Best way I ever ran into was to be willing to quote jobs for hard money and produce the quality level the product demands. Be willing to put your cards on the table, clarify your scope of work, exclusions, terms and timeline and then do what you said you were going to do. Don't expect clients to hand out blank checks for your time until you get it done or cover you for mistaken estimates. Put it on the line, live with it and expect the same from the people you do business with. Do that long enough and word will get around. If you're still around, which ain't the easist if your play straight when every other guy is cheatin the house blind, after a few years you'll possibly have built enough business contacts to make a living working far too many hours to make the same money or less than you could with less effort just getting a good paying job. There's no magic formula, internet guru or website ever gonna beat honest workmanship and an ethical business practice. But that wont stop the online shucksters from trying to sell it to you. Oh yeah, I'd also suggest a trip to the library. There are a few books worth reading. Paul Levins "Construction Contract Claims, Changes & Dispute Resolution" could save you many thousands of dollars in legal fees. Take a weeks free subscription to RS Means Estimating data base to get an idea of what the market really bears. Find a bookeeper you can afford, an accountant is even better. Find out what kind of business structure is going to work best for you and what you need to do to set it up. Find out where Public Work Contracts are advertised in you locality, access those contracts and read them. If you can still see after getting through the first one, try another and get a better idea of just how seriously people are when it comes to protecting their money and assets. Learn what a Business Plan is and write one. You'll need to read some material about just what a business plan entails because in the end a business only fails because it's plan failed. Not enough capital? Bad plan. Market too hard to crack? Bad plan. Economy slowed dow and you didn't know your next move? Bad plan. Underbid? Bad plan. Overbid? Bad plan. Not enough money to pay your taxes at the end of the year? Bad plan. Didn't think it was going to take 80 hours of your week to stay self-employed? Bad plan. Good Luck.
Get your business listed on Google maps. It costs zero and in my case, that 0$ investment led to $30k in sales in six months. Granted it was all with one contractor, but I'll take it. I'm located in Southern West Virginia, and it's all coal mining around here, which is something I used to do , but not anymore. Business cards never got me a single job, ads in the paper only got me calls from guys looking for work. But word of mouth and the almighty Google have been doing just fine.
simple, 4 words, good welds, work ethic. Just about every job I go out on I get to hear about "the last welder", "your welds looks awesome compared to the last guy we used". I have done a wide and varied assortment of work and I hear that ALL the time.
When you hear a client describe the other guys welds as "looking like they were blown thru a straw" you start to figure out that the real competition is pretty limited in this field. It's the price game. Goober with his straw will do the job for half of what you will, collect his money and run. When his stuff fails they call a guy like me and I get to hear about it.
I get calls all the time, trying to "market my business". I tell them no thank you. There are lots of little things potential clients look for. I hear about stuff all the time that I do and then hear about the other guy they contacted and the woes they have had or things they disliked about the person, company. I really get an earful when I get in touch with residential folks. Talk about gripes....
To elaborate on Cumminsguy71's post a bit....Build it like you never want to see it again everytime. That kinda work builds a reputation and that is why Cumminsguy is a busy fella....he built a reputation built on his work and ethics not on his words
There is an old saying " You live and die by your reputation". If you don't have one you will have to build it client by client...it is hard but in the end better then any advertising you could ever buy.
Internet: Google maps is free, yp listings free, manta, linked in and on and on. Beware pay per click...the internet is definitely pay to play if you want first page but....I am listed with the guys paying 300-600 a month doing it by reputation only(small market). Don't get me wrong it can pay off but on pay per click my return was only average 20% of what I spent. AT&T offers phone book/internet/ranking promotion all in one package and some of my friends use it seriously and swear by it....but as I pointed out to one of them recently I had people in his town calling me cause I was a page ahead of him in ranking.....that is screwed up. Still as far as return on your dollar I think they do a pretty good job of getting you in front of potential customers. People still use the phone book believe it or not but I think it is mostly residential type customers.
The old way is the solid way....build your clientele by word of mouth, make sure every customer you have is eager to brag on you because you made an impression. Bad reports from one person will travel 500 miles and persist for years, good "you can trust this guy with your life" commentary will make it 100 miles and persist for years. In the day of Angies list and this and that...people still tend to rely on two things...their gut and their friends. Good luck to you.
I have a buddy that is soooo busy doing hand rails, stainless kitchen metal fab and install, small structural stuff, copper sinks, just about everything and if someone comes to him and says can you do this.... he says oh yeah. Even if he can't he will find someone who could help out. The guy will take on anything. I try to help him out as much as I can but his problem now is trying to justify either being the guy going out to get the work and quote jobs or staying in the shop or the field to do the work.
I am amazed where he can find the work. I have no idea where you guys find this work or how they find you, I guess that is your problem as is most others.
It took him at least a year of doing crap work and going to all lengths to get his name out there, but now that he did he is to busy to do anything but work. He has a website, business cards, gone to local metal supply shops, CL, stopping at construction sites, and probably a bunch of other ways to find work.
Internet:
I know if you get a domain name from some one like webs.com or godaddy.com then use a template and get your business and all of what you are capable of doing that is a great start. You can do this without paying someone to design it because the templates are super easy to use and you just write the info and get lots of pictures, people like pictures, that will probably cost you $200 for about 2 years.
Once you get all the info you want then pick every page that you have and then you put these "spiders" down. "Spiders" are key words that you think people would google or bing to search for the work you are offering. If you are a sheet metal fabricator then you would copy and paste the words "sheet metal fabricator" couple hundred times at the bottom of the each page and hide them by making sure the works and the background are the same color. EX: If I made a site and I was a certified pipe welder then I would write "certified pipe welder" 200 or 1000 times. If my background of the page is white then I would make the font white and you would never see the 600 or 3000 words but they are still there. A lot of people do this as I know of a few that have and it works well.
Do the old sticker, magnet, or rear window banner on your truck.
Post on CL with everyone else, except post pictures of your quality or what you are capable of. Then you have to keep updating and renewing it so it is at the top of the list. Anyone can say they are a great welder or fabricator, but I personally would want to see some proof in at least a picture before I call you.
Hope this helps a little
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