Trout talk, what's going on people? Happy New Year to you. I just wanted to jump on here just to say
hi basically and wish you all a happy new year. I hope your year is going good so far,
better than mine probably. This is the first day that I've been allowed out to play for a week.
We had a little visit from Omnicron over Christmas which we had to have through the family home.
So of course Covid the messes and my boy Oliver is suffering with it as well. So I've been off
for the last week hiding, isolating and it bounced off me. Came and tried to wobble me and bounced
plaster off. You know he didn't realise I was a plaster. The messes is suffering.
Real bad cold and flu, temperatures and stuff. She's better now, she's on the mend.
So the messes has been wobbled by it and so has my boy. Fucking bastard bug, isn't it?
I'm sure a lot of use of cortex is fucking spreading like fuck. Anyway onwards and upwards,
we're on the mend. I'm going to be back at it next week. I've noticed there's a few posts
regarding work and leads and there's been one or two posts about these trade association sites and
stuff. Use no I will feel about the trade association sites. I don't want to make this post negative.
Start ranting on about why there are loads of shit. But I know I use no I will they work. You pay
you pay an annual fee membership and then you've got the cost per lead usually as well. Not on all
not on all the platforms but typically you pay you pay membership you know 800 odd pound or whatever
it is and then you've got to pay for your leads and stuff like that. I think it's something that
doesn't sit right with me about how these sites operate and again I'm not going to go deep into
it but all I wanted to say if you guys are struggling. I know loads of users season prostras
and you've probably got fucking three four five six seven weeks locked into the diary and if that's
you then fair play to you but there'll be a lot of members on the group but it's not going to be
the case for them especially this time of year and if you cast your minds back for those of you
that are experienced and not are busy you cast your minds back to when you first started up.
Dry spells they can be properly stressful and cause a lot of anxiety when you might only have
you know a couple of little jobs in the diary or you might not have anything at all which is
really hard especially when you've got kids to feed so the questions get an asked what do we do
should we jump on my builder and what's the other one that's just popped up book a builder there's
hundreds of them they're popping up all over the place but they all operate in the same way they
take the hard earned money from us grafters and the middleman obviously makes makes profit on us
and it's a free completely free for the customer to use and it comes at our expense so it doesn't
it doesn't sit right with me and what I wanted to say to you is if you haven't already leveraged
your google business profile which I think used to be called google my business so just change
the name of it google my business is what most of us will know it as if you've not leveraged that so
if you've been in business a while or you've just started up and you've you're not leveraging that
free platform google business profile jump on there it's a piece of piss download the app on your phone
okay jump on there fill out the blanks and start hammering out your pictures start uploading your
your plastering pictures and whatnot you can even add 60 second videos now on this platform as well
which is a real powerful marketing tool for your to bring in leads 60 second short clips you can do
that now on google and also start generating reviews start asking your customers to go on there and
leave a review now you can do that by knocking up a little link and actually when you've completed
the job actually sending that link to your customer via email and just just politely asking them look
are you happy with the work and would you would you consider leaving us a review
it does take work it's not an overnight thing you know click the fingers and then you've got a
shitload of leads pouring in and I think that's why lads are keen on my builder and and rated people
and stuff like that because you can you can literally you join part with your money and then
you've got leads coming in I understand you know that not everybody is willing to you know put weeks
of effort in for a return they want work now and they're desperate they're desperate but these
companies they prey on our desperation and then the problem with them is is once you've built up your
online presence and you've built your platform up with these companies if you can't afford it
or if you you want to leave and you cancel your membership you can have the rug pulled from under
your feet and they'll steal all your reviews all your customer reviews are gone you see and it's
shit so it's not what we want we want to be able to own our own reviews and keep them ourselves and
then by using Google my business and trust pilot and platforms like this that are completely free
you've got less chance of losing those reviews and no one can hold you over a barrel for these
um expensive membership fees so you can do all the things that you do on checker trade my builder
all the all the tools that you use on there you can use them on free platforms there's no real need
to to part with your money again unless it's a case of you're unfamiliar with how to
set these platforms up you might not be computer savvy which is fair enough a lot of us tradesmen
were great on the tools but were not great when it comes to the computer sort of things
always like myself as well when I first started up it's something that I've had to learn and
teach myself over the years but also it can be a bit daunting when you need that money coming in
you know immediately you need that cash coming in to feed your families which I understand so
but what I'd say is before you start hammering out your your hard earned cash on these um companies
just jump on these simple free platforms or write a blog about this called The Fisherman
last year um I know a handful of yous have read that blog um but I don't think it's being utilized
as much as it could be because it's a bit of an essay and it's a bit of a it's a bit of a read
and um no one wants to sit squaling through blogs these days I understand that but it's the best
way to get the information in um is through just reading it and you know rereading it and trying
to understand it where I'm coming from with it so I hope this helps you and if you're struggling with
work works then on the ground it can cause a lot of anxiety and stress like I say get on to google
my business I'm going to drop in a video um which a guy's done on YouTube which actually shows you
how to set this up because I'm I'm not tech savvy enough to knock up a video running you through
the process and to be honest I wouldn't be very good at that anyway but I have found a video on
YouTube of a guy that's done that um I'm not affiliated with him or anything like that I don't
know the bloke I just thought I watched a video last night I thought the video was out for so I'm
going to um drop that in the comments now and you can have a read of that and hopefully familiarize
yourself with it and also read the fisherman the blog post because I'll break all this down
um into more detail about the trade association so it's and and why they're a bad idea and why
why I don't really like them I mean if you're a big commercial business um and you've got membership
with multiple trade associations so it's I can understand that because your business can swallow
the cost and it's it's not a not really an issue for you and it brings in the money that you put in
is returned and I understand that um you make you're making money from the money you put in I get
that but I'm talking about the sole traders the the one man setups um the sole trader businesses
that we haven't really got money lying around to be able to catapult into a hole in the hope that it
returns leads so now every bit of money we earn we need it to eat don't we so um it's more for the
sole traders out there not for the big businesses this this advice and guidance so anyway um again
happy new year have a read through watch the video and um let me know your thoughts do you use
my builder check a trade the fucking rated people do you use google business profile or google my
business as it was formerly known let me know have a great day cheers guys take care