APRIL 2018 | 17
News
Read online at www.proinstaller.co.uk
Optimise pricing
It’s a common saying that
even a bad sales person can
sell a ten pound note for
nine pounds. Your pricing
should fairly reflect the
work that you do, provide
a margin of error to cover
problems and then a decent
profit on top. Price should
be the last thing to com-
pete on except when you
are very first starting out.
Funnily enough, you won’t
be able to grow if you price
too low because you will
never have the resources to
enable growth.
Plan and be
organised
My business partner
knows someone who used
to be the marketing director
at B&Q. Amazingly, he said
that trade companies buy
up to 30% of materials “on
the day” from the likes of
B&Q. That means that they
miss out on trade prices
and the credit that comes
alongside. Plus it takes a
minimum of an hour out
of a job when you have to
“pop out” to get materi-
als. Being well organised
should eliminate this. It
means a lower cost of
materials, a speedier job,
less time wasted and better
cash flow. All of this is great
for growing your business.
What’s not to like?
The bottom line
smartphone, tablet and PC
based systems that are be-
ing adopted very quickly.
In a survey of our clients,
the average time saved per
week by the business own-
er was around three hours.
They also reported better
cash flow, more orders
won and a number of other
benefits.
The point is that this time
saving can be used either
to grow your business or
have more time with family
and friends.
Have your own
web site
The age of yellow pages
is long over. Although
people continue to use
personal experience or rec-
ommendations from friends
as their way of finding
installers, around 30% still
look around. A lot of those
searching use Google.
You should try searching
for the services you provide
in your geographic loca-
tion. That will let you see
what the web says about
you as well as the local
competition.
It’s actually an obvious
thing to have a web site.
It enables you to control
exactly what is said about
you. It’s cheap, particularly
using a service like wix.
com. Your information
won’t change much from
year to year so your main-
tenance cost should be low
too.
Only do what
you do well
It seems very natural to
quote for every opportunity
that arises. But it can pay to
specialise or decide that you
won’t do any of the special-
isms.
You have only started
practising this when you
start saying no to work. If
you don’t do this, you will
never get the full benefits.
For instance, think of install-
ing garage doors. A contrac-
tor might specialise in these,
but more likely decide not
to do them at all, instead
focussing on being a gener-
alist. This takes discipline.
Only doing what you do
well should yield the follow-
ing advantages, all of which
will help you to grow:
• Respect. When you
know your trade really
well, it makes customers
feel more comfortable.
Most people understand
that it’s unlikely you can
be good at everything.
That’s why people use
main dealers to get
their cars serviced,
even though they cost
more.
• You should be more ef-
ficient. That is because
you can do jobs faster
at a lower cost. It means
higher profits or lower
prices or a bit of each.
Practise makes perfect
in terms of being faster
and getting better vol-
ume discounts.
• You are much more
likely to win business if
customers are particu-
larly looking for your
speciality. For instance,
you might only ever
install Worcester Bosch
boilers.
Mark Goodchild of elec-
tric-call.net puts it this way:
“We don’t cover all types of
electrical installation as it’s
impossible to be good at
everything. For instance, we
don’t do solar. This decision
came through experience.”
I hope that many of the
ideas here are obvious
because doing complicated
things can be the enemy of
success. Ironically, getting
around to doing the obvi-
ous is often a challenge.
Doing something exciting
and less likely to succeed
can be more appealing. In
that light I hope that you
find this article an encour-
agement to get on with the
simple stuff. Good luck!
About the author
Benjamin Dyer is CEO
and co-founder of Pow-
ered Now. P