We have signed up to 2 sites - Rated People and MyHammer. Like anything in business - it costs, but if you play it right it can be an excellent way of expanding your business especially for a new company like ours.

Rated people works best if you get to the customer first - you pay to get their details and the most frustrating thing is paying for details of a customer you cant then contact! I have found the cheap jobs to be most productive - a lot of people post a small job to find a tradesman, and if tradesman proves to be any good they have a much more profitable job you can do. The most valuable thing is the customer ratings - I get more jobs now because potential customers are pleased with previous comments made about us. Currently getting 2 out of 3 jobs we go for.

MyHammer is a bit trickier - only recently started with them. Paid a fee to become a premier partner, downloaded documents to prove our credibility, gave link to our website. Just won first job - you pay a fee of 6% of value of job if you win the contract. Requires bidding with other potential contractors - some contractors seem to place bids that could only mean a cowboy job, or serious financial loss on job. Let you know how this pans out.

Overall we aim to build a good profile, enabling us to get registered with appropriate national body and get known in a wider market. Can't see us continuing with these poeople for too long unless they prove to give us enough trade to remain a profitable company. Has helped to boost our cashflow during first year of trading whilst waiting to complete our first buy and sell renovation. Did have Yell.com contact us - they wanted £60 a month and could not guarantee trade from advertising - so avoided signing up. That made the website tradesmen websites seem like much better value.

Hi Guys, these bidding sites, a few tradesmen down this way are going for them and show signs of good returns on them
I done a search for electrician and gave my postcode, with my nearest job being 25miles to change a light fitting, then they were nearer 50 miles away.
Problem for me, is as I live by the Thames, Kent is only 4 miles over the river, but 80 miles by road, so I get tagged with Kent work.

I have not used those sites yet as there does not appear to be many jobs in my area.
I do use the free listing from this group, but have yet to have a call generated from it.

Other advertising, is local paper at £40 a week and from time to time a free mag, which goes out to our posh area. The latter would only generate 1 call every 3 months, the local paper used to bring 4 calls a week, but I am lucky if i get 1 a week.
Most work is from regular customers, but there is only so much you can do before the house rewired

Hi Simon,
With you on the Yell thing, paid £36 per month last year and did not get one call. Thompson Local tried to get me to take out one with them, costing £40 per month, even worse if you wanted a web site it cost over £1,000 a year!.

How are you getting on with advertising in you local rag!

Originally Posted by Simon

anything with a large monthly fee gets me worried!its a shame yellow pages dont seem to listen when i tell them that!

i did not go much on the sites where you pay to bid on a job etc

ive just come off rated people as it wasnt working for me, those going on are looking for the lowest price not the best price, anyone looking for a quaility job will ask around their friends and family and then check out their work.

rated people prey on peoples fears that if they choose a tradesman he may turn out to be a rogue trader, one way to do this is find one that has been rated by others

from a tradesmans point of view the ratings work like references and the more you have the more likely you are to get the work, if you drop your membership yo,u lose your ratings ,so tradesmen pay even when they are to busy to take work, so thaats £46 a quarter , every quarter to price low, bend over bacwards for the ratings and then no customer loyalty as their loyalty lies with the site that sent you

Originally Posted by Render Systems

I have a mate who uses trusted tradesmen he bid for jobs to price and has been getting a few... problem is he is a right bloody cowboy... been bankrupt 3 times and changes address every 6 months... he's a canny lad but i wouldnt get him to even look at my roof nevermind get onto it

this is the problem, you know his work and wouldnt reccomend him or use him yourself

but as you say hes a canny lad and has the chat to get the ratings

my mates on it and i told him i was coming off, we worked out very quickly how to manipulate the site, its a doddle and anyone can do it

membership is counterproductive

getyourself reccomend on by your existing customers...........its as simple as that

you dont need a ratings site to get a good reputation or to find work

Thanks for the choice. It an opportunity not to be missed!