Trust a trader, checkatrade and other lead generators

[MK Heating]

Does anyone use any of the above and could I please ask of your experience with them.

Worked for a company for many years and latley been putting a lot of effort into starting something of my own up. Been relatively busy but by no means in a position to quit work just yet. Been looking at various avenues of advertising etc when I stumbled across a media agency advertising leads. Took a few, quoted them and had a 50% success rate with getting the work. I'm now looking at the likes of ratedpeople and checkatrade and so on. Are they worth it? Thanks in advance

 

[leesparkykent]

Some people do well out of checkatrade but the key is to constantly update your page and keep handing out your cards to get feed back. A plumber I know who is on checkatrade picks up about 20-30k worth of work a year out of it and uses it to fill in gaps in the diary really. I think spending £600 on checkatrade will get you a better return on investment than spending the same money on the likes of Yell. I've heard rated people isn't really worth it. The only downside I suppose is if your not the cheapest about you will spend a lot of time quoting and not winning loads but the ones you do should make up for it.

 

[cr0ft]

I'd agree with the above. We consistently picked up around £70-80k of work a year from Checkatrade but it's all down to a good stream of feedback coming in and being well ahead of the competition in terms of feedback. Customers who use the site are only interested in the person with the most feedback in my experience.

 

[Deleted member 32524]

They are all rubbish and only concern themselves with there own pockets with the volume of tradesmen they take on with no limits to how many people join it can be good if you are in early. But that ship has sailed now.

 

[townfanjon]

MK , word of mouth pal , nothing beats it . These sites have helped drive our prices down IMO .

 

[Harvest Fields]

I prefer work from Word of mouth. Luckily I am quite busy at the minute. I do advertise. But I keep it to a minimum if I'm honest.

 

[leesparkykent]

I prefer work from Word of mouth. Luckily I am quite busy at the minute. I do advertise. But I keep it to a minimum if I'm honest.

what sort of advertising do you do? do you think you get a ROI?

 

[Harvest Fields]

I have a small A5 advert in a little glossy book, that is distributed to all the houses in my area. It is released every 4 months.

 

[SlimD]

I've been trying MyBuilder lately but the problem I find is that most people are only interested in guys with good feedback so when you're coming in starting from scratch then very few people will give you a second look.
I'll keep trying it for a while and see how it goes but it's not easy to start with.