best way of marketing your company??

[Abstract tiling]

Hi well been tiling on my own for 3 years now, ive tried numerous ways of marketing myself. from yellow pages to carding just wondering what your favoured way of marketing is?

[penno]

Depends on a lot of things really, after a few years in the business a lot of work will come via word of mouth. Yellow pages wise i think i get maybe one call a year from it. If really need something my local paper works wonders, small add for the week and it is very unusual if i don't get 2-3 calls from it. Although my local paper is distributed around a very large area (Salford).

[whitebeam]

Read this, a good piece of information http://www.tilersforums.co.uk/tilers...marketing.html

[faithhealer]

Best marketing will always be a good reputation

[Max_Damage]

Spent a small fortune on exhibitions ,brochures, leaflets, flyers etc....

My best sales and new contacts come from "WORD OF MOUTH".... go figure.

[Dan]

1 happy customer is meant to tell just one or two others about their tiler. 1 unhappy customer will tell 10.

I think keeping your standards high, and not cutting corners on products or methods will ensure you're not getting too many unhappy ones.

But you need the first few to get on that 'ladder' so I'd be doing a bit of everything. Flyers / leaflet drops. A-boards outside the job your on along with your van well sign written. And I'd post a few leaflets up and down the road you're doing that job in.

I think I've said this at least a 100 times. But if it's just one tiler (yourself) and not a huge team of them, then one tile shop that's established can send you a lot of work. Some enough work for a bunch of their regular tilers. So you need to tackle your local shops. If you know you're good, go in them with pictures of your work and plenty of banter and ask to speak to the manager and see how they go about dishing out work etc. It can be hard to do in some shops that are established but others might welcome a fresh one.

I've also said make sure you're treating the guys in the shop a bit. Get them a butty if you're in in the morning, a few sausage / bacon sarnies don't go a miss with any shop assistant. And I bet they remember you. Get them some cans at christmas and you could be invited to the christmas bash, that'd be a winner.

As said above. The tilersforums arms is the place to find lots of advice on this subject so try and get a few posts behind you and then get yourself in there.

[doug boardley]

just an add on from what Dan says: get the customer to phone the tile shop and say how pleased they are with the work you've done. The tile shop will be happy to refer you as long as you're turning out good work