Some of My Sites
BiggerInTexas.com
FishPop.net
Texas-Tshirt.com
Hurricane-Tshirts.com
MetroPubCrawl.com
WheelTechnology.com
MySalesPeople.com
HappyFunToys.com
BiggerInTexas.com
FishPop.net
Texas-Tshirt.com
Hurricane-Tshirts.com
MetroPubCrawl.com
WheelTechnology.com
MySalesPeople.com
HappyFunToys.com
Archives
03/14/2004 - 03/21/2004
03/21/2004 - 03/28/2004
03/28/2004 - 04/04/2004
04/11/2004 - 04/18/2004
07/18/2004 - 07/25/2004
08/15/2004 - 08/22/2004
08/22/2004 - 08/29/2004
08/29/2004 - 09/05/2004
09/05/2004 - 09/12/2004
09/12/2004 - 09/19/2004
09/19/2004 - 09/26/2004
09/26/2004 - 10/03/2004
10/03/2004 - 10/10/2004
10/17/2004 - 10/24/2004
10/24/2004 - 10/31/2004
10/31/2004 - 11/07/2004
11/07/2004 - 11/14/2004
11/28/2004 - 12/05/2004
12/05/2004 - 12/12/2004
01/16/2005 - 01/23/2005
01/23/2005 - 01/30/2005
03/06/2005 - 03/13/2005
03/13/2005 - 03/20/2005
04/10/2005 - 04/17/2005
08/07/2005 - 08/14/2005
08/14/2005 - 08/21/2005
01/29/2006 - 02/05/2006
02/12/2006 - 02/19/2006
02/19/2006 - 02/26/2006
02/26/2006 - 03/05/2006
03/05/2006 - 03/12/2006
03/19/2006 - 03/26/2006
04/30/2006 - 05/07/2006
Site Feed
03/14/2004 - 03/21/2004
03/21/2004 - 03/28/2004
03/28/2004 - 04/04/2004
04/11/2004 - 04/18/2004
07/18/2004 - 07/25/2004
08/15/2004 - 08/22/2004
08/22/2004 - 08/29/2004
08/29/2004 - 09/05/2004
09/05/2004 - 09/12/2004
09/12/2004 - 09/19/2004
09/19/2004 - 09/26/2004
09/26/2004 - 10/03/2004
10/03/2004 - 10/10/2004
10/17/2004 - 10/24/2004
10/24/2004 - 10/31/2004
10/31/2004 - 11/07/2004
11/07/2004 - 11/14/2004
11/28/2004 - 12/05/2004
12/05/2004 - 12/12/2004
01/16/2005 - 01/23/2005
01/23/2005 - 01/30/2005
03/06/2005 - 03/13/2005
03/13/2005 - 03/20/2005
04/10/2005 - 04/17/2005
08/07/2005 - 08/14/2005
08/14/2005 - 08/21/2005
01/29/2006 - 02/05/2006
02/12/2006 - 02/19/2006
02/19/2006 - 02/26/2006
02/26/2006 - 03/05/2006
03/05/2006 - 03/12/2006
03/19/2006 - 03/26/2006
04/30/2006 - 05/07/2006
Site Feed
Trying to Survive...
Quit a well paying job to start my own company.
Took the plunge to put my startup ideas to the test.
Making into something huge!
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Something for Nothing
On Monday I launched my third apartment site. Getting the site configured and preped takes about 8 hours. Getting listings on the site is another story. Adding listings requires visiting property owners in person and explaining the premise of the site and the benefits. Essentially a property owner gets free listings and usually in short order they start getting referrals via email. They don't pay a cent for this, and we've found that it can be a huge boon to their business. So they should be rushing to be added to the site, right? Wrong.
Who would have thought that selling something for free would be so difficult. Free means that there's got to be a catch. So 95% of those that we talk to don't believe that we're legit. One owner of a medium sized property management firm even said she was going to alert her lawyer about us. We encouraged her to do so. We're still waiting to hear back... I've even considered charging a nominal amount at any new sites that are launched to improve the number of listings we get.
Overall this is really frustrating. Our business model requires us to sell the listings for free, and then once the property owner starts getting results we sell them on additional advertising to increase those results and put a little money in the bank. So we have to makes a sales effort twice for each customer. Once for the free service and then a second time to actually make money. And by "sales effort" I just don't mean a single contact. There's the initial visit, phone calls, emails, mailings and sometimes follow-up visits. At least I have one trump card that I'm able to pull that often results in sucess: Testimonials. I encourage sketical property owners to contact the owners on the first apartment site. When they do, they always add their listings. The trick is getting them to take even take this step.
Every once in a while I do come across a property owner that gets it. They jump on site and load it up with their listings right away. In essense they make the site their site. We advertise and they directly benefit. It actually works out for us too. After a while skeptical property owners start to conact us and ask what they have to do to get listed.
