Check a Trade

[forestboy1978]

I've been on checkatrade 3 years now and 95% of my business comes from it. 

 

It kinda pays out what you put in. If you try and back up your work with before and after images for reviews now and then it helps. 

 

I do before and afters of all my jobs to cover my ass. Nearly all of my reviews are backed by images. I'm a bit excessive though but people know they are real reviews. 

 

As a fencer I do very well out of it. 

 

The downside is you do get the odd person who tries to bend you over a barrel for the review. "Can you do this bit extra blah blah"

 

 

Edited January 27, 2018 by forestboy1978

[Benny360]

I'd save my money and going for some targeted leaflet drops, get the best quality you can and spend a bit of time on it

[Nathanzac]

Thanks for the advice guys

[inthewoods]

I looked into it last summer after seeing the stickers plastered all over the tinkers trucks, did a search & not one registered locally. Asked one (I know) about it, said he got the stickers off ebay! 

[Acer Forestry]

On 27/01/2018 at 11:01, john p said:

Pound for pound the parish magazine is easily the best advertising £100 a year and must bring in 8/9000 a year. ( I really must sit down and work it all out one day!)

Wish i could report the same? Months of advertising in several parish mags and not a single response. Facebook is free, I've had loads more work from there

[Mark Bolam]

A very good website is the way forward these days.

As a matter of fact I know a very IT-savvy bloke who does them who knows the arb game inside out, he was a freelance climber of some note for over 20 years.

That means you’ll get a website designed by someone who knows what the crack is, rather than a fat bloke with soft hands and a massive watch.

 

Although he will certainly end up like that.

 

PM me for details.

[benedmonds]

On ‎1‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 11:01, john p said:

Pound for pound the parish magazine is easily the best advertising £100 a year and must bring in 8/9000 a year. ( I really must sit down and work it all out one day!)

Ditch the checkatrade and find another local mag.. You should have an extra £3-£4k in work and £600 in your pocket.. Checkatrade sound like poor value..  It really annoys me when folk selling advertising tell me "£500 is only one job.". or  "you only need a few jobs for it to pay for itself..."  

 

I really hate advertising. Run by crooks, I have been at the end of more then a few scams... Even the legitimate companies  have no real idea if it's good value or a waste of time.  Its an endless black hole, especially the internet stuff where folk take your money, promise to do amazing things and then often do nothing... IME..

[benedmonds]

1 minute ago, benedmonds said:

Ditch the checkatrade and find another local mag.. You should have an extra £3-£4k in work and £600 in your pocket.. Checkatrade sound like poor value..  It really annoys me when folk selling advertising tell me "£500 is only one job.". or  "you only need a few jobs for it to pay for itself..."  

 

I really hate advertising. Run by crooks, I have been at the end of more then a few scams... Even the legitimate companies  have no real idea if it's good value or a waste of time.  Its an endless black hole, especially the internet stuff where folk take your money, promise to do amazing things and then often do nothing... 

 

[Mark Bolam]

7 minutes ago, benedmonds said:

Ditch the checkatrade and find another local mag.. You should have an extra £3-£4k in work and £600 in your pocket.. Checkatrade sound like poor value..  It really annoys me when folk selling advertising tell me "£500 is only one job.". or  "you only need a few jobs for it to pay for itself..."  

 

I really hate advertising. Run by crooks, I have been at the end of more then a few scams... Even the legitimate companies  have no real idea if it's good value or a waste of time.  Its an endless black hole, especially the internet stuff where folk take your money, promise to do amazing things and then often do nothing... IME..

There’s a lot of truth in that Ben.

It may be dependent on area a bit, but down here I see a lot of the mobile tarmac boys using it, which speaks volumes to me.

As Mick alluded to earlier though, they’ve got to be better than Yell.

My bitter relationship with them ended years ago when they threatened to take me to court for £1500 and I called their bluff. Wish we’d gone, looking back, they would have been ordered to pay me money.

[benedmonds]

2 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

There’s a lot of truth in that Ben.

It may be dependent on area a bit, but down here I see a lot of the mobile tarmac boys using it, which speaks volumes to me.

As Mick alluded to earlier though, they’ve got to be better than Yell.

My bitter relationship with them ended years ago when they threatened to take me to court for £1500 and I called their bluff. Wish we’d gone, looking back, they would have been ordered to pay me money.

I have ignored 2 calls from our nice lady at yell last week, I just can't face the hard sell.  They sit you down and talk at you and show graphs, fiddle with calculators tell you about the number of hits on their web site etc etc... .  Being on the boarder of 3 books it always cost us a fortune but it is coming down each year..  We still have a presence, no idea if its worth it ...

 

Its the internet guys now who are the real sharks. Twice I have been duped... I was promised the world from this one firm and we were paying £500 a month so expected a fair bit.. To be fair I think they did a lot at the start, building the web site and creating some links but after a year or so all we were getting was a sheet showing us how we ranked in google. I asked them to explain what they were doing each month for us and they couldn't/wouldn't. When I said we no longer wanted there services they threatened to shut down our web site, and would post me the files on a DVD...  Luckily I owned the domain so they couldn't in the end but I found NO difference in calls after we dropped them..

 

I need to find a web guru who I can trust...  Any recommendations..?