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Danny@ Diamond
CheckaTrade is probably one of the only trade reference companies that actually vet the trades people they are signing up that I have personally come across.
Funnily enough I had a student in this week who had trained with the company before I took it over who had paid his fees to CheckaTrade but could not complete the process until he could produce evidence of his training and qualifications. We spoke to Checkatrade to find out what was required for him to complete and they advised that a certificate would be required but must not be an in house award ( we don't award these anyway as they are not worth the paper they are printed on ) the student is now coming back in to do a National Award which will complete his registration process.
The only thing I would say is that CheckaTrade shouldn't have taken any money from him until they had explained what would be required, as if we hadn't of been able to help he would be left out of pocket for £400, so not good business practice in my opinion.
My views on that whole trade regulating industry is the same as Dan really, don't expect it to draw more customers in as I don't believe it will. All it will do as said above is give your own customers more peace of mind that you have been vetted. All you are going to get for your hard earned cash is some bumper stickers and some logos really at the end of the day.
Things that do work from experience are,
A5 post cards through doors: Have one designed professionally (no clip art looking things that you have done at home) with some call to action on it, by this I mean an offer of some sort.
Incentivize customers: Offer customers you have done work for something in return for recommendations i.e vouchers / cash / discounts on future work. I have done deals with customers when I had my tiling company to use their home as a show home for future customers and given them a discount for this.
Advertising boards outside customers houses: as above have some cor-ex boards printed up and offer customers incentives to display them in their driveway for potential new customers to see ( this really does work, the amount of jobs I have picked up in the past is unreal).
Get A Chip & Pin Machine: Contact Chip & Pin Services and get a merchant account set up. This is a simple process that normally takes around 2-3 to set up. Once this is done Chip & Pin will rent you a mobile card machine which allows you to take Debit & Credit card payments in the customers house. In quiet times of the year when customers want work done but cant afford it THEY WILL PUT IT ON CREDIT. The way people are today, wanting everything today and worry about it tomorrow should be used to your benefit. If three tilers turned up and you could accept credit cards you will get the job 9 times out of 10. Do some research on this and let me know if any trades people in your area accept card payments, I guarantee none accept maybe plumbers, as trades people generally like to work in cash. If you are above board you will benefit massively by doing this. It will cost on average £30 - £40 per month for your machine and a clearing fee of 25 pence for Debit Cards and around 1 - 1.5% for credit cards. I am sure you will agree this is nothing compared to the amount of customers it will attract.
Ask your self this. would you go shopping as much if you could not use your card and pay it later.
Paper advertising is finished, think about it where is the first place you look first for anything now? INTERNET get a website done and get it ranked high for keywords used in your area. Again don't do it yourself, unless you are good with design it will look cheap and unprofessional and you will not get the calls.
Markets / Car Boot Sales: This one worked for me week in week out and cost me £10 per week + my time on a Sunday.
I went and bought some tile display boards, some really nice looking tiles and designed some really nice layouts on these boards. Had some A5 Cards done (professionally) put a nice portfolio together with testimonials / photos / insurance and qualifications in it and stood there taking leads all day long.
I would then call all of the customers back the next day to arrange quotations for that week and got hundreds of jobs out of it.
Now think about this one, you see window companies / AA / RAC / Conservatory companies etc at these markets when have you ever seen a tiler? I bet never.
Have the shirts and jumpers done / Cards / Flyer's / Tile Boards etc, look professional and give it a try.
I reckon you could do this for no more than £300 upfront all in, you will then have an outlay of £10 each Sunday for you pitch. Think of it this way if you went there and ended up with 1 job you have covered your costs straight away, this wont happen though you will get lots of work from this.
There are loads of cheap ways of advertising you just have to think about it. It is easy to be tricked by these companies, they are sales people at the end of the day but the only thing they are good at selling is themselves.
I now use a big marketing company who charge a fortune, but they produce results each and every month so they are worth it. Obviously I operate on a much larger scale and have overheads bills to meet etc so you have no choice but to chuck money into advertising, but for a sole trader it should be easy to achieve results for very little investment.
These are just a few things that we cover in our marketing / business start up at Diamond Training. This side of the training goes on for days and right in depth.
Hope this helps, good luck and all the best
Funnily enough I had a student in this week who had trained with the company before I took it over who had paid his fees to CheckaTrade but could not complete the process until he could produce evidence of his training and qualifications. We spoke to Checkatrade to find out what was required for him to complete and they advised that a certificate would be required but must not be an in house award ( we don't award these anyway as they are not worth the paper they are printed on ) the student is now coming back in to do a National Award which will complete his registration process.
The only thing I would say is that CheckaTrade shouldn't have taken any money from him until they had explained what would be required, as if we hadn't of been able to help he would be left out of pocket for £400, so not good business practice in my opinion.
My views on that whole trade regulating industry is the same as Dan really, don't expect it to draw more customers in as I don't believe it will. All it will do as said above is give your own customers more peace of mind that you have been vetted. All you are going to get for your hard earned cash is some bumper stickers and some logos really at the end of the day.
Things that do work from experience are,
A5 post cards through doors: Have one designed professionally (no clip art looking things that you have done at home) with some call to action on it, by this I mean an offer of some sort.
Incentivize customers: Offer customers you have done work for something in return for recommendations i.e vouchers / cash / discounts on future work. I have done deals with customers when I had my tiling company to use their home as a show home for future customers and given them a discount for this.
Advertising boards outside customers houses: as above have some cor-ex boards printed up and offer customers incentives to display them in their driveway for potential new customers to see ( this really does work, the amount of jobs I have picked up in the past is unreal).
Get A Chip & Pin Machine: Contact Chip & Pin Services and get a merchant account set up. This is a simple process that normally takes around 2-3 to set up. Once this is done Chip & Pin will rent you a mobile card machine which allows you to take Debit & Credit card payments in the customers house. In quiet times of the year when customers want work done but cant afford it THEY WILL PUT IT ON CREDIT. The way people are today, wanting everything today and worry about it tomorrow should be used to your benefit. If three tilers turned up and you could accept credit cards you will get the job 9 times out of 10. Do some research on this and let me know if any trades people in your area accept card payments, I guarantee none accept maybe plumbers, as trades people generally like to work in cash. If you are above board you will benefit massively by doing this. It will cost on average £30 - £40 per month for your machine and a clearing fee of 25 pence for Debit Cards and around 1 - 1.5% for credit cards. I am sure you will agree this is nothing compared to the amount of customers it will attract.
Ask your self this. would you go shopping as much if you could not use your card and pay it later.
Paper advertising is finished, think about it where is the first place you look first for anything now? INTERNET get a website done and get it ranked high for keywords used in your area. Again don't do it yourself, unless you are good with design it will look cheap and unprofessional and you will not get the calls.
Markets / Car Boot Sales: This one worked for me week in week out and cost me £10 per week + my time on a Sunday.
I went and bought some tile display boards, some really nice looking tiles and designed some really nice layouts on these boards. Had some A5 Cards done (professionally) put a nice portfolio together with testimonials / photos / insurance and qualifications in it and stood there taking leads all day long.
I would then call all of the customers back the next day to arrange quotations for that week and got hundreds of jobs out of it.
Now think about this one, you see window companies / AA / RAC / Conservatory companies etc at these markets when have you ever seen a tiler? I bet never.
Have the shirts and jumpers done / Cards / Flyer's / Tile Boards etc, look professional and give it a try.
I reckon you could do this for no more than £300 upfront all in, you will then have an outlay of £10 each Sunday for you pitch. Think of it this way if you went there and ended up with 1 job you have covered your costs straight away, this wont happen though you will get lots of work from this.
There are loads of cheap ways of advertising you just have to think about it. It is easy to be tricked by these companies, they are sales people at the end of the day but the only thing they are good at selling is themselves.
I now use a big marketing company who charge a fortune, but they produce results each and every month so they are worth it. Obviously I operate on a much larger scale and have overheads bills to meet etc so you have no choice but to chuck money into advertising, but for a sole trader it should be easy to achieve results for very little investment.
These are just a few things that we cover in our marketing / business start up at Diamond Training. This side of the training goes on for days and right in depth.
Hope this helps, good luck and all the best
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