Finding business for your small business

I own a 1-man metal fab business. I offer CAD designing, certified welding, and general fabrication and repair. I do local advertising and have gained a small customer base, but I would like to find something more guaranteed. I've talked to companies about becoming a supplier, but everyone already has their preferred guy. I've even tried the oilfield, which seems to always need people. Nothing.

What can I do to get more work? I just wanna build stuff!

 

i got a small landscaping business, for me i don't advertise at all, the best advertising is word of mouth (pos or neg). So i just keep doing a good job and my customer base seems to be slowly growing, reasonable prices and friendliness seem to do well, but sometimes i put bids in on commercial accts, if they have someone they trust its hard to get them to switch (if it aint broke don't fix it logic). keep doing a good job, stay professional, and keep looking, your bound to get more customers

 

Is this for the business that you bought? Have you been able to maintain/grow the previous owner's customer base?

I agree - for a small business, about the best thing you can do is focus on your quality of work and developing a reputation in the area. I see you're in Iowa, is there anything in particular you can offer to the farming community?

 

Honestly location is key with metal work being a one man show without having big name to back you up getting large jobs will be tough. But starting small with contractors can get you far quick. Drop your card at your local steel supplier most don't offer welding so when they get a request they contract it out. I've gotten quite a few welding jobs from just leaving my card at Fastenal and Praxair.

I have not payed a single cent on advertising I did buy a shit ton of URL's so if someone was searching for something 9 times out of 10 my site would be on the top page of GOOGLE. After that it's word of mouth and return customers. TacomaWorld keeps the truck part of my business going but it's the industrial contracts where I make the money truck parts are about 30% to 35% of my total revenue. And the Toyota sales are still climbing every year.

Once you have a few contractors coming to you for parts you will have more work then you can handle. We got in good with one contractor about two years ago and now I'm going all the metal work they have. We did 10 full restaurant builds for them last year and we already 5 lined up for February/March alone all high 5 figure jobs. Needless to say this year is going to be pretty good

 

Word of mouth is your best advertising. After 11 years owning my business the only thing holding me back from growing is the lack of qualified techs. We work on luxury yachts doing diesel engine, transmission, generator repairs and service. 85% of my new business is word of mouth. A good name goes along way in building a business.

 

This is a moot point now. I moved out of state and closed up shop until I can get everything established here. I will probably buy an established business if I want to go back to business for myself, but right now I have a really good job that is satisfying.

 

Best of luck in what ever ya do...

 

Thanks! I'm young and ambitious so there's no telling where I'm headed. I change my mind every day.

 

I run a hardwood flooring business and historically most of our business has come from word of mouth. However, a couple years ago i decided to take the plunge and start shelling out $500 or so a month on a quality SEO dude who built us a killer new website. I swear nowadays every other person mentions something about our webpage and how nice it is. Im finding that more and more of my business comes from the internet. I have definitely learned that it pays to have a stong internet presence.

 

Put your business name on the side of your truck...like this guy.

 

Word of mouth is definitely a great way to get business. That's how the place I currently work sells millions in product a year. However, the problem I was facing with my 1-man shop was that I was struggling to find the first handful of people to act as the mouths. After 4 months of advertising and contacting local businesses, I had only 6 customers come through my shop. There's no way a business can survive on that, so I plugged the plug and moved to Minnesota. I already have a decent fab shop picked out I would like to buy that makes proven money, but who knows.