How to grow your 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 so decorating, 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 employed contractors 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.

 

[bodgitt&scarperLTD]

Easy- you find the work first. Nobody expects a good tradesman to be able to come right now.

Scarcity can create the illusion of value.

 

[antropy]

It would be worth putting this on the 'Growing Your Startup' sector of the forum- https://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/growing-your-startup.157/

 

[davidlee21]

I would suggest making your customers happy so they keep coming back to you and they spread word of mouth.

 

[Lee Oakley]

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 so decorating, 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 employed contractors 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.

Hi Lee,

Personally I would try and make contact with some contractors beforehand and explain your vision and ask if they would be interested in working with you, should you be able to put work their way in the near future.

At least you have then built up some contacts rather than try and find them when any enquiries come in.

You can always tell a potential client you cant do the job because you are too busy, (if you none of your contractors list are available) as has been suggested.

Best of luck.

 

[Albertk2]

Hi Lee,

Your idea for these services are really amazing you just need to push yourself to find where these services are really required. You will automatically get the helpers who can help you with all these services there are so many people working with great and similar skills set but they don't have real work.

Firstly, you need to find good skill people who can help you any anytime when you require and they are with you and vice-versa in every case like profit sharing, helping them and etc.

Secondly, you can post or advertise in every possible way all about your services like facebook post or pamphlets and tell your circle to share at all best way so they may reach every corner ie:
grocery store, parks or malls where you can provide these services in homes, schools or in offices

 

[Lee M]

Hi Albert

Thanks for taking the time to reply with such encouraging words.
we are just about to advertise on FB, GOOGLE etc and will probably run an ad recruiting skilled tradespeople.
I'm sure slowly but surely we'll get to where we want to be.

Lee.

 

[makeyourbusinessbetter]

Keep doing what you are doing. It looks like you have started right; your website has excellent customer testimonials and you also have a good rating on Trustpilot. As your site says, good tradespeople are not easy to find.

Why not look for a few self-employed contractors you can call on at times when you are really busy and need some help? Do your research, look at their reviews. You need to able to trust them to work unsupervised and to treat your customers as you would. Approach the good ones, see if they would be interested and discuss the rates they would be looking for.

If you want to develop the full property maintenance services in the future, you could decide what trades you need to add and then look out for people who you think might work well with you.

Grow slowly and steadily, don't be tempted to grow too fast. If you can continue to get established and build a good reputation, you will have all the work you want. And you won't have to advertise much at all thanks to your growing reputation and referrals from happy customers.

 

[stuartm1962]

Keep doing what you are doing. It looks like you have started right; your website has excellent customer testimonials and you also have a good rating on Trustpilot. As your site says, good tradespeople are not easy to find.

Why not look for a few self-employed contractors you can call on at times when you are really busy and need some help? Do your research, look at their reviews. You need to able to trust them to work unsupervised and to treat your customers as you would. Approach the good ones, see if they would be interested and discuss the rates they would be looking for.

If you want to develop the full property maintenance services in the future, you could decide what trades you need to add and then look out for people who you think might work well with you.

Grow slowly and steadily, don't be tempted to grow too fast. If you can continue to get established and build a good reputation, you will have all the work you want. And you won't have to advertise much at all thanks to your growing reputation and referrals from happy customers.

Great advice! The work will come via reputation and recommendations from satisfied customers.

 

[Saravanan28]

Good Product is the main thing for growing business.

 

[Haindiary]

Good advice about advertising and promotion. Your product is selling itself. And in commercial organizations, I heard that you need to win a tender for the provision of services? Or is it easier?

 

[WeddingsInWales]

I would add 3 'general marketing' tips which I have posted on similar topics.

1. Build up a mailing list of customer enquiries from your website and any other sources (FB etc). Ensure correct compliance with GDPR - typically you have to ask if it is OK to send them a newsletter with advice and tips or some such but you can check a few competing suppliers websites to see how they word it. Not sure what you are doing on your site's enquiry form as I do not know your website.

2. While you build up the e-mailing list, sit down and write 12 - 24 'letters' to your prospects / clients. You do this by putting yourself in a customer's shoes and giving them advice and support as if they were already your customer. I do this with weddings (my hotel is a wedding venue). Have regard to the time it takes from 'enquiry' to 'order' - the Buying Window; this affects frequency / timing of the letters. With wedding enquiries, it is a once off sale (you get married once unless divorce and try again) and I know 85% of all enquiries will make a wedding venue decision within 30 - 60 days of their date of enquiry, 70% within 30 days. Therefore my buying window is 30 days for the majority, and then a few stragglers in the next few months. So my email advisory letters on planning their wedding tips etc go out daily for first 30 days, and then weekly for next 5 months, and then stop. Surprisingly very few unsubscribe, because the letters are seen as helpful and useful and come in small advisory chunks you can quickly read.

With a separate niche, dog friendly B&B breaks midweek, I send out letters on dog walks and places to visit with dogs in South Wales (not all places welcome or are suitable for taking dogs). These letters go out to all accommodation enquiries from my dog friendly Wales website, but unlike weddings, B&B breaks are a repeat purchase, so I send out a monthly letter for 24 months as my buying window is longer and even if they book elsewhere for their first break, they will be reminded of us monthly for the next two years and are 'in the market' for future dog friendly breaks.

This process 'automates' the selling process and increases sales. I get very few 'unsubscribes' because the letters are interesting for each niche prospect area of interest. I use AWeber for the mailing lists and new enquiries are constantly added.

3. Place an interactive chat on your site not a static one. I use Jivochat. It pops up and invites anyone to chat after they have been on a page a few seconds and I can also start off a chat by viewing who is on my site and which page they are on, so I can choose to chat with a visitor to my site(s) at any time. The beauty of this system is it prompts the reader to chat, as opposed to a static chat box which I find just got ignored. I was getting about 1 chat a month on the static chat icon but I am getting 20 a day with the 'pop-up' invitation to chat. Again this gets people to engage, book a viewing, ask about availability and so on, where otherwise you are limiting your means of engagement to them phoning you (inefficient as you may be out) or emailing you.

Starting a chat is much lower pressure and easier to do. They know they can just leave the chat safely if they choose to. But when you respond with timely information the instant they are looking at your site, that is seen as really good service. I get people thanking me for being so quick to reply to their query. They engage on the site for far longer. Many book viewings on the basis of a chat, at my venue, all browsers who might otherwise have wandered off to a competitor website.

The above methods maximise what you get out of your site and complement what you are already doing.

Writing all the letters in advance is time consuming - it took me about 2 months careful writing / editing work to complete the various letter sets across multiple niches of my business - ghost hunting, dog friendly B&B, weddings, a cleaning agency service etc, but once done, the advisory letters (not selling overtly of course) keep going out forever.

You increasingly get to be seen as the expert on their side. You are without making any effort, warming them up to do business with you whenever they are ready. The letters once written do not need updating provided you do not put date sensitive information on them. Martin.

 

[Saravanan28]

Develop an atmosphere of being approachable
Market your product well
Change your view about productivity
Employ the power of social media
Take care of your employees