Business Challenge:

Do I just have to pick one? There are many challenges for young businesses. However I would say finding good, steady, customers and meeting their expectations. Persuading potential customers that using CAD services would be to their benefit and getting them to pay for the services can be difficult. Most people don’t understand the benefits of using a CAD service in their projects they just see the additional expense. What they don’t know is that by using my services it could very well save them a lot of money down the road if or when they do come a across a problem. It’s much better to detect problems or interferences before hand.

Solution:

I’m still working on the best solution for this challenge. I'm always picking up marketing techniques as I go through different books, websites and mostly through trial and error. Here’s what I learned. Many of times I have used direct mail marketing and have found that while it does get your name out there, it takes a long time to see the results and there aren’t very many. It may be better if you have a product that you’re selling but not very well for a service. I’ve tried being in a home show but the results were terrible. My best suggestion if you want to try it for yourself, is make sure you target the right market, get into the correct type of show and be well presentable. Sometimes customers know what they need and they just need to find the right person to do it. If you don’t have a store front office (which in my case I don’t) it’s best to have a good quality, professional and informative website. Once you have the website learn the ins and out of SEO and work on getting your website out there. Referral programs are something I’m starting to realize are a strong marketing tool. Work on the quality of your work or product and people will refer your services without any incentive. Be careful though it works both ways so always work with this in mind: “Give your customers/people more than they expect.” Good luck!