One of the real problems with
running a successful business is the fact there's always
someone looking to make money off our success. The case in
point are advertising agencies and crappy web directories.
Every week I get loads of sales staff using up my valuable
time asking if I'd like to advertise in this directory, or
there's time running out we can offer you an exclusive
deal. They're all rubbish! But if our details are on their
site then there's a possibility people will find their web
directory through our details.
The only advertising our company does is through this
website alone. If our details pop else where it's because
they copied them from our site or someone recommended us.
This little website which took all of 5 minutes to design
on an iMac; boy what a beautiful machine it is too! And we
get close to 300 visits per day, most are other tradesmen
which is always nice - but some are these idiots who try to
sell me SEO or SEM services. Why do I need those? They
found me on the very same search engine that they want me
to rank higher on, you can only get so high. Most of the
time this site is 1st or 2nd, so what would I be paying
for? Muppets all of them!
You see I pride myself on being able regenerate new
business from referrals and repeat business from existing
customers, that's how I like to do business and it proves
we do a great job to be asked back time after time.
The web directories are a joke, they buy a script fill the
thing with a few sample listings and then pay someone
bottom dollar to annoy the life out people who are trying
earn a wage. With spiel like "Hi there I'm joe bloggs and
I've been selected to be your account manager for...". More
like "I gonna tell you a load of lies to make you think
that we're going to generate leads for you and you're going
to make loads of money" - Nothing but a load of garbage!
Hey, if I ever need a web directory for tradesmen then I'll
write it, like I wrote this site and many others. In fact
own the domain names tradesmen-register and
nottinghamtradesmen; forgot about those. I really must make
a site worth joining.
In my book the only advertising worth investing in is word
of mouth. And that's paid for with hard work and honesty,
you can't get much fairer than that.