dream2008's Blog

What used to be a very challenging task before has now been made a lot easier: building a home. Even you yourself can build one. Building your own house can be very stressful, but the product you see at the end of the process gives you a feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment. With all the technical details and the basic plans laid out by steel kit homes manufacturers, putting up your steel kit home by yourself is now less difficult than it used to be. Thanks to Kit Homes Nation wide, you know now where to run for your steel kit home needs.

Deciding to go the do-it-yourself way of building homes is a tough decision. But take note that deciding to do so can give you the option of being able to potentially save. We mention potentially because, in some cases, owner builders are forced to spend more especially when they need to hire professionals to correct some of their construction mistakes. Kit Homes Nation wide, therefore, suggests that an owner builder needs to study, assess, and evaluate, and learn every part of the steel kit home project before deciding to drive the first nail. This way, he will be able to avoid having to regret any miscalculations or having wrong parts added during the construction process. And because of this, despite the fact that most of these steel kit homes are being advertised as easy do-it-yourself jobs, most home owners prefer to hire the expertise of contractors to help them out.

Kit Homes Queensland have also lined up some significant factors that need to be considered if ever one decides to put up his own steel kit home. Some of which are the following:

1. Try to give yourself a reasonable timetable for your steel kit home project. Giving yourself less than the time needed will have you doing things in a hurry and end up not doing the right things at all.
2. If ever you decide to get a professional contractor, make sure he has the right experience. Try asking for recommendations from where you bought your kit home; they will surely know somebody who can help you with your project.
3. Be sure to read the steel kit home instructions carefully so you won’t be surprised when they don’t turn out the way you imagined your house to be. Different kit home packages will have varying specifications.
4. Some cities and states would normally require approved house plans. Try to check out if the one you’re in does and make sure to demand one from the steel kit home manufacturer from where you purchased your package.
5. If you want to be directly involved in the building of your home but feel that you lack the skills to do so single-handedly, try to consider yourself as worker who is part of your contractor’s team.

Kit Homes Queensland believes that everybody deserves to have a nice place to live in. This is why all their steel kit homes boast of fantastic designs that clients will know at first glance that picking Kit Homes Nation wide for their steel kit home provider was a wise decision to make.

1. Find and use the right domain name.

1. Pay-per-click (PPC).

1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

1.  The right domain name describes what you do, not the name of your company.  It should include the search terms people use to search for companies like yours.  For example, let's say you own Johnson Technology and you make flow meters.  Your first inclination is: johnsontechnology.com or maybe johnsontech.com.  Except your potential customers aren't searching on any of those words.  People who want to find you search on "flow meters" or "flow meter for steam pipe" or whatever.  So, flowmeter.com or flowmeters.com or flowmetersforsteampipes.com are much better choices.

It's really as simple as that.  Search engines use several criteria for measuring the relevance of your web site to a particular search.  Whether your domain name includes any words used in the search term is a basic yardstick all the engines use.  All other things being equal on a search for "flow meters," the flowmeter.com site gets returned far higher than the johnsontechnology.com site.

2.  Pay-per-click, as you probably know, describes an arrangement you make with services, other websites (usually portals), search engines and directories.  You bid on key words and phrases that relate to your product, your website is returned when someone searches on those words or phrases based on your bid, and you are charged only for those people who click through to your site.

If you have $1,000 or less to spend per month bringing people to your site, use pay-per-click.  I recommend Yahoo Search, Google Adwords and MSN (Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions), that’s really all you need to know, as they cover 70+% of all the searches conducted on the Internet.  Once you’re doing okay on these, start looking for related portal sites that offer pay-per-click.

Just go to each site and follow their instructions.  If you want help selecting the words and phrases to bid on or writing the small ads, contact a person like me.

3.  If you have $1,500 to $3,000 to spend per month bringing people to your site, use the PPC solution above and find the best SEO guys you can.  SEO works to return your URL in the non-paid results.  SEO guys sniff at us pay-per-click advocates, saying that people pay more attention to the non-paid results that the pay-per-click results.  They may be right, although I haven’t see proof of that.  Plus, if you can’t afford the price of admission, who cares.

Communications

The telephone

Despite all the technology we have today, telephones are still the primary mode of communication for most of us. The general rule of thumb is to have a phone line that is just for your business, and always answer that line professionally. If you do only have one line and it is shared with the house, you must train everyone in your household to answer it professionally, day and night. Always answer the phone in three rings - and set your voicemail to pick up by three rings.

When you answer your business phone, kill the TV/Radio in the background immediately. If you have children at home while you are working, teach them the importance of the sound of the phone - and insist on complete and utter silence. If that is not possible, consider getting a babysitter during parts of the day that you will make phone calls, or create a child care co-op with other work-at-home parents in your neighborhood.

Creating a professional outgoing message

Write down what you want to say and practice reading it in a slow, warm, and conversational manner. Identify who has been reached, and your company. Make a decision to either use a generic message or update it regularly if you are away often. If you are going out, do not bother saying "I'm away from my desk" - that is obvious - but do tell the caller when you will return and when they can expect a return call. Strive to return all business related calls within 2 hours, and never more than 24 hours.

Snail Mail

If at all possible, have a mail box for your business, especially if your address is obviously a residential neighborhood. If you regularly deliver products or larger packages, get an account with one of the delivery services like Fed Ex or UPS. Having a postage meter for your business might make your outgoing mail look more corporate but this depends on the impact you want to make. A regular stamp will sometimes give your mail a personal touch that is appropriate, too.

Marketing

Marketing Collateral

The first impression a prospect gets of your business is usually you, and the marketing collateral you use. This is a critical investment towards the professional image of a business, and directly relates to your perceived 'size.' For this reason, it is better to not have certain pieces of collateral than use material that can hurt your business.

Yet, micro businesses usually have financial concerns when it comes to their marketing, and very often cut corners at start up phase. Do-it-yourself is risky business, unless you are certain that you have a good design sensibility and have gotten a lot of unsolicited feedback on previous attempts to design, layout text, fonts, and colors. It is not enough that your wife says, "That looks great, honey!" if the success of your business depends on it.

The best approach is to determine what your priorities are in marketing collateral, and budget for a phased approach. For example, having an appropriate and consistent image is usually the first consideration, and depending on the nature of your business, cards, web sites, brochures, and flyers can come later. As you develop a marketing plan and strategy, it will be clearer where you should invest.

If you have NO budget for marketing (never a good idea, but it is a reality for many micro businesses), then here are some low budget ways you can reduce the harm to your business:

• Buy pre-designed paper designs, like those at PaperDirect.com and use Microsoft Publisher
• Use an online business card service like VistaPrint.com
• Look into clip art and stock photography services like clipart.com and photos.com
• Barter what you can do with a designer
• Contact local design schools to see if they are looking for "real life" projects for the students

In all of these routes, you will certainly still "get what you pay for" but for some, it is the only realistic alternative to doing it yourself.

Web Sites

Whether or not you need a web site depends on what your business model is, and your marketing plan, but if you do get one, the same considerations as marketing collateral come to play. Web sites have a few of their issues. A professional "big" business would never have free web hosting or a shared domain name - and considering how cheap annual domain registration and web hosting is now, there is no excuse to not have your own. Having your own web address with paid hosting eliminates the pop up banners, hit counters, and advertising that scream you are too cheap and small to get your own. And besides, big companies do not advertise anyone on their site except themselves.

As with all marketing, consider starting small, with a phased approach. Plan for growth of your site in advance, with a step by step project plan, and then start out within the budget you can afford, rather than having a site which may hurt your business. In many ways, it is always better to have none at all, than a cheap, poorly designed site.

Networking

When you are networking, your appearance and language are critical to how 'big' and professional you appear. Of course, much of this depends on the type of business you have and how important it is to you to look big - it is perfectly okay for soloists who are in lifestyle businesses to create an individual style of communication and appearance suited to their business.

However, if your goal is to stay small but look large, consider the impact that language has, as much as your professional appearance. Learn to say "we" instead of "I" if it is appropriate.

Here are some tips for using grammar in your business networking and marketing

• Use first person, obviously, for direct one-on-one correspondence.
• Second person is appropriate for instructional materials – for example, “you should avoid using this procedure…” Write as if you are talking to an audience, because although sight unseen, you are.
• The usual opinion is to use third person in marketing materials, and only use first person for opinion and experiential writing.
• Be cautious about sounding over inflated in your writing, when using third person grammar.
• Try to step “outside” your self and write “as the business” would write.
• Be consistent, whichever you use!

These are just a few ways your micro business can appear larger, which can result in bigger, more profitable clients. In many of these decisions, there is not a right or wrong way to do things. It really depends on the image and impact you want your business to have.