How to grow a business

[Lee M]

Hi everyone,
I'm after a little advice on how to grow my business, I'm sure the question will sound pretty silly but I'm a firm believer in the questions only easy if you know the answer so I'll ask anyway.
Myself and a friend have a small company offering domestic gas, plumbing and electrical services so gas safety certs , boiler repairs, rewires etc.
I have a friend who works as a commercial gas engineer and I've spoken to him to see if I look around for some contracts with schools, offices etc if he would be interested joining us so that's one avenue we're pursuing.
We'd also like to expand and offer a full property maintenance service sodecorating, kitchens and bathrooms tiling, flooring etc now here's where I feel a bit silly asking but I'm not sure
If I should A) advertise the services before we have any workers with the relevant skills or B) start looking for contractors with the skills even though we have no work to give them.
It's the old chicken and egg conundrum if we advertise for self employedcontractors to join us then wait a month before we have any work only to find out they've all taken contracts elsewhere when we neef them or we advertise and get a confirmed job then frantically search Gumtree and the job centre looking for someone to do the work.

Any advice on the best course of action would be greatly appreciated and also how we might go about getting in contact with schools or care homes etc to pursue the commercial gas side and maybe get some contracts rather than all our work being reactive maintenance some PPM contracts would be settling.

Thanks for your time
Lee.

 

[Businessquotes]

Hi Lee,

Lead generation would be a good option for your circumstances. This is a good way to establish a new business and grow as is it will deliver potential customers directly to you (if you use the right company)- there are lots of lead generation companies around working on various models - Check-a-trade is well known one that charge a monthly subscription but no guarantee of work. As you're a Gas Engineer https://www.boilerguide.co.uk/trade-signup would be a great place to go to find new work, they specialise at introducing customers to Gas Safe installers for boiler replacement & repairs. This is a pay per lead service so if you find it doesn't work for you at least you're not locked into any monthly payments like you would be with Checkatrade.

A good lead generation company will put ready to buy customers in front of your business. It's up to you then to sell you company to that customer.

 

[Ginger Egg]

Hi Lee,

I wouldn't formalise anything with anyone until you have the bookings. If it were me I would look at your lead generation first.

Do you target a local area? If so questions I would be asking are: how is your online visibility? Do you rank locally for keywords?

Good luck,

Danny

 

[Viraj Shah]

What you are catering is something required by every household may be today or tomorrow.
I would suggest you to first expand yourself in local. You can first go with a small card distribution strategy with the local newspaper supplier.
Then you should take efforts in building a website and invest in SEO for ranking in local keywords like "plumbing service in california", "electrician in california" etc
You will start receiving phone calls once you are up on google.

 

[fisicx]

Then you should take efforts in building a website and invest in SEO for ranking in local keywords like "plumbing service in california", "electrician in california" etc

How is this going to help Lee in North London? And if you had done the most basic checks you would see he already has a website.

 

[Viraj Shah]

How is this going to help Lee in North London? And if you had done the most basic checks you would see he already has a website.

Lee has no where mentioned that he already has a website.

 

[fisicx]

Lee has no where mentioned that he already has a website.

Look at his profile. In any case, this the UK Business Forums so suggesting 'California' isn't really helpful.

 

[Viraj Shah]

Look at his profile. In any case, this the UK Business Forums so suggesting 'California' isn't really helpful.

Just found company's name (GWE COMPLIANCE LTD) in his profile, not the website.
And yeah the same example which I gave for California can be practiced in London or any where in UK.

 

[UXDesigner]

i would concentrate on a good google maps position ,at least you can try to rank in the top 3 for engineer near me pretty easy .youll need a few decent reviews and citations .keep your listing genuine and don buy reviews or post them youself .if your any good at what you do getting a few reviews from customers should be pretty straight forward.also verify the listing by adding the code google sends to your registered business address. google also loves you to post your own photos and videos so make sure they are your own also .every local citation you make always use the same exact details ,such as address and phone number,any viriation in these will affect your chances of ranking in maps .any problems you can message me and ill be glad to help but as i said already keep everything genuine and above board you will be good to go. a website will help you but its not necessary if you cant afford one and hoogle will give you a free one with your google my business page ,although they are pretty crass and ugly i would still recommend you build one there .build a facebook fanpage because youll be surprised how many people search facebook for local businesses.if you can afford facebook ads are also great value for money

 

[Clinton]

it's initial discussion for any business owner, Like before growing you need to think about investment like how it gonna be cost to take ROI good.

Amazing advice! Where do we get you geniuses from? Let me guess - you're an Indian SEO who was baptised "Anna Smith". You added the "5" just so you know this profile from the other UKBF profiles you've created in the past?

how to grow a business

Buy a competitor.

It's strange how small business owners look at all kinds of difficult and convoluted routes to growth but do not consider acquisition!

 

[Mr D]

Hi,

you can grow businesses from online social media management tools and various trending platforms but still based on your business what exactly the business is, do create website for this so that people start making shop on it that is called eCommerce store.

Or you could go where the people are and sell them products without the same marketing expenses trying to bring them to you.
Ebay and amazon for example.