Like Confounded our business was initially built on lead generators with a high conversion rate - we took 10 of them in the first 2 months (that's all there was in 2010 and we got 5 free in those days!!) and then had to turn them off because we referred to those customers' friends and family. The D rating hit us badly and we've struggled since then.
I've had one referral from Solar Guide in the last 9 months so I can't rely on them even if they were mint quality.
I wouldn't go to a referral agency for ashp it's too complex for a call centre to be able to filter effectively, if they can't ask the questions related to D rating then you've no chance with ashp. It's horses for courses really, they aren't specialists and from what I see a lot of installers get ashp info wrong so you couldn't really expect a call centre to get it right.
With us being rural, we're taking the view that we'll try to do as much as possible from our home based office to keep costs down and we've sort of returned to what we did to start off the business 3 years ago, with lower expectations and profit margins. We have a business mentor (provided free) who insists that people will still pay for the quality, personal service that we provide and the 2 jobs we have this week are testament to this.
To be honest the weather isn't helping, round our way people can't sell their houses, they are having a dabble with solar quotes then re-confirming that really they want to move. It seems in our area that at the start 14k was a lot of money but quite a few newly and early retired people had the cash. Although it's less than half now - people are so worried about job security that to spend 6-7k now is equivalent to 14k 3 years ago and our customers seem to be able to just about scrape that sort of money together but worry that they will need it to live on if the job goes.
For what it's worth I have a post grad in Marketing and quite a lot of marketing advice from when I set up and ran an advice centre. The big no's in terms of marketing are:
TV
Radio
Fliers through the door - hand delivered or Royal Mail (unless you do letters, 3 times consecutively over 6 weeks followed up by canvassers and with LA logos)
Any type of press advertising or advertorial
What appears to work but is getting harder: events through the Summer where people can meet you, website, social media (although it's a long haul) and networking.
We decided to work on lower margins but not to just cover costs it's going to be harder to increase prices later. Don't know if it's the right strategy .....
We need sun, an improved economy and E rating for rural properties!!
