mybuilder.com - any good?

Amwell_Property_Services wrote: »

I joined mybuilder and myhammer quite recently as I'm a tradesman looking to widen my options for work.

Like a lot of tradesmen, I also advertise, so already spend hard earned money on lead generation.

Since I joined these two sites, I come home most evenings with new leads in my inbox !

For just over £50 membership fees per quarter, I consider that to be amazing value.

If any tradesmen out there can honestly claim to get that amount of leads from their current advertising strategy then please let me know.

Obviously leads need to be qualified and converted, but the opportunity to convert one every few days, out of say a minimum of half a dozen leads per day is a totally new paradigm.

If you do not acknowledge that simple fact then you are either being disingenuous or, perhaps live in an area or low activity anyway.

If somebody can suggest another way, for £50 a quarter, to get potential work leads in my inbox every day then I'm all ears.

Since joining mybuilder I've secured about 10 jobs so the membership fees and commission fees have paid for themselves already.

I like the way mybuilder works. The site is very easy to use which is crucially important for me. Jobs are allocated to tradesmen based on the skills profile and their preferred geographical work area that they enter. Customer's can also request specific tradesmen to quote.

Fees:

In addition to the tradesman's quarterly membership fees there is a 5% + VAT commission to pay to mybuilder for every job won.

My only grumble is that many customers seem blissfully unaware of this fact. When I point it out to them, they invariably are surprised.

One very apparent upstanding lady customer said to me only this week, that she would take the job off of mybuilder once she had found a tradesman !

Odd isn't it, in this day and age of cowboy builders, and the imperative to find good quality, honest, reliable tradesman, the first reaction of those same customers seems to be to want ot cheat the service provider out of their success fee !

It seems that it's ok for customers to try and cheat the system, but they want to find tradesmen that don't.

Cowboy customers anyone ?

The 5% + VAT mybuilder and 6% + German VAT (19%) for myhammer is the reason why I never include materials in my quotes.

So, one of the things I find quite frequently is that you spend time contacting, visiting, preparing a quote only to see the job get deleted by the customer once they have found another tradesman, so that they don't have to pay the success fee.

It's ok for customers to behave dishonestly but TV programmes get made when tradesmen do it.

Guarantee of quality ?

What ever gave anyone the idea that an internet directory would assure customers of the quality of a tradesman's work ?

Perhaps we should have a mysolicitor site, a mydoctor site, a mydentist site, a myestateagent site etc etc. Then see what their feedback is like.

Sure, some are bound to get some feedback posted by their mates, but they'd be paying a 5% or 6% + VAT commission for each of those dodgy reviews. Not too much of a problem for small jobs, but for larger projects where references are going to be more important, I'd say that sort of devious practice would prove to be cost prohibitive.

I work bloody hard for my feedback thank you very much. I am ware that one unsatisfied customer could mean me losing my 100% positive status - so the answer is simple.

Produce high quality work, be reliable and honest and make sure your customer is happy.

Oh and be careful what work you take on.

One thing I've learned already on these sites is that the approach to customers is very important. You get one chance to pitch and that's it. If it doesn't work then chances are someone else will get the phone call or email. So, no different to real life really.

Greedy ?

I find it simply nonsensical to deride the fee structure. It implies that a tradesman doesn't already have overheads in lead generation. If you are lucky enough to be employed full time on referrals and recommendations already then why join these sites in the first place.

If you are not then why deride the fees for getting new work ?

You can't have it both ways can you ?

Unless, of course you just want something new to moan about.

I think these internet services can be made to work for both tradesmen and customers alike. I don't mind paying success fees if it means that I get more work.

The Myhammer site I find a lot more complicated to use and imo it takes a little while to get to grips with. I also find it very London centric and as it works by the customer providing a proposed price for the job, I feel that it introduces a potential barrier in many cases where the customer has budgeted unrealistically.

Also, do customers pay income tax and NI I wonder ?

If so, why is it that they always expect tradesmen not to ?

Cowboy Customers is long overdue me thinks ....