Your business input

[hammers4spanner]

How much input and pushing do you guys put into your own business as a whole ?

Do you spend a lot on advertising , sign written vans , tee shirts and tops with your business name, only use invoices that are purpose designed for your business , have a logo, spend time contacting builders or heating contractors for example ?

Schemes like the green deal where you quick to see what its about or thin k nah happy doing heating packs or bathrooms?

I know some of us are sole traders and others employ the odd one or two so whats your business objectives overall ? Happy just earning are looking to be more professional and push your business all the time?

 

[SimonG]

About 150 a month on advertising, but I put most effort into the job I'm on currently. To be fair I get more calls saying I did something for a friend/neighbour/colleague than I do saying I saw your advert.

Objectives are to pay the bills, 2 or 3 holidays a year, money in the bank and live comfortably.

 

[townfanjon]

Some would disagree with this because it means my business is on a personal level rather than a business one.

My customers ring up and ask for john not Mr Lister, they can ring me whenever they want , they do not get a stroppy plumber on the end of the phone .

The problem with this is i never end up charging for those silly little jobs, but i do think you get it back in other ways.

I have a website , it doesn't really bring any work in, its just there because its what people expect these days.

Been going about 14 years once, I am lucky I never advertise, the work just seems to keep coming lol.

The main thing i do is I really put myself out for them, too much really.

 

[Ray Stafford]

Interesting thread.

From an installers perspective, I would separate out "marketing" from "advertising" and again from "sales development".

Corporate work-wear, custom invoices and other things which are designed to enhance the image of the business are marketing.
Newspaper ads, leaflet drops and other things which are designed to stimulate sales are advertising.
Work directly contacting specific potential customers is sales development.

Obviously there are some grey areas. I would think of sign writing on a van as primarily marketing, but it crosses over into advertising.

Hammers is 100% correct to link this with your objectives - the correct mix of inputs would depend on what outputs you were seeking.

 

[hammers4spanner]

Some would disagree with this because it means my business is on a personal level rather than a business one.

My customers ring up and ask for john not Mr Lister, they can ring me whenever they want , they do not get a stroppy plumber on the end of the phone .

The problem with this is i never end up charging for those silly little jobs, but i do think you get it back in other ways.

I have a website , it doesn't really bring any work in, its just there because its what people expect these days.

Been going about 14 years once, I am lucky I never advertise, the work just seems to keep coming lol.

The main thing i do is I really put myself out for them, too much really.

Ive started doing the ring me whenever you want attitude a lot of customers love the fact the can call you at half 8 at night for you to price a small job for them .

A lot of customers like the small man as it becomes more personal rather than business from my experience.

 

[townfanjon]

Yep also forgot to mention , the dreaded vat, as a one man band I can keep under the threshold if the customer buys the big purchases direct, on my recommendations.

It would be interesting what would happen if I did go vat reg, probably nothing because the relationship with the customer is already built, new ones maybe a different matter .

Vat and peoples opinions are another matter, wont go into it now otherwise the thread gets hijacked lol

 

[Masood]

Interesting thread.

From an installers perspective, I would separate out "marketing" from "advertising" and again from "sales development".

Corporate work-wear, custom invoices and other things which are designed to enhance the image of the business are marketing.
Newspaper ads, leaflet drops and other things which are designed to stimulate sales are advertising.
Work directly contacting specific potential customers is sales development.

Obviously there are some grey areas. I would think of sign writing on a van as primarily marketing, but it crosses over into advertising.

Hammers is 100% correct to link this with your objectives - the correct mix of inputs would depend on what outputs you were seeking.

Ray, I know you're busy but would you be willing to write a few short articles on business planning, analysis, methods of achieving financial control, growth etc.?

 

[Masood]

How much input and pushing do you guys put into your own business as a whole ?

Do you spend a lot on advertising , sign written vans , tee shirts and tops with your business name, only use invoices that are purpose designed for your business , have a logo, spend time contacting builders or heating contractors for example ?

Schemes like the green deal where you quick to see what its about or thin k nah happy doing heating packs or bathrooms?

I know some of us are sole traders and others employ the odd one or two so whats your business objectives overall ? Happy just earning are looking to be more professional and push your business all the time?

A mix of the two. Signwritten van kept clean and tidy, logo'ed clothes. I do quotes and invoices electronically but on company letterhead with professionally designed logo. The "brand" is very identifiable and distinctive.

I have never advertised apart from one leaflet drop when I first started. I had 10,000 printed and dropped 2,500 myself. That brought me enough work to get going and subsequently word-of-mouth has helped me grow year-on-year and turn a profit.

Like Jon I offer the personal touch. I save customers' number in my phone and greet them by name. I tell them they are welcome to call for advice or if they have any questions. For regular and good customers I will do the occasional small job free - if I'm passing and it takes 10-15 minutes, say..

I have just decided that I do want to employ someone and expand so am now looking at how best to achieve growth, to ensure a regular income stream so that I can honour the commitment of paying a salary, and also how to establish quality control systems so that my reputation for impeccable customer service and quality work isn't compromised.

The more I look into this the more I realise that running a growing business is a full-time job and skillset in itself - one that I need to learn!

 

[Ray Stafford]

Ray, I know you're busy but would you be willing to write a few short articles on business planning, analysis, methods of achieving financial control, growth etc.?

Nice of you to ask Mas, but I'm not sure I could get into the nuts and bolts. Perhaps a collaboration?

 

[bert large]

My business mirrors Townfanjon's, even down to the number of years trading & never advertising.
I prefer it as a one man band. A more personal approach that I am in control of.

I note you are a Janner Hammers. Which areas of Plymouth do you work in ?
I try to stick the suburbs like Plympton, Plymstock, Saltash & Ivybridge. Call me a snob but the clientele in those areas are generally better off.

 

[plumben]

Ive been going about 6 months now

Advertising using internet
Did a flyer drop when I started but got no/little return really
Got my work polo's with company name on

Getting my van sign written once my certificates come and I get gas safe registered

Ive been using a cheap invoice book for normal work and printed for bigger work

 

[Masood]

Nice of you to ask Mas, but I'm not sure I could get into the nuts and bolts. Perhaps a collaboration?

I think your wisdom and experience would be hugely valuable. I'm happy to do the writing up if you and others would be able to provide the input.

 

[cr0ft]

I want to grow the biggest plumbing business in Lincoln before I retire. I have a considerable way to go yet to be honest but that's the plan!!

At the moment our business is still pretty small - 4 of us. Me, one lad who is through his NVQ 2, one apprentice who has just started his NVQ 2 and one person working part time doing the book-keeping and a lot of the admin.

We pay around £60 a month to advertise on Checkatrade, that's the only paid advertising we do. More and more of our business is repeat business and recommendations now.

We also have our vans sign written and all of us wear the same uniforms with our logo embroidered onto the polo shirts we wear. All invoice and communications have our logo and branding on them.

We have a simple but effective website with a quote request form on it. More importantly, it appears on the first page of Google for search terms like 'Lincoln Plumber' etc.

For me it's really important to keep that 'personal' feel you get when dealing with a one man company. Our website has photos of all of us on it so people can see who is coming round before they knock on the door.

2 years back I had the decision a lot of one man bands are faced with - to stay as I was or take on someone and grow the business. Like other on here have mentioned, growing the business actually means more work for yourself than staying as a one man operation. If you get the right first staff member on board though the reward is definitely worth it. It has been tough but for me but my motivation was seeing a guy on a job we did once who was still working as a tradesman at 68 as he didn't have enough money saved up to retire. I thought to myself there is no way I am going to be like that and decided the way to avoid that was to grow the business past just myself.

I remember a comment Ray made when I took on my second staff member. Something along the lines of wanting to grow to 5 as soon as possible. I thought at the time there was no need to rush but now I see why he said that. I've made my business operations as efficient as I can do now really and I am still working many more hours each week than I did on my own. Once you get to 5 you can afford to stand back off the tools and focus on growing the business.

My plan is to take on a time-served plumber with bathroom experience next which will drop me off the tools for all but 10 hours or so each week.

To anyone who is rammed with work as a one person business, my advice is approach your local college and ask to interview the BEST apprentices on the Level 1 Plumbing course. You get enough grants to cover there first year's wages and they should help you grow your business and not have to do so much of the back-breaking work!

 

[plumben]

I don't ever want to have to be working on the tools after the age of 40 (20 years from now)

Either by having a successful company or through owning rental properties or both

Ive also set my self the goal of being in debt by £500,000 before my 30th birthday by owning multiple properties

 

[Masood]

More importantly, it appears on the first page of Google for search terms like 'Lincoln Plumber' etc.

This is what I'm struggling with. My site has been professionally built by a guy I like and trust, and I like the website a lot. To my untrained eye it looks as good as any other out there for similar sized businesses.

But... he seems to have no clue about SEO and ranking.

First it was "push the Google+ reviews - once you get 5 reviews on Google+, you really start getting ranked." So I did that, nothing happened.

Now he wants me to write blog posts and is on about creating YouTube videos. I think he's clutching at straws. If anyone has any suggestions for SEO and Google ranking, I would be very grateful!

 

[cr0ft]

I did my own SEO with no prior experience. From what I've read its about getting the keywords you want to appear for sprinkled on the main page of your website.

 

[hammers4spanner]

Im looking at website design as the next stage and SEO is defo something i want ti know more about .

 

[Nostrum]

There's some good info on SEO online.

Optimising content for keywords is about 10% of the battle. There's only so much you can do before you start being penalised for cramming keywords in too densely. It also doesn't read very well for the customer.

Blogs allow you to create new content which you can get more keywords into. Videos and social media also point back to your site which help with the ranking. Also, the age of the site goes a long way to proving your worth.

I listened to some podcasts from 'the Tyson report' which were quite informative, might be with a listen.

 

[Nostrum]

I don't want to be rich, I just want to be big enough for the business to be self sufficient, so I can have a bit of a life without it revolving around work.

At the moment it's the complete opposite mind.