Does my business have potential and how should I invest in it

by Mick01
13 replies
Hi Everyone,

I'm looking for some advice on my business that I've been trying to start up for about a year now.

Overview of my business:

My business is an online drafting service specialising in providing residential building plans mainly for smaller projects like patios, decks and garages. I am Australia Wide and mainly competing with local drafting businesses (there are only a couple of other online / Australia wide drafting businesses) My USP is that I specialise in smaller jobs as most drafters mainly want to design upmarket houses and overcharge on small jobs. I also include guaranteed council building approval by making changes requested by council free of charge.

I'm only getting about 1 or 2 jobs a month (average $450 - $600 a job) but most of my clients are very happy with my service and some have even sent me pictures of their completed projects that I've posted on social media and my portfolio section.

I've built my website Streamline Drafting and Design myself in wordpress including content writing etc. I've also built and managed my own social media pages and hired someone to write blog posts to help my SEO and give me something to post on my social media pages. My conversion rates are low, bounce rate is over 50% and I don't seem to get much work from adwords or facebook ads so don't want to keep wasting money on advertising until i'm getting work from it..

Do you think my business has potential?

I have about $1000 from my last two jobs, how should I reinvest this? website update? new sales copy? marketing? advertising?

Or am I not investing enough to get my business started (I've done everything myself with no experience so i've invested a lot of time learning wordpress, marketing, seo, writing etc.. but little money) should I borrow say $10,000 to get started properly and how should I invest this?

Thanks very much for any advice...
Michael.
#business #invest #potential
  • Profile picture of the author David Beroff
    Maybe this is a stupid question; maybe it isn't: Who are your potential clients? The general public? People who are looking to build additions? Architects? Contractors? You've stated what it is that you do, but I'm still not sure who it is that wants or needs your service. (No offense; I'm just not aware.)
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  • Profile picture of the author nrupen
    Hi Mick,
    I think your business model is good and to my personal opinion have huge potential of growth. I visited your website and I think it is not as good as it should be.

    Though you tried to bring fourth your USP but it doesn't have that spark which is required for clients to contact you. You said have some happy customers, you should ask them to provide you testimonials.

    Again the kind of service you are promoting will appeal to more customers if testimonials will be of video type. Offer some cash back to customers who will be ready to provide genuine review of your service. (Offer cash back only after job is done and you get paid, do not mention about cash back on sales page, keep it as secret offer)

    As you mentioned competition in your niche is very less. If that is true then most probably you might not need PPC and if you are planning to use PPC for low competition niche don't end up paying more.

    There are lot of good copywriters on Warrior Forum WSO, they'll also design a graphical landing page for you, while hiring keep your requirements as clear as you can and don't act obsessed with particular elements of sales page.

    Also I feel right now you don't really have lot of data about your customers so it is better not to borrow to invest.

    I don't think $1000 is bad amount to invest, get a good screen recording software (I personally use camtasio studio 8) and share your expertise on YouTube.

    After getting testimonial from customers edit them, upload on your YouTube channel and ask your customers to share it on their favorite social network.

    Also note that your customers aren't people who can draw their own plans, so while creating video it'll be good idea to show drawing as well as finished construction.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mick01
    Hi David Beroff, I should of mentioned that. My main target audience is home owners looking to build additions and also potentially contractors / carpenters who build these types of projects and could use me on an ongoing basis.

    I've found that some carpenters don't have a draftsperson that they use and just tell their clients to find someone to do plans and then call them back to come and build the structure. I've cold emailed a few carpenters and have had a few replies saying they would recommend me..
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    • Michael,

      Improving onsite content and site design (especially visual design) among other things already mentioned above in this regard would be good...

      Giving away a compelling offer in exchange for emails would be good -- You can check out popular / best selling local niche magazines and its relevant cover stories / feature articles to draw some inspiration for your opt-in offer/s and onsite / offsite content, i.e. Local homeowners may be looking for beneficial content like top 12 things to avoid when planning home improvement projects or 25 creative home improvement ideas and so on, while carpenters may be looking for compiled reviews of the top 20 local stores / shops that offer the best value for supplies and equipment, etc....

      Creating a "special service package", including this in your opt-in offer/s as a promo, then promoting your business (along with your "special service package" and opt-in offer/s) via advertorials in heavily trafficked niche-related local sites / blogs / offline magazines / online and offline classifieds / newspapers, via press releases, via videos and via paid ad banner placements in heavily trafficked niche-related sites / blogs / Web forums / etc. would be good...

      Originally Posted by Mick01 View Post

      My main target audience is home owners looking to build additions and also potentially contractors / carpenters who build these types of projects and could use me on an ongoing basis. I've found that some carpenters don't have a draftsperson that they use and just tell their clients to find someone to do plans and then call them back to come and build the structure. I've cold emailed a few carpenters and have had a few replies saying they would recommend me..
      How's this going so far? Directly contacting local contractors and carpenters with a compelling proposal (say they get 30% or so for each project you do for a customer that they refer) via LinkedIn InMail, Twitter, Skype, email and fax, then following up with them by working the phone so as to discuss your proposal in detail would be good...

      Also, I think local homeowners, carpenters and contractors who see your ads / adverts / PRs / emails / Skype and Twitter and LinkedIn messages may be more inclined to call you than to contact you via email / Skype / Twitter / LinkedIn, especially those that could most likely be straightforward to convert into buyers -- With this, I recommend getting an Australian toll free number (or a national number) and a hosted PBX account with Phone.Com or so, so you can set up professional custom greetings, IVR menus / messages and voicemail boxes...
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    • Profile picture of the author David Beroff
      Originally Posted by Mick01 View Post

      I've found that some carpenters don't have a draftsperson that they use and just tell their clients to find someone to do plans and then call them back to come and build the structure.
      Perfect; this is pure gold! A source of potential clients who need your services on a regular basis to make themselves more money.

      Send them a series of three postcards (not letters in envelopes), each spaced a few days apart; I prefer a bright goldenrod cardstock. Each card will have an ever-increasingly frantic headline, e.g.,

      Close 15% more deals in 2015!

      You just lost 3 potential clients... Are you ok?

      Are you still even in business!?

      Your salesletter will explain how they're losing business when they tell people to call them back after they found a draftsperson. Instead, they can close more deals when they have you as their secret weapon in their back pocket.

      You get the idea.
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      • Profile picture of the author DubDubDubDot
        Originally Posted by David Beroff View Post

        Send them a series of three postcards (not letters in envelopes), each spaced a few days apart; I prefer a bright goldenrod cardstock. Each card will have an ever-increasingly frantic headline, e.g.,

        Close 15% more deals in 2015!

        You just lost 3 potential clients... Are you ok?

        Are you still even in business!?

        Your salesletter will explain how they're losing business when they tell people to call them back after they found a draftsperson. Instead, they can close more deals when they have you as their secret weapon in their back pocket.
        I don't disagree with this in spirit, but this forum has a way of recommending snake oily sounding copy that should be avoided in the real world. Not everything can be pushed like the get rich quick scams that half of this forum loves to sell.
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        • Profile picture of the author David Beroff
          Originally Posted by DubDubDubDot View Post

          I don't disagree with this in spirit, but this forum has a way of recommending snake oily sounding copy that should be avoided in the real world.
          Understood and respected. But headlines are supposed to catch attention; the ad copy itself can be much more sedate and still be quite effective.

          One interesting exercise (for anyone) while watching an hour of mainstream TV is to focus on the "headline" of each ad (the first five seconds of each commercial), and to write them down, noting how most of them are only tangentially tied to the rest of the message. i.e., It's not, "You need a car; we can sell you a car", but more, "OMG, Valentine's Day will be here soon! Your Sweety would love you if you bought a car from us."
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  • Profile picture of the author Mick01
    Hi Nrupen,

    Thanks for the feedback, I have been thinking that the website design and sales copy could both do with some work and I will have a look for copywriters on Warrior Forum WSO.

    Will also look it to better testimonies. The few I have on my site, while they are real, being just plain text probably doesn't build a lot of trust.. someone else suggested testimonies along side that clients project photos so I might have a look at doing this as I think it might be a bit hard to get my clients to make videos for me particularly not being a local business where I can go and film it..

    Cheers
    Michael
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  • Profile picture of the author Lightlysalted
    Customer testimonials are a great suggestion. They are an extremely powerful way of connecting with potential customers
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  • Profile picture of the author TymBolla
    You should find out who is your ideal customer and then go advertise to him in the places he is frequenting.
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  • Profile picture of the author talfighel
    I took a look at your website and I really think that you should take a small portion of that $1000 and have someone professional redesign your website for you.

    Then take most of your income and market your website with pay per click on Google and Yahoo. Make sure that you start bidding small so that you don't go ahead and spend all that money in one shot.
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  • Profile picture of the author DubDubDubDot
    Split the business. Not literally. You can do everything under the same banner, but you'll need two sales fronts.

    Your primary market is contractors, probably locally to you since you may have to visit the job site. They are the ones who can constantly send you business. I don't know about Australia, but here in the US when someone is flirting with home improvement projects their first contact is the building/landscaping contractor who will actually be building it. Then if designs are needed for the client (and assuming the contractor isn't getting by with their own software), they will farm that out to someone like you.

    So for that you'll need to make yourself known to them. And when you know exactly who your target is, you don't need to advertise in a blanket marketing sense. Just go straight to them. You might have a brochure optimized for B2B and a place on your site for that also. Just don't be too candid on the website since the B2C leads may see that.

    For your B2C leads, which it kind of sounds like you are most interested in, things obviously get more difficult. I don't have much to say about that since I think you're pretty much screwed by going at it from the drafting angle. If you could change things up and really focus on the design angle and leave the drafting as a footnote, that would be a lot easier.

    As for the website..... The blog posts are a start, but I would optimize those to always have a marketing angle for yourself that goes beyond that simple "contact us to do this" type message you've got there now. The overall design needs improvements. What is the header menu on desktop is a pulldown menu on my phone. That can't be that way. And I would get some portfolio elements on the front page so that people aren't hit with a plain wall of text. Also combine the portfolo page and the drafting examples. Those are just a few examples. Take a look at what people far above you are doing. I'm guessing this is your first site. Everyone's first site sucks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mick01
    Thanks for the feedback, a few very good ideas that I will take note of and start trying to implement..

    Can anyone recommend a good wordpress designer on here?
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