Website idea

[matthew231]

Hi - I have designed and built an impressive site but need someone to help me launch it. My strengths are on the Marketing (and website development) side, but I need someone on the Sales side to start to spread the work to the trade. Can I post the link on here?

 

[fisicx]

You can add the link to your profile.

Who are you targeting and what does the website do? Sales suggests some sort of monetary transaction, something the trades are notoriously reluctant to do.

 

[matthew231]

Its a site to take on Checkatrade in the tradesman sector in the UK. It goes much further for the user so is a better proposition. CMS is built, I can do the digital marketing, I need someone to come in as 50% partner and use their skills to get tradesmen signed up.

 

[fisicx]

Wow. That’s a big budget enterprise. It’s going to need a lot of cash to go head to head with the existing trade membership sites (of which there are many).

Maybe @Paul Carmen will be able to help. Have you got a chunky marketing budget?

 

[NickGrogan]

It goes much further for the user so is a better proposition.

What do you mean by this?

 

[Mark T Jones]

What research have you done to suggest that this will work?

The last time I searched for trade online, the biggest challenge was wading through the mass of consolidator/ recommendation sites.

 

[Nick@Daydot]

To expand on @Mark T Jones question, have you done any research to understand what issues people have with current checkatrade type sites? Have you any research to show that what you think are fixes are in fact fixes? It's really easy to get too close to something, not understand the range of user needs, and just fix things that bug you but don't really matter in the marketplace. It has to work for both traders and people wanting trades. If you don't have that research basis you're running a massive risk.

On early launch you want really good feedback mechanisms and be prepared to make some radical changes quickly.

If you don't have the user experience sorted out then no amount of marketing will make it work.

 

[MarketingQuote]

Can you give a little more information on what it is the company does?

 

[ethical PR]

Its a site to take on Checkatrade in the tradesman sector in the UK. It goes much further for the user so is a better proposition. CMS is built, I can do the digital marketing, I need someone to come in as 50% partner and use their skills to get tradesmen signed up.

Presumably as you said you're from a marketing background you've done your market research to identify your customer base , tested your concept with them and developed a marketing plan with attached budget.

It sounds like you haven't allowed in your start up budget for someone to help with sales so want someone as a 'partner' to provide free sales support.,

 

[DoolallyTap]

Who told you your new website was impressive?
I don't understand - need someone to help me launch it. What does this mean?
Are you saying you need an investor/partner salesperson - I need someone on the Sales side to start to spread the work to the trade.
A 50% partner! Have you got a business plan, P&L Forecast, Cashflow forecast? how much have you invested? how much will your partner need to invest?
Get yourself onto Dragons Den and see what they say.

 

[intheTRADE]

The big question here is, what is your revenue model? This absolutely key in determining if your new co has any legs at all.

You mention you need someone to get trades signed up. This would suggest you plan to charge trades a membership/subscription fee. If that’s the case you can absolutely forget the whole idea. Until you have visits to the site in the 10s of thousands per day no trades co will pay to be on the site.

The first question everyone of them will ask you is how many people in their area are going to your site and searching for their sector

If it is a pay per lead model, you will also run into issues as the consumer will not entertain your site with no listed trades - making it free of charge for trades to sign up will be even more difficult than trying to charge them. ExpertTrades tried this approach years ago have failed miserably

There ‘could’ be a slice of the market for you on a very small scale if done correctly and specialising in specific and unique category but positioning yourself as someone taking on Checkatrade puts you in dreamland. They have over 50k members, millions of visitors annually, guarantee their trades work up to a certain value and are owned by HomeServe who have pretty much an unlimited marketing budget to plough into the site

After them the market is flooded with other heavily financially backed companies such as Book A Builder, Rated People, Trust A Trader, My Builder, Haamuch, Which? Trusted Traders, Bark, Checked & Vetted and Get Work to name but a few. All of which turn a profit but have all failed to even make a dent in Checkatrades dominance

 

[Siobhan-DFH]

You've received feedback that Checkatrade can't be beaten without a huge budget. Can I suggest you consider making your site niche instead? Choosing one trade and becoming the go-to site for that expertise.

You could choose a trade that you feel is either under-represented online or has a good profit margin, so that traders in that niche are more likely to splash some cash on marketing.

An added bonus of keeping it niche is that it will be easier to rank for organic search. Ranking one site which has a wide range of keywords (plasterer, plumber, landscaper etc) is very challenging.

Regarding finding a sales person to promote it, I feel your pain. I'd love to have somebody do it for one of my sites. I can only suggest that you reach out to UK-based sales people on People per Hour or other freelancer sites and have a script written for them. Perhaps paying a basic for outreach plus commission for results.

As others have said, you won't have a history of traffic to the site to justify charging trades initially, but onboarding for a free listing initially and offering 'featured/premium' once you have more traffic might be a route. Another business model is to start a society or professional body (if a good one doesn't exist) and charge membership fees that includes a listing on the site.

Good luck.

 

[NickZ]

Hi - I have designed and built an impressive site but need someone to help me launch it. My strengths are on the Marketing (and website development) side, but I need someone on the Sales side to start to spread the work to the trade. Can I post the link on here?

Well well marketing is the art to sell Products.
It's funny really when you get into workana and 80% are marketeers asking for help in their marketing.