If You Had £300 or £3,000 for Marketing, How would you spend it?

[dominexsus]

your selling a service rather than a product. it's still selling eithier way.

so from your reply i take it you would do what gambit would do to grow hes computer repair business?

he reply was = Sales comes before marketing. Also, it is difficult to get much of a return on marketing with a small budget. Depending on your media of choice, 3k might not go far.

I would hire a sales person that is 50/50 salary/commission. I would ask them to bring an existing book of business or a significant rolodex of local business contacts. Good sales prospects are from synergistic (but not competing) companies. So if you're an IT company, find people that previously sold phone systems, copier systems, etc.

Give the new sales person 90 days to pay for themselves. If they can't sell enough project work, break/fix or Managed Services in 90 days, then cut them loose.

It will cost more than 3k to get started, but the long-term ROI is much, much greater with sales than marketing - especially if you don't have anyone now. And with a little planning and goal setting, you can make the first sales person pay for the next sales person.

When the sales team is out of leads, then you can look at marketing. For most IT service companies, however, the personal sales relationship brings in more business than marketing email, GYM ads, postcards, etc. To create these relationships costs a lot more money than 3k, so make sure the sales person creates enough income for a 'individual marketing' budget (e.g. lunch with prospects, guerilla marketing efforts, etc.)

OK this must be the one marketing way of groving computer repair business i never knew. thanx for the advice anyway

 

[BostonGeek1]

so from your reply i take it you would do what gambit would do to grow hes computer repair business?

he reply was = Sales comes before marketing. Also, it is difficult to get much of a return on marketing with a small budget. Depending on your media of choice, 3k might not go far.

I would hire a sales person that is 50/50 salary/commission. I would ask them to bring an existing book of business or a significant rolodex of local business contacts. Good sales prospects are from synergistic (but not competing) companies. So if you're an IT company, find people that previously sold phone systems, copier systems, etc.

Give the new sales person 90 days to pay for themselves. If they can't sell enough project work, break/fix or Managed Services in 90 days, then cut them loose.

It will cost more than 3k to get started, but the long-term ROI is much, much greater with sales than marketing - especially if you don't have anyone now. And with a little planning and goal setting, you can make the first sales person pay for the next sales person.

When the sales team is out of leads, then you can look at marketing. For most IT service companies, however, the personal sales relationship brings in more business than marketing email, GYM ads, postcards, etc. To create these relationships costs a lot more money than 3k, so make sure the sales person creates enough income for a 'individual marketing' budget (e.g. lunch with prospects, guerilla marketing efforts, etc.)

OK this must be the one marketing way of groving computer repair business i never knew. thanx for the advice anyway

That's so general/ambiguous and unrealistic for him to achieve. YOu really think there are people walking around with lists of business contacts just dying to figure out your business model so they can sell managed services. Do you really think he knows how to design and setup a managed services offering? There are many smart people that are already established that struggle with converting EXISTING clients to this model. You sound like managed services is this gold mine of free money - its VERY HARD to implement. Telling a newbie to go out and find a salesman to sell managed services for him is ludicrous.

That advice may work 2 years from now when he's got a good website, good knowledge of the market, some clients with steady recurring revenue, etc.

Sometimes I feel like the advice people give here is intentionally designed to make newbies fail. Follow my advice and you'll be charging $80-$100/hour comfortably within a year with 10-20 repeat customers making $1500-$2500/week. Then you can look around and decide what you wanna do.

 

[dominexsus]

That's so general/ambiguous and unrealistic for him to achieve. YOu really think there are people walking around with lists of business contacts just dying to figure out your business model so they can sell managed services. Do you really think he knows how to design and setup a managed services offering? There are many smart people that are already established that struggle with converting EXISTING clients to this model. You sound like managed services is this gold mine of free money - its VERY HARD to implement. Telling a newbie to go out and find a salesman to sell managed services for him is ludicrous.

That advice may work 2 years from now when he's got a good website, good knowledge of the market, some clients with steady recurring revenue, etc.

Sometimes I feel like the advice people give here is intentionally designed to make newbies fail. Follow my advice and you'll be charging $80-$100/hour comfortably within a year with 10-20 repeat customers making $1500-$2500/week. Then you can look around and decide what you wanna do.

I agree with what you are saying and I don't believe he's idea would be easy to establish but I respect he's idea since its very unique marketing way of investing for Computer repair business

 

[dominexsus]

$500 on a good site on elance
$1000 on local optimization so it ranks in the top 10 in my city
$100 on good business cards with nothing on the back
$300 on the microsoft action pack subscription
$500 on graphic design for pamphlets and business cards that briefly outline your services to businesses, that you can email to them and give out.

this is very vice way of investing but i still didnt get answer for: why would you spend $300 on the microsoft action pack subscription?

 

[dominexsus]

so far i have done 40000 in small area two ice but i dont think it worked the way i acpected. now i am going to do 40000 more but wider area once this time.

note i am only doing fliers for advertising purposes. i dont think i can make money on it.

 

[BostonGeek1]

You do realize that advertising is supposed to make you money right?

I just think you should try to land 4-5 bigger clients. They'll keep you afloat and you'll learn how to handle larger networks and larger clients with more complex corporate structures. Get 4-5 business with 25-50 employees and hire a helper. Thats the fastest way to 6 figures.

 

[dominexsus]

You do realize that advertising is supposed to make you money right?

I just think you should try to land 4-5 bigger clients. They'll keep you afloat and you'll learn how to handle larger networks and larger clients with more complex corporate structures. Get 4-5 business with 25-50 employees and hire a helper. Thats the fastest way to 6 figures.

how can i do that? could it be done easly? specialy without marketing? if there is a way i want to try what ever it takes. i was trying to get bigger clients true yell.com and yellow pages. is this waste of money? thanx for your reply up front

 

[jay c]

I have 2 clients with 25+ employees and one of them has a couple of full time IT staffers. They bring in $400-$600 per month, which is a long way from a 6-figure income, but it's not bad either. If I had 10 more like them...

I got both of those accounts through personal networking. The operations manager for one client is a fellow member of a local social organization (think Lion's Club, Knights of Columbus, Rotary Club, etc.). The IT manager of the other is a fellow member of a local IT user group that meets for lunch once a month. I spend about $45/month with the club and also get lots of beer and live music in return. I spend about $20/month for lunch and a few hours volunteering with the IT group.

Here's my $500 breakdown:

$80 Pair of magnetic signs for my car
$300 1000 professional looking brochures to give to prospective customers
$30 Domain name registration
$15 One month web hosting
$75 Social/professional networking

My $5000 breakdown:

$500 Everything above
$1200 Yellow pages ad
$100 Professional (not free) business cards
$1000 Radio advertising during the morning weather and most popular talk shows
$???? Billboard sign on most heavily trafficked highway
$??? Billboard signs on the home-run fence of the local high school's ball field
$180 Chamber of Commerce membership
$???? ?????

I'm intrigued by the idea of commissioning a sales person. Not sure if it would work in my small town environment, though.

 

[JosephLeo]

I have 2 clients with 25+ employees and one of them has a couple of full time IT staffers. They bring in $400-$600 per month, which is a long way from a 6-figure income, but it's not bad either. If I had 10 more like them...

I got both of those accounts through personal networking. The operations manager for one client is a fellow member of a local social organization (think Lion's Club, Knights of Columbus, Rotary Club, etc.). The IT manager of the other is a fellow member of a local IT user group that meets for lunch once a month. I spend about $45/month with the club and also get lots of beer and live music in return. I spend about $20/month for lunch and a few hours volunteering with the IT group.

Here's my $500 breakdown:

$80 Pair of magnetic signs for my car
$300 1000 professional looking brochures to give to prospective customers
$30 Domain name registration
$15 One month web hosting
$75 Social/professional networking

My $5000 breakdown:

$500 Everything above
$1200 Yellow pages ad
$100 Professional (not free) business cards
$1000 Radio advertising during the morning weather and most popular talk shows
$???? Billboard sign on most heavily trafficked highway
$??? Billboard signs on the home-run fence of the local high school's ball field
$180 Chamber of Commerce membership
$???? ?????

I'm intrigued by the idea of commissioning a sales person. Not sure if it would work in my small town environment, though.

Hate to break it to you, but if you live in a populated town then you probably can't even afford 1 billboard with your entire $5,000 budget.

 

[jay c]

I live in a small town (~15k), but you might still be right. $5000 for marketing is way more than I have available, so I haven't bothered to check.