SpeedTIP: Test out your new higher pricing strategy only on new customers at first.
NEWS FLASH: MORE money is better than LESS money! (And so MUCH better than NO money!)
Don’t worry, folks! This won’t be a paean to conspicuous consumption and ‘obscene profits’.💲💲💲 (Is there such a thing as “too much (honestly earned) profit”?)
Instead, money (produced by PROFIT) is just a tool to improve the lives of all concerned.👍👍 (Your employees, your family, deserving needy ones and YOU!)
SpeedTIP: Do a quick pre-interview with a great Job Candidate by jumping on a Zoom video call immediately!
Finding ANY techs right now is brutal!😲 (Yes, I know you’re thinking, “DUH, Steve! Tell me something I don’t know!”) I really do feel your frustration! And yet…
Every so often life can be so GREAT! You just had a phone pre-interview with a job applicant that obviously has been sent by heaven to work for you forever!💖
RESOURCE: You’ll get complete phone interview scripts and forms in our 3-hour, online SFS: Hiring the Very Best! LIVE seminar.💲💲💲 To learn more and/or easily register online click HERE.
Now back in our old, ‘Pre-Hiring Crisis’ days you would have engaged in a leisurely process of hiring interviews, etc. But today? DON’T BE SLOW and here’s why!
SpeedTIP: Create a relaxed environment to put an applicant at ease during their job interview.
Remember your first (and maybe last) blind date? Were you tense, nervous and scared?😢 OUCH! Never a good start to a long term relationship!😲 And yet isn’t this exactly how your job applicant (and you too) feel before a job interview? Therefore you should…
SpeedTIP: Put your job applicants at ease BEFORE an in-depth interview to 1) get to know the ‘real person’ and 2) sell them on working for you!
As a Home Services Professional (HSP) it is ESSENTIAL to recruit and hire the Very Best People. I know. You’re thinking, “Well, DUH! A) Everyone tries to hire good employees and by the way, Steve, B) nobody wants to work any more!”
Sorry but you’re wrong on both fronts! A) Far too many HSP’s fall into the deadly trap of ‘Desperation Hiring’ and hire the first ‘warm body’ that shows up! Plus, B) there are LOTS of hardworking folks who want a long-term career with your company.
SPEED QuickTIP: Nudge your caller to ‘invest time’ with you by interviewing them about their home. (Your ‘booking ratio’ will skyrocket!)
Most Home Service Professional’s leads (potential customers) contact them in ever-so-many ways. (Texts, emails, Facebook Messenger, Yelp, website chats, Angies, Whatsapp, etc.) But nothing got my blood racing faster than my business phone ringing! You too?🤔 GREAT!👍
BUT a warning! Fail to ‘convert’ this nervous and skeptical first-time caller into a booked job? Your ‘downstream income’ loss will be HUGE!😥 Plus even more urgently? You need to cover payroll THIS Friday!😲
SpeedTIP: Five key challenges to focus on BEFORE they “punch you in the mouth”!
I recently shared this nugget from famed business consultant Mike Tyson: “Everybody has a plan… till they take a punch to the mouth!”😲 And yes, even though “Iron Mike” earned his fearsome reputation in the boxing ring we can learn from him…
Any small service business (especially those who work in the residential sector) WILL get “punched in the mouth” with unexpected business problems! So as a Home Service Business (HSB) entrepreneur you must ‘expect the unexpected’! And its not just in business…
SpeedTIP: Your company WILL take ‘surprise hits’. Set up systems now to see these blows coming to defend your business.
As entrepreneurs we’re all incurable optimists. (Negative thinkers tend to stay ‘comfortably trapped’ in dead-end jobs their entire lives.) Heck, if you hadn’t focused on the positive you never would have opened your residential Home Services business!
Talk about a ‘love-hate’ relationship!
You: “I LOVE being a Home Service Provider!(HSP) But I HATE dealing with the incessant stream of ‘price shopping’ phone callers!”
My clients: “I LOVE the results of the (insert service here) in my home. But I HATE how the process made me feel! It was super stressful calling/ choosing/ booking a Service Provider!”😲
NOTE: Customers also feel super vulnerable, trapped and even invaded with strangers in their home but that’s for another a blog post!
SpeedTIP: ‘Focus on the pain’ of a first time caller and you’ll dramatically increase your ‘booking ratio’!
All business is based on relationships.💖 But even more so for residential service providers. (That would be… YOU!) But the plot thickens with my ‘80% Principle’…
80% of how a residential customer decides if you did a ‘good job’ or a ‘bad job’ is based on how they FEEL about the people involved in the transaction!😍
Your challenge? This all-important relationship with a new prospect ‘just calling around’ (searching for a home service professional) will struggle right from the git-go! Here’s why…
SpeedTIP: Instead of calling it a ‘script’ give your staff a proactive ‘Phone Format’. (You’ll hit less employee resistance!)
Your business phone rings, you (timidly) answer and yet once again you hear the question you dread…
“Yeah, ummm… I was just calling around to see how much you charge…?” And panic strikes!
Seriously? I mean, how many times have you heard this query over the years? And yet you and/or your staff STILL don’t have a ‘phone script’? If so, I SAY GREAT!👍👍 Here’s why…