guymclarenza

I am what is known as an early adopter, I try all the new shit, I was on Twitter early and got banned for being a Nazi or something when if you said anything anyone disagreed with you were a fascist.
Chat GPT is something that I have been playing with, 3.5 is as dumb as a plank, If OpenAI wanted to convince me that upgrading to 4 was a good idea they would have made 3.5 interesting enough that it was useful for more than creating outlines.
Here are my concerns.
Chat GPT cannot count, it cannot follow instructions and rehashes the same content in numerous areas, I tried writing blogs about photography, web development, carpentry and more. As a brainstorming device it's good, to get an outline it's accep[table, but as far as trusting it with creating original content that needs as much effort to edit and fact check as it would take me to do it from scratch anyway.
In the ever changing, fast paced world yadda yadda is one of it's gotos. I wonder how many people are posting exactly the same AI generated shite, because they can't be arsed to actually check it.
IT's a boon for the spam content creator, but for the person serious about his business< I am not convinced, Convince me.

This morning I was speaking to one of the Reps that passes by me, to sell hardware for my kitchen business. I have been redesigning my website, reworking my marketing strategies and so much more because the work is drying up.

I found out that I am not alone, going through the worst November ever, I found that most of her clients are getting a hiding in the market place, nobody is getting a flood of leads, there are less than 5 companies booked up till the end of year shut down, she says and they are all small companies where one kitchen means booked for about 6 weeks,

Most of her clients are diversifying, taking on all the shitty small jobs that they would have passed on a year ago. So I now know that there is way more competition than there are jobs. I was getting really depressed thinking I was doing something wrong only to find out that it's an industry wide problem.

I know that there is still decent work out there because some people have some. I need to get more local traffic to my site and preferably local traffic that will convert. My site has shown a decrease in traffic from last year at the same time, My leads have dropped off from 10 to 2 a week and those leads are to put it bluntly almost not worth pursuing.

If I didn't need money I would just not take on the work being offered.

I have a few choices, try and up my niche to more wealthy clientelle, reduce prices or try something else.

I know what the reasons are for the reduction in interest, Interest rates have gone sky high, People with mortgages are paying up to 20% more than they were a year ago, We have elections looming so politicians are trying to out-fuckwit each other and this is never good for business.

I have a few choices, try and up my niche to more wealthy clientelle, reduce prices, or try something else.

I was thinking of adding a prize draw to my website for clients that have placed an order, but am wondering if that extra cost wouldn't best be swallowed by offering a decent discount instead.

I know most of you reading this will have no understanding of local conditions in South Africa, but factually people are shopping around hard, even the small jobs like replacing counter tops are getting harder to quote for because the prospects are getting 5 quotes and more, talk about turning over every cent.

Has anyone got any suggestions or ideas on how to get more local traffic, My SEO is pretty good, but I am seeing less traffic non the less.

I am considering setting up an affiliate system on my websites paying for leads that convert.

My average sale for kitchen units is between R55 000 ( $ 2950) and R120 000.($6440) I would be willing to pay 2% commission for orders placed. This payment would happen on completion of installation and payment received.

I am busy building an affiliate dashboard.

My thoughts are that the dashboard would have all the following info
I would supply the following information to every affiliate, referal, cookie expiry, lead status (referral, rfq received / quoted / accepted/ in progress / completed), Value, commission, total commission earned, current commission due, payment made

Also would have images, banners and the like for download, suggested keywords.

What traps should I be looking for, I don't want affiliates to be spamming and devaluing my brand.

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Getting a ROI on advertising investment is difficult sometimes. Knowing where your leads come from is of utmost importance if you don't want to waste money on ad spend that has no value to you.
Advertising salespeople are like politicians, they will tell you what they think you want to hear and also will tell the biggest whoppers like.. You need to advertise regularly so that people see your business all the time.
If you advertise somewhere and it doesn't work, no amount of time or tweaking your ads will make a difference. Some adverts are just not good for targeting your market.
Before you spend more money on facebook. twitter, pinterest or any other place that wants to take your money in exchange for some advertising, as yourself is my average buyer spending their day on this site, reading this mag or are they too busy actually earning an income?
What is the most likely placer you will find your buyer?
I still use analogue methods of advertising amongst my various efforts, so I am going to use flyers as an example. You can print 5000 flyers and dump[ them in the bin, if you haven't thought about where your clients are.
Do you understand who your client is? Where do they live? If I handed out 5000 flyers in Klerksdorp, about 200kms away from where my actual clients live, it would be a waste of the advertising budget.
If I handed them out at a busy traffic light where there is a ton of commuter traffic from outside my target area, I would be wasting advertising budget on people who will never buy.
Imagine you are a small business doing building maintenance, Your average client is between 30 and 40 years old, earns R 70 000 a month and lives in Clubview, Centurion, Would you want to be spending your advertising budget in Pretoria North?
Why would you think Facebook ads would be different?
Know your clients so that you can target them. Who is your client? Who traditionally buys from you? Are they drivers of Toyota Fortuners or Toyota Tazzes? Are they young, Middle-aged or getting on in years?
Is your offer aimed at the right target market? Are you wasting advertising budget?
Can you target better?
Marketing Strategy
#smallbusinesssupportingsmallbusiness #smallbiz #SmallBusinessSA #advertising #marketingstrategy

I have been self-employed for close to 30 years. I have had multiple businesses, some I stayed in for too long and some I may have quit earlier than I should. I am looking to spread some knowledge, but need specific questions so that I can answer them truthfully and show you what could have been done differently. Basically I want to use the knowledge I have gained to show you how not to do it.

Doing some market research here, I am a very Handy Guy with years of experience in the home improvement industry. Talking to someone the other day gave me an idea.

I was talking to a friend yesterday in between my reading, responding to some great advice and some less so, and we came up with an idea that has some merit I thought.

Every second bloke in Africa with a pick up and a drill advertises as a handyman, even more stand on street corners near hardware shops with signs proclaiming to be plummers, the do tree falling, capentry and so on. The spelling errors are purposeful, that is exactly what their signs say, I'll get some pics and post them sometime.

Anyway the Handyman market here is over traded and pricing is a rush to do jobs that cost the handmen money. I know of blokes that walked off-site because their drilling machine died and they couldn't fix or repace it.

I have heard tales of people getting painters in cheap and ending up spending more money paying a day wage than some handyman would have quoted for the job. or the plummer that dug up a pipe cut it off and realized he'd need a tool he didn't have and disappeared without a word.

In this market there are a few that make a living, I specialise in wood and quality work so I get by. I also get to charge a little more, If you read yesterday's post you will know that my passion for the work has dissapated a little, basically I am getting older and lazier and want to do something less taxing.

Would a preventative maintenace service be a good idea, The concept is I charge a monthly fee, for a monthly inspection, tightening, adjusting and doing minor tasks like repacing tap washers (faucet) hinges on cabinets, light bulbs et al. Reporting back on future maintenance tasks,

Upselling would include things like I noticed a bit of damp on the bathroom wall, that parapet wall could do with sealing, The sealant around the chimney is cracking up.

This idea is in it's infancy so the details would need to be hashed out, If you are a landlord or home owner would this be of interest?

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Yesterday I made a post and got some great advice, some mediocre advice and some really bad advice, Oh I also got spammed a few times, I may even have had a scammer or two put their oar in.

What I learned is the following;

My website looks dated, but no one pointed me at one that was good so I could study it.
A few picked up an error on one of the sites which I am busy fixing, to do with mobile, I also picked up an error that embarrasses me checking on the recordings of how others viewed my site, also repairable.

I was told to upskill but if they had even looked at the site they would have seen all my upskilling certifications. What I know is that I am old enough to admit I don't know everything, I am not too old to learn and boy did I learn some great stuff.

I was told to read a book by Alex Hormozi, Holy shit that resonated with me in a big way. Thanks to the guys that recommended it. I am going to read it again and again. It's farking awesome that he was able to put some of my thoughts into words that clarified them, and added to my thought processes in a big way.

I will admit I am more of a techie Guy than a designer, My dated website is a knockoff of a 2023 theme recommended by designers on blogs that I read, My design process is simple I look for something I like and use it as a guideline.

When I build a site for a client, we go looking for themes and ideas that they like and we go from there. CSS and HTML are not rockit signs, PHP is a little more complex. My front end may be crappy as some may think, My backend though is lean as fuck. My entire code for creating the html pages for the site is smaller than one WordPress page.

I also found out that using html extensions is wrong, but here is the thing I use yhat html extension in my htaccess file to create structure.

Lets get to the elephant in the room, Too much text. I can tell you that less than 30% of people will read it all, and less than 50% will go beyond halfway, the equivalent of about 3 screens is what most people will read, but none of that matters, The websites that get the best results have lots of text, In fact a minimum of 1000 words is recommended by SEO gurus, Who am I to argue?

My current testing will give me data to make changes, My post yesterday was to get information, and I got some good stuff, thanks to all those that contributed and added value to the conversation.

For those that are interested and not blinded by shiny shit, read this page and maybe my processes will become clearer.

https://centuriondesign.co.za/blog/web_content_strategy.html

Thanks for the education, I appreciate it.

I have been self-employed since around 92, I have more failed startups under my belt than some you have had sex. My current business is 13 years old but it still makes me just a living,

I grew it from me and one bloke to 13 employees. Now here is the thing, when I had all those employees I earned less than I did when it was just 2 of us.

I didn't get to do much except sales, admin and fixing stuff those 13 Guys fucked up. After doing some sums I let attrition do the job and reduced back to a solo outfit.

Now I am tired before I start my day, my back hurts and lifting stuff that just two years ago was a breeze is no longer as easy. This is an age thing, I realised the other day that my pension plan is good for just about 3 hours. https://dustfactory.co.za You can look at my website here and until about 3 years ago it was supplying too many leads for me to reply to. COVID broke that., but I am tired more than not getting enough work. .

I ran a web dev company before this one in a small town in Africa and clients were limited, too much competition, people offering work at stupid low prices and I got tired of counting cents, so I went back to my trade.

I used my skills developed during that period to out perform all my opposition on the web for the woodworking business. The most important thing that I learned in the business was saying no, or even fuck off. You cannot offer value and quality if you are too cheap.

I have moved to a big city, reduced overheads and can now retire about 3 hours before I kick the bucket. I really don't want to get back in the death spiral competing with people charging too little for their service, mainly because I am convinced that a website that doesn't bring results is not an investment for any business.

I have started updating my skills again, updating the CMS that I built and have been using. also have registered a few domains to build sites on as test beds.

The numbers below are based on exchange rates and are in no way accurate, they are just an example. My question is as follows, let's say the cheap blokes are selling web sites for $100 and they place them, charge for hosting about $7 a month, but are doing no SEO, no forward planning, just put it up and forget it, How much should I be charging a month for full service?

Would you be willing to pay $250 a month for a site that includes all the SEO stuff like semantics, includes me sorting out your local SEO stuff, creating content regularly or would that seem like too much of a difference. I am assuming small businesses as clients.

Next check out my website and tell me if it creates confidence. Note not all the content is complete yet, but check out these pages please.

https://centuriondesign.co.za/

https://centuriondesign.co.za/pages/SEO.html

https://centuriondesign.co.za/pages/web-design.html

Tell me how I could improve them, What could I do that would help you make a decision?

Some survive but that's all they ever do, The minority of entrepreneurs will enter the big time.,

Some facts and some actual life experience.

My business made money, lost money, grew too fast, slowed down even faster, finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel but it turned out to be a hulking great train called COVID.

I will retire about 3 hours before they know I have to be buried at this rate.

How to get rich, it's simple really but too late for me, join a growing company, work your way from the bottom to the top.