An Ignoble Experiment: The 3 Keys to Growing Your Home Service Business

November 29, 2024 | Read Online

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Sup,

Business growth is both incredibly difficult and the easiest thing in the world. On one hand, the number of small businesses owned and operated individually in the US is 70%.

A lot of businesses go it alone, and there's a lot of them. That makes growth feel like a slow game.

But on the other end of things, the job of growing a business gets easier with time. Processes get defined, you find the right people, and things just start making sense.

It's not impossible to grow operating solo, but it doesn't mean you can't.

One of the hardest things about growing a business is finding the best people. You might feel like you can't because you can't out-pay the competition.

That's part of why we've been using Sagan Passport to find the best overseas hires for our operation. We have specific needs where getting new talent is a necessity.

Not only are we getting amazing recruitment, but Sagan also offers a community of business leaders who share information.

And you know me: I'm all about peer groups. This is all part of growing, scaling, and thriving.

And if you're looking to grow then I have the keys to the kingdom, all for the taking. Here are the three big keys for growing your home service.

Let's do it.

Invest in salespeople: Drive high ticket sales.
Track daily numbers and get your teams on the same page.
Understand your lead flow and marketing channels.

Reading time: 3 minutes and 55 seconds

1. Drive Revenue Via Salespeople

When you put somebody specifically in charge of revenue generation and focus on those high-ticket items, then...

Surprise, surprise, you sell more of those high-ticket items.

But for a lot of owners stuck at a certain revenue, the idea of hiring dedicated sales might seem like a stretch.

They think, "Isn't that why I run marketing and have an outbound call center?"

But a dedicated sales team, as I've learned in the last few months, makes a world of difference.

The Home Service Headline of the Week

PE firms are buying HVAC operations in the south. Here's why.

"The HVAC market is a low-risk investment, said Casey Schwartz, who co-leads Houlihan Lokey's facility and residential services practice. "It is a relatively safe industry to participate in from a preservation of capital perspective."

That person is in the trenches every day with you, checking on departments. Talking to marketing.

Doing things, and driving leads. It's the kind of Director of Sales who gets excited about natural disasters that you want working for you.

Those are the people who drive high-ticket services and push revenue. They ask the question each and every day: "What are we doing about this number?"

2. Business Goals, Daily Numbers

What Should Be Your Next Business Focus?

Building a sales team.

Learning more about where leads come from.

Tracking my numbers and learning our pain points.

You've heard this from me time and again, but knowing your daily numbers is a power move.

What was revenue? What was calls at? What were memberships? What was the daily percentage of revenue collected? There are about 14 measurements that we track daily.

All of them are important.

It's those numbers that keep your team on task, focused, and accountable. And even if you aren't tracking daily, a regular review of KPIs means you're driving efficiency.

And that's a big step towards growth.

We've taken that one step further recently. I've mentioned our use of AI and the overhead speakers to call out the board status when it changes.

We've also moved to integrate that into Slack, showing the same numbers and Excel sheets that our marketing team and leaders see.

Open book. Transparency. Everyone knows the score, literally.

3. Where Do Leads Come From?

Where do you get leads?

Well, you see, the business fairy visits you in the night and…

Wait. Wrong story.

Honestly, leads are the toughest and easiest thing about business. Sometimes you just have to call the damn leads.

But where are those damn leads coming from?

If you're going to grow then you need to know what marketing channels are best at driving revenue for your business. When you know that, you can focus on what matters.

We have as few channels as reasonable and put as much money into those channels as possible. You want to find a winner and invest in it.

Service Scalers does a lot of that searching and investing for us. It's one more thing off my marketing team's plate and Sam's team does an incredible job helping us grow.

On This Week's Podcast

AI In Customer Service with Hatch and Chris Bache - Owned and Operated Podcast #business

We've talked a lot about AI and its myriad facets this year. But this week's convo with Hatch's CEO Chris Bache about SMS campaigns, rehash programs, and the place of artificial intelligence in your marketing is one of my favorites.

Listen on Apple Podcast
Listen on Spotify

You accomplish growth via tracking systems and optimizing ad spend.

Is it postcards? LSA? Your landing page? Some are easier to attribute than others.

Honestly, it's very difficult to put the systems in place to correctly attribute all the money and where it's coming in from. We're at 80% attribution or so.

That's 20% of revenue that we don't know about. Drives me nuts. But it's better than 60. Or 40.

Or none.

Know your numbers. Find out where your big leads lay. Have a revenue-driven sales team. That's how you grow and scale for real.

Have a great holiday weekend. 👊

John