Throw your best 'starting a business' ideas at me!

[lackofinspo]

DH is the king of hair brained schemes BUT I think he's on to something!

After we got charged £300 for a new car key, he self taught how to programme car keys and invest in all the kit to enable him to do so.
He's set up a website, a Facebook and Instagram page but we haven't 'launched' the business yet - so to speak.

He's had three customers already (friends and family) and made about £150 each time in profit so it's definitely a viable business opportunity!

I'm super proud and want to help him launch this to give us an extra income stream in difficult times, but I'm not sure how to really 'advertise' the business.

He needs to be near the top of Google but we don't have any idea how to get him there so any tips would be super!

Otherwise any ideas around content, how we 'launch' the business, where on earth do we start would be most welcome!

Thanks MNers xxxxx

There are lots of books and online courses around - take a look at the best reviewed ones.

If DH is an ideas man but not practical make sure you are on top of cash flow and expansion plans - ie become the COO -

Good luck - sounds great

You have to have a decent website which is Search engine optimised (SEO). To get to the top of google it's a bit of a dark art but things like helpful blog posts with lots of keywords formatted the right way will help. Look up how to write articles for SEO.

Social media is good too, suggest you do a short course on it!

@Luredbyapomegranate thank you I'll take a look!

Yeah I'm the brains and he is the brawn! I eye rolled when he started it but when he came home and chucked £450 cash on the dining room table from about 30 minutes work I sat up 🤣🤣

Thanks @cloverlover

Do we have to pay to get it optimised or can we do this ourselves?

A lot of local authorities have business enterprise support, may be worth checking with your council

I'd ask to put cards/fliers up in any local garages, car supply shops, post office notice boards. Local Facebook pages etc.

Invite all your friends round, take their coats and steal their car keys.

He should be a locksmith as well. My son is in Manchester and was locked out of his flat. The guy came round within an hour and it took him less than five minutes to open the door. Bit worrying really! He charged £100 and had another five jobs that night. At that point it was 8 pm. I'm not sure how they make sure the person actually owns the place though.

... based in the fact three entire people willingly handed over their cash to the family and friend...you think you have a viable business?

If your question is really about promotion and advertising the business I would talk to a local social media and google specialist. You can teach yourself this stuff but it’s not a great use of your time.
Network marketing is a good way to generate business but even better for getting to know other businesses who might compliment yours - business to business might be a good steady income stream for this type of work.
Become queen of the spread sheet and plan, plan, plan. Make a 6 month plan, a one year plan and a 5 year plan. Then set about achieving your goals, honestly once it’s on paper it gets done much more efficiently than when it’s in your head.

This is the sort of thing that small businesses advertise on our local Fb pages. You tend to get the last minute "hell I can't get in my car!" appeals on there.

Sounds like you had 3 customers recently? May be worth finding out how/why they needed keys. Was is spares? Did they lose keys?

Print yourself business cards and leave at vertical business such as mot garages and car washes.

Create a Facebook page or google page and ask those 3 friends to leave reviewers.

See if there are any local forums, such as next door and keep an eye out for requests for recommendations. See also community Facebook. Will this be a local business?

Business plan
Doesn’t have to be complicated. Just look at how he will get customers, what he will need to charge to cover overheads (including his time) and when he will be in profit and by how much.

He needs to be near the top of Google but we don't have any idea how to get him there so any tips would be super!

A good SEO strategy can cost 5 figures and a lot of time - it's not easy to instantly appear at the top, businesses have teams working on this for years.

However, there are some quick win things you can do that really work:

1. Your best bet is to set up the business on Google (you know when you search and it pops up on the right with reviews opening hours etc). Make sure you put your location in the title or heavily in the description. This article explains how to set it up: blog.hootsuite.com/google-my-business/

2. Get a company Facebook page, don't worry about getting a website. Keep it updated regularly and make sure contact info is easily available. Facebook is more likely to appear higher up on Google than a website you are making from scratch as beginners (the way it's coded and written affects the SEO).

3. You can run Google ads for around a fiver a day to see if that's useful for you - drive them to your Facebook page.
   There will be YouTube videos to show you how to do this. Try it for 2 weeks and see how useful it is.

4. Work out what your "keywords" are. E.g. "lost key services" or "car key replacement London" - little snapshot phrases that will help people find you. Come up with 5 and use them everywhere - across all of your Facebook posts, your Facebook account, and your Google ads and the Google business

@00100001

... based in the fact three entire people willingly handed over their cash to the family and friend...you think you have a viable business?

Well exactly I mentor small businesses and a lot do fail It’s usually down to a lack of proper research and the idea that it must be easy to start and run a successful business I’m not saying people shouldn’t start businesses (I would be out of a job if that happened) but people do need to go into it a bit more prepared than a lot do

I've been driving over 30 years and have never needed to buy a replacement key. I wonder how big the market is for this sort of thing?

Plenty of vendors on eBay already do this OP

@HollowTalk

I've been driving over 30 years and have never needed to buy a replacement key. I wonder how big the market is for this sort of thing?

There's deifnitely a market. People lose keys etc all the time.

However, they probbaly would struggle to trust Dave from Facebook with their key and reprogrmaming it. After all, you'd have to trust that he didn't make a copy or whatever and then have a key to your car.

Which is why (im' guessing) that most people would go to a dealership, local garage or known entity such as Timpson's

OP, any customer that is a friend or a family member isn't a customer.

I found a couple of FREE tasters about tips with Google from this lady .... now, there is a paid option, (which I don't use), but honestly, the free tips around google (specifically using the console) were so good that I've considered using her paid for subscriptions. I have nothing to do with this lady, don't know her, just saying that I found her free Google tips super useful. And best of all they work. maddyshine.co.uk/work-with-me/