Are TrustaTrader & CheckaTrader worthwhile?

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Hi,

I am sure some here must have paid out to join these sites.

We coughed up a few hundred pounds to join Scoot several years back and they were useless. All talk and no leads.

Checkatrader and Trustatrader are both currently asking around £600+ for annual membership. Both are promising around 800 leads per month split between a max of 6 traders. Based on our Scoot experience I am highly dubious.

Can anybody here offer an opinion?

Thanks

PS. I apologise if this question gets asked every week. I did search the database here and found one such question, but it was dated and the response was not positive.
 
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for what it is worth my opinion is that many good reliable trades people get work by personal recommendation from satisfied customers and some local advertising. Not sure if people put much trust into " Good Trader" type websites. After all is it necesary for a good trades person to pay to regster as "proof" of his quality of working.
 
Agreed, but my son's company is undergoing expansion, due to having lots of work. This is always a risky time for any business. So, we are looking for best ways to get most for our advertising budget. We want to be sure that we can fully occupy the extra guys. These websites are an option, but only if they produce leads.
 
As above, word of mouth is the best advertising. I've had success using Streetlife.com, and local parish magazines and websites produce good leads. Beware of expanding too quickly - it's better to have five busy men than six on part time. If you're not confident that you have the work, take one less on
 
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I have a bricklayer friend who uses rated people, it sort of works in reverse. People post jobs and you buy the right to quote, they only sell a lead to 3 or 4 bidders.
He likes it as it suits where he is in his life now. Been in the game for over 30 years and he can now pick and chooses the sort of jobs he wants (mostly smaller jobs now)to take on and he seems happy with the amount of work it brings in for him
 
Thanks for that, Chappers, I will take a look at that. I would still love to hear from anybody who has tried Checkatrader or Trustatrader, though.
 
Social media can help make or break you. We had a guy who was advertising himself as a Plasterer on the local 'Spotted' and For sale sites on a certain website. I had a run in with him on an unrelated matter, (some dirty b'stard had let their dog sh!t on the Rugby pitches, and this idiot couldn't see what the problem was, instead preferring to troll all over the thread.) I told him I hoped his plastering was better than his comebacks, clearly it wasn't, as one unhappy customer had named and shamed him after he had relieved her of several hundred £, done an appalling job and refused to return her calls about putting it right! She'd found him through Trustatrader I believe.

He disappeared offline very quickly after this, taking down any references to himself or his business, and although having tried to reinvent himself a few days later, was soon sussed out and shot down in flames again. he will struggle to get plastering work around this area now I think as his name, and pictures have gone before him now.
 
Spend your money on making your own website good; these days most people find stuff through google.
It has to look professional, but also local.
Not full of cheesy stock photos of smiling Americans in suits and hard hats -that makes it look like a scam site.
Obey the 3-click rule.
Do put a gallery of before/after photos.
Do put photos of you/your workforce.
Do mention your location! I hate trying to work this out just from a phone number (or worse, when it's just a mobile number).
Do put some examples of how much certain jobs can cost. This is extremely attractive to customers, who hate playing the guessing game.

well-dressed-architects-with-hard-hats-and-blueprint-dr58em.jpg
 
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I hate trying to work this out just from a phone number (or worse, when it's just a mobile number).
it is well worth having a land line number as the main contact number, even if it re-directs to your mobile, as there are still people who will not call a mobile due to cost and ( increasingly I am told ) because having only a mobile suggests a lack of a permanent address.
 
Thanks guys. Actually I am website designer who specialises in marketing, so hopefully I know about social media and how to give a website local appeal. The question that I am asking is on behalf of my son's company, not mine.

I am grateful for all of the responses, but nobody has answered my question yet, which relates purely to the Checkatrader and Trustatrader websites and nothing else. Has anybody tried them?
 
One of my mates advertises on
check a trade he seems to get a lot of work from them and yes he pays £600+ a year, he is an exceptionality good spreader specialising in Monocouche, there is only two others on the site that offers this service which is probably why he does so well. I am a carpenter and Joiner, I don't need check a trade to find my leads, my leads are word of mouth from good work, oh yeh check a trade is biased to the trader and dishonest to the customer afaik
 
Thanks for that, Chappers, I will take a look at that. I would still love to hear from anybody who has tried Checkatrader or Trustatrader, though.

My dad and I have been on Trustatrader for 3 years and have found it to be very good. We even had a phone call from the main man himself to ask how we were getting on with the service... I thought this was very professional and a pleasant surprise!
The main benefit to us, from the service, is the accolades that get posted about us by previous customers who have found us through the site... We are diligent in asking them to provide feedback as it stands as a great recommendation for others... Most of our new leads begin with "I found you on Trustatrader and was impressed by your customers' reports".
We do things a bit differently... My dad is semi-retired, he offers handyman services on the site which leads to bigger jobs that my colleagues and I take on. It works well as my dad begins the relationship by undertaking a few small jobs that enable the client to evaluate the service.
 
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