INDUSTRYNEWS • 25
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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. 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.
THINK ABOUT A SYSTEM
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. My company, Powered Now,
along with others, provides automation
for the trade. 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. Not to mention gas safety
certificates. 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.
Talking to a big range of our customers,
we know that the average business
owner saves more than three hours each
week. I expect that similar results may
be achieved by our competitors. That’s
a lot of extra time you could be charging
clients.
LOCKSMITHJOURNAL.CO.UK | JAN/FEB 2019
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. A lot of
the things that I have suggested here are
pretty obvious, but that’s always the best
place to start.
Exciting ideas that claim to instantly
change everything rarely if ever work. My
hope is that some of the simple thoughts
here can generate some growth and more
cash for you. All the best!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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