless of the outcome. We do loose a few but ce la vie, if they are not prepared to pony up for the expertise than tough really, but I can understand that competing with the rest of the pack in the local rag or YP is tough. What is important though is that you build a reputation for honesty and reliability and then you will get good repeat and refferal business, which is what almost all my charge work is as I do not advertise.

I tend to apply the same ideaology to contract business as well, I’m as fair as I can be and I expect the same in return.

Not that I’m perfect, far from it, but owning up when you do make a cock up helps a lot I find with both contract and chargeable clients and it also builds a trust.

Apart from that I can sleep at night. 😉

K.