gregcole said:
This is an interesting thread. His job average was $195. doing about 4 jobs a day. Totally doable.
Not easy but doable. I do have a few questions if you don't mind.
1. Who answered your phones?
2. Did you design your own website
3. Did you do your own craiglist ads or hire a posting company?
4. What software did you use to track your customers?
What company did you get to buy your business (less than 2 years old)v in the middle of the worse economy our industry has seen in 100 years? Please enlighten us?
Did you receive more than the cost of your equipment? The real value in residential companies are the proven repeat customers.
I can't imagne you got much for it being that the average buying cycle of a cost sensitive residential customer is 18-24 months at best? Did you?
1. I answered every call, blue parrot head set allowed me to take calls will working and customer could not hear anything background noise on the other end. I utilized a combination of apps, Agendus, invoice to go, and google business apps to allow me to book and sync jobs between my phone, ipad, and computer
2. Yes I did all my own website work, I actually all the internet work for a RV dealership a friend of my bought here in
Phoenix (former CEO of Beaudry RV) the site is RVArizona.net
3. For the first year plus my wife posted my on CL, after CL cracked down on accounts and it got to difficult to keep the ads live I went to a posting company...towards the end of my second year I wasn't even using CL that much my websites were pulling 6-10 calls a day so I was doing just fine with that.
4. Along with the apps mentioned on #2 I also had an online scheduler on my websites that allowed customers to book their entire appointment on line. The admin side of the scheduler allowed me to input my services and estimated time for each service. As the added services it blocked off more time and would only show available appointment times that would allow for the length of a job. I actually got 2-3 of these a week.
Clean Choice bought me out, I actually wasn't looking to sell. I was selling off my west side business and the contacted me. After talking, reviewing my P&L statements, and seeing the traffic my website generated they wanted to buy me out entirely. I really didn't want to sell because it was good money and I had worked really hard to build it. But how often do you get a six figure cash offer for a single operator business? I know it's hard to believe and to be honest I felt like I was in a dream during the whole transaction...I kept waiting for the call where they decided to back out...but they went through with it.
They didn't buy me out for my customer base, while I had well over 2000 customers, they bought me out for my websites...that's what they told me anyway.
As soon as they bought me they split my work load into to full time techs...I was working my a$$ off to keep up...
Your pretty much right on, on my average ticket I think it was $208...I did average 5 plus a day because I did take a couple vacations throughout the year.
I found a niche that worked...I did all the sh1t work no of you want anyway but I didn't let limiting beliefs hold me back from trying to sell big ticket jobs to price shoppers, CL callers, etc.
I can remember several big home runs I had converting little carpet jobs into big sells...don't get me wrong I swung and missed way more often than hitting one out of the park. But being in the sales industry taught me to deal with rejection and understand that even if you only get 1-2 out of 10 you can make it payoff.
My business model wasn't to structure EVERY job to be a big money maker. I would rather take more swings at the plate than sit at home waiting for the phone to ring.
So I had coupons like 3 areas up to 300 sq/ft for $59, I could knock these out in about an hour, yes I didn't make much if that's all the customer wanted but I quickly found my number one upsell was pet treatments and I really practiced on getting good at feature benefiting it. My topical pet treatment on the 3 area special was $30 so that took my ticket to $94, a little better.
Anyway that's why I said I just looked at these jobs as "paid estimates" to try to get a big ticket job.
I didn't run my business like I worked by the hour, I ran my business off a P&L statement. So at the end of the month I couldn't tell you which job I made money on or which one I took a hit on but I could tell you my monthly sales were X, my expense were Y and my net was Z. Because I ran a home based business and did it all myself I managed about 70% net...not including all the personally expenses I ran through the business.
