The Profit of Service

Want to increase the amount of money flowing into your business? When you increase how much money you make, you grow your bank account, re-invest in your business, pay your employees more, and bring home more money in your own pocket. In this article, you’ll read some top strategies to make more money… But not in the usual way!

Most contractors earn revenue in one way: when a customer contacts you and asks for a quote on a project. You show up, give an estimate, get the job, do the work, and get paid. This cycle repeats itself over and over and over again. For most contractors, making more money usually means finding more customers – although there is a marketing cost to this (plus there’s the problem of having enough employees to do the work).

Here are four ways to make money and get more jobs without having to find more customers:

Charge more per customer: When customers call you and get you to make an estimate, it can be tempting to low-ball the estimate because you want to win the work, and you know that many customers are looking for the lowest or the middle-priced estimate.

However, it’s possible to get a lot of work even while being the highest priced contractor as long as your branding supports your exclusive approach, and you deliver high end service that matches your high end prices. Level up your brand, make sure all employees show up with crisp, clean uniforms and spotless trucks, and create marketing that positions you appropriately.

Make proactive recommendations: When you show up to a customer’s house, don’t just focus on the project they want – focus on what will help them. Give them an estimate on the project they’ve asked about, listen carefully to what they’re asking and then look for specific ways that you can serve them at a higher level.

For example, if they’re getting you to build a beautiful living room, recommend that their kitchen also gets remodelled. If they’re putting on an addition, suggest that their basement could be renovated too. The fastest way to implement this is to make a list of your most common projects and then, beside each project, list one other job that customers have also hired you to do. That way, you have a list you can pull from to say, “We’ve found that customers who want X also end up hiring us to do Y.”

Deliver WOW service for lots of referrals: It costs money to create a customer. You usually need to market to them and then use sales tactics to sell your services to them. However, when a customer refers a family or friend to you, that family or friend cost you nothing to acquire and the customer’s referral will increase the likelihood that they’ll hire you.

Unfortunately, referrals don’t happen a lot. The reason is, contractors just don’t serve customers to the level that will get customers talking to their family and friends. If you want more referrals, you need to WOW your customers. Deliver service that is so shocking, your customers can’t help but call up their family and friends to say, “You won’t believe the service I just received…”

Create affiliate programs: If customers frequently ask you for a service that you don’t provide, that’s a profit opportunity for you! Find a service provider who does provide that service and create an affiliate arrangement with them where you can collect a referral fee every time you send them a customer.

This is a win/win strategy: your customer wins because they get the service they wanted and you win because you get paid even though you didn’t do any extra work. To implement this program, start by listing the top service you are asked to provide and then find a service provider that will deliver the same quality you deliver. Approach them and create the affiliate program.

Summary: You work hard and invest a lot to find every prospect and turn them into a customer. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could make more money and save yourself some effort? These strategies will help you make more money and build a stronger, more profitable business without having to do all that work of finding new customers every time you need more revenue.

Mike Agugliaro, is the “Business Warrior” and founder of CEO Warrior, a business consulting and mentoring firm, providing tested and proven methods to defeat the roadblocks that prevent small to mid-sized businesses from achieving their ultimate success. He has played a key role in building Gold Medal Services’ success, as co-owner of the company. For more information about CEO Warrior, visit www.CEOWARRIOR.com.