Your Top Start-Up Questions Answered
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Advertising Q: I am located in
a small town in south Georgia. I've been in business for a few
months now. I only have six Web hosting customers, and I'm
trying desperately to get more. I am planning on putting ads in the
newspaper in a local town that is a lot larger and will reach many
more people. What do you think? Any advertising advise? A: I'd be
careful about spending a lot money on newspaper advertising.
I've not found that to be very effective, and it can be quite
expensive. Instead, get your own site in tip-top shape, then spend
most of your time promoting it in the search engines and trying to
drive as much traffic to it as possible. I've had a good amount
of success in several different businesses by putting most, if not
all, of my marketing efforts into driving traffic to my site via
the search engines. Learn more about traffic at Web Site
Secrets and Web Site Garage. Content Continues Below
You should also network like crazy. The bottom line is to meet
as many people as possible, tell them what you do and ask them if
they have any business for you. Getting
Customers Q: I own a computer
network integration firm. To be honest, the business only exists on
paper at the moment, along with a bank account and a credit card.
Only a few people seem to know I exist at all, and that's where
my question comes in. How do I get customers? My problem lies in
the fact that I am in a small urban community, with small urban
communities surrounding it. A: Boy is this
familiar. I was talking about this question with a friend of mine
(with whom I've started several businesses), and he and I were
remembering how hard this was for us. Here are some of his
thoughts: - Find a local coffee shop/Internet café, and hold a couple
of "seminar" sessions. A local guy I know of is doing
just that, and that's how I found out the shop exists.
- Have some business cards printed up, then frequent places where
your target audience (maybe overworked IT folks?) frequent and
"drop" them all over the place.
- Put up fliers or cards at local grocery stores. Offer to help
the local library manage its computer services, and see if, in
return, they'll let you post a "Computer services provided
by XX" in the library or leave some cards around.
- Go to the local bookstore, and find books that are for what you
do, but on a beginner level. Open each one, and slip your card in
the table of contents with a tiny "Let me help!" on the
front.
- Contact your local chamber of commerce to get a list of
businesses in your area that might be interested in your services.
Write a letter to each one (not a mass mailing; you've got time
to do each one separately) explaining who you are and what
you're available to do. Tell them satisfaction is guaranteed
(nobody in IT seems to do that) to get your foot in the door. Even
if a few of them rip you off for a few hours, you'll get
customers, contacts and experience.
- Offer to help local churches that are big enough to have an IT
staff, again either for free or for very little, in return for
word-of-mouth referrals.
- Radio stations, newspapers, TV stations-anyone who has an
audience for their opinion-find a way to get them to like you and
talk about you (which is free, and very effective,
advertising).
- Ask local computer stores (preferably independent ones, and
definitely ones that you buy from) if you can leave cards or fliers
near the front desk. Find ones that do not already have a competing
services group, and ask if they ever get requests for business of
the sort that you do. Offer them a 10 percent cut of the entire job
for any referrals that you end up getting. Again, you might not do
this forever, but it's a great way to get some exposure.
- Target small, nontechnical offices, and see if you can find the
person who's been saddled with "keeping the network
up" responsibility. This person is probably nontechnical and
probably hates it, but is afraid to call in a "big-time
consultant" because of the money. Offer to do a free
assessment or a free first service call (up to an hour, for
instance). If they like what you do and you fix their problem,
they'll call you back at your regular rates (be sure to have
these fixed and handy, preferably in a flier or on the back of your
card, when you go on these "free" introductory
calls).
- Get a magnetic sign that you can slap on the door of your car
while you drive around town. Spend a few lunchtimes driving to
local computer or office supply megastores.
- See if there are any small-business associations that meet
monthly in your town. If there are, slap on a tie, grab some
business cards and go see what's happening.
- Drop your business cards in every "free lunch for
you" restaurant bowl you can find. This increases your chances
of getting noticed, and after all that work, it's nice to get a
free lunch.
Word-of-Mouth Q: I'm looking
to start a carpet-cleaning business, and I'm wondering how to
determine the demand for this service and the level of competition
in my geographical area. Also, with the recent recession, do you
think I should worry that people will stop purchasing this type of
service? A: The majority of
your competition would probably be listed in your local phone book.
But you may or may not care about how many other people are
competing with you. I say that because in my experience, this is a
business where you can start small and grow rapidly with good
word-of-mouth if you provide good service. If you don't have to
quit your job and do this full time, this could be a very good
deal. My opinion is that there is a lot of money to be made in this
business by focusing on service, because so few people give good
service. My personal experience with carpet cleaning is that most
of the people who offer it show up late, do an OK job, aren't
very careful in your house, and overall have a poor appearance
and/or attitude. I think that if you can always keep appointments,
do a good job, be careful and respectful of people's houses,
look professional and be polite, you can clean up (no pun intended)
in this business. If you start this business, be sure to ask each client, after
you've done a good job and they are happy, if they would give
you the names of two other people who might want their carpets
cleaned. If you can call someone and say "I just cleaned your
friend Sarah's carpets, and she thought you might be interested
in getting yours cleaned-please call her and ask her if she was
happy with my work," then you'll have more business than
you can handle.
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