The last year has been a whirlwind for many small businesses all over the world. With everyone staying at home in 2020, homeowners focused on home improvement. Many trades companies have been booming! Olmec Reflections has been extremely blessed to have survived and continue to thrive. We just want to take this time to give a bit of credit where credit is due. Here are some tips on on what’s helped us. We hope that it helps any trades businesses owners thrive as well.
Protect Your Business
One thing we can’t stress enough is to make sure you review your business insurance often! We knew we had a good policy, but hadn’t really reviewed it in a while. When we did, we found out some really important things. Our work van was insured, BUT none of the equipment inside was covered! How silly to have such expensive equipment that was not protected! Sitting down with your insurance agent every few months or yearly will save you some potential future grief.
Hire Some Help and Treat Them Right
As an owner of a business, you wear many hats. Sometimes those hats start to get heavy. When you are out on the job and the phone is ringing, which comes first? The answer is, you should not have to choose. Having someone to take phone calls, handle your schedule, and follow up with clients is life saving.
Over the last year and before, we have worked with so many other contractors that just did not follow up or even answer the phone. We literally had money to put in their pockets and they did not get it due to their lack of communication. It’s totally understandable, but solvable! We urge businesses like ours to get an administrative assistant or phone answering service to handle the potential clients while you are out conducting business!
After you have hired this help, make sure to keep them happy. Hiring has not been easy for many businesses across the board in the last year. Some HR managers and business owners are living in the past, offering stagnating wages and little to no benefits. This will not fly. Find out what their wage rate really should be and keep incentives high. Make them feel appreciated and they will stay.
Turn to the Pros for Marketing
Another hat to take off is one that you just don’t wear well. We are knowledgeable in flooring, not in marketing. So when it came to our our website and getting found online, we hired the LDR Design Agency to help us out, and boy has it! We know a lot of business owners that try to do it themselves or have a relative do it. We urge you to hire a marketing team! It makes all the world of difference! Without ours, we would not be the successful trades business we are today.
Create Content
You don’t need expensive video equipment or cameras to capture extraordinary content, especially in trades businesses. Some of the best before and after photos have been shot using a camera phone! Taking pictures and videos takes practice and doing. Jobs can be enough without the extra worry of having to take another step, but we urge you to do it anyway. That extra step can be worth it in the long run. Take as many before and afters and on the job pictures and videos as you can. Start a YouTube channel. We started one just last year and it’s been growing steadily ever since!
Network Often
We owe so much credit to our BNI group. We are humbled. Being a part of one of these chapters has really helped us grow exponentially through meeting great trades partners and just being referred! If you don’t belong to a BNI, networking group, or chamber of commerce, we urge you to join one or many. If you are a trades business owner, you won’t regret it!
Use Helpful Tools
We have been using a program called Housecall Pro to schedule jobs, conduct billing, track our revenue, send review requests and more. It’s a lifesaver that cannot be understated. It also is nice if you have many people that needs to know the schedule. You can have multiple users to keep the whole team on the same page!
Bottom Line
Just like with any kind of helpful tool, service or program, some of them cost money. But you know that old saying, “it costs money to make money” really rings true. It is money well spent today when you consider how much it will bring in tomorrow. That revenue will just build on itself. Take some time to review what works for your trades business and what doesn’t. Implement some of our suggestions and watch it grow!
Want to know a little more about what’s given us such hope for the future? Don Boling, the owner of Olmec Reflections would love to talk to you about it! He can even introduce you to his BNI network. Contact him today!