Newly Started and waiting to grow.

[Iconic]

As mentioned in past threads I am the new owner of Iconic Computers Corporation, a onsite repair/service/consultant businesses that was formed by purchasing the customer list and phone number from another company that was changing its niche focus.

As of this point I have been in business for 2 1/2 months and all things considered, business is going well. At least I have not run a deficite as of yet. However like all people starting a business, I wonder if the profits could the higher then what they are, and what I may be doing to grow faster.

So lets get to the numbers.
First month I did a total of 28 service calls
Second month was a total of 15 service calls
Third month has seen 12 calls thus far

Monthly expenses consist of the usuals for gas/insurance/vehicle maintenance which is being covered by the fact I pay myself $0.50 per KM driven. This will be great once I start paying myself however since I am just starting up I have not been paying myself as of yet.
Other expenses consist of parts for jobs, invoices, business cards, local and toll-free phone number, remote call subscription with LogMeIn and the mailer I sent out in the first month to let all my customer base know of the company change (an expense I will not recoop, but necessary I think).

Expenses in marketing consist of:
*1 time snail-mailer sent out to 500 customers in my area to inform of company change and to offer package discounts like setup of wireless network including price of new wireless router or setup external backup including price of new external backup drive. (ineffective and was probably a waste of money considering printing was about $0.40 per letter and postage was $0.54 each)
*1 website at iconiccomputers.ca with hosting through GoDaddy. There is some work I need to do on that page to give it a relative level of SEO considering the only time it shows at the top of the Google search is if you search for my company name. Any other time it does not show in any favorable ranking.
*1/3 column ad in local yellowpages for two cities in my area (approx $350 per month)
*1/3 column ad in competitive yellowpages (canpages) in both cities (approx $135 per month)
*Free bi-daily ad on Kijiji.ca website
*Free bi-daily ad on craingslist.ca website
*Google adwords account set at $4.00 per day max amount with 416 adwords each at $1.86 per click. Sadly to bid in the ideal places on some keywords I may have to increase my bid to $4.25 on some adwords. I am getting clicks but no calls since the adwords that are showing as clicked are general searches for things like "Linksys" or "Hard Drive", not the adwords like "computer repair". (this has worked out to about $20 a week recently)
Other then that the only other marketing has been word of mouth by friends/family and those customers I have seen in the last couple months.

I am frightened that my success up to this point is going to flat-line very soon considering the yellowpages ad that the previous company had in one of the two cities I am servicing will be expired in December when the new phone books come out. Considering they printed a 1/6 page ad and I have a 1/3 column ad printing instead. Then again they did not do any advertising in the other city yellowpages and I have a 1/3 column ad in that one.

I joined ACRBO formerly NACRBO in the hopes to increase exposure and credibility but I see I am the only one in my province with them so far and as such the Organization is not that well known out here. I am working to get a few partnerships setup this month with Microsoft, ESET, SuperAntiSpyware, AVG and eventualy Apple. I also need to get my certifications that I have not put the money into like my A+ which I took the course in school, but could not afford to pay to take the test at that time.

So basically I am searching all over Technibble and other sites for tips/tricks/suggestions/criticisms of my progress so far. I know most do not want to see another competitor but I am certain most of the active business owners on technibble are not in my region.

So what do you all think, what can I do? Am I going forward properly? Did I miss something? Is there something I can be doing more?

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[BostonGeek1]

I would drop the adwords until you really know what you're doing. Without Google Analytics you won't know the keywords you need, and people are certainly not going to tell you what they are having spent thousands finding them .

I would focus heavily on free means to generate exposure and hold on to every customer like a glove. Things like google local/yahoo local/ yelp/citysearch/insiderpages. Register with 411. Make sure you have a GREAT WEBSITE. Not a GOOD WEBSITE, or an OK WEBSITE. GET A FANTASTIC WEBSITE. Like this:

http://www.pcexpress.gr/en/

That guy has an AWESOME website. He probably gets lots of business.


Get all the free listings you can get your hands on. Try a few craigslist customers. The point right now is to keep your costs low and to fill your day with as much billable time as possible. Once you can bill 4 hours a day steadily get back to us.

The point is the bar has been set extremely high, and you need to hop to it and be lean and mean .

 

[Iconic]

great info. I figured I was a little premature in starting with the google adwords at this point. I had already started with some free advertising but it looks like I missed quite a few sites I could post on.

As for my website I know it sucks. I have limited html abilities and wanted to get something up as soon as possible. It needs a lot of work and by no means is complete or ever will be. That is a great site as a comparison you suggested.

Thanks again for the info.

 

[bagellad]

1. Might want to mention where you are located on your ad, i spent a good minute or so trying to find out where you were from. Customers wont take that long

2. You probably should personally call and introduce yourself to the new customers on the list. If you have the confidence.

 

[Iconic]

I am changing a little bit of the content tomorrow to show the city a little more clearly. As for introductions, they were done in my mailer and the fact all the customers already know me since I worked for the original company for 2 1/2 years before the deal was struck.

 

[Reviver]

Don't wait to grow, know you are growing.

"Newly started business and growing"

 

[JosephLeo]

A business should be like a tree. If it's not growing constantly then it's dead or fully matured, and when finally matured it's time to have some offspring and repeat the cycle. Business isn't about doing what you love- it isn't about "bringing the highest quality". In the long run your doing it for one reason and only one reason...money.

I know that sounds "greedy" but that's really what it is about. Just put a thought to it. No one wants to be "second best" and once you are in fact the absolute best you will still want to improve and expand.

Anyway- don't wait to grow, why wait tomorrow for something when you can do it today? That's a very famous saying and it applies to almost all things in life.

 

[Iconic]

Thanks for the input. I probably should have choose my words a little better in the title I know. I am not waiting for it to grow considering I do actively market my business on a daily basis either in person with new potential customers or online.

 

[Iconic]

So here is what I have done so far from your input.

I have altered my Google Adwords campaign by minimizing my daily budget and CPC to way below the amounts I know are needed to get on the first page. This way I still have the account for reference back to in later stages but it is not taking so much out of my marketing budget if anything at all.

Second I input the Google Analytics code into each of my html pages and will be watching the reports in order to get a better idea of the keywords to be using in both my webpage coding and the adwords campaign.

Third I corrected the fact I did not have a meta description or keywords list coded on my site. Hopefully with the changes I made there I can increase my pagerank just a little until I can consider a complete revamp of my page all together.

Next I will be considering were to list any and all product partnerships I am working to obtain along with certifications that will be coming down the road. Also I am looking for all free classifieds sites I can find in order to get similar ads posted like I already do for craigslist and Kijiji.ca

Thanks again to all that have helped and I am always looking for any other advise or criticisms people might have.

 

[Iconic]

Well I finished the required single course on Microsoft Product Partner site in order to qualify to purchase the Microsoft Action Pack. Now all I have to do is wait for the Microsoft website to update and recognize I passed the minimum requirements.

Also I have done some searching and as of this point I have free ads listed on the below sites:
craigslist.ca
kijiji.ca
Google local - waiting for verification to go through
Yahoo classifieds
yelp.ca
411.com
onforce
classifiededmonton.com
salesspider.com
classifiedsalberta.com
sundayclassifieds.com
eclassifieds4u.com

The other sites that were mentioned like citysearch appear to be just for US companies and do not support Canadian listings.

 

[Iconic]

I had a rep from the local Welcome Wagon contact me asking if I wanted to advertise through them by providing a "small gift" to be placed in the welcome wagon basket along with contact info for my company.

Has anyone tried this method of advertising. Can anyone see a downside other then finding some promotional item to have printed with a company logo on it?

 

[Iconic]

Is there anything else that anyone could suggest as a next step or something I can add to my daily marketing tasks. Right now I am checking over every free classifieds site I can get my hands on for my area, making sure that up to date postings are entered for those sites that bump older ones down the list and new ones get posted.

I have also just signed the paperwork and credit card to join the local Chamber of Commerce for my area. I was going to join the local BNI chapter but since I still have a day job I think I will hold off. Attendance to BNI weekly meetings are mandatory and typically held at times when I should be at my day job.

I feel as if I should be doing something more on a daily basis, any further suggestions?