New Business starting problems?

I usually come up with some good ideas for business but never have the money to invest in them... wait I think everyone has that problem.... I am actually doing some handyman work right now... I have some work I am doing for a local store... installing some light outside to light up the front of the store... and a side alley... (bad area) I acctually have had several people ask me to look at their electrical in the home but I am really not licened to do the electrical witch could probobly turn out bad for business.. but everyone that has asked me in front of the store(busy store) I have given a business card to and explained the situation... and offered other services... Heres a question I'v never asked... how do you get certified to minor electrical work (lights, additional outlets or repairing outlets that are faulty)

[Steve]

How to get lawn care customers - Vol 2

I usually come up with some good ideas for business but never have the money to invest in them... wait I think everyone has that problem.... If money wasn't an option, what would you do? Have you ever thought about installing landscape lighting? Maybe that could be done without a license or maybe you could install it and have an electrician look it over. Heres a question I'v never asked... how do you get certified to minor electrical work (lights, additional outlets or repairing outlets that are faulty) I don't know. Do you have any friends in the area that are electricians? Maybe they could shed some light on that?

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Unfortuanly electrical is a hard thing to get into in my opion and I'd rather not have to deal with licenseing and other issues ....

Usually to my knowledge you have to work for another electrician then you take test and get licensed and I kind of think I'd like lawn care better... less "opps" factor... tomorrow I am working back at the store... I'd like to try and make up a sign that I can leave at the job site where I am doing Handy man work and see if I get a response out of it... something to give people a number to call and see if it helps any....

I feel sorry for you, it's come pretty easy for me just by advertising on the internet...I made flyers but have never actually handed any out.

I guess it depends on the type of people around you. I live in a province that has the highest rate of internet use in Canada, which has one of the highest rates of internet use in the world (and the highest rate of high speed internet connections in the entire world)...so internet marketing seems to be the way to go. I have a slow week this week, because I didn't get many calls, but they always seem to come in waves. My luck has come from craigslist and Google Adwords, which is what I would suggest...but that's about all I can think of.

[Steve]

My luck has come from craigslist and Google Adwords, which is what I would suggest.

Dave, I think this came up in the past, but what would you suggest other lawn care business owners use in their ad words?

Has anyone ever tried mailing postcards out to a list of customers...


how has it worked out and what was the general cost per 100??

Originally Posted by Steve

Dave, I think this came up in the past, but what would you suggest other lawn care business owners use in their ad words?

Use a wide range of keywords when setting it up...I don't actually manage our adwords account, so I don't really know how it works. But this year, we added a much wider range of keywords and have been generating more hits from that. For example, instead of just "lawn mowing" or "lawn care", add "grass cutting" "grass mowing" and other combinations, to try and anticipate what people would be searching for. 40% of the population in Vancouver are immigrants, many of whom speak poor English, so we had a brainstorming session to try and come up with things that Asians/Indians would search for when looking for someone to cut their lawn...that was our creative idea, but it doesn't seem to have generated much business, since we still only have one Asian customer.

I have had experience with AD words... within another business I worked with... my experience with adword is... Its useful to an extent to get traffic to your web site however it can get very exspensive... their are better alternatives to adwords... Its known as SEO

From the research I'v done in the past I'v seen search engine optimization give better results and for the most part it is free (free for money anyways It does get time consumeing)


In the past with another business I ran , I was spending month after month with adwords with negative results( negative meaning the money goes but no business comes)

Once I started shutting down the adwords and concentrating on Search engine Optimization I noticed more traffic going to my website and it just took time not money...

[Steve]

Sherman wrote me and sent the two files, let's see if these attachments work.

He said of the first file "Steve this is the last one i sent out, of the 5 week period, it did the best."

What do you all think?

Also Sherman, why did you design it in excel? Was it just easier for you to do that? Have you experimented with openoffice.org yet?

[Steve]

--> Here is a screen capture of one of them as well