My Business.

[Weeto]

I'm not sure that I can be competitive with my business. I was trying to rebuild my business after taking a little sabbatical from it but I just can't seem to compete on costs with my market competitors.

I saw a stall in a mall in Glasgow and they do practically the same things that I do. They were able to undercut me massively on brochures and I was a little smug about their business card prices until I noticed that they're practically using marble slabs compared to my paper stock. Their cards may be more expensive but I'm using much lighter paper than they are. They're also dirt cheap for flyers, brochures and so on and they can produce glossy calenders, cards and so on, which is something I want to do but it will probably have to wait. I hate to say it but the standard of their stuff is a bit higher than mine too. My example stuff is probably 7.5/10 type stuff as what I'm doing in graphic design and printing isn't my #1 job as I'm more admin orientated normally with a college IT background.

I can't afford a shop or stall and have to work from home. I was finding it impossible to get a job otherwise as I had a 5 year layoff from being able to work due to illness and I don't have good references as my last proper job was with a closed factory and in the one before that, the boss retired and their #2 retired and was in poor health, he might not even be around now as he lived fairly close to me and I haven't seen him for a long time so he could have moved away or passed away.

I'm stuck in the situation of fighting for work or getting £67 a week to live on indefinately.

Only other option is to somehow get orders by cutting prices or changing my target market very quickly. I was thinking of moving over to personalised greetings cards, sort of like a small scale version of Moonpig.com or something like that. If I could get some cash, then I would maybe be able to get a small stall or something in a local mall, although probably not Braehead, St Enoch or Buchanan Galleries or even Silverburn. Might have to think more along the lines of The Piazza, Paisley or even hiring the former Blockbuster store along the road but that would probably be way too expensive at the moment as my budget often runs in hundreds, rather than thousands.

I'm not looking to be a millionaire, just to get a couple of hundred pounds a week to live on and cover my expenses.

EDIT: A shop, even the local newsagent store that closed next to the Blockbuster I mentioned is waaay too expensive. That store is over £14000 a year to let. Even a stall looks like it might be too expensive on a long term deal at the moment. I'm really just a tiny business trying to expand but it might not happen at the moment for me.

[jhota]

sucks, dude. i hate this economy.

[Weeto]

The business market seems to be getting worse over here in the UK, not better.

I spoke to an adviser at Business Gateway (an organisation that helps small businesses in Scotland) and she told me that things have actually got worse this year and not better. I was under the impression that things were gradually returning to normal but she suggested that smaller businesses were being pushed out more and more by their bigger competitors who don't want the little guys to have any business they think they could get.

I'm really thinking that I'll have to push my products to the public and not the business community. I've pretty much given up hope of getting orders for large scale leaflet, flyer and business card orders and I'm looking at going completely towards greetings cards, calendars and things like that as they don't require huge print runs compared to the thousands of leaflets and flyers that need to be printed. A hundred cards can bring in more money that a couple of thousand flyers, for example.

[Shurato2099]

That's probably the way to go, Weeto. There's more of the public than there are businesses in general; go for the grass roots and hold on tight.

[Glitch]

I'd definitely recommend marketing yourself on the internet as much as you can. Even as a local business, there are a lot of free things you can do to promote yourself. Craigslist, Facebook, and Twitter are all excellent marketing tools that sound like they could work for your business. I don't know a lot about it, but you might even want into seeing if you can sell e-cards along with your print greeting cards.

Something else you may want to look into are small local events. I don't know your area so I can't suggest anything specific, but in my area, there are sometimes things like block parties and town fairs where local businesses can set up a table for a very low cost. It'd be a great way to increase awareness and to maybe sell anything you have pre-made, like your greeting cards!

I don't own my own business, but I am self-employed. It is rough and really scary sometimes, but it's great to be able to take charge of your own life like that. I hope you're able to build a steady income through your business.

[Weeto]

I started briefly earlier in the year but I didn't have enough money for everything I needed so I took a break until I could get things arranged better.

I already have an advert in Yellow Pages from the previous version of the business (all my contact details and address plus the business name are unchanged so there is no problem with that) and my contract with Yell includes Google advertising and an entry on the Yell website.

I've been advised to ignore the local press as advertising in the local papers doesn't seem to work well and my business adviser told me not to advertise in newspapers at the moment as it was a waste of money. I had previously had adverts in the local weekly and daily papers. The daily paper was actually much better value than the weekly as five ads (three daily editions plus two free weekly papers) cost less than one in the weekly paper.

Rental of a stall or store seems too expensive for me at the moment so I'm just going to be based at home.

The e-card idea was something that I'd thought of and I might do that on top of the printed cards.

I'm completing the designs of my Christmas cards at the moment and I hope to print the first batch of cards before the end of the month and get them on sale as soon as possible.