Heating Contractors Register
- Thread starter timmy74
- Start date
anyone else experienced theseLose count of the number of calls we get offering "get rich schemes" or unique contractors lists.
Dont part with your money. Word of mouth best form of advertising.
Dont part with your money. Word of mouth best form of advertising.
I sometimes tell them that if their system is so good then list us free and I will give them 4% of any jobs we get from them.
For some reason they never take me up on my offer. It makes me think that their responses is not quite all they make out!
For some reason they never take me up on my offer. It makes me think that their responses is not quite all they make out!
I had the very same call...........like Agile i said that if they list me free for one month and got me 10 new customers I would sign up for a years contract and pay back the month I got free. Again they declined. Not much confidence in themselves really.
Canversors need dropping from a very large height onto very hard ground.
Canversors need dropping from a very large height onto very hard ground.
Two years ago, I foolishly took a cheap ad out with Thompson Local following a complete and utter lack of success with a more expensive ad in Yellow Pages. I think I paid about £300 for it. At worst, I thought that at least I was losing less money than before – result!
Anyway I had no calls at all – none, zilch, zip. However, this was all explained to me when the Thompson rep called about 9 months later. The reason that I didn’t have any calls was simple – I hadn’t spent enough money with them. If I used my entire advertising budget for the year with TL, then the money would be sure to come rolling in. Anyway, being a bit thick I fell for it and guess what? 9 months later, I am still waiting for a call.
A couple of weeks ago I got another call from a friendly TL rep who was staggered, positively shocked to find this out and promised to find out why. Here was a man who was going to get the bottom of this conundrum, this enigma, this difficult to explain phenomena that seemed to fly in the face of the rules of physics that apply to advertising. So, after a week he called again and had the answer. It turns out that stupidly, I had spent too little again and as a result, all of my calls had gone to the bloke whose advert was above mine. He evidently was getting about 300 calls a year and had several nervous breakdowns due to pressure of work. Luckily, he could afford private healthcare.
So, according to Adil, the TL rep, this year was going to be different. Why? Because he, Adil, was going to take a personal interest in my business and as any fool knows, his reputation was more important to him than my money. Adil of course wanted to come and see me because the information that he had could not possibly be passed to me over the telephone – anyone could be listening – and this deal remember, was going to be special, a one-off if you like, just for me.
After saying “no” in more ways than you could possibly imagine and being rude to the point of really deserving a biff on the nose I gave in. I agreed to see him on the understanding that (a) it wasn’t a firm commitment on my part and would be confirmed the day before this momentous event and (b) if there was anything more interesting going on in my life, including watching my toenails grow, then I would almost certainly cancel the meeting. This was all fine with Adil, because he wanted to help me you see.
Anyway, being something of a coward and not having the mental willpower to resist this robot of a man, I texted Adil politely declining the meeting and even more politely asking him to never, ever to contact me again. Following this, I had three separate text messages from him, the tone of which ranged from complete incredulity that I was compounding all of my previous mistakes to threatening me that he was going to “give my ad to the competition” – I now really pity the other bloke who is now clearly never going to sleep again.
So, if there were a moral to this story, which there isn’t, it would be:-
In my experience, advertising does not work
Adil is a complete and utter moron and if he calls you, please tell him I said that.
Anyway I had no calls at all – none, zilch, zip. However, this was all explained to me when the Thompson rep called about 9 months later. The reason that I didn’t have any calls was simple – I hadn’t spent enough money with them. If I used my entire advertising budget for the year with TL, then the money would be sure to come rolling in. Anyway, being a bit thick I fell for it and guess what? 9 months later, I am still waiting for a call.
A couple of weeks ago I got another call from a friendly TL rep who was staggered, positively shocked to find this out and promised to find out why. Here was a man who was going to get the bottom of this conundrum, this enigma, this difficult to explain phenomena that seemed to fly in the face of the rules of physics that apply to advertising. So, after a week he called again and had the answer. It turns out that stupidly, I had spent too little again and as a result, all of my calls had gone to the bloke whose advert was above mine. He evidently was getting about 300 calls a year and had several nervous breakdowns due to pressure of work. Luckily, he could afford private healthcare.
So, according to Adil, the TL rep, this year was going to be different. Why? Because he, Adil, was going to take a personal interest in my business and as any fool knows, his reputation was more important to him than my money. Adil of course wanted to come and see me because the information that he had could not possibly be passed to me over the telephone – anyone could be listening – and this deal remember, was going to be special, a one-off if you like, just for me.
After saying “no” in more ways than you could possibly imagine and being rude to the point of really deserving a biff on the nose I gave in. I agreed to see him on the understanding that (a) it wasn’t a firm commitment on my part and would be confirmed the day before this momentous event and (b) if there was anything more interesting going on in my life, including watching my toenails grow, then I would almost certainly cancel the meeting. This was all fine with Adil, because he wanted to help me you see.
Anyway, being something of a coward and not having the mental willpower to resist this robot of a man, I texted Adil politely declining the meeting and even more politely asking him to never, ever to contact me again. Following this, I had three separate text messages from him, the tone of which ranged from complete incredulity that I was compounding all of my previous mistakes to threatening me that he was going to “give my ad to the competition” – I now really pity the other bloke who is now clearly never going to sleep again.
So, if there were a moral to this story, which there isn’t, it would be:-
In my experience, advertising does not work
Adil is a complete and utter moron and if he calls you, please tell him I said that.
Yup, i've had similar experiences with yellow pages. When I first signed up with them about 5 years ago my bill for the year was £250, second year it was £500 and now its running at between £1800 -£2000 for the year. They make an appointment every December to come and see me to 'talk over' my requirements for the next year and every year I tell them i'ts fine,I spend enough on advertising,have enough work and if I have any more I wont be able to handle it,this is there cue to start talking about 'the pie' and how 'the pie' is only so big, and for me to get my fair share of 'the pie' I need to increase my advertising every year. So I then say to them that in 10 years at this rate i'll have 2 full page adverts at about £20,000 each.... 
...then they tell me i'm being silly or ridiculous. But anyway,this year I stuck to my guns and told the rep (repeatedly) not to bother calling round as it would be a waste of her time as I wasnt going to sign for any more and to just keep it as it is-she didnt like it but sent the forms for re-newing adverts thru the post-they definitely don't know when to take no for an answer,there's only so much work a one man band can handle- I am thinking of decreasing the yellow pages ads and trying a website,just dont know if it's the right thing to do or not.
...then they tell me i'm being silly or ridiculous. But anyway,this year I stuck to my guns and told the rep (repeatedly) not to bother calling round as it would be a waste of her time as I wasnt going to sign for any more and to just keep it as it is-she didnt like it but sent the forms for re-newing adverts thru the post-they definitely don't know when to take no for an answer,there's only so much work a one man band can handle- I am thinking of decreasing the yellow pages ads and trying a website,just dont know if it's the right thing to do or not.
I threatened to bill YP for my time if they phone me again - silence.
The Heating Contractyors Register or whatever they're called are an equally annoying bunch of wasters. I had one on the phone for half and hour or more. He would send me anything in the post until I paid the registration fee. It was that important that they passed on my details to desparate customers.
Obviously not desparate enough to phone CORGI.
Anyway; you should never HAVE to be chased to advertise. If your quiet, leaflet drop. If your busy then why advertise?
The Heating Contractyors Register or whatever they're called are an equally annoying bunch of wasters. I had one on the phone for half and hour or more. He would send me anything in the post until I paid the registration fee. It was that important that they passed on my details to desparate customers.
Obviously not desparate enough to phone CORGI.
Anyway; you should never HAVE to be chased to advertise. If your quiet, leaflet drop. If your busy then why advertise?
Yellow Pages and TL have shot themselves in the foot. For years they have taken the money from the roque builders/plumbing outfits etc.
All the AAAAAAAA000000000 Plumb... etc adverts to try and get to the top of the list have done nothing for consumer confidence. Many adverts actually route back to the same rip off organisations.
Consumer advice programs have told the public to take care when using the directories and the result is a general decline in trust of companies using them to advertise so its no wonder the calls are diminishing.
The cycle shop or florist will be fine, the public will always have confidence in using that particular type of buisness - for the construction industry though, word of mouth from friends/colleaques and family is the only trusted route.
I remember when Exchange and Mart used to carry some real roque engine repair center adverts. Most of the advert phone numbers could be traced back to the same cowboys. At the time it was well publicised through the media. I attempted to negotiate an engine rebuild for a colleaque of mine who had been ripped off big time until we were threatened with alsations and the heavy mob. The magazine was shown to promote cowboy traders and AFAIK had to clean up its act if it was to survive.
YP and TL must be losing significant advertising revenue from genuine honest traders who do not want to be associated with the scam merchants.
All the AAAAAAAA000000000 Plumb... etc adverts to try and get to the top of the list have done nothing for consumer confidence. Many adverts actually route back to the same rip off organisations.
Consumer advice programs have told the public to take care when using the directories and the result is a general decline in trust of companies using them to advertise so its no wonder the calls are diminishing.
The cycle shop or florist will be fine, the public will always have confidence in using that particular type of buisness - for the construction industry though, word of mouth from friends/colleaques and family is the only trusted route.
I remember when Exchange and Mart used to carry some real roque engine repair center adverts. Most of the advert phone numbers could be traced back to the same cowboys. At the time it was well publicised through the media. I attempted to negotiate an engine rebuild for a colleaque of mine who had been ripped off big time until we were threatened with alsations and the heavy mob. The magazine was shown to promote cowboy traders and AFAIK had to clean up its act if it was to survive.
YP and TL must be losing significant advertising revenue from genuine honest traders who do not want to be associated with the scam merchants.
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