On the horizon

We are in the middle of finishing up two of our core products. We have released our Beta for MechanixLoop.com and have generated some good interest around the product. Our next two products which will be coming out Dec 1, and sometime Q1 09 are our real buzz generating businesses products.
The technology which drives MechanixLoop.com we are finishing up as we speak and adding more reviews and locations every day. We expect to reach over 200,000 consumer reviews by the first of 2009.

On Dec 1 we will release our Pay Per Lead marketing solution for the industry. This product will be revolutionizing how businesses generate leads and pay for marketing online. We have built a technology around a telephony system which allows us to notify business owners the instant they pick up a phone call if the call is a lead and where it came from and then bill them for the lead after they have received it. The power of this is huge, and I won’t waste time explaining it.

Our second product which will be released in the early part of 09 will be a white label solution for insurance agencies and other partners. We will be able to allow agencies to offer their  customers a easy search portal to their DRP shops with full reviews and ratings for those business, and offer them a solution for a nation wide auto repair service search. Helping them to provide more benefit to their customers and have better connections with their DRP shops. As a part of this we will be implementing an on line hosted CSI solution for the shops to handle CSI with the click of a mouse and have the information available for both the insurance agencies, the business itself, and consumers. Bringing transparency to the auto repair industry.

The real goal for MechanixLoop and the future is offer more effectively technology to solve current problems for the automotive industry and remove the disparity of information about the auto repair indusrty for consumers so they can make better decisions regarding where to have their cars serviced.

Auto Indusrty stays strong

Nice Write up from Cataylst

We were just written up in an online magazine called Cataylst. Here is the link and the article. Check it out it is a very nice one.

Short Re-Cap

So I figure i would write a post about how much fun we had. So I am going to start off with the booth itself. Myself and Josh worked that booth like nobodies business. Our position in the show was less than desirable, but we we made it work. We were running into the isles and grabbing people and dragging them in. We had our pitches down to a science and could get just about anyone to sign up. We had a pitch for Insurance companies, auto body companies, auto repair companies, jobber, and even other exhibitors.

Yes, we got schmoozed and with some good stories here too.  It’s vegas so why don’t you see some of the world, and have a company take you out for some drinks. It’s fun. We had our account exec take us out for a round or two, and here some of the quotes from that.

“Hey Pancho! You a football fan?” which was part of a bitter half hour debate between two Texas fans and Two UGA fans. Which culminated in one Texas fan admitting she was only a Texas fan “Because she like the way they looked in those football pants”. We quickly discounted her inputs.

All in all, it was fun but tons of work. Glad to be back.

Check out what Josh said about the trip here

After the Storm

So the CARS/NACE show was a great event for us. We were able to gain valuable insight into our customers and get a solid feel for what they are thinking and feeling right now. We also got to meet lots of possible partners with whom we can combine our software’s for a more robust solution to the industry.
Now we are following up with lots of people and business trying to make sure we dont lose the momentum we gained over those three days. I should say three exhausting days.

Vegas Baby!

So we are in the middle of the C.A.R.S trade show (C.A.R.S trade show happens to be a sponsor of our product and website). Yesterday was our first day of the show and we did very well. We held a press conference, and released our ORM solution to the industry with a national launch. We signed up our first customer at the booth with in a matter of 1 hour of having the booth open. So we are off and running.

The response from our customers is amazing. Many people walk up to our booth with no real idea of what we do or why they need us and then leave wanting to sign up for the product. We have over 100 people interested in seeing more from the first day alone.

So well see how day 2 and 3 go for us, but it looks promising.

Catalyst in the future

We spoke with a reporter from Catalyst magazine today, and we are going to be featured in a section titled, “The Next Big Thing”. We thought the interview went well, and will have to see when it comes out. It’s just good to know that there is a publication who really wants to spread the word about companies like ours, and really show off what some entrepreneurs are doing. I really enjoying the publication and what they are doing for the community so it is great to see that they are behind us. We really appreciate the support from the media, and are very excited to see what the article is going to say. Look for it in the coming week or two over at their site.

Were getting ready for National Launch

Our website MechanixLoop.com is up and running, and we will be releasing our first product to automotive repair centers on Thursday. Online repuation management will be released to the public and we will see how sales go over the course of the C.A.R.S event. By the way if you have not noticed they are a sponsor of MechanixLoop. So make sure you are planning on going to the C.A.R.S tradeshow if you are in the industry.

Google frustrations, No more!

So the frustrations we underwent to get the sitemap up is over. This has been a huge learning curve for us. Some of you reading this are thinking, shouldn’t they have this thing down pat. I mean its a freakin site map! Well let me explain why we went the way we did. First off part of our marketing, plan with thanks to Google changing the way they rank subdomains and /URL structures, was to use a subdomain structure for every city in the country. We did this and created a very useable URL strucutre however our sitemap for this got a little to big and combersome to create and maintaine so we had to ditch the subdoain and go with a /URL structure with is just as good now in the eyes of the almighty Google. So we finally got the bugs out of the sitemap which is broken down into an indexed file becuse we have over 200K URL’s. So now we are given the OK by Google and should be up and running in organic searches very soon.

Grass Roots marketing

So this is how serious we are about  our marketing. Our CEO goes off and gets in to an accident on Saturday to promote the company. Yeah, that serious. So the accident wasn’t his fault, nor did he try to get in to it, however it happened. It was the perfect opportunity to tell someone about MechanixLoop.com and how it can help.

“I was tell the guy who just hit me about MechanixLoop, and he was so excited. He said you know, I was trying to find all of the reviews and ratings for a local shop the other day, and I said there needs to be something like this.” – Mathew Sweezey Founder of MechaixLoop.com

A large part of our marketing is grass roots, where people are trying to help each other out. If I know of this site which can help, I will tell others about it. It works in our favor because the pain associated with Auto Repair is so high, that a solution is very welcomed, and appreciated.