Marketing Your Services

You can be the best plasterer/tiler/bricklayer/painter/joiner in the world, but if you are the only person who knows that, you aren't going to make any money!

You also need to understand there is a difference between "marketing" and "selling".

Marketing = the process by which you inform people about your services

Selling = the process in which you win business

This part of your business development deals with marketing. We will look at selling later.

When you are starting up, the only people who know what you are doing are yourself and your immediate family & friends. They are actually one of your best resources right now. Test your thinking on them. Ask them to challenge it. What we need to do is develop your offer - the service that you are taking to market.

For Example:

It's easy to say you are going to be a tiler.

• What sort of Tiler?
• Where?
• Who for?
• Weekdays only or weekends and evenings as well/instead?

These few questions start to show the offer you are aiming to supply. In turn, that will inform how you can best expose that offer to the market.

Sometimes the craft you choose will select your market for you. For example, bricklayers do not supply a complete product (except, perhaps, garden walls) and will almost always have to work with or for someone else. If you plan to be a bricklayer, you need to aim your marketing to fit in with someone else's service. Plasterers and painter/decorators, on the other hand, can supply the whole service to their clients and will frequently work for someone as the only contractor on site - particularly in the domestic market. They will market their services differently.

Now to seperate out Marketing Activities into their various groups. But if you don't want to do that just yet, have a look at what Yorkshire's BEST marketing company has to offer in terms of FREE tips and advice and look at the Brighter Marketing Knowledge Centre