You’re the successful small business owner of a handyman company. You started out as a jack of all trades and master of none, but over the years you’ve been wise about hiring the right people for the right positions, and now you can focus on managing the business and building relationships.
You’ve grown your business from a small one-man service truck to a 50 employee small business that provides a number of services ranging from gutter cleaning to landscaping to painting. Over the years, your friendly customer service and positive relationships have made you one of the most trusted businesses in town. So trusted in fact, that business is booming. Or so it seems. Service request are rolling in faster than your employees can keep up with them. However, you’re not seeing the profits that should be there as a result of all of the bids being given. This unknown quantity in your business is stressful because you’re unsure if what you’re doing is really working.
This causes you to be stressed, exhausted, and not fully engaged in the day to day tasks of your business because you’re trying to figure out how to control your budget, employees and other resources to increase your profits and reach your company goals. The one thing you need is a way to evaluate and measure the number of bids you’re giving and your actual profits in order to determine the efficiency and accuracy of your bids.
Measuring the amount of bids you give in a year and the profits from those bids, will show you the changes you need to make. The last thing you need are confusing numbers, graphs and figures to make you feel more overwhelmed than you already are. What you need is someone to walk alongside with you as you start the journey.
Gather some of your trusted employees and start here:
- Acknowledge to yourself and your staff that tracking your bids and profits from those bids is important
- Ask your staff to help you understand the processes you currently have in place
- Ask your staff what they feel works well and what doesn’t – and diligently listen
- Go back and pull old data if you have any
- Invite your managers to help set up a system to track your bids and profits, even if it’s just in an Excel spreadsheet
- Begin tracking from this point forward
- Schedule a time each month to evaluate the data and look for trends
- Be sure to keep your staff informed and engaged
Once you start measuring, you can set clear goals. This will relieve your angst, reduce stress among your employees and increase their satisfaction. When something does fail you’ll be able to build trust by figuring out where the mistake was made - and fixing it. Everyone at your company will be happy and hopeful when they can see progress moving in the right direction.
Since you run a successful small business and have more service requests than you can handle coming in, it might not be customers that you need per-se, but the right customers. You need people who have specific wants and needs that your business can fulfill while still making a profit. An inbound marketing strategy is something for you to consider. When implemented well, it can help you find the people who have a need, know they have a need, want a solution, and can afford your solution.
To learn more about an inbound marketing strategy and how it can help you get to know your customers before they even request a bid, contact us at Half a Bubble Out or download the free eBook below. We’re a friendly group of people who want to help your small business be successful.
Since 2002, Half a Bubble Out has been dedicated to providing marketing, advertising and small business consulting that meet the needs of our clients. We specialize in powerfully telling stories through Inbound Marketing to grow your business filled with more passion and provision. Based in Chico California, we serve clients throughout Northern California and across the country to New York.
