Clearview National April 2016 - Issue 173 | Page 12

INDUSTRYNEWS

Taking the pain out
of day to day tasks
Benjamin Dyer of Powered Now examines how to run
your installation business so that you make more money.
»»IT’S FEELS LIKE A CRIME WHEN
you put in a huge amount of work but don’t
make much profit. That can come from bad
organisation, paying too much for materials
and other things like not investing where
you should. The good news is, life should be
different and in this article, I try to stimulate
some thinking of how it can be.
HAVING MATERIALS TO HAND
A quick rule of thumb says that it will take
an hour if you need to buy any materials
after you are on site. That’s driving to
the wholesaler, parking, finding the right
products, queuing up to pay, loading the
goods and taking them back to site. And we
haven’t even talked about the disruption to the
flow of work.
You may also end up paying full retail price
with cash required on the nail, rather than 30
days credit.
It’s simple. Being disorganised in this way
costs real time and real money.

GET THE BEST FROM YOUR PEOPLE
A friend was telling me that he keeps
his team working (outdoors) whatever the
weather. Unfortunately the team seemed to
have different ideas when it was raining or
snowing!
I don’t know how much loyalty his staff
have, however, running your team so that they
are loyal and take pride in their work will save
money and lead to more referrals. It also means
less rework and even less unnecessary “resting”.
Some quick tips to help this to happen are to
praise people in public but always raise issues
in private. Also ask staff for their opinion. Be
flexible if they have personal problems. Most
will repay this effort many times over.
SPEND WHEN IT’S RIGHT
Scrimping is strangely not always the best
way to save money. Sometimes, the best tools
enable you to do a better job more quickly,
and they last longer too. Spending out actually
saves money in the longer term.

“Buy quality tools, they pay for themselves
over and over again. Good tools turn into
more profit.” That’s the view of David Stewart
of Stone Classics.
Using apps and computer systems can also
fall into the same category. There’s now a
lot of technology available to help installers,
including Powered Now from my own
company. Using solutions like this, you can
save time and improve efficiency.
USE HIGHER PAID STAFF ONLY
WHERE IT MAKES SENSE
Many installation jobs require a range of
skills. The most skilled require the highest pay.
So where possible, use cheaper staff on tasks
that take less skill. The MD of fast growing
The Landscape Company, Matthew Stevenson,
suggests: “Using apprentices is a cost effective
way to employ young people … the payroll
saving compared with employing someone
in the conventional way can be up to 50%,
and the government also gives you a grant to
help.”
WATCH COSTS INTELLIGENTLY
We only have a certain amount of time
available in the day, so there isn’t enough
to worry about everything. Be committed
to keeping costs down, but start with the
biggest annual expenditures and then work
downwards. You can’t save much from the
£100 annual public liability insurance bill,
but a van lease might really repay hours spent
shopping around.
ORGANISE, ORGANISE, ORGANISE
Most of what has been talked about here
can be simply described as “being organised”.
Like most of life, thinking things through first
then working hard is what produces the best
results. The installation game is no different,
so all of the best with your efforts.
www.powerednow.com

12 » A PR 2016 » CL EARVI E W- UK . C O M