Tips on doing sidework

In my relatively short experience I have learnt never do jobs for friends at a discounted price if anything charge more! These are the guys who call you at 10 o clock at night on a Sunday asking if you know why their 1989 Honda Civic speakers stopped working and want you to fix it for them.

And always remember this Your only as good as your last job!!

Keep doing good jobs and eventually word of mouth will prevail.

Good luck and all the best

Placebo-Pete

Apology accepted. I wasn't intending to steer away anyone from starting their own side business or start a new business but negating the fact that there's bumps in the road to self employment is like disregarding the warning signs on a pack of cigarettes.............. eventually it will come to haunt you and you wish you would have listened to the warnings.

hey there im going to give you my opinion since thats what i do i have my normal job but since i love this i only do it on the side  at first its going to be hard because alot of people prefer going to  someone that has a store but youll still get people calling you since ffrom what ive seen alot of installers that work for big companys here in houston they just do the crapy a** job to get the car in and out what ive done is do the things right the first time that way they dont come back to hunt you and that way you can ceate a reputation of you doing good clean installs like someone mentioned abobe line a few distributors up and try to give better prices than the other people becuse at first thats how your going to get customers by giving good prices i say go for it.

thats my opinion maybe the way i think is different than everybod else but at least it works for me

used car dealers! they are always looking to make a buck for free. give them a deal. same price+extras every time and let them know you dont care what they charge.that you want them to make money. give them incentives during slow seasons (summer remotestarter specials). above all, make friends with them. and never talk bad about anybody. thats a good way of getting out of business.

find a product that has a dealer model....same unit with a different remote. that way you always use the system, but if 2 dealers are close and compeating...they are not selling the same product. as far as the customer knows.

remember....word of mouth is the best form of advertising. but bad word travel fast. if somthing goes wrong....always get right ontop of it,and keep the customer in the loop. people like honesty. i have customers who will only use me. even after 10 yrs.

business cards, flyers for parking lots. mobile service(house calls...do it in their driveway or at their work) at someones work is a great place to gain other customers.

keep your prices even....dont change the price alot. i havent changed my dealers price in 5 years. the add-ons(gm adapters-pass4s and other bypasses) have made the price go up...but the alarms/remotestarters stay the same

good luck, its tough at first...but hang in there.