Just wondering how many new customers you get in a month :).

This mainly depends on the age of the host, and how much they advertise. You should start a new poll for hosts X months/years old.

I wish I were in that category of 100+ a month. But nah, we're adding about 1-5 customers a week. That's with us being a 7 month old host, and doing very minimal advertising.

It's very hard to come up with a stable # per month, it usually varies.

Originally posted by svj
It's very hard to come up with a stable # per month, it usually varies.

I agree. Last month was completely horrible. Maybe 30 clients signed up - if that. This month has been one of our better months. Halfway through and we've already pulled in over new 30 clients.

8-95.com is at 860 customers after 6 months so that's approaching 150 per month.

Dixiesys has about 4000 customers after 20 months so that's an average of roughly 200 per month for that period.

No complaints :)

gees Gary - ever heard of SHARING :P

We get about 1-5 new a month on average ;)
( 2 Months ago we had 15 new clients :D )
with $0 advertising :)

Dixiesys must have put some SERIOUS advertising to get those numbers so quickly :)!

I am just plain sobbing! I have been at this awhile and have little to no new signups. SOB SOB.

I know my setup fees put some folks off but gee...you'd think my site was unreadable or something. I think its pretty good.

I too recieve 1-5 customers a month with almost never putting emphasis on advertising. I am in a good financial sitation with how many I have currently ;). This is giving me time to know all of my customers on a more personal basis. 2+ years of hosting for me, but I am still going strong. Most of my customers seem to be well educated since we are not the cheapest; we don't get too many children with a bunch of questions :D and I am personally able to now over achieve my support standars (this makes my customers very happy :laugh:). Life is grand for me and personally I may soon expand our services outside of the local area to see how well I just might do :laugh: but as of now I am feeling good about my 1-5 sign ups per month. There is also that difference one should take into consideration. We host locally at the moment with only a few out of state/country sign ups which are all mostly referrals from our customers.

Originally posted by GoldenTiger
Dixiesys must have put some SERIOUS advertising to get those numbers so quickly :)!

Actually nope, I spent about $100 on advertising back in the first weeks of the business, plus some ebay auctions totalling about $400 in ebay fees. Nothing at all since.

We have been open since April 29th 2003, and have over 250 clients. We do not advertise one bit. We got a few people that spread the word for us. Man, there is no substitution for that.

Gary, your companies are interesting. I would like to talk to you about how you deal with what appears to be overlapping plans. It seems your companies are competing for the same clients? Are they not? It's obvious that you are successful with it, I would be interested to know how.

We're getting on average 50+ per month - and that number rises every month. We spend less than $200/month on advertising.

We began this company back in February of this year and was profitable within the first month.

Originally posted by Dixiesys
Actually nope, I spent about $100 on advertising back in the first weeks of the business, plus some ebay auctions totalling about $400 in ebay fees. Nothing at all since.

All I can say is, "How?"

That's simply amazing.

To Chad, Dixiesys' companies don't cater to the same clients. Dixiesys is a higher end company that deals with more professional plans with more options. 8-95 is a barebones (not on features) service that doesn't do backups or offer the type of support that Dixie does.

I believe I can shed some light on Gary's madness :) If I am wrong Gary please correct me. Dixiesys has more of a community approach, more hand holding by the support staff etc.. (Gary builds the servers)

8-95.com has more of a DIY ( Do-It-Yourself) attitude. A lot less hand holding. (rackshack servers I believe).

Why do I know this?

Lol I like to study companies, the ones that do well I like to try to figure out why :)

You've got to cover all the bases ;)

We've got the same setup going. It's nice when someone is looking for a service that isn't provided with the one company that you can refer them right back to yourself at another company. :D

I'm in the 6-10 category. Dixi, how did you get so many customers so fast?

Gary ran a site 3-95.com, he got a fair share of clients from that, then came Dixiesys.com where his client base grew even more. I believe as he stated before he picked up a few clients on E-bay(before the world for pennies hosting like you find now). Then he just focused on good support, friendly fast service, grew like a wild fire.

Actually dixiesys.com came first, then I ran across www.4-95.com (he was selling it on ebay) and was like "whoa I like that idea, one plan, no guff just signup or don't" and copied the idea and started 3-95.com :) On Jan 1 I refocused the dixiesys.com site to more high end hosting with more expensive plans but a guaranteed uptime that means something (99.5% uptime on web services as measured by alertra.com or 10% off for each .1% we miss) and I pointed 3-95.com to 8-95.com and let that take over our budget hosting side of things.

For the most part deek is pretty much on the button.

One of the main tenets is just be honest, it might hurt to admit you fxcked up but getting busted for fibbing when you're trying to spin the tale into something else is worse :)

Ain't that the truth ;)

~75 new clients per month here. Mostly word of mouth. $0.00/mth spent on advertising. Getting the ball rolling is the hardest thing, but once you have momentum, it's just a matter of rolling with it. :)

Getting the ball rolling is the hardest thing, but once you have momentum, it's just a matter of rolling with it

That's it more than anything else IMO. I started doing stuff for a few friends, so I had a handful of clients to start with. But gaining the first 5-20 clients after that was hard - it took months! But once I built that small base, things got rolling. I know every single one of my customers personally, and have helped each one of them through some little crisis (eg, "how do I configure Outlook?!") along the way that has helped to build credibility and loyalty.

By the time I started advertising in the local yellow pages (which is about the only advertising I do), things had started rolling along pretty well. I would definitely recommend this to others - people in your town will ALWAYS feel a little more comfortable dealing with a local company.

BTW, I think my biggest growth spurts came as a result of me joining a local chamber of commerce and from joining a volunteer organization for a cause I am interested in. Networking and word-of-mouth can really help to get the ball rolling!

MikeF, i just tried visiting your site, and got redirected here:
http://www.agileservers.net/errors/forbidden.shtml

Saying something about my IP being banned! Im on dialup, in Australia, Sydney. My ISP is one of the top 10 largest, so maybe you need to check what's going on there! It may explain why you're not getting any signups :)

Yep, not getting in on Cable here in Brisbane, Aus either :)

hmm... maybe they just dont like aussies :D

boyscout, could PM your ISP. I am using a banned IP list so if you can tell me your ISP that will help and I will check my logs to what your IP is.

You guys I have nothing against Aussies. Sometimes the banned IP range is too comprehensive...I ran into this once locally where I had received fraudulent order attempts and I unfortunately banned everyone from that particular ISP..then someone I knew who used that ISP wanted to signup and they couldn't...so the banned IP list can cut both ways.

Sorry for the trouble you guys...nothing against Aussies...heck you guys have nude beaches dont ya!? :stickout:


Originally posted by boyscout
MikeF, i just tried visiting your site, and got redirected here:
http://www.agileservers.net/errors/forbidden.shtml

Saying something about my IP being banned! Im on dialup, in Australia, Sydney. My ISP is one of the top 10 largest, so maybe you need to check what's going on there! It may explain why you're not getting any signups :)