In case I haven't mentioned it here already, I've started my own small business (very small - just myself). I'm basically doing residential and small business tech support, and I've been really enjoying it, although the main problem is getting enough business to keep it going.

I've been doing this for over a year now, and though I'd hoped things would pick up, they haven't. I wanted to see if you guys had any good ideas for how I might get business in my area.

So far, all forms of advertising that I've tried have been complete failures. I've tried various solutions from Craigslist, to signs on my car, to three months in the local paper, as well as other things. In total I've gotten one client from Craigslist (after a year of advertising). That's it from all my traditional advertising.

By far, my #1 method of obtaining new clients has been word of mouth. That's where I've gotten 99% of my business, so I make sure to keep my clients pleased and load them up with business cards. The other 1% has come from things posted in local business establishments like coffee shops and ice cream places. I made up some flyers with a little business card holder that still only got me about 5 clients.

Any ideas, everyone? I really appreciate any help you can offer on this one. My wife and I would really like to have my business pick up

ps- in a related issue, does anyone know a good web design company? My company site is only okay. I'd prefer something a little more...engaging...to my usual client. Preferably, I'd like to keep my Wordpress installation, so a service that does Wordpress themes would be good.

Make your car, your ads, and your web site a parody of the Geek Squad? Buy up domain names and phone numbers that are one letter or one digit off from theirs?

I suppose I am in a very similar situation, I run my own business and run it mainly off word of mouth.

Surprisingly I am finding facebook quite a good place to help that word spread, I was very reluctant to sign up, but it is really helping me get the word out there, to the point that 25% of my web traffic are now coming from facebook. I don't think it's a marketing tool as such, just an aide for your current clients to pass your details on. It's also a great way to let your clients know about an new service you are offering via links back to your blog etc...

I'm in the photography game, so maybe this won't be so useful, but I wouldn't rule it out as it costs nothing.

I was given advice to stay away from traditional advertising unless you have a massive budget as the consumer is so swamped with other adverts that your just won't stand out of the crowd.

Cheers

Cris.

Have you tried walking into small businesses in your area, and introducing yourself?

How about a podcast

Are you trying to get business, residential, or both ?

You probably just need to get more business cards in fliers into more coffee shops and bulletin boards. I only work with sales people and have never been one but I know those guys get turned down far more often than not when looking for new business.

That's also my recommendation.

You might also want to get involved with your local chamber of commerce. They probably have events and meet+greet for local businesses. If you have a local small business center (that handles things like registering companies and company names) they may also have events for local business people.

I suspect you'd probably get at least a little bit of traction from some slimy moves like putting up flyers on intersection sign posts and community mailboxes and other public places, but I don't recommend it. Again, it's slimy.

Word of mouth is by far the best way to get solid leads. Your clients will be your best sales people if you have pleased them. Much more effective than any ad, regardless how glossy.

But do get your site to the level you want - it will never hurt.

Bruno, who did your site? Did you?

Thanks guys. Good recommendations so far. I'd looked into my local chamber of commerce this afternoon. I'm debating whether it seems like I'll get enough business to make the $300 annual fee worthwhile. I suppose it's only six hours of work (I charge $50 an hour). I'm just not sure how many clients I'll reach.

I might think about walking into business. I guess it just seems like a small step above the sign-on-intersections kind of stuff.

I've thought about making a Facebook page. I might make a fan page...then again, if I ever have a very unhappy customer, they're more likely go on and complain. Hmm.

Tony: hilarious idea

Yeah, I did. Design, all the graphics and all the markup. Also most of the PHP for the cart and contact pages. I've had a re-design sitting on the back-burner for over a year now too. I'd really like to get it converted into some type of CMS as well, so that's one of the reasons I've been putting it off (learning curve even for something as "simple" as WordPress). It's something I sometimes enjoy doing, but not what I'm into to a high enough degree to do it as my primary job. Right now I'm supposed to be working on a site for a friend's dad. I hope to be finished that in a couple of weeks thanks to being able to re-use a lot of code and markup I've previously written.

The Chamber of Commerce route was really good for the wife of an acquaintance of my wife's who had a web design business. She got out to a lot of the social events and really involved in that community. From there I know she got a lot of word-of-mouth references and repeat clients. One thing to remember is these business owners may be the types of people that others (in their respective circles) will go to for advice and recommendations. Networking in this way is really important for a local (hands-on) business where you'll have to be visiting your clients.

A guy who came round to sort some problems I had a few years back told me that he had got most of his business by walking in to the local PC retailers and offering to sub-contract (Which is how I found him).
His pitch being that he could do the home visits when they only had the resource for in-house and, of course, he could help with any overload.

Really? I'd never consider using a sign-on-intersection advertiser, but I would consider using someone who came to talk to me, though it depends completely on your sales pitch.

My approach wouldn't be "do you have any work for me?" Instead, something more along the lines of "I just started up a business doing on-site computer maintenance and configuration for small businesses like yours, and I'm wondering if you'd be willing to spend some time talking to me about what sort of problems you're facing in that area, so I can get a better understanding of what sort of needs the local businesses have." Listen, and take notes. Thank them for spending time with you, give them your card, and leave. No sales pitch -- the goal isn't to get them to buy something, just to a) let them know you exist, and b) establish yourself as someone who's going to listen to what they're asking for.

Good points. I guess I just haven't had much experience selling myself, but it might be fun

Make sure you let them know you also won't steal their porn while repairing their machines.

A related suggestion: make a list of such companies, prioritize it by how you feel about them and their locations etc.. then work your way up the list from the bottom (worst first).

That way you'll have had some practice / experience with the process by the time you get to the preferred candidates.

Cheers

Hehe, I've had to deal with that several times. Some parents called me to have the data from their son's old computer copied over to a new one. Apparently he was unaware of this, and when he came home to find me working on it, his eyes widened and he somewhat hurriedly said "oh no, that's okay, I don't need anything on the old computer."

I can't believe that no one has mentioned this, but get yourself in the yellow pages! That's the first place many, many people look for this kind of service. We got a lot of our business from there when I worked for the same kind of business (except there were 3 of us instead of 1).

That's definitely a part of knowing your demographic. Very good suggestion. Someone not savvy enough to work on their own computer is definitely the type of person who would consult the Yellow Pages. Many will still check the web, but if their computer is down for the count, that yellow book is definitely going to be a standby.

In contrast, I never check the Yellow Pages for anything (but probably should).. I'm not even sure I have one in the house at the moment.

What people are (correctly) alluding to is that what you really need are "Sales Ideas", not "Advertising Ideas". As you have learned, advertising is of extremely minimal value at your stage of business development.

I spent part of my career in sales (quite successfully), and I can give you a couple of pointers to get started:

1. Read the book SPIN Selling by Niel Rackham. It's the best book on selling written.

2. You can get 10x the referrals from your customers by ASKING FOR THEM. It's really important. You simply say, "Mr. Customer, I really value your business and I've worked hard to provide the best possible service to you. If you agree about the quality of my work, would you be willing to give me the names of any of your colleagues that I might be able to help?"

You will be shocked that they cough up a bunch of names. Then you ask, "Is it OK if I use your name when I contact them, and would you be willing to talk to them about the work I did for you?"

This will seem very awkward for you the first 100 times you do it. Do it anyway, or you're going to be working for the MAN again...

3. Don't feel ashamed that you are selling. Sales is a noble profession and you can be extremely successful as an honest salesperson who is motivated to help people. People have jobs because sales have occurred; no sales, no jobs. That "people" is you. Now that you're on your own, you're in sales or you're out of business -- that's just the reality of the marketplace.

Jim

Hah!

I suppose it could be, but I don't know that I've ever met a professional salesman who wouldn't promise you the keys to heaven to make his commission.

I'm sure it's true that you don't know that. I'm also sure that you never bothered to find out. Your attitude is the conventional one.

The fact remains that all commerce is predicated on a sale, which is nothing more than an exchange of value. Our jobs depend on sales. There are dishonest salespeople, to be sure, but there is nothing ignoble or dishonest inherently in exchanging value.

First, I have never worked on a project in my (computer) career where the customer was not oversold on what the product would do or the timeframe, causing the engineering staff to work 80 hours a week for months on end while the salesman, job completed, went home to sleep on his gold-plated feather bed.

Second, selling products and services is (obviously) an important part of the economy, but the act of selling itself is worthless. It doesn't produce anything, and it often extends the life of products that are substandard, while retarding the life of products that should overtake them. In other words, if your product doesn't sell itself, it's extraneous.

(Note that I'm excluding advertising from sales; it can be hard to make your product and its features known. And that's the problem faced here.)

Let me put it another way.

Salespeople are currently useful solely in counteracting the effects of other companies' salespeople. If all salespeople were removed from the earth (and no new ones popped up), everything would still move along fine. Probably better, as people would make purchasing decisions based on actual technical merit.

Contrast that with a profession that is almost always seen as a corporate burden: IT. IT makes no money for the company, but if all the IT staff was removed from every company in the world, the computer systems would go to hell in a handbasket before any time at all.

I'm clearly not going to change your mind about sales people, but I'll make a couple of comments. I don't think you understand the selling process very well, and you've had some experiences with dishonest sales people, so your position makes sense to me. The only further comments I have are:

1. Your model above assumes that customers know what they want and just need to evaluate alternatives. In reality, most customers don't know what's possible, and have problems they aren't paying attention to because they either haven't considered them or they don't know that novel solutions exist for them. An important part of the selling process is to get people to realize they should be engaging in the education and buying process in the first place. That component has real value, and is not simply the neutralization of competitor sales people.

2. I believe you would (eventually) feel differently if you were in Dignan's position.

3. I'm sure you are overstating the case and there are vendors you have worked with that performed well. You almost certainly exclude those people from your globalized hatred of people engaged in the commerce side of technology, seeing them as exceptions that prove the rule.

4. Most importantly, your comments illustrate why it is so critically important that Dignan is very assertive in ASKING for referrals. Unfortunately, yours is the default view of most people towards any solicitation of any kind. Dignan should expect to run into a lot of hostility that should probably be directed toward others (prior vendors who screwed the guy) but ends up being directed toward somebody that is just trying to help them out and make an honest buck.

Sure, there are dishonest sales people -- probably most of them. Believe me when I tell you there are dishonest IT people -- probably most of them, too. People suck, and some of those people are in sales. There are good, honest people in that profession also. Again, I don't expect to change your mind on that point, but I do want to encourage Dignan to confidently solicit business which I'm sure (since he's a member here!) is of high quality and honestly represented.

Heh. Just like Lawyers.

The entire raison d'etre of the company is to make money, after all.

We call those people "priests".

That's unfortunate. Perhaps you might consider a change in careers? I'm working on a project now that wasn't oversold on what the product would do, nor the timeframe. In fact, when I sold it (or rather, sold myself to work on the project), I told them straight up that a) I don't know how long it would take to build, because it would take a lot of trial and error research (but would likely be a minimum of 6 months) and b) that what the product would do would be built up gradually, so that every time they got a new version, it would be useful for them, so that they could give timely feedback and adjust priorities. So far, I've delivered exactly what I've promised, all while working 40hours (or less) per week. But then, I like to be honest.

Interestingly enough, for the previous project I worked on, my boss tried to "oversell" the (internal) customers on how little time it would take (6 months) when they knew (and had told my boss) that it would take a couple of years with multiple people (they'd helped develop a similar project before). When I started, I told them that I'd never worked on a project of that scope before, nor worked with any of the technologies they were requiring me to use. They were cool with that, were pleased with my rate of progression, and told me more than once that they had no realistic expectation that I'd be meeting the schedule laid out by my boss.

Sounds like you live in the Dilbert world. I can assure you that the entire software development/IT world isn't like that.

I agree, except that's not sales, that's advertising. Sometimes advertising happens one-to-one, by someone whose job title might be "salesman", but it's still advertising.


As soon as a vendor starts telling me what to buy, I stop paying attention. There have been times when a vendor has asked if I'm aware of a product that might meet my needs; I don't have a problem with that until they start pushing.

As an example, about two years ago, I was searching for a vendor to provide phone and internet access. I sent out a bunch of requests asking for a quote on a voice T1 and an internet T1, or equivalent. Most vendors sent me back exactly what I asked for. One vendor decided to send me back a quote for a T1 split for voice and data, not in addition to my requested quote. I responded and told him that that wasn't what I asked for. He wanted to have a conference call with a tech. It seemed odd, but I agreed. When the conference call happened, he started on selling me on why I wanted a split T1. I interrupted and asked him if he had the quote I asked for. When he said no, I told him that I didn't have time for his crap and hung up.

I know what I want. It's possible that someone might have some information on a different product, and I'm more than willing to learn. But I don't have the time to waste while a salesperson tries to sell me on something I don't want.

There's nothing I hate more than a "value-added reseller", and I despise it when a manufacturer sells only through them. There's a local one in particular that has consistently wasted so much of my time that I refuse to do business with them any more, despite the fact that I have to go out of my way to use someone else.

There are a number of people whose job title is "salesperson" that I have had a decent relationship with. They're the ones who take my requests and turn it into a quote and otherwise don't bother me. But that's not sales, IMO, any more than the guy behind the register at McDonald's is in sales. (Not that I'm reducing these people to register monkeys; they often have knowledge of their products that outstrips mine and allows them to take my request and turn it into appropriate configurations and part numbers, but that's also not "sales".)


Whoa! You went too far there!

Not in civility. I mean you should have stopped at "globalized hatred of people". It's not restricted to those in commerce.;)

Nope. Some/many lawyers provide a useful service. Unless you also propose to get rid of all laws.

To be fair, I pretty much refuse to work that hard. It's my (non-IT) coworkers who always bear the brunt of the problem. I just make the computers run. (Just to show I'm not playing favorites, while I may think of salespeople as register monkeys, I tend to think of myself as a plumber or mechanic. Dare I say greasemonkey?)

I knew one... back when I worked in radio, our highest grossing salesperson would sometimes send clients to our competitors because she knew that in that particular instance another radio station's demographic base was better suited to the product at hand.

By working against her own immediate self-interest, she eventually developed such a level of trust among her clients that they would agree to anything she suggested -- a trust she never abused since she had worked so hard to gain it. And when it came time to advertise, those clients would always give her the lions share of the budget, leaving the scraps for the other radio stations to fight over.

Absolute integrity and putting the clients' interests ahead of her own paid off for her big time, and she would certainly resent your sweeping generalizations.

tanstaafl.