starting my own business-need advice

[frizzy]

Hey everyone!
I'm new to this forum, but I'll get straight to why I'm here. I'm starting a new business (not that it's absolutely new ): landscape design company.
I'm starting it off the ground so I will appreciate any advice that you can give me.Thanks.

[peterjhale]

That's a wide question.

You'll need to focus on the following:

- What is your unique selling point (why will people buy from you)
- What type of customers are you targeting (and where are they)
- How will you tell them you are around
- Can you afford it

Also, have a look at www.teneric.co.uk/landscape-gardening-business-plan.html

Peter

[frizzy]

One of the things I've already done is define my target audience: people, who're building new houses. Now I've got a question: what's the best way to get in touch with them?

[mbailey]

First things first. Are you limiting yourself to a certain area? (I would assume so - you don't want to be driving up to Scotland if you're based in Portsmouth)... This will very much define/limit the avenues you go down. Start by ensuring you have a listing on yell.com and your local yellow pages. You might want to consider an advert there as well - I'd say this is the most likely place for people to look.

Next step is the local papers. In addition to advertising (if you can afford it) you should at least send out a press release on the business launch, also supplying a photo etc. If possible contact one or two newspapers to see if they will do an article on you.

Get a website up and running - it doesn't need to have much, but you should have a few good photos of previous work, ideally with some case studies. You could do a section on each which shows how the work evolved from start to finish.

Assuming you have a van (for tools?) make sure your company name and website are all over it. For a local business this is important as it will stick in people's minds as you drive around.

Try to partner with similar companies or individuals. For example, contact your local garden centres, tool supply companies and aquarium shops - it may be for example that people want assistance after starting a job they cannot finish, or they are looking for that creative touch...

Word of mouth should be your strongest marketing tool, so make sure you leave cards with existing customers and invite them to give them out.

You could perhaps send out a newsletter every 6 months/1 year (I suspect your line of work would not require a greater frequency). This could include case studies of existing clients, details of new products available, new services you can offer and any special offers you might want to run.

That should be a few good ones for starters! Hope this helps.

[frizzy]

Thanks a lot for your advice, Peter and Martin!
now I have a far more clear idea of what I need to do!

[mbailey]

Forgive me Peter but I have to do it ...

If you want more ideas, buy a copy of my book at www.marketingyour.biz.

This will give you loads of ideas on cost-effective ways to promote your business as well as step-by-step guides on how to perform certain tasks such as writing a website, e-commerce, writing and distributing press releases, writing case studies, designing newsletters etc...

You can buy it on Amazon.com (not .co.uk yet) but it's half the price on my site!

Again, forgive the blatant plug but hopefully you'll see from my site that it will probably cover a lot of areas that you want to learn more about.

Thanks,

[peterjhale]

Hey no worries Martin


How do you get your book as a ebook on Amazon or any other online retailer ?

[mbailey]

It is only available as an e-book through my current publisher - www.booksurge.com. They also handle the distribution of it on sites such as Amazon.com. To be honest I've had zero interest in e-books. People (including me - a real tech-head) still like printed paper for books.

Getting a book listed on Amazon.com or other online store is just a case of providing them with the details - you normally have to provide them with a couple for stock purposes. Amazon.com have 2 or 3 copies of my book in stock at any one time.

I am in the process of signing with another publisher who I hope will promote it further in the UK.

[peterjhale]

I contacted booksurge as I saw you were listed there

They sent me their standard publishing stuff so I sent a reply asking about ebooks

That was last week and I have heard zip since

[cactus]

Hey, Frizzy!

I've just come across your post and thought that I could be of some help. I already own a similar business and what I discovered is that nothing works better than actually meeting your potential clients (I suppose you know where to go). Still one thing that you definetely need to do is to make sure people remember you and will recognize you next time they hear about you and your company.That's why I suggest you had a catchy logo and businesscards designed for you properly. Believe me, this is not so insignificant as many people think.

In case you still don't have such things as logo, businesscards, etc. I can recommend one company that specializes in designing all that. They did it really well for me.
here's the link to their web-site:

http://webspacestation.com/web-desig...ity.html?frm14

Good luck!