Re: small home shops and profitibility
Posted by
John Stevenson
on 2000-08-22 16:46:20 UTC
I liked Matt's idea.
I hit on another novel one as well.
When I finally went full time about 8 years ago after being made redundant.
[ I think calling the Engineering Manager an asshole in a production
meeting was a bad career move <g> ]
I had about 2 months work on the books from previous jobs.
I was worried about continuity of work especially as my wife still had her
final year to go at university.
I printed up a load of letters and cards with the idea of going round our
local industrial estates and just pushing these through doors over a week
end. It's no good trying to see people from a dead start as Matt found out.
The best you can do is to hope that they keep the letter and card.
On a re think I decided that I would only approach firms that I thought I
could help instead of hitting everyone.
I didn't want to go into production as it's too cut throat. I was looking
for one off's and repair work. Something the big boys didn't want to know.
I went down to our local Wilko's stores, probably similar to Wallmart, and
bought 20 wall clocks for about 2.50 UKP[ $3.00 ]
Got back home took the cover and hands off, printed a new face on card with
the firms name and logo on PLUS the phone number and put them back
together.
Printed some postcard sized cards with the services offered, plus address
and phone number.
Put two of these with each clock and went round to the 20 firms I had
picked out as being the most likely.
I just handed these over to reception with the message. "Can you pass this
to maintenance / workshop please" and left.
Within two weeks calls started coming in. Out of 20 I got about 12 so i
think that has got to be a good return.
Funnily enough most of these clocks are still there, one company has one on
the wall in sales and I didn't even send them one !!
--
Regards,
John Stevenson
Nottingham, England
I hit on another novel one as well.
When I finally went full time about 8 years ago after being made redundant.
[ I think calling the Engineering Manager an asshole in a production
meeting was a bad career move <g> ]
I had about 2 months work on the books from previous jobs.
I was worried about continuity of work especially as my wife still had her
final year to go at university.
I printed up a load of letters and cards with the idea of going round our
local industrial estates and just pushing these through doors over a week
end. It's no good trying to see people from a dead start as Matt found out.
The best you can do is to hope that they keep the letter and card.
On a re think I decided that I would only approach firms that I thought I
could help instead of hitting everyone.
I didn't want to go into production as it's too cut throat. I was looking
for one off's and repair work. Something the big boys didn't want to know.
I went down to our local Wilko's stores, probably similar to Wallmart, and
bought 20 wall clocks for about 2.50 UKP[ $3.00 ]
Got back home took the cover and hands off, printed a new face on card with
the firms name and logo on PLUS the phone number and put them back
together.
Printed some postcard sized cards with the services offered, plus address
and phone number.
Put two of these with each clock and went round to the 20 firms I had
picked out as being the most likely.
I just handed these over to reception with the message. "Can you pass this
to maintenance / workshop please" and left.
Within two weeks calls started coming in. Out of 20 I got about 12 so i
think that has got to be a good return.
Funnily enough most of these clocks are still there, one company has one on
the wall in sales and I didn't even send them one !!
--
Regards,
John Stevenson
Nottingham, England