CheckaTrade | MyBuilder | RatedPeople | TrustaTrader etc - Who's with what and why?

Dan

Dan

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CheckaTrade | MyBuilder | RatedPeople | TrustaTrader etc - Who's with what and why?

Thought I'd start a poll off to see if we can see who's with what type of rate-my-builder website, if at all. And which ones seem to work, and if they do, why etc.

I've also put some other options there to see where people are spending their time and money on marketing right now, should they not be spending it with the big few common names.

Current options are:-
My personal opinion on this, after reading so many threads on all our forums, is that they're a middle-man where one isn't needed. People who need jobs doing on their homes could search Google before they came about, and they'd find tradespeoples own websites. And it all worked fine. The full amount of money that the tradesperson charged went to their business. And it wouldn't cost much to get a website online and running well.

Now though, there's an annual charge, or a percentage of the job, going to a company that's spending millions on advertising and has directors driving around in expensive cars, salesmen on commission selling to existing customers and new ones, trying to get more listing features or whatever.

BBC covered a couple of them here: Fear over trusted trade website profiles - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-42783279

You can get yourself a website using Wordpress, and update it yourself. Optimise it quite easy. Rank in Google naturally (no paying for ads), and get business coming in from it.

Or you can work on getting your listing with one of these companies up. Some of them encourage you to email your existing customers. Which obviously means there's no assurances the feedback actually comes from genuine customers then, you just get 20 free gmail accounts and send yourself the link to leave 10 star feedback so that when people search the website, your listing looks awesome and your feedback is spot on. Not seen a single listing ever with bad feedback on any of them.

That all said, I've not got a listing with a single one of them.

So I thought I'd run a poll, and have this handy thread for others to read and contribute to ongoing.

Feel free to discuss anything at all, pricing, experience, feedback, customers, type of work coming from them, whatever.

Please be constructive should you have criticism.

If a company you're with isn't in the poll, let me know, and I'll add it.

Please feel free to vote on as many of the options as you use yourself for your marketing.

CheckaTrade | MyBuilder | RatedPeople | TrustaTrader etc - Who's with what and why?
 
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I have only paid £40 for advertising of any kind in nearly 8 years of self employment, that was for a box of 5000 leaflets of which I pushed out about a fifth.

I tried a free trial with ratedpeople ages ago and found it to be an awful experience. They did nothing to check I was qualified or insured, and i was frequently quoting against builders for electrical work. The quality of leads was poor and the frequency sporadic. When I took them to task about their lack of quality checks they couldn't care less and said it was up to the customer to carry out due diligence.

Another problem with these sites, apart from the cost to the trader which then increases cost to the customer, are the ratings systems. they often don't let you leave poor reviews and block them in favour of putting you back in touch with the trader to sort things out, even if you don't want that. This can lead to poor traders hiding behind ratings systems which can provide the opposite of what these sites offer.

I do think that Freeindex.com has worked well for me. It's free for the basic listing and lets you build a profile with pictures of previous work and collect ratings. You feature higher up the listings based on reviews, all of which are verified.
 
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I was introduced to BNI (Business Networking International) when I set out as a sole trader almost 12years ago and I continued to be a member for over 10years before I decided to leave.

It does provide excellent word of mouth business generation, as well as provide you with direct access to a number of business owners in the area you live or work who can help you and or your business.
Some will say it costs too much and when you factor in your weekly meeting fee it cost me around £900 to £1,100 per year when I was a basic member, although if you take a Leadership Team role, your membership fees are frozen for the time you occupy one of those roles, so I only paid my membership for 7 out of the 10 years as I did three stints of a year at a time in a Leadership Team role, saving me from £500 to £650 per year.

It brought in anywhere up to 85% of my business in any one year when looking at jobs I got from the room and subsequent/related jobs I got as a result of doing the initial job. I left over a year ago and this financial year (since the start of April) I can still trace over 35% of my invoiced work directly back to BNI introductions and repeat jobs/recommendations from jobs I did that were from BNI introductions, i.e. jobs I wouldn't have done if I wasn't in BNI.

I'm not a managerial type, delegation is not something I am any good at in any shape or form, I'm too fussy about how work is done, the only other sparks I work with is the one I did my apprenticeship under and one other who was in BNI with me who I worked for a couple of times. If I was managerial then I could have continued in BNI and taken on some staff, but like I say, I'm fussy and find it difficult to delegate, so I decided it was better for me to leave BNI rather than expand my business. If I can't keep a business going after 10years of developing new customers, then I shouldn't be in the business in the first place.

I have a very basic website, it worked ok 8years ago when it was new after I got a web design company to re-do my DIY website. But, I neglected it, put no money aside for it and subsequently all it ended up doing was generating spam emails from the contact form which had no verification to stop automated web bots from spamming me through it. The website has been secured so no more spam and will be upgraded soon, so I expect to get more genuine leads from that, but the most it generated was around 10% - 15% of my revenue in it's early years, I hope the revamped site will do equally as well, if not better once I can link it in to my Facebook page.

Yell was pretty useless and I think it only ever generated 1 or 2 enquiries over the first 5years, subsequently (for the last 7years) I only ever get calls from people purporting to be from Yell wanting to verify my details and that I'm the owner of the business and trying to sell me better visibility, which I've never done, so have only ever been listed as a simple listing as a result.

I've recently started, very basically, to use Facebook, so a little early to tell how well that will work over time. But, I've had a couple of jobs from it in the couple of months I've had a basic FB presence.

I've never felt the need to join, MyBuilder, CheckaTrade, RatedPeople, TrustaTrader, WhichTrustedTraders, MyJobQuote, or any of the other similar sites aiming to help trades get more business. I much prefer word of mouth, plus as a sole trader it would take up too much of my valuable time administering my profile on these sorts of sites.

Paying to advertise on Google, be it ADs or Pay Per Click style options, has never appealed to me, costs can spiral if you're not careful, or you can spend loads on the wrong campaign and get nothing back, or at least that's what I've all to often heard back from others who have tried it. or do still use them.

Word of mouth is far more appealing, which is why I joined BNI after I went to a local meeting. The meeting starts early and wraps up before 9am so you only have a slightly late start on the morning you go. I'd recommend visiting your local BNI group, providing there isn't already an electrician in your local group. You can visit twice before you need to decide on whether you want to join and it really is worth going twice, because if its an established group with 20 or more members, it can be a lot to take in during a single visit.
BNI more than paid for itself with the work I got from it every year (it still is some 14months after I left) even though I'm no longer a member. Don't be put off by rumours you may have heard about BNI being a cult, requiring too much from it's members, or only working for certain business types. Yes, it required commitment, but if you use it as part of your business and as a tool to develop you and your business, it can be very worthwhile. Not only can you get a lot from it, in terms of personal development, a trusted circle of businesses that can help your business, but it can also benefit your business too by generating a seriously good amount of business.
If you do go, remember, you're not joining BNI as such, what you are doing is joining the other people and businesses that are already members in your local group.

Hope the long post isn't too waffly, but hopefully it may help someone else.
 
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Dan said:
You can fill in a form with Google and get them to remove any personal details from their listings. And then the page you say you want taken out of Google rankings will not be shown for the particular personal detail you were being shown for (i.e. your name).

That hits the website where it hurts then, it's rankings. That's the way I'd go about it.
Click to expand...

Cheers mate, I will try that
 
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Paul_Williams said:
I was introduced to BNI (Business Networking International) when I set out as a sole trader almost 12years ago and I continued to be a member for over 10years before I decided to leave.

It does provide excellent word of mouth business generation, as well as provide you with direct access to a number of business owners in the area you live or work who can help you and or your business.
Some will say it costs too much and when you factor in your weekly meeting fee it cost me around £900 to £1,100 per year when I was a basic member, although if you take a Leadership Team role, your membership fees are frozen for the time you occupy one of those roles, so I only paid my membership for 7 out of the 10 years as I did three stints of a year at a time in a Leadership Team role, saving me from £500 to £650 per year.

It brought in anywhere up to 85% of my business in any one year when looking at jobs I got from the room and subsequent/related jobs I got as a result of doing the initial job. I left over a year ago and this financial year (since the start of April) I can still trace over 35% of my invoiced work directly back to BNI introductions and repeat jobs/recommendations from jobs I did that were from BNI introductions, i.e. jobs I wouldn't have done if I wasn't in BNI.

I'm not a managerial type, delegation is not something I am any good at in any shape or form, I'm too fussy about how work is done, the only other sparks I work with is the one I did my apprenticeship under and one other who was in BNI with me who I worked for a couple of times. If I was managerial then I could have continued in BNI and taken on some staff, but like I say, I'm fussy and find it difficult to delegate, so I decided it was better for me to leave BNI rather than expand my business. If I can't keep a business going after 10years of developing new customers, then I shouldn't be in the business in the first place.

I have a very basic website, it worked ok 8years ago when it was new after I got a web design company to re-do my DIY website. But, I neglected it, put no money aside for it and subsequently all it ended up doing was generating spam emails from the contact form which had no verification to stop automated web bots from spamming me through it. The website has been secured so no more spam and will be upgraded soon, so I expect to get more genuine leads from that, but the most it generated was around 10% - 15% of my revenue in it's early years, I hope the revamped site will do equally as well, if not better once I can link it in to my Facebook page.

Yell was pretty useless and I think it only ever generated 1 or 2 enquiries over the first 5years, subsequently (for the last 7years) I only ever get calls from people purporting to be from Yell wanting to verify my details and that I'm the owner of the business and trying to sell me better visibility, which I've never done, so have only ever been listed as a simple listing as a result.

I've recently started, very basically, to use Facebook, so a little early to tell how well that will work over time. But, I've had a couple of jobs from it in the couple of months I've had a basic FB presence.

I've never felt the need to join, MyBuilder, CheckaTrade, RatedPeople, TrustaTrader, WhichTrustedTraders, MyJobQuote, or any of the other similar sites aiming to help trades get more business. I much prefer word of mouth, plus as a sole trader it would take up too much of my valuable time administering my profile on these sorts of sites.

Paying to advertise on Google, be it ADs or Pay Per Click style options, has never appealed to me, costs can spiral if you're not careful, or you can spend loads on the wrong campaign and get nothing back, or at least that's what I've all to often heard back from others who have tried it. or do still use them.

Word of mouth is far more appealing, which is why I joined BNI after I went to a local meeting. The meeting starts early and wraps up before 9am so you only have a slightly late start on the morning you go. I'd recommend visiting your local BNI group, providing there isn't already an electrician in your local group. You can visit twice before you need to decide on whether you want to join and it really is worth going twice, because if its an established group with 20 or more members, it can be a lot to take in during a single visit.
BNI more than paid for itself with the work I got from it every year (it still is some 14months after I left) even though I'm no longer a member. Don't be put off by rumours you may have heard about BNI being a cult, requiring too much from it's members, or only working for certain business types. Yes, it required commitment, but if you use it as part of your business and as a tool to develop you and your business, it can be very worthwhile. Not only can you get a lot from it, in terms of personal development, a trusted circle of businesses that can help your business, but it can also benefit your business too by generating a seriously good amount of business.
If you do go, remember, you're not joining BNI as such, what you are doing is joining the other people and businesses that are already members in your local group.

Hope the long post isn't too waffly, but hopefully it may help someone else.
Click to expand...
Brilliant post. Not too waffly at all. :)
 
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Dan said:
CheckaTrade | MyBuilder | RatedPeople | TrustaTrader etc - Who's with what and why?

Thought I'd start a poll off to see if we can see who's with what type of rate-my-builder website, if at all. And which ones seem to work, and if they do, why etc.

I've also put some other options there to see where people are spending their time and money on marketing right now, should they not be spending it with the big few common names.

Current options are:-
My personal opinion on this, after reading so many threads on all our forums, is that they're a middle-man where one isn't needed. People who need jobs doing on their homes could search Google before they came about, and they'd find tradespeoples own websites. And it all worked fine. The full amount of money that the tradesperson charged went to their business. And it wouldn't cost much to get a website online and running well.

Now though, there's an annual charge, or a percentage of the job, going to a company that's spending millions on advertising and has directors driving around in expensive cars, salesmen on commission selling to existing customers and new ones, trying to get more listing features or whatever.

You can get yourself a website using Wordpress, and update it yourself. Optimise it quite easy. Rank in Google naturally (no paying for ads), and get business coming in from it.

Or you can work on getting your listing with one of these companies up. Some of them encourage you to email your existing customers. Which obviously means there's no assurances the feedback actually comes from genuine customers then, you just get 20 free gmail accounts and send yourself the link to leave 10 star feedback so that when people search the website, your listing looks awesome and your feedback is spot on. Not seen a single listing ever with bad feedback on any of them.

That all said, I've not got a listing with a single one of them.

So I thought I'd run a poll, and have this handy thread for others to read and contribute to ongoing.

Feel free to discuss anything at all, pricing, experience, feedback, customers, type of work coming from them, whatever.

Please be constructive should you have criticism.

If a company you're with isn't in the poll, let me know, and I'll add it.

Please feel free to vote on as many of the options as you use yourself for your marketing.

CheckaTrade | MyBuilder | RatedPeople | TrustaTrader etc - Who's with what and why?
Click to expand...

None they are all crap
Bark is the only one that looks ok but you cant trust any reviews online these days or any tradesmen - the ones i have got in for quotes before i do the work myself is legion and every one is awful except for 2 out of 23 that is some bad percentage.

Its sad to say but its very hard to find any tradesman who does a 101% job these days
A site with genuine good tradesguys would be great

This sit from what i have gleaned has a superb number of really knowledgeable and helpful guys
Perhaps you should set one up yourself!
I personally have never employed a tradesman ever as my dad taught me plumbing buliding car mechanics etc etc etc but i know my neighbours would pay to have access to good tradesmen as virtually 100% of them have had bad experiences

They recently had a hamilton accie in who claimed he was plumbing and electirican and fitted a simple led pir outside light to existing wiring and charged £260 for less than an hours work - the light then failed after less than 2 weeks and yip he has not come back so they had to spend more money on another guy who came and fitted another light - no idea how long it will last either as it looks cheap chinese pish as well!
 
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Never needed to use any of the listed routes to market. I am on NextDoor, but only for general village things.
Always just relied on a cheap advert in the Village magazine and word of mouth. I don't want to line someone else's pocket in a race to the lowest price.
 
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Never used any of them to be honest so I cant vote.
All my work comes from word of mouth and contacts I've built up over the last 20 years, I only do Industrial and commercial and I think all the above are geared towards domestic trades.
 
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My builder.....complete con you can’t even verify the jobs you are bidding for exist and even if you manage to win the bidding there’s no assurances the customer will even talk to you, some very bad tradesmen on there as well

Trust a trader.....couldn’t organise ---- up in a brewery....they approached me with an offer of free membership, so I thought why not, first job comes through contact with customer made etc and then they block me from talking to the customer because they havnt run any checks, why let me speak and arrange things with a customer and then stop me? Waited two weeks and nothing from them.......never agian

Check a trade....I can’t lie I’ve had nothing but good experience with them, I have recently gone back on there after leaving for no other reason than I had work booked up for 6 months in advance so didn’t see the point in paying £140 when I couldn’t take anymore work, even now after a months free trial I can’t keep up with it, doing multiple trades helps a lot as I can turn up for one small job and end up quoting for a lot more..

Nextdoor neighbour app is another one I pick up bits and pieces off of but being local I end doing the little jobs off there for free or a cup of tea for an oldun when I can squeeze it in...

Use a free webpage on face book which seems to work really well and I’m told I have instagram and twitter accounts that my daughters are running for me....

I would like a more professional web site but not sure I need it as I have no intention of being to big and drowning in stress....life’s to short ?
 
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sln8458 said:
I am about to contact the latest electrician, found via MyBuilder, for the next job, we'll see.
All the tradesmen I have used via MyBuilder have all been excellent.

SteveN
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Thats the problem with all this. Word of mouth is great, if someone is talking to you; perhaps the next best thing is to go blind into one of these web sites, with the advantages & pitfalls previously mentioned. What did we do for these instances, before the world wide web!
 
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There's not much for me to add that hasn't been said already. Word-of-mouth and getting into bed with other local trades such as plumbers and builders are best for business, but neither is quick and easy if you're just starting out. These days, anyone should have a website, even if it's a basic affair knocked up using a tool such as Wix or that you pay a third-party like Yell to create and host. If you're a one-man-band, include a picture of yourself and your van, and show your contact details including the registered office address so potential clients can see you're legitimate and that you look like you're doing the business.

The likes of Twitter, Facebook, Nextdoor, and Instagram are also good ways to show off your work, connect with your peers and to promote yourself to potential local customers. We're not all comfortable with such platforms of course, and if you're posting a picture of your work then you'd better check it's right or risk being torn apart! Social media can be stressful and turn toxic, so only use it if it works for you.

As for these middleman operations, I'm on record as being against them, but I appreciate they work for others. Most are expensive and they may jack up the price once your profile has too many reviews for you to lose, but they offer a quick way to build up a reputation, at least for the users of their individual sites. If you get on with them and the revenue they generate outweighs the overhead of membership, then it makes business sense. Personally, I don't want to make a bunch of slick kids sitting in plush offices even richer from the sweat off my own back.

One issue I had as a member of Local Heroes a few years ago was that without a direct interface with the client, it could be hard to suss out quite what the job was. It's all very well a job being posted saying 'new socket required', but I need more information to give any idea of a cost, and going through a third-party rather than being able to speak with a client directly was a pain. These days, I'm with Which? Trusted Traders, and although it doesn't get me much work directly, their logo on my estimate paperwork probably helps to swing the bigger jobs such as rewires my way. I also use their review function exclusively now as my GMB, Yell, FreeIndex and TrustPilot pages were all vandalised by fake reviews and had to go. I no longer show in a cold Google search anymore, but I don't think I ever got much business that way anyway. I did once pay for Adwords, and it was the quickest thirty quid I lost outside of happy hour at my local. It was pretty much Google coming back saying "Yep, we've promoted you somewhere, now watch the calls come in!"

They didn't.

Freeindex and Yell are good directory services to have a free listing on, but another good source for local work is a parish magazine if you have such. Better than a leaflet drop, it goes through all your neighbours letterboxes, and everyone looks inside. The old dears use it like Google as their tradesperson search, those new to the area go by it and even those who've been here for years will pick up on your presence. Again, it's good to show a picture of you and your van so they can put a face to the business and clock you going around town. You want to get the locals used to seeing you, and it pays to have a liveried van. If you live in a city, check surrounding villages on your patch for such publications.

These 'checked', 'rated' and 'trusted' sites usually only perform the most basic of checks, and they then let members loose onto their client base who will ultimately end up as the ones who do report back as to whether anyone is trustworthy or not. If not, the client has their pants pulled down and none of these sites will be taking any responsibility for it. As others have said, you end up competing with builders and kitchen/bathroom fitters for electrical work, and we all know people usually just want something cheap that works, never mind if it's actually safe in the event of a fault...
 
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I've never paid for any on-line advertising. I bat off any cold calls asking if I want to sign up to anything... my view is that if they have found my number, so can potential clients.

I wrote my own web page in static HTML - it just has my logo, a mug shot, and a few words about where I serve, the sort of work I do, Terms of Business, and the kind of person I am.

I have a Facebook page, on which I have photos of work done, occasional posts about dodgy stuff I've found, and reviews left by customers.

I have a Google "My Business" page (which is free), with a couple of photos, and a few customer reviews.

Although I don't engage much directly on social media beyond the odd Facebook post (roughly one a month), a lot of my clients do... there are groups for local people to let others know what's going on, have a moan about the coucil/yoofs/roadworks, ask for recommendations etc; when my name pops up, it's handy to have a Facebook or web page for people to land on, peruse, then contact me.

To be honest, I'm still really surprised when people say, "I found you on the internet" because I have such very low expectations... an HTML page that was last updated a year ago, it's not exactly state-of-the-art "SEO" is it?!

Every time I email an invoice and certs (or receipt and certs if the customer pays by cash or cheque), I sign off with:

PS If you feel able to leave a testimonial for my work, you can do so on Facebook or Google: (then the links).

That, word of mouth, and some traditional paid advertising in local free magazines has worked well for me so far. Your mileage may vary :)
 
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I've been through quite a few '3rd party' on line vetting agenices, and worked for a number of '3rd party' national maintenance companies were I am.

I've concluded them a waste of time, and so we have a 'no 3rd parties' clause now

~S~
[automerge]1576018670[/automerge]
I guess that's a bit terse of a reply.

The trades were proliferated with all manner of internet 3rd parties here after the last housing crash

They knew we were hungry, would sign onto anything

The problem is, they not only started vetting us, they evolved to creating standards for us as well

It got a tad to 'big brother' for many of us you see

~S~
 
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Sisyphus said:
I've been through quite a few '3rd party' on line vetting agenices, and worked for a number of '3rd party' national maintenance companies were I am.

I've concluded them a waste of time, and so we have a 'no 3rd parties' clause now

~S~
[automerge]1576018670[/automerge]
I guess that's a bit terse of a reply.

The trades were proliferated with all manner of internet 3rd parties here after the last housing crash

They knew we were hungry, would sign onto anything

The problem is, they not only started vetting us, they evolved to creating standards for us as well

It got a tad to 'big brother' for many of us you see

~S~
Click to expand...

Oooo we haven't quite got that far yet here. They don't check anything at all but say on their marketing and adverts online that they do.

Leading to disco Dave's who can wire their DJ equipment up well thinking they can now install solar panels and house rewires. And they don't get taken off the rate my bodge it and dodge it type website they just won't send the link to leave a review to the ones they know will leave bad feedback on their listing.

Very flawed.

But wouldn't like it go the other way either.
 
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Never used,or wanted to use,any of these carry-ons. They all work on the principle of hope and dilution.

I respect that some others may have had some luck,but i would not recommend anyone,especially those at the start of their SE journey,to sign up,with a very hungry flea who steers the host,to some of the worst customers possible... :)
 
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It’s word of mouth mainly with me. Existing friends have passed my details on.
I do have a Facebook page, and a website but don’t use any of the above3rd party services.
Too many scare stories on this forum about them.
I’ve joined nextdoor.co.uk just because one customer heard about me on there.
 
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First post on these forums so first let me say hi.

Hi.

I'm technically a contractor so I always have work on the books - sometimes up to 18 months ahead so the last thing I should do is tout for more work (you start by trying to please everyone and end up pleasing no-one). However, a good friend who is gas safe guy uses trustatrader and checkatrade and he gets shedloads of work from both (nowadays mainly checkatrade as his rating is very high) so for individuals I can see how any of the options that give you more back than you give to them could be a good thing.

But there's a hitch: my friend is absolutely pants at what he does and only gets to look good by asking me and other quality tradesmen to do the work for him that is outside his expertise (that's about everything beyond soldering) so I personally think that there can't ever be a level playing field for subscribers. If you can get 5 stars for being shonky, I'm inclined to forget these companies even exist and prefer, like others have mentioned, to rely on recommendations and your own, personal advertising.

That's my tuppence and may I add that I'm very happy to be here with the civilised folk.
 
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smokester said:
First post on these forums so first let me say hi.

Hi.

I'm technically a contractor so I always have work on the books - sometimes up to 18 months ahead so the last thing I should do is tout for more work (you start by trying to please everyone and end up pleasing no-one). However, a good friend who is gas safe guy uses trustatrader and checkatrade and he gets shedloads of work from both (nowadays mainly checkatrade as his rating is very high) so for individuals I can see how any of the options that give you more back than you give to them could be a good thing.

But there's a hitch: my friend is absolutely pants at what he does and only gets to look good by asking me and other quality tradesmen to do the work for him that is outside his expertise (that's about everything beyond soldering) so I personally think that there can't ever be a level playing field for subscribers. If you can get 5 stars for being shonky, I'm inclined to forget these companies even exist and prefer, like others have mentioned, to rely on recommendations and your own, personal advertising.

That's my tuppence and may I add that I'm very happy to be here with the civilised folk.
Click to expand...
Welcome aboard and thanks for posting!
 
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Hi
I joined this forum more for advice from qualified sparkies. I’m not a qualified electrician, and the work I do is mainly like for like replacements for friends and family, and the odd additional socket in, or spur from, a ring mains. As such, I don’t use any such sites.
Cheers
Jon
 
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Eddie1 said:
I have never used them no need if you do a good clean job, charge a proper price and treat you customer with respect you will get all your work from recommendation. I did for 35Years.
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Marti said:
In my early days I tried My Builder and Rated People. You have got to start SOMEWHERE to build the fabled word-of-mouth that everyone talks about. Both were a poor return. Race to the bottom prices and on occasions, I'd call a client, having paid for the contact, and discover the job wasn't worth anybody's time (repair a standard lamp). My profiles ticked all the boxes (photo's, reviews etc) but lost to price; the thing that really mattered.

I have heard a few good comments about Check-a-trade (one of the threads above is mine) but JEEZ! They need to review their fees 'cos I can't see they are worth it.

My cheapest work winner is a sign written van, followed by recommendation from friends or when I do a little job well. In the very early days; it's tough!

Also, you tend to drive nicely when your name and number are in bloody great letters on the van ;)
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powercare said:
We use our own Website and a local Internet marketing company to help promote our website for natural listings. We have been advised against the rating sites like that because they charge money for membership. any company does that will prioritise cash flow above all else. We were always advised to think what would I do in this situation and more often than not if you need something now you search on Google direct from your phone. I would chose a link relevant to my search rather than a website that requires further searches. It has worked well for us. but nothing beats good word of mouth for business so always go that extra mile for a client and they will remember.
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daz1965 said:
Hi Dan,
Fortunately never had to use any.
As others have said,I’ve heard good and bad regarding most of them.
If I have a quiet spell I normally stick an add in the local rag,and it brings in the small jobs to fill the diary up.
Another vote for word of mouth.
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I've added word of mouth to the options. :) You're allowed multiple choice too.
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Lister1987 said:
Didn't know you were on here David, long time viewer, rare commenter, keep up the good vids, always give me a laugh
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Or me! @dseselectric welcome aboard. :)
 
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Hi,i think that adding the "word of mouth" option,part way through the job,may skew results,slightly.

...Not that any of us,in this land,are phased by election or referendum confusion... ;)

I have met a fair few lads,who have said at one time or other,one of the mentioned pyramid schemes,had accounted for a large proportion of their work.

Most have admitted it was not worth the cost/hassle,and withdrew after a while.

It goes without saying,if you are signed up,some of the "customers" will use this knowledge,to drag in tradespeople,who would normally get that tingle,and swerve them.
 
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PEG said:
Hi,i think that adding the "word of mouth" option,part way through the job,may skew results,slightly.

...Not that any of us,in this land,are phased by election or referendum confusion... ;)

I have met a fair few lads,who have said at one time or other,one of the mentioned pyramid schemes,had accounted for a large proportion of their work.

Most have admitted it was not worth the cost/hassle,and withdrew after a while.

It goes without saying,if you are signed up,some of the "customers" will use this knowledge,to drag in tradespeople,who would normally get that tingle,and swerve them.
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People can change their votes and remove or add other votes as and when they please.

I did say to let me know if there were any more to add. It was mainly online marketing but word of mouth a few people said so I added it. Only a few mind.
 
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Having run my own limited company in the past (i've now retired) I used continuous newspaper advertising. The local clients (when asked how they found us) always said that "you are always in the paper" or "so & so said that you were good".
Thompson Local and Yell persistantly got our phone number wrong so never used them after the second time they got it wrong.

Having learn't that the Guild of Master Craftsmen's logo for a vehicle could be just purchased from them without any checks being done, and any advertising could put that logo on without any checks being made, I ignore that logo totally.
I did not believe it at first, so I tried it myself using a pseudonym, calling myself a Tree Surgeon (as far away from computing as I could think) and use a c/o address. I don't remember how much it cost me, but it was not a lot. All I did was fill out a form send it to them and a van sticker and paperwork duly arrived a week later.
I then had one of my employees ring them up to check if I was registered there, and they confirmed it. I have never believed that logo since.

In the past (whilst I was in business) I was asked several times to help 'build someones reputation' by writing how good they were. Unfortunately I did not agree with their opinion of how good they were, so I declined.
I have also been offered payments to write glowing reports about companies that I have never heard of and the work they do. Needless to say that did not happen.
I personally do not use such sites as the 'recommendations' on them are not reliable enough and are not always honest.
 
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I avoid these websites as virtually all of my work comes through recommendation- word of mouth. But as I'm registered through Elecsa I'm also listed on the 'Trustmark' site, some customers have posted up some good reviews over the years and a few people contact me because of that, few and far between though.
 
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Just an addition,to the debate,but i had Chekatrade leaflet drop through me door,today.

There are a large assortment of "approved" trades,alphabetically listed. Having lived in the area for my entire life,and liking to think i also have a finger on the pulse,so to speak,a great many were known.

Some are long standing outfits,2nd or 3rd generation,and sound.

But,there were around 6,who are charlatans,and would not be allowed anywhere near my circle of trust.

One mans view,in one area,but i would wager,not unique.
 
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PEG said:
Just an addition,to the debate,but i had Chekatrade leaflet drop through me door,today.

There are a large assortment of "approved" trades,alphabetically listed. Having lived in the area for my entire life,and liking to think i also have a finger on the pulse,so to speak,a great many were known.

Some are long standing outfits,2nd or 3rd generation,and sound.

But,there were around 6,who are charlatans,and would not be allowed anywhere near my circle of trust.

One mans view,in one area,but i would wager,not unique.
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That's the bloody problem with them. We never know who they are. Customer doesn't know the difference.

I have something in the pipeline for our tradesmen we know are good. It's going to be free for both the customer and trader. No ads.

Been long overdue.
 
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None they are all crap

Its sad to say but its very hard to find any tradesman who does a 101% job these days
A site with genuine good tradesguys would be great

This sit from what i have gleaned has a superb number of really knowledgeable and helpful guys
Perhaps you should set one up yourself!
I personally have never employed a tradesman ever as my dad taught me plumbing buliding car mechanics etc etc etc but i know my neighbours would pay to have access to good tradesmen as virtually 100% of them have had bad experiences

They recently had a hamilton accie in who claimed he was plumbing and electirican and fitted a simple led pir outside light to existing wiring and charged £260 for less than an hours work - the light then failed after less than 2 weeks and yip he has not come back so they had to spend more money on another guy who came and fitted another light - no idea how long it will last either as it looks cheap chinese pish as well!

PS There are two great ones on youtube and they actually have the decency to reply and help me out when i need some advice!

Dereton - great plumber old school and a nice guy
Ultimate Handyman - Top builder and a nice guy too!!!
 
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Gary Gemmell said:
None they are all crap

Its sad to say but its very hard to find any tradesman who does a 101% job these days
A site with genuine good tradesguys would be great

This sit from what i have gleaned has a superb number of really knowledgeable and helpful guys
Perhaps you should set one up yourself!
I personally have never employed a tradesman ever as my dad taught me plumbing buliding car mechanics etc etc etc but i know my neighbours would pay to have access to good tradesmen as virtually 100% of them have had bad experiences

They recently had a hamilton accie in who claimed he was plumbing and electirican and fitted a simple led pir outside light to existing wiring and charged £260 for less than an hours work - the light then failed after less than 2 weeks and yip he has not come back so they had to spend more money on another guy who came and fitted another light - no idea how long it will last either as it looks cheap chinese pish as well!

PS There are two great ones on youtube and they actually have the decency to reply and help me out when i need some advice!

Dereton - great plumber old school and a nice guy
Ultimate Handyman - Top builder and a nice guy too!!!
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It's a regular part of every day duties,sadly...

Went to a small holding,to fault find,on a job where the dude who did the original install,has evaporated. Straight away,i see some major errors,in the submain earthing,and subsequent circuits.

Informed the client,and their message regarding my findings,to the installer,gets an immediate call back,to say it is "all a matter of opinion..." and also,he will come directly,to see what was wrong.

No point flapping...got my drawings,pictures,etc,just in case i'm taking another trip to Sheffield,chatting to our safety friends :rolleyes:
 
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I now rely on word of mouth and at present my customers are something like an 70% repeat customers. The rest are coming through my (rather crappy) website.

I have used 'local surveyors direct' which I paid per quote and they weren't bad. No other middle men. If a customer mentions checkatrade etc, I remind them that they are NOT the customer for these companies - the tradesman is, as he pays their bills (and there's no way they want to lose their money no matter how bad the tradesman is!)

My favourite source is google as it is all in your own hands. You choose how much you pay, where and when you want adverts shown and can pause it at any time. Only down side is, for good results, you need to spend sometime honing your adverts otherwise you will get people phoning you to fix their Volvo electrics because you haven't put autoelectrician as a non keyword (and at £ per call - ouch)
 
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I've never paid for any form of advertising, majority of my work comes through word of mouth. I do have a Facebook page though which is free to set up and proven a very handy way of getting my name out there and getting recommendations.
 
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Here check these pics of our so called electricians work
Spot the disasters

1) Used black cable cos it was all he had left in his van - no trunking or white cable to do the job properly
And how did i know - cos he just chucked his empty reel into my plastics bin

2) Drilled through the double glazing and yip its now lost its vacuum seal

3) Checkout those leccie tails in the cupboard - not even recessed behind the backer board and not soldered or properly connected just tied together i dont even think the tape is electrical - and the kid in our building puts his bike in tha tcupboard - those tails are live when the time clock switches on

3) Didnt even hoover up his drill mess
 

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Dan

Dan

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CheckaTrade | MyBuilder | RatedPeople | TrustaTrader etc - Who's with what and why?
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