Clearview National February 2019 - Issue 207 | Page 71

INSTALLERSUPPORT
every ladder that had been left at my house, I
would have …. a lot of useful different types
of ladders, which I do! Why people have left
them I really don’t know. Even when we have
reminded them they still didn’t bother to pick
them up. Beats me. They had projected a huge saving since this
was the most critical tool needed for most of
their jobs.
Just be careful with cost cutting. Some
investments actually reduce costs and this can
particularly apply to quality tools.
FOCUS ON THE BIGGEST COSTS THINK ABOUT A SYSTEM
All costs reduce your profits. The big trap
that can be made is to pay too much attention
to the little costs and not enough to the big
ones. To avoid this, look at your end of year
accounts and see where most of the money is
going.
The biggest costs could be your vans, hire
costs, insurance or even overtime. You should
start your cost savings where the biggest
potential lies. Investigate that area, it’s where
your time is best spent.
I was talking to someone who ran a trade
business recently and that had just bought a
mini-digger. They had looked at the money
they had spent on hiring diggers over the last
year and then located a second hand one. Marcelle Stoughton who runs Fencing
Services with her partner suggests that: “To
be profitable, you must be as efficient as
possible”.
As the CEO of an app provider, I am
obviously biased, but I genuinely believe that
big savings come from using the right system.
With more and more tablets and smartphones
around and millennials very familiar with them,
there is an increasing proliferation of apps to
run on these devices. They are much easier
to use than old PCs and can be used on-site.
There are many advantages including time-
saving, efficiency improvements and faster
and better quotes. And as we all know, for
installers, time is money.
Features that are often included are quotes,
invoices, payments, chasing late payments
and also shared diaries, tracking people and
company chat from within the app. One of the
biggest benefits is having everything in one
place and avoiding a mountain of paperwork.
Instead, documents can be found with a simple
search and automatic backup means they can’t
be mislaid.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
Hopefully we all enjoy our work but at
the end of the day we all want to make a
decent living too. To achieve this, it’s good to
stand back and try to look at the big picture.
Thinking around the business often provides
ideas for improving things which can also make
life simpler.
Benjamin Dyer is CEO and co-founder of
Powered Now. Powered Now’s mobile app
aims to make it easier for all sorts of installers
and other trades to run their businesses.
www.powerednow.com
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