Thankyou everybody for for all your replies.
Yes you are all correct about investing alittle in marketing. I like the sign written torches and mugs idea. That's the biggest problem with flyers etc. within hours they end up in the bottom of a hamsters cage or worse.
To be totally honest I have a couple of mugs in the cupboard from car garages that used to service cars of mine over 10 years ago.
People don't chuck away mugs or torches. So I'm going to invest in a few to give out to customers that have work done.
100% Thankyou for that idea.
Now to this reply that I have quoted.
This is the one thing that drives me mad. Every day I have a call from some numpty that expects a job done for nothing.
Only last week I had somebody phone me to replace a pir flood security light. I quoted my price plus the cost of the light.
His reply was. ((((WHAT!!!! It's a 20 quid job))).
Now who on the Mother Earth is going to do a call out for£20?
i don't know where people get there ideas from but there not from this day and age.
The problem is that everything is still going up daily. Our shopping has doubled in price. Not to mention our costs being electricians. My out goings have increased and go up every year.
Now. If you were to phone one of the big company's. Ie Electricity board. British Gas and alike. You start off with a call out over £100 plus VAT.
So us smaller guys should be getting similar or close to it.
It won't matter if you drop and drop your prices there will always be some mug out there that will do it cheaper. Even if you charged a fiver call out there will be some nob that will do it for 4 quid.
Why bother. This is the biggest reason that I feel like chucking it all in and going back to a steady job.
I feel like I'm ****ing in the wind.
I think if things don't improve soon I'm going to have to
Sorry but forget making silly gimmics like mugs etc, if your service is good enough you simply wont need to do things like that
you need to focus on getting decent regular customers, you will always get people who expect jobs for silly money, give them your price and move on
Cheap customers are extremely detrimental to your business, you cannot afford to work for people like that, and need to quickly avoid them completely, my nose is so finely tuned i can sniff one of these types out before ive answered the phone to them, they are also usually the most fussy and will waste your time, they also seem to hang around with other cheapskates too
once you get a regular base of decent, good paying customers, you will find they generally socialise and mix with similiar minded good paying people, who hold value and reliability over price, treat these clients like gold dust, and give them an unbelivable service everytime
Dont ever give them an excuse to go anywhere else
this then takes on a snowball effect and you then end up very busy with good quality work/customers
This is the tradesmens nirvana, that you only reach if your good and reliable enough, sorry but you cant cheat or short cut to get to this point
sadly you normally dont find these sorts of customers on the sites you are using to find work
good luck
