Imagine that you are running a business, a clothes shop say, or a DIY store, or photography shop, anything at all. In the current climate things are tough, sales are down, turnover is through the floor, and you’ll have to send a search party out to find the profits.

What will you do, either sit on your hands and hope it gets better, or do something about it. You can change the shop layout, paint scheme, bring in new stock, put in new window displays, you could also have a sale, or a promotion of some sort, maybe a 50% off or 2 for 1 or whatever.

You have made your plans, put them into action and the morning comes around when everything will come together, you throw open the doors, the question is will you get a flood of new customers coming into the shop, probably not. You’ll get no new customers unless you tell your potential customers that there is something special going on. Your options are things like newspaper adverts, radio adverts, and signage on the shop; these are all good, but none of them will be what I would call immediate advertising, in other words something that will tell your customers as they are walking up and down the high street that you are up to something in your shop.

So immediate advertising, or cheap advertising, will let your customers know that you have a promotion on now, and the best type of immediate advertising is to use personalised printed balloons, that’s right kids balloons printed with details of your promotion. Just think, for less than the cost of a small advert in the local paper you can have hundreds of ‘mini billboards’ bobbing around the town.

 

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Doing the job yourself and avoiding the labor costs of a professional is appealing to many people. But you have to factor in the extra time you’ll be spending. If your time is more valuable then hire it done. If not, then roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Here are 10 of our favorite easy to moderate DIY projects.

1. painting walls

2. replacing light switch plates

3. putting up cheap bamboo blinds

4. putting up a light fixture

5. change the locks on your doors

6. putting in new cabinet handles

7. replacing the toilet seat

8. installing minor fixtures like delta shower faucets

9. caulking the tub or sink

10. replacing light bulbs

There are tons of more difficult projects, and for those you should be solidly grounded in the skills required for each one. Job like laying carpet or installing a fireplace can require more than one person and there’s definitely a know-how required.

If you’re doing the job yourself you should expect it to take at least 50% longer than what a professional could do. Since they do it all the time they’ve gotten faster and know how to hit their groove quickly. You’ll be fumbling a bit more so it will take longer. Trips to the hospital shouldn’t be counted out.

When shopping for materials remember the old rule that you get what you pay for. A sale is a great thing and should be taken advantage of, but don’t buy cheap materials or you’ll be redoing your project anywhere from 1 day to 5 years later. If quality doesn’t matter then you shouldn’t be doing what you are.

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