Next week I fly to the States to help with an online Auto Salvage project.  A colleague of mine has put together a UK site that has done pretty well as it allows the public to see what repairable salvage  auctions are going on throughout the industry all on one site.

He will then buy the salvage project in your behalf, in many cases you could be saving serious money, if you know what you are doing. The project has been so successful that it was only a matter of time before transferring that model into the States became a consideration.

So i have spent some time putting together A Search engine friend auto salvage site, that will get Americans interested in the same thing as over here.  So as of know a LLC has been formed, but I need to go across to Florida to get certain other requirements sorted out and I may have a few days off also.

The site is called AutoSalvageFinder and at the initial stages will only include auto salvage from Florida auctions, until we are confident the process will work and we have the system to do the job.
With several live auctions occurring throughout the week, there will be thousands of autos to choose from, all put in front of the publics eye, without the need to join the auction house first.

Another large market will be the export one. Many Mexicans and east European countries now export cars from the USA as they are often much cheaper than at home. Of course the steering wheel is on the wrong side for UK buyers, so even though there is still a demand, it is not as great as other European countries.
As cars in general are cheaper in the USA, it is no surprise that the Auto Salvage is even cheaper, from RVs to Japanese models.

If you are from the States and live in Florida, we are looking for some recovery agents to ship cars across the State. let us know

It is quite easy to cost for the purchase and running of a vehicle that is important to the profitability of your business, say as a local plumber, taxi driver or even fleets of cars driven by salesmen.  You know the initial cost, you can calculate a rough idea of depreciation and then research the maintenance costs.

However things do go wrong when the unexpected occurs, outside these calculations. It is quite surprising how many businesses, think the vehicle they use will go on forever without ant mishap. The solution is of course to ensure you have some sort of breakdown cover to help when these situations arise. For the members of the public a car breakdown is time wasted, but for a business it could mean losing a client, not delivering things on time that can have knock on effect well after the vehicle has been repaired.

It is surprising then, how many businesses do not see breakdown cover as an essential buy. We will get Jonny form the warehouse to go out and fix it, is often a reply when asked the question. I normally reply, that if Jonny has so much time free to leave his post, then why is Jonny employed at all. When you bear in mind how cheap breakdown cover is today, a years premium for one vehicle could be less than a few hours wages for Jonny, it is wonder why breakdown cover is ever even considered as non essential.
There are also the breakdowns that Jonny can’t fix, that need the tools that are only carried within a breakdown cover patrolman’s van, or the recovery of the vehicle back to base to a local garage to be repaired. Business is about doing what you do best and employing others to do what they do best.

When we try to do everything in the hope of saving money, if often turns out to be false economy. So if you are a business owner and you see your staff or even you under a van more hours than running the business and making important decisions, you may find your business will suffer.

If you are in the business of selling mortgages, then in a little while I may have a solution for you to help you gain more mortgage leads, through this very difficult financial time we are all experiencing at the moment.

The project is called Mortgagebam and has been developed as a consumer friendly solution to finding mortgage brokers within their local area. As you know so many consumers just pick the first mortgage broker out of the yellow pages, or just go down to their local building society, but hopefully Mortgagebam will be able to give a selection of Mortgage Brokers who will contact them to establish who is right to help them with their home buying decisions.

There are many other online mortgage lead systems out there, but they all help the mortgage broker specifically not the consumer, so the uptake is not likely to be high. In better words the lead just goes to the highest bidder, who may not be the right person for the job and other Mortgage Brokers do not get a look in, unless they pay big for it.
Mortgagebam is not designed that way, it hopes it will benefit both, by selling leads all at the same price and presenting them to several mortgage advisers, giving the consumer real choice. Each lead payment is then divided by the amount of mortgage brokers it went to, so reducing the cost of the lead.

I am excited about this, but the search engine optimisation of the project will take some time as Mortgages is a very difficult search term to rank for. It will take another 6 months or so, especially as there are other projects on the go, which I will talk about in future blogs.

If you are a mortgage broker and not charge for your service (only take payment in commission), why not give me an email, and I will let you have few leads free for you time.

Well the networking platform has been some hard work ovr the last 12 months or so. What was to be a positive step in increasing communication throughout the businesses in the North East has been more like a spammers paradise.

The built in anti spam defence system just did not work against the modern software they use. We have got around this by adding another password, which as soon as the spammers get to know we can change again. (more…)

Believe it or not, up until last month I was not on the One North east register for service providers, it has never been necessary.

But wanted to be included within the Catalyst2 register, which requires to be to be on the One North east register. I was surprised of how quick it was, I think it took about 7 days, from receiving the forms, to contacting the referees, to being accepted. (more…)

Last month I out together SEO workshop for dewentside council that went really well. In fact many have asked for a return visit, to go over what they have learned and achieved.

I have presented workshops before, but not full days, so it was good to discover my allocated times for each part, worked pretty well. (more…)

As I sit here and reflect on March an how little time I have been able to dedicate to the forum, I now realise how slow things have been.
Very few new real members, but I have to say I am getting at least 2 to 3 spam members a day, that do not seem to understand my return emails telling them to keep away. (more…)

Well as you can see the membership is growing steadily and now has reached our 50th member, which is half way through the soft launch. When we get to 100 members, then NENO will contact larger organisations and the local press, to really get the free online networking platform moving.
We still have over 100 visitors a day visiting the site, but because there is still a lack of interaction between business with only a small amount of posts still, most are looking at the dates of last post and then moving out of the site. We have yet to give them a reason to stay. (more…)

I remember as a young man and being promoted to supervisor, that allowed me to wear a white shirt and a tie rather than the red ones the general staff wore, it made me feel pretty good and important. Eventually if I got promoted to assistant manager, I would be allowed to wear a suit and a tie. (more…)

Well myself and a collegue Julian have decided to get involved in the “Meet The Buyers Seminar” next Thursday at Gisbrough Hall.
It has meant turning up at a pre meeting to discuss our stand and what to do on the day. Malcolm Gallagher was there as usual giving out tips to get the most from the event. (more…)