4 Simple things that I do everyday to grow my Service business.
1. Buy.
What am I buying? With my window cleaning business I buy, office supplies or production supplies. But if you look at my monthly P&L you will notice that my payroll is the largest expense. With most service business this will be your largest expense line item. Why is that? Because of OPT, Other People’s Time. OPT and OPM are the 2 most common ways to create leverage. Learn more about leverage here.
2. Sell.
What am I selling? The answer to that questions has to do with what your customers are buying. The obvious answer for me is our window cleaning service. However, any sales professional will know that there is a lot more that goes into any sales process. I am also selling piece of mind, convenience, and quality to name a few of our selling points. What are your selling points? More importantly what are your unique selling points?
3. Hire.
Hire slow, fire fast. This is the advice that my mentor gave me. We are always on the look out for good technicians and team members that fit in our culture. We have a hiring process that we use on a regular basis during our busy season. I never turn down an opportunity to interview a new candidate. When putting together my team I am always interested in new and fresh talent. If I need 10 technicians to complete our scheduled work, I would rather choose my best 10 technicians from 20 different candidates, than from only 10 candidates.
Fire.
Again, hire slow. Fire fast. Now I admit compared to industry standards, we have a relatively slow turn over rate for our team members. This being said we do not Fire someone daily, like the title of this article suggests. However, on a daily basis I am always evaluating the performance of our team. Each day is an opportunity for our technicians to show how committed they are to our culture and our common goal. Commitment is one of our points of culture that we take very seriously.
What are the points of your culture that you take seriously?
What tasks do you spend the majority of your time on?
How do those tasks help you reach your annual, monthly, or daily goals?
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good idea im gonna try it
I adore the layout on this webpage. Could you let me know where to get it? Appreciate it!
Shantay, this is a word press blog with the suffusion theme. Thanks for reading.
Really good post, very interesting, thanks for bringing up these ideas.
I agree with firing fast, AFTER you’ve given the employee some feedback about their performance and give them an opportunity to change. Perhaps what your mentor meant was don’t hang on to an employe who is a poor performer – address the situation right away. My experience has been that by putting in place a performance plan, correctly handled, will result in either an improved employee or one who you can fire safely within 8 weeks.
You should almost never fire someone without discussing their performance with them…what if their performance is due to a temporary issue or what if they have a disability you’re not aware of? Discrimination claims can be ruinous to your business and your reputation.
Progressive discipline is definitely the way to go, it respects both your need for a solid worker plus the employee’s rights.
- Start with ensuring they know their job duties and your expectations for performance – use the SMART goals mentioned in today’s post. Also ensure there are no disabilities or issues which hamper the person’s ability to do their job.
- Have regular meetings to discuss how the employee is meeting or not meeting those expectations and duties. You can space the meetings further apart as the employee improves (start with daily or weekly, moving to bi-weekly, monthly, etc.)
- Ensure you capture your discussion at each meeting and ensure the employee can add comments and takes away a copy.
- Ensure each meeting notes progress, or lack thereof, and what the next set of goals and actions are.
Continue with this process for a couple of months and you will have done your due diligence in the majority of cases. Often the person who is a poor performer because they’re lazy will quit soon after this process starts because they really don’t want to improve.
Of course, some infractions may allow you to fire a worker without notice.
Tina, great. Thanks for the feedback.
I was thrown off by the title. I doubt you buy, sell, hire, and fire every day. Points were good, but since I was expecting some daily tips it was a bit frustrating.
The title “4 key strategies to grow my service business” would have been better or possibly 4 tips such as 1) Call 3 previous Clients and offer them a come-back deal 2) Send 3 emails to current Clients asking for a referral, etc.
Like I said, the info was good, but the frustration kept it from fully reaching the mark you intended I believe. Keep up the good work