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Be Loyal To Your Local Locksmith or Trades People
Growing up in a small town, let just say it was not country but it was a small town and the good thing about a small town is that fact that you have one or maybe two of each service.
So when you need a tow truck you call “Rob” the local tow truck driver to help you out. The next good thing is that you don’t even need to tell him what has been going on to make you need to call him.
Its funny is a small town everyone seems to know. Rob the tow truck driver just knows that you have a bomb for a car and it brakes down every times it rains, most of all he also knows where to tow you too.
Its unspoken and nothing needs to be said as to what need to happen as far as him helping you.
You also get the occasional comment or joke if you see them down the local pub. But its always excepted and in a friendly manner. That’s some of the good things about a little town.
If for any reason you need a service, it’s almost an insult to the local trades person or service provider if you choose to use an out of town service. This is because you support the people that support you, and generally the locals look after you. Looking after your local people is all part of the small town attitude. So by calling in another from out of town is just founded upon.
Being in business and being in Sydney, it’s a lot bigger and people generally don’t want to get to know you, they don’t want to say g’day when they see you.
When they want something, they want it cheap at mates rates, but there is no loyalty at all. They will just as soon use another service provider if the price is right.
So as a businessperson it’s hard to attract local business, because there is no loyalty at all. If you are well known and well respected you could find your self replaced the next week.
The worst thing about being a good service provider such as a trade’s person, for example plumber – electrician – locksmith is that a good trades person has pride in their work.
It takes years to develop skills and the training to be able to do the job right and efficiently without costing the customer more then they need to pay. Although there are long term professionals out their that have been servicing your local area for years, they often get replaced by some over night blowing.
Some cowboy with no professionalism, no experience that is only out for the money as fast as they can. Could you image what would happen to a person of that caliber in a small town?
If you are not a honest person, and a person that over charges and dose a shoddy job, in a small town you will be found out very quickly and the referral from friend to friend will be to “Not Use You”
In Sydney its different, because we have a large number of people its easy to find fly by night trades people.
With the use of the Internet and Google adword, you are now at risk of running into someone of that caliber more often then not.
Back in the day we all use to use the yellow pages. The biggest company that had the years of experience and the budget would rain supreme and would be the trusted bet with the biggest ad.
All the little guys would be down the bottom, and you take your chances! Now with the Internet you can get any result from any business no matter what. “Money Talks” & “”Stupid search engine algorithms determine your credulity “
So if you do a search you will get the person that pays the most at the time. What’s worse is that the system is not fair or honest at all, companies are investing time to push they competitors down in ranking to bring them self’s up in ranking in the hope of more leads.
The power of perception has never been so out of touch, You think you are getting a reputable service until some strange looking person with a beaten up work van turns up at your door.
Shore it dose not take long to see them for what they are when they are standing on your doorstep. Some people find out the hard way when its time to pay the bill, with an inflated bill they now are expected to pay.
The point is that you are now more then ever at risk of a low quality service in almost all professional trades that are out their. This is not fair and it’s hard for honest people like us that run reputable business to stay afloat.
There are still things that you can look for. Look for a master’s license and a company that displays their insurance details as well as insurance details.
The day will come when business are spending more time on advertising then working, the time will come when its cost effective to employ people to sabotage their competitors to stay in the game, the time will come when you will spend 50% of your earnings to advertise, The time will come when you will need to play the search engine game of ranking in order to have local people “a small abundance” be able to find you.
So with all these changes who has the time to work? Is it possible that advertising for local business is so hard that it can consume your work load so much that you don’t have time to actually do the job? Meanwhile search engine company’s are laughing at you all the way to the bank.
So now that old fashion small town is looking good. People that know you by name people that use your service because you are a proven member of the community and respected. Not because you are Johnny on the spot and not because you are at the top of the search results.
If you are a cowboy or a scammer you would only last a week in a small town. Sadly this is only the first step in this equation. My guess is that one day the cost and the competition will one day result in vandalism to competitors, maybe even murder. It’s most likely to happen in the states where they all carry guns.
The tow truck industry did have a time where they were fighting on the streets. Even in the past few years I can think of times where they started a large fight at the seen of a crash, then followed by a all in brawl at a place of business , all this for the rights to the location, so that they can work and run a business without competition.
More and more business will find them self’s the victim of sabotage and find it harder and harder to turn a profit with the bug company’s manipulating the small business into paying more and more money for advertisement, and not helping protect this systems of advertising delivery. That’s right. Little of no protection from the big players. They call it relevant traffic.
An example of this would be a funeral place that has repeated clicks from the same person every day, They call this relevant traffic? but how many people do you know that have someone die every day ? But yet they still make you pay the piper. They could make a filter that would be custom to your search terms that would mean that you would only ever pay 1 time a month from that persons traffic / click. But that would not make much money fro the search provider would it?
So the time is now to show true colours, and if you provide a good service and are of honest trustworthy nature, most likely you too will have customs that trust you and can rely on you, these people will store your number in their phone, and continue to provide a constant supply of work. That is one of the main avenues of our work. Repeat customers that have used our service before and will continue to use because the service is of quality as expected.
I expect other business to pull out of bidding wars and lowlife tactics to obtain business, I think it wont be long until some industry’s are seen on TV current affair program or on the nightly news , just like in the USA. It will happen if the trend continues.
If you are reading this and you are an honest business that is struggling with todays economy, my advice is to focus on local traffic and reputation. Its the only thing that you don’t have to pay for that is biased on your merit. Time will tell and we will soon see a lot of business survive or fall. Feel free to post your comment and your industry, and any relevant information that supports our thoughts
