Johan Strydom teams up with WorkBidder.co.uk - The No Success Fee Site.

WorkBidder.co.uk has recently teamed up with Johan Strydom, an Internet Entrepreneur and qualified Actuary (someone who understands the numbers behind insurance premiums). He has found a particular interest in WorkBidder.co.uk because of this background in calculating Tradesman and Small business Insurance premiums within large insurance companies and being a small business owner himself. We interviewed Johan to get an understanding of his strategy and future for WorkBidder.co.uk Q: What about WorkBidder.co.uk made it an attractive venture to join? Johan: When I started my own company I realised the most important and difficult task is to find customers. Large companies have marketing teams and big budgets but for sole traders and small companies the person doing the work also needs to do the marketing. Many of them don’t have the marketing skills or budgets. Customers don’t just come knocking on your door. This hurdle can stop many skilled and talented people from having a successful business where they are their own boss. WorkBidder.co.uk has the platform in place to bridge over this hurdle. Q: What makes WorkBidder.co.uk different from similar sites Johan: I researched the market and noticed the negative feedback from small business owners. There are problems with charging fees for leads and fees for successful bids. Charging for leads means the small business owner has to make a payment without any certainty of the job. These sites offer little vetting of those who post their jobs and hence the contractor takes a risk in paying for a lead. Also charging a success fee on top of around 5% makes the contractor either uncompetitive or substantially less profitable. After paying for materials and labour, the profit margin on a job can be as low as 10%. Charging 5% as a success fee is then half of the profit! I believe a quality contractor should be rewarded for their good work. Q: Without success fees, how will WorkBidder.co.uk be paying the bills? Johan: Listing in the service directory for tradesmen and other contractors will be free. This means free marketing for all contractors joining. Funding will be needed though for marketing the site to the public to encourage them to post their jobs on the site. This will be achieved in two ways: Sponsorship and nominal membership fees. In terms of sponsorship I’m already talking to my contacts at insurance companies and other companies providing services to tradesmen and contractors. This will contribute to the budgets we have for marketing and also give much wanted exposure to the sponsors. Those service providers who pay the membership fee of £7 per month (£1 for a 1 month trial), will have access to leads with no more risk of paying for dead leads or having to budget for success fees. Yes, there will be no fees for leads or success fees. Our marketing campaigns will focus on the geographical areas according to membership within the area. The more members in the area, the more leads we aim to generate. Hence it’s a bit like pooling together to stand up against the bigger companies for advertising space. Q: What else makes WorkBidder.co.uk unique? I believe by pooling together there are more benefits achievable for members than they can achieve on their own. Economies of scale make it possible to negotiate better deals for members than they can on their own. I hence aim to negotiate exclusive deals from van and liability insurance to business

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