Mejia & Jones Business Startup

The journey to self-employment has commenced. The first business startup on the road to the empire is live.

The first commercial website is written and promotion has begun. Firstly, a small 125×125 banner ad, has been placed on roylloydjones.com and at the bottom of posts on this website.

What is the website?

It’s a cost and estimating service, aimed at individuals and small construction companies. The main focus is to give said target audience the opportunity to outsource some of their cost management and estimating tasks, allowing them to concentrate on actually doing the construction work.

What “cost and estimating” services are available?

To quote directly from the new Mejia & Jones website

Estimating

Estimating services cover the following:

• Estimates can be prepared from Drawings, Specifications, Schedules and Bills of Quantities
• Full estimate build ups together with detailed resource & output schedules
• Approximate or budgetary estimates
• Material and plant schedules
• Estimates can be prepared for Contractors, Sub-Contractors or Individuals

Bills of Quantity

BoQ services cover the following:

• BoQ preparation in accordance with SMM7 or CESMM
• Bespoke BoQ preparation for Design & Build Projects
• BoQ preparation for sub-contract package enquiries
• BoQ’s delivered in Excel format

Contractor / Subcontractor

Services for contractors and subcontractors cover the following:

• BoQ preparation
• Analytical estimates
• Tendering strategy
• Procurement of materials and subcontractors
• Monthly applications for payment
• Remeasurement of quantities
• Valuation of variations
• Settlement of current and aged final accounts
• Reclamation of overdue retention monies
• Advice on delay & disruption issues
• Preparation of insurance claims

This is a specialised service, how are you qualified and is there a market for freelancing in the industry?

Again to quote from the Mejia & Jones website

Senior Quantity Surveyor, Roy Jones, graduated from Staffordshire University with an Upper Second Class Honours Degree in Business and Financial Economics, before returning to Anglia Polytechnic University on a part time basis, where he gained a Post Graduate Diploma in Quantity Surveying.

He worked for some of the biggest names in the UK construction industry, including John Laing and Costain, before turning freelance and working with clients such as GF Partnership and Shepherd Construction.

He currently represents one of the largest contractors in the Caribbean.

As for there being a market, we know of many individuals / small contractors who are stretching themselves and not doing their project / business justice. We need to reach these people and convince them that by employing us, they will benefit from added time and improved financial status.

We know we can deliver a quality service, the hard part is making people aware of this and convincing them to give us a try!

Therefore marketing is crucial. So just how will the business be promoted?

1. Business cards are being printed, these will be distributed to all and sundry!
   
2. An email newsletter/advertising campaign
   
3. Google Adwords. Keyword selection is going to be very important, as our budget wont allow us to choose the obvious keywords. Construction, Outsourced is one option
   
4. Facebook Ads. As above.
   
5. Posting to relevant forums (a list of forums can be found here) offering advice to forumites
   
6. An ebook – “Save Money on Your Construction Project” – is being written. This will be available free to all as a download. The title is still not 100%. When the ebook is ready, we’ll run it for a few weeks on Google Adwords or something similar as a test. (It will be the same ebook, however there’ll be a couple of different ads and name combinations, which will give us an idea which combo is the most striking and likely to get hits in the long run.)
7. Twitter updates offering construction news/views and reviews, and advice on saving costs in construction, and the latest news from Mejia & Jones.
8. We will actively encourage recommendations from our clients. A word of mouth recommendation is a huge endorsement for any company or service.

There will be a more in depth series of posts on how the marketing is proceeding as things progress.

How will you charge clients?

At first, we are offering our services FREE to anyone who cares to give us an opportunity. From this, it is hoped that clients will recognise a good service that is useful and will be willing to pay for our help in the future.

Once we begin to start charging for our time, we will work from hourly rates, with fixed quotations if required.

Anyone who is interested in this service, learning more about what we can offer, or can offer help with marketing and the like, please leave a comment, contact us here or email roy@mejiajones.com.

Thanks

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