new business

[brothermal]

I am just starting out in the appliance business. any advice ?

[AJ]

Are you working for yourself or someone else?
What kind of training do you have?

[brothermal]

I HAVE MORE THAN TWENTY YEARS OF HVAC UNDER MY BELT. I AM LOOKING TO WORK FOR MY SELF .

 

[JWWebster]

What appliances are you familiar with?

[LowSL2]

I'm looking to do the same thing.  I want to work for myself but I'm nervous about not getting enough calls to make ends meet.  I know I need a state license and probably a local license, some business insurance and what not.  How do you guys get service calls?  Advertisements online? Phone book? Newspaper?  I was thinking of starting out with ads on Craigslist, build a simple website for information on my business, then maybe advertise in the Pennysaver.  I dont want to do warranty work because I do that now for the blue idiots and it's a nightmare.  I really want to do this on my own. 

[AJ]

I was thinking of starting out with ads on Craigslist

Maybe that works for other, but I had tried that last summer and my ads kept getting reported and removed.

[haroldsappliance]

My brother has an appliance repair business and he will sometimes run an ad for free pick up of appliances. He gets a lot of service calls off this ad.  Plus if your just starting out then you'll have a lot of different appliances to part out and troubleshoot. Put some business card at the post office and bulletin boards. Yellow pages works for me.

[AJ]

My brother has an appliance repair business and he will sometimes run an ad for free pick up of appliances.

That's a great idea. 

You can always advertise on our new Business Card Bulletin Board too.

[brothermal]

i AM PRESENTLY WORKING WITH WHIRLPOOL WASHERS AND DRYERS AND STOVES.

[ApplianceGuru]

Right now, all forms of advertising are too expensive.

The economy is slow, and showing no signs of getting back to normal, so you don't get as many calls off the same amount of advertising.  The yellow page people want just as much money, but they are not kicking back as many customers as they used to, so they need to lower their prices.

[PARTech]

We do yellow pages, cards at any business that allows it, and being a small town, the local paper.  Of course the best is word of mouth.  Being able to do warranty work also gets us some calls.

[rego]

I am still building my business but BNI has done really well for me.  I get atleast 50% of my business from it.  Again, still building my client base.  Here's the thread where we talked about it  http://appliancejunk.com/forums/index.php?topic=8435.msg40263#msg40263  I also do service work on pools and hot tub's as well as plow snow during the winter to help make ends meet. 

[brothermal]

Please explain the term bni. how does it help build your buisness?

[ApplianceGuru]

Business Network International, I think??

http://www.bni.com/

[rego]

That's right Applianceguru.  BNI is a referal network group.  We meet once a week in the morning.  Every group is a chapter of BNI and works independantly under BNI guidelines.  There is only one person per profession allowed.  In my group we have 24 people and trying to grow.  I would guess 30 is about average.  During the meeting's we each give a 60 second commercial of what is going on in our business or who/what we are looking for also education and one member per week gives a 10 minute presentation for their business.  At the end of the meeting we pass referal's to one another and strive for avg 1.5 referals per person per week.  We all promote each other through our daily lives.  Basically I have 23 people in various professions as my sales force and I am part of their's.  It is a commitement.  My group meet's every tue. morn from 7-8:30 and you can only miss 3 meeting's per 6 months.  You can have someone sub for you and not be marked absent.  It cost's $365 + $100 initiation fee + whatever the particular group has for cost's.  Our website for my particular group is www.thornappleriverbni.com  It made all the difference for me.  There are 9 or 10 groups in my city and none of them have an appliance repair person but me so as the other group's learn about me they end up refering me as well.  There is a website for BNI member's that is an international referal network and have looked up appliance repair and there are very few in the network.  That's it in a nutshell.  There is alot more to it but this has become long winded enough.  Hope it helps.