Your service business is as valuable as the systems that keep it running efficiently and produce results. You may not be looking to sell your service business, but if you were the value would go beyond the size of your headquarters, the number of trucks you have on the road and the length of your customer list. What makes any business more valuable is the quality of its systems.
What would happen if we hired you and your crew to take over the local McDonald’s restaurant for today’s lunch hour? You could even bring in your teenage kids to help you out. You’d have all the cooking equipment in the restaurant and we’d be sure to stock up all the ingredients. Would you be able to serve burgers and fries to hundreds of customers OR would it be total chaos?
We think it would be a disaster unless we also gave you McDonald’s systems for taking orders, cooking the food and filling orders. If you had time to train your crew to follow those systems for cooking fries, making the different types of burgers and serving guests, you’d have a fighting chance to run that restaurant for an hour. Honestly there would be no happy meals at McDonald’s without their systems!
The value of your service business and its chances for success also depend on your systems. You don’t have to serve burgers and fries to hundreds of customers per hour, but you do need systems that enable your crew to deliver outstanding home services to more satisfied customers than your competitors. If you take the time right now to define (or refine) the following three systems, you could increase the value of your business—and by that we mean higher revenue next month.
System for installing X
What product or service could sell like hot cakes in the coming season? Get your team together and review how each of them does that job with the goal of defining the best, most efficient system for installing that product. For example, if one of them installs your top-selling furnace in 15 minutes less time, you’ve just increased your revenue for the coming quarter.
System for booking service calls
You’re about to run a promotion for your top-selling furnace (or whatever you chose) so now you want to be sure your customer service team is ready to take the calls. Who has the best track record for converting furnace inquiry calls into new furnace installation service calls? Write up that system.
System for a stackable marketing promotion
Design a run of five postcards to promote the benefits of installing a new furnace for this coming winter. Target one neighborhood where most residents have older furnaces and send out your postcards every two weeks. Track the response rate after each mailing.
Summary
Improve these three systems and they will work together to increase your revenue next month. Improving your systems will improve your business. Don’t start with these three systems if you’re putting out fires every day. Start with the fire. For example, if today’s fire is you needing to speak to an enraged customer, document the steps that should’ve been taken—that need to be taken—the next time a customer is dissatisfied. Once you have systems in place to prevent these recurring fires, work on the three systems we outlined here.
We’ve only briefly described these three systems—please know that we have resources to help you with these three systems in the Warrior’s Den.
You CAN learn more by attending CEO Warrior’s Service Business Growth Event – exclusive training for service business owners world-wide. Get more details HERE
