New Host Advice Here

[D MaN]

Hey guys,
I am coming here asking for a bit of advice. I recently entered into a contract with a friend of mine and now I have my own server, which is operated by his people because they know what they are doing and they have the best tech support. Anyways, I wanted to start my own hosting company for the people like me on a very limited budget. I don't have much money and he is really giving me a good deal, but I have to begin supporting myself. I need some advice. I have almost finished the site, at http://www.crazytech.net and I have the base prices down, do you think that they are affordable. Also, what are some good ways of advertising to people. All I want to do is start my own self sufficient business right now, and I have tried everything but I cannot seem to get any customers. Any advice or ideas is GREATLY appreciated. I hope that I put this in the correct forum. Thanks Guys!!!

 

[Robert]

The best way is to set a goal of how much you plan on making a month and how you expect you will need to make at first per month in order to pay for your expenses. Than price your packages within that goal.

As far as advertising goes, try targeting people of a certain interest, for example, small business orders within your neighborhood.

But most of all, give it time. You won't go from Nothing to Bill Gates in 1 to 3 months, not even 6 months. Time and hard work is what makes you successful.

 

[northwind]

I agree, just providing the lowest prices won't do. If you do, you will probably pick out all the cheap clients. =P

Well, to a degree anyway.

Also, build up a rep. If you have a good rep, it will help out a lot in the long run.

 

[NexDog]

If you have no advertising budget then you need to focus on your local market. If you know about optimising your site for the search engines, that can help alot and we do get alot of traffic that way. The advice I give to our resellers (typically on a small budget), is to team up with a design firm and hit the local businesses hard.

If you just try and sell hosting only to the local market, you are not going to do all that well. However, more people need a site than hosting and once they got that site, then you can host it. Invest in some printing materials and make some flyers and leaflets to hand around - get some business cards and envelopes too.

Once you have a solid client base you will start to get referrals. As for our traffic, I would say it goes something like:

30% search engines
20% advertising
20% website referrals
30% client referrals

It's a great business but it's no get rich quick scheme. I find myself hiring more and more staff before I get a pay rise. I'm at the computer 15 hours a day and I sleep about 4-5 hours a night. It's a great business though.