Setting up a referral based business (and some advertising hints)

Today has been busy busy busy on the techie side for me. Where am I getting all this business you may ask? Advertising? News Paper? Radio? TV? None of the above! I get all my business through word of mouth.

As a new tech, I used to run lots of advertising thinking it would help boost my business. This is true it did but the types of people I was working for were not all that great. When working in any service based industry, there are two types of people, those who respond to advertising and those who respond to referral based business. You would much rather be dealing with the latter trust me.

How do you go about getting referral based business started?? Its simple, you start talking about what ever your business specialty is to everyone you know. After a few times of doing this, you will find someone that needs this thing your doing. If not, I’m sorry but your in a tough business and may want to think about changing...

So now that you have this new client that needs work done, be nice to him, give him that extra 5 minutes of your time that will make him remember you the next time someone he knows says hey I need a computer tech. After you have completed the job, kindly ask them if they could hand out a couple of your business cards or flyers to a few people.

That’s the whole system in a nutshell. Doesn't cost you a dime and you get higher level of clientele out of it then giving all your hard earned money to the yellow pages (the worst advertisers I have ever used). If you simply feel like this is not happening fast enough for you then here is a few advertising tips I have learned.

1) Don’t sign any long term contracts until you know for a fact your add is going to work. Yellow pages minimum contract is a year and please believe me its not worth it.

2) Don’t try and get too complicated on your adds. Just leave it at "Computer Guy for Hire" rather then some description of a service that you do. The more general you are the more responses your likely to get

3) If your add isn't working, pull it. Don't waist valuable resources on advertising that doesn't work. If you run an add and don't get at least one response in the first 7 days, pull it, its not going to work over the long term. This rule doesn't apply to high profit margin items that are in low demand.

4) Customers are like gold, remember your not trying to generate sales, your trying to gain new customers. Focus on what you can do to help the customer and don't worry about how many sales your generating. You have to remember that you will not make any money on customers gained through advertising until the SECOND time they call you back.

5) Soon enough you will get too busy. Don't run adds just because your scared of losing your business. Remember that the ultimate goal is to be running a referral business. After you get a small client base going, you should be able to generate your own business with out the help of advertising. This will allow you to offer lower prices to your customers and have more time to spend with them.

Take this advice with a grain of salt, its basically what I have learned from running my own business for 5 years. I didn't have anyone to tell me this stuff and didn't figure it out until I had been in business for 2 years. Now you know!

Jake