Feedback Request

[zakazmi]

Hi All,

First or all a big Hi to all of the people of the forum. I am looking for a bit of advice from people who run small companies/businesses for a product that I am developing. I would appreciate that those who are working in business can help me out by providing feedback to the following few questions. Your help would be much appreciated.

1. My assumption is that for a lot of people in the trade sector (plumber, electrician etc) a lot of business comes from local areas. Is my understanding correct? If it is then what would you classify your local area to be, 10 miles, 20 miles , 30 miles?

2. What do you do to start building word of mouth i.e. you have literally just started out in the business?

3. Would it be useful if you were to appear in local business listings? I am not talking yellow pages. I mean a customer can pull up a list of electricians with certain positive feedback within a 10 mile radius of them using a smartphone (iPhone, Blackberry, HTC etc). A customer can also then filter the list by services provided by such electricians so they can match with the right person?

If people/business owners can provide some feedback to the above points then the help would be greatly appreciated, and please feel free to criticise the points mentioned above if you don't agree with them that would be great too. I also welcome any comments or calls by my mobile number below if you wish to clarify the above.

Thanks a lot for your help.


Zeeshan Kazmi
M:07838169095

*Above points updated following feedback from Mark Burgess. Thanks Mark, hopefully they will make more sense now.*

 

[Mark_Burgess]

Hi All,

First or all a big Hi to all of the people of the forum. I am looking for a bit of advice from people who run small companies/businesses for a product that I am developing. I would appreciate that those who are working in business can help me out by providing feedback to the following few questions. Your help would be much appreciated.

1. My assumption is that for a lot of people in the trade sector (plumber, electrician etc), other small businesses such as bakers, solicitors a lot of business comes from areas which are locally easily accessible (30/40miles). There are some for whom this might not be true but I am guessing that it holds true for many if not most? What do you think?ow
Firstly, Never assume! Secondly how can shop based business like a bakers, be similar to an electrician? I am trying to work out, what your question really is?
2. How do you get customers through your door what is your best form of advertisement. If it is word of mouth how do you build it once you are just starting out?
Word of mouth, nothing more really.

3. How useful would it be for you and your business if people in your vicinity could automatically discover and find out about your services, before they contacted you? If you were running a new offer and wanted to let people in your target market know of such an offer then this option would also automatically alert your potential customers that you have put out a new offer. Would that be of any use? If yes then how important would it be, good to have, very good to have or a must have? This product uses smartphone and GPS technology to automatically detect people who are searching for or interested in services provided by you and targets them with your offers.
Dont need it for me. I don't do offers (other than to kneecap a non-payer if payment does not arrive soon!)

If people/business owners can provide some feedback to the above points then the help would be greatly appreciated, and please feel free to criticise the points mentioned above if you don't agree with them that would be great too. I have already done some work and have developed a minimal product based on some feedback however I am looking to get some wider feedback/critique outside of my local contacts as I am pitching the business to an audience towards the end of May and your help would be greatly appreciated as your feedback would allow me to further tailor the product for the right market.
Maybe I am struggling to understand what that last paragraph is all about due to my stinking cold, or it just makes no sense to me.
I also welcome any comments or calls by my mobile number below.

Thanks a lot for your help.


Zeeshan Kazmi
M:07838169095

All comments in blue!

 

[zakazmi]

Mark Burgess, thanks for the comments. I have edited my original post based upon your feedback.

 

[Dan]

You're not really meant to use the forum for market research, especially if your product / service is not specific for electricians.

A business listing app isn't new and I don't think you could charge tradesmen for such a service either, far too many already exist.

That said I'll let this run, and I'll reply too.

1) I'd agree with that, most locals use locals as and when they can. Contractors are different they go where the work is no matter what distance.

2) Word of mouth for established businesses - Online presence for new. No rate-your-sausage.com type websites work in general I've found though the odd trader who sits on there giving the cheapest price for everything he can quote for will get work in but be a busy idiot. Very few exceptions to that but I do know a few that get work from them and don't just go in with cheapest price only.

3) They already can. I can be anywhere in the country and say to my phone "scrapyard" for example and it'll give me a list of scrapyards near me and one click on their phone number and I'm calling them. Free service for both the businesses listed, and the end user. No adverts, nothing. Works too I've used it loads.

 

[ackbarthestar]

Well, a couple of chaps last week were posting leaflets in all the local area to advertize their restaurant/takeaway with lots of discounts to get people interested.

So half of our village thought this would be a good night out and booked up.
The food was indeed excellent and we got our drinks for free.

The price was about 2/3 of the other restaurants in the area.

So I would recommend that anybody thinking of starting a business, start up a cheap Curry house. Alternatively you could start up as an Electrician.....

 

[brman]

pretty what Mark has said for me too.

personally I would prefer LESS ways of customers to find out about me. Meaning there are so many options nowadays it just confused the customer and diluting the affect of any of them.
Back in my day we just picked up the yellow pages, job done..........

 

[brman]

Well, a couple of chaps last week were posting leaflets in all the local area to advertize their restaurant/takeaway with lots of discounts to get people interested.

So half of our village thought this would be a good night out and booked up.
The food was indeed excellent and we got our drinks for free.

The price was about 2/3 of the other restaurants in the area.

So I would recommend that anybody thinking of starting a business, start up a cheap Curry house. Alternatively you could start up as an Electrician.....

you have obviously not tasted one of my curries...... :lol:

 

[Dan]

Fact: Google gets searched mostly when customers are looking for ANYTHING.

So unless said rate-your-bloke.com website is ranking number 1, you may as well sort your own website out and not be listed with dozens of competitors of all qualities (who wants to be listed next to three poorly ran companies?).

Hardly anybody uses their phone to search for businesses if they're near a computer. Though it is getting more common. Google still gets the searches though. Not many apps get booted up but the Google one when people are searching for a firm.

 

[ackbarthestar]

you have obviously not tasted one of my curries...... :lol:

Well, I too prepare my own Rogan Gosh and I can adapt the flavours for many tastes. So when I found this new outlet I was able to give them valuable advice on how to prepare my curry.

They were impressive with all sorts of sizzling delights.

The next time I pop in I'll drop off a couple of my business cards, just to keep them up and running on a Saturday evening when the extractor fans fail or somebody blows a fuse....

 

[Octopus]

I actually think that people are beginning to turn away from the internet because "general" searches bring up so much rubbish.

Most people who look at my website do so because they've seem one of cards/other adverts with my web address on it.

 

[Dan]

What's your website mate? I'm guessing you don't rank well for "Electrician in Surrey"? - You should get ample calls through a decent high ranking website.

Register with www.google.co.uk/places too mate, it's free and very area-specific.

 

[zakazmi]

Wow, so many responses. Thanks a lot guys.

1. Dan, sorry I wasn't aware that I couldn't do market research. Thanks for letting this go through. I am caught between a rock and hard place, my product is not for business listings and this is a side thing which I wanted to explore. Also thanks for your detailed feedback.
"who wants to be listed next to three poorly ran companies?" A very valid point. Unless there is some significant way of distinguishing a better run company from a poorly run one, then the better run company automatically gets more positive feedback.

2.ackbarthestar Unfortunately I am neither a qualified electrician nor a chef so both options are out for me. BTW I have seen a lot of takeaways/resturants in my area go down due to stiff competition. Good for your local takeaway and I hope they do well in this tough market.

3. brman Thanks. I appreciate your point of various ways diluting the means of customers reaching you.

3. Murdoch, thanks for your input. I have also seen some people do a mix of web and traditional advertising.

 

[Dan]

Funny that as you agreed to the rules when you signed up else you wouldn't be on here, so I assume you read them and posted anyway, or didn't and agreed to them anyway.

So your app is a business listing site with some groupon-type features then, that is still just an idea and not a working product yet, and you're planning to charge the businesses listed when it's running, and you wont have any actual customers using it at the start so nobody will get calls anyway?

I think you need to go back to the drawing board myself.
As they say in the Den, I'm out.

 

[zakazmi]

Hi Dan,

>>"Funny that as you agreed to the rules when you signed up else you wouldn't be on here, so I assume you read them and posted anyway, or didn't and agreed to them anyway."
It was my fault, I didn't read the rules completely and agreed to them, again thanks for letting the thread go through.

>>So your app is a business listing site with some groupon-type features then
No it is far from it. It is a web application to connect people and I thought if people are connecting I could perhaps see if businesses would be interested in paying to get access to the people signed up. Unfortunately my limitation is that forums are limited to text and images and the personal interactions where I could demo the product is not an option here hence I have to rely on text based explanations.

>>that is still just an idea and not a working product yet
I am a little further from it. I have a semi working wireframe product which is free to use. I am at the moment trying to find a concrete way to monetise it.

Thanks,
Zeeshan