I hope I make it. Not looking good right now, but my head is in the haze.
Here's the deal with the IT industry. If you are a smaller company or independent, it's largely word of mouth. The only one's that seem to get away with advertising (which I have seen very little of lately), are guys like Geek Squad. They are so big, that you can pretty much trust them just via advertising.
I have done the route of flyers and business cards. I've done it a few times with zero results. Okay, I got one call out of a thousand or so. Not a good return. A bunch of those flyers were mailed when I belonged to a couple of Chambers of Commerce. Two years ago, I sank nearly a grand into a single advertisement at a car wash. The ad co. was a fellow CC member. He gave me a discount and a prime spot on the board. In one year, I got one phone call from that ad and the lady was calling to find out how the advertising was working or me. Go figure.
I am not a good cold caller. I tend to obey the "No Solicitor" signs. I know they bug the crap out of me.
Lastly, I am fed up with the industry. I have been taken advantage of and things just have not gone the way I had hoped. I have been sticking with it, since it is what I know best and am really good at. But I am tired. You can't keep going for 15 and not see any rewards.
I appreciate the advice. I do.
Sidney, I really did not have that many clients - the ones I had never did the word of mouth thing.
I had three good ones that kept me going for the last years and kept the bills paid. I have no idea why I lost the lawyer at the end of last year. The only thing I can think of, is that they were paranoid in the last 6 months and were firing just about everyone for distrust. I was the one they trusted the most. They may have thought I was part of their problems, which I was not. I take clients privacy very seriously. That started the hurt this year. After my fender bender last Dec. my car ins. went up. That's what put the hurt on AX for the year. I survived until October. Then I noticed that my best client had been very quiet. Mental calculation told me that I had not effectively heard from them since end of August, but that was one of the owner's house calls, not business. It's now Dec. and nothing. There should have been some issue or update to the software that runs the biz by now. It's a pretty good indicator that I'm out. This one really hurt and did me in. I have two biz clients left and a bunch of random home clients that rarely call, but when it gets unbearable. Home was never supposed to pay the bills. I really didn't even want to do homes, but took what I could.