Why (and How to) Focus On 3 Essential Business Areas

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KickStart: man·​age ˈma-nij To direct with a degree of skill. 

small business owner focuses on priorities

Finding a balance in business (and life) is an ongoing, moving target for most of us. Our shared Home Service Pro entrepreneurial challenge? Managing our OCD tendencies to not get distracted off into Displacement Activities!🙄 Instead, you must focus ONLY on the high-profit, “important stuff”.

True Confession Time: I still find myself going down obsessive rat holes while wasting enormous time on pursuits that add nothing to my happiness, relationships or even my financial net worth!🤔 (You’d think I would have learned by now!)😲

Remember, your residential services company is an incredibly fragile creature. This means as a service business owner or manager you must…

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Your Best 24-7 Home Services Sales Weapon…

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KickStart: “You should not only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking!” Oliver Cromwell

pensive home services marketer

Every Home Services business owner KNOWS they should do more cold call selling. Correct? Absolutely! And yet…

We don’t! I know, you’ve got 1,000 reasons (excuses?) to not make sales calls but in reality…

We all hate, fear and despise knocking on the doors of strangers😬 and therefore… we don’t! But wait!

Why not do “Serendipity Selling” when you instinctively “strike” during your daily business (and personal) routine? For example …

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Home Services “Estimates” versus “Pre-Inspections”- which is better?

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KickStart: “Words are important. If you cannot say what you mean, you will never mean what you say.” George Bernard Shaw

Yep, in business the words we use with prospects (and clients) can have big consequences going forward. For example…

I see many Home Service Businesses offering “free estimates”. Me? I disliked this word “estimate” so much I banned it in my own residential services company!😡 Here’s why…

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How to Dig Deeper Before Choosing your “Lead Response Option”

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KickStart: Tactfully use Valid Business Questions to sort home service prospects into different Response Options.

Question: “Do you want to work for every homeowner that calls your Home Services Business?”🤔

Answer: “No way, Steve! After all, some callers live too far away, other prospects want services we don’t provide and some homeowners simply can’t afford us!”

Well answered and a good analysis! And yet… how much time do you waste with prospects that simply aren’t good potential customers? (Even worse is scheduling an onsite pre-inspection that is a complete waste of time!)😲

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The “5-W” Home Services Accountability Checklist

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KickStart: “Accountability breeds response-ability.”  Stephen R. Covey

An essential part of growing into adulthood is becoming “accountable” for our actions. Honestly? Prisons are full of overgrown babies who have never matured enough to follow this basic rule of nature: “For every action there is… a re-action.”😥

However, I (eventually) learned that “accountability” shouldn’t focus ONLY on the bone-headed mistakes of my service employees! Instead, when a worker took “response-ability” I needed to both praise them and share the extra profits that they generated!

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How NOT to Conduct a Service Staff Meeting!

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KickStart: “If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” – Henry Ford

overwhelmed home services business owner

If only for the sake of your aching back (not to mention your own Personal Freedom) I sincerely hope your Home Services Business (HSB) is more than a “group of one”! If so, you need to meditate on Mr. Ford’s sage observation above!

By far the biggest challenge you will ever face as a residential services entrepreneur will be recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, motivating and managing employees. Am I “preaching to the choir” here?🤔 However…

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Are You Known for Your Humility?😲

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KickStart: Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. C. S. Lewis

I’ll admit it. When I started my first Home Services business I was a cocky, proud and yet insecure jerk!😲 (My dear wife is saying right now, “So Steve, you think you’ve changed over the last 50 years?”)🤔 Hmmmmm…

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Why (and How) to Not Be on Your Phone 24-7!

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painful business phone callKickStart: Develop remote workers to answer your service business lines when you (or your office staff) aren’t available. Read on to review the four simple steps to “git ‘er done”…

I’ve been (unjustly) accused of being a bit OCD in my Home Services business!🙄 And yes, too often I was guilty as charged when it came to me personally answering incoming calls on my business line(s)… 24-7!

Steve’s Embarrassing Confession: Even after we were grossing almost $2,000,000.00+ yearly I STILL was answering my business lines… even at home 24-7! In fact, (GULP!😲) I STILL kept on doing this AFTER I sold our company. That’s when my dear wife Sioux blew up! (Hopefully she won’t get mad again reading this- 30 years later!)😡

Sure, you should focus on your business phone. After all, every missed/mishandled call can literally cost you many 1,000’s of dollars in downstream income. But eventually I realized that not every call needed to be answered by me (or any business owner) personally! Instead…

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