Getting noticed

[YPF]

Some musings of a newbie.

I took the decision to start a small, homebased framing business about September last year and have spent the intervening period getting a workshop sorted out, attending some framing training and a business link course, publishing a website and starting some small scale advertising.

Things are now beginning to pick up, all be it very slowly. The 'phone is ringing more often; the majority of callers found me on yell.com or through a google search but only 1 customer from paper based advertising. Even had DJ Simons find me on Yell and called today to ask if I needed anything.

Back in April I provided an auction item of £100 worth of bespoke framing for the Mayor's appeal - I know the item was 'bought' during a charity dinner but over 6 weeks later the winning bidder has still to contact me to claim his/her prize. If I had £100 worth of goodies I'm sure I would have collected before now.

Whilst I remain cautious, my mood is improving that this will be ultimately a successful venture. It needs to be - I've a mortgage to pay. My eventual aim is to move into commercial premises but I need to make sure I have a sufficiently large enough customer base to support that move. ha

Oh, nearly forgot to mention what a great bunch the folks are who inhabit the Framers' Forum - I have learnt so much - many thanks to you all.

Steve

[Keith Hewitt]

Welcome Steve aka YPF,

Some musings of a newbie.

Back in April I provided an auction item of £100 worth of bespoke framing for the Mayor's appeal - I know the item was 'bought' during a charity dinner but over 6 weeks later the winning bidder has still to contact me to claim his/her prize. If I had £100 worth of goodies I'm sure I would have collected before now.

Steve

Steve, I have had experience of Auction items not collected. People forget, cant be bothered, or simply are not ready to take up the offer of your framing at the moment.

I was out last night for a drink and only 4 people in the pub.
One is a framer.
The other one just bought his first Morso - £ 150 with a set of unused blades ( what a bargain) and has got an underpinnner but doesn't know what make. We asked him what colour and he said blue so we chorused together - ALFA !
3rd was me -

I felt really sorry for the 4th bloke - he had simply no idea what we were talking about - Wedges, pins, overcuts, undercuts, gesso, rebates, D rings, Bevel tape, Liming wax, Barrier, stretcher bars. classic one hole, screw eyes ..........................

For him it was all a foreign language.
He drank up and left us to it!!

[Dermot]

I have done those auction donations also they sometimes don’t get collected, I date stamp them now with an expiry date.

Keith great money in this framing game looks like framers are the only ones who can go to the pub these days.

[CanvasChris]

Ditto to the not claiming the 'Prize' syndrome... look at it as cheap advertising!

[Not your average framer]

Hi Steve,

In my experience, getting noticed and building up business levels does take time even when you've got shop premises like myself.

Don't commit yourself to too much expenditure on advertising, "word of mouth" is what works!

I advertise in my local parish magazine, it's not very expensive, but I've no idea have much difference the advertising has made and I don't know how I can determine if it made any difference.

However something which may help, is to apply for the "Working Tax Credit" which if you get it may also trigger some entitlement to claim "Housing Benefit" or "Council Tax Benefit". If you have not done anything about this, then don't dismiss it as it can result in some useful extra income while things are getting going.

I hope this may be helpful and wish you success with you new business.

[Roboframer]

Don't commit yourself to too much expenditure on advertising, "word of mouth" is what works!

Word of mouth is great - but before the word can be spread, the bodies that the mouths are attached to have to be attracted to you in the first place. Spend some money on advertising that works for you and word of mouth will spin off from it - what works for me is £8,000's worth of radio advertising per year for the past 8 years.

You get what you pay for and you may not get it straightaway either.

[Not your average framer]

Hi John,

I could have said that better. What I meant was, not to spend too much when there's not much coning in and deplete what money you already have. I remember when I first started and cashflow was a seriously worrying problem and a lot of things were a steep learning curve too!

My business took a long time to really get going and I can still remember the struggle getting enough work to pay the bills.

BTW, I'd love to be able to spend £8,000 per year on radio ads, but for me (and many others), there ain't a lot of chance of finding the cash to do that. Oh! well perhaps one day!

[YPF]

Thanks for all the comments and advice. My only regular advertising expenditure is the cost of my domain name, web pages and paper advertising in 3 publications; the local parish magazine, local (3000 distribution) business magazine and another business magazine (9000 distribution) in the next town. After only my second month in the larger business magazine I received an order that more than covered my costs - hopefully this customer will begin the word of mouth in the next town.

I dabbled a little with google ads and whilst it did my ego good to see my website at the top of google I don't think it brought in much custom so have stopped that for now. May return to it when cashflow increases.

Steve

[Bagpuss]

However something which may help, is to apply for the "Working Tax Credit" which if you get it may also trigger some entitlement to claim "Housing Benefit" or "Council Tax Benefit". If you have not done anything about this, then don't dismiss it as it can result in some useful extra income while things are getting going.

I just wanted to thank "Not Your Average Framer" for sharing this posting with us back in June, it had not even occurred to me to apply for Working Tax Credit. Anyway, I filled in the necessary forms which must have taken about 20 minutes and today I got a letter from them to say they'd be paying me £50 a week, which will really help me out in the short term.