Jim Hinshaw
Contributing Writer
Improvement Professional, President & Sales
So here we are, started a new year. Hope you have your seat belt on, we are in for a wild ride. Maybe it will be similar to other new years, but there is a chance it will be turbulent. Maybe tougher to do business. We have a lot of distractions, starting with the political circus, going to the economy (the stock market is moving faster than a Tesla), and ending with the available labor pool. I will not try to address everything today, just some elements that I see and hear about in my travels.
First, the labor issue. Janah Morehart has a company in Phoenix, Morehart Air Conditioning and Heating. Her and Josh have been in business for a while, and have seen how hard it is to get and keep great employees. She was in a office supply house getting some printing done a couple of years ago, met a young man who did a great job on her printing, great customer service. She asked him a few questions, ended up hiring him to come to work in her office on marketing packages of all kinds. A year later, he was helping in the field, then moved into service. This year her distributor rolled out a new high efficiency system, inverter driven compressor and all those bells and whistles. This same tech, young tech, only been in our biz a couple of years, sold 6 of these systems in the first month of introduction. Boom! Average ticket was around $16k.
So if you ask Janah how to find good employees, her response is quick, they are all around us. They are at the Starbucks, Kinko’s, Applebee’s, doing what they have been trained to do. They are providing excellent customer service, which is how you will spot them. Janah’s general manager used to run the office for a chiropractor; joined Janah’s place a couple of years ago right after Janah visited her for treatment after an automobile accident. Janah was impressed with her management skills, made HR an offer. Keep your eyes open, be ready to ask an employee that has customer skills above what you would expect, are you happy? Josh Morehart says he can get a new guy productive in 6 months, even coming from another industry. The new rule for finding employees, hire for attitude, train for skill. Find the one in the crowd who likes themselves, and has a great attitude, we can teach him our biz.
Now what else needs to happen this year? I am still surprised at how many companies still do not do much with Maintenance Agreements. Get that customer glue flowing today; it is what has value for your company. We talked about this recently, but it bears repeating. Figure out what you want to accomplish on a maintenance, establish the minutes needed for each task, total up the minutes, add in some travel, a spiff, and you have your one year, two inspection maintenance agreement. Now, set it up to debit the customer’s checking account each month, so it is not a one-year agreement, not a two or three year, it goes to infinity. Pay your technicians a better spiff when they sell one on a monthly basis, maybe an amount per month, to infinity just like the agreement. Don’t cap it, this can be the glue that holds that employee to you. While in that neighborhood, add in the plumbing concept to your maintenance agreement. Include changing smoke detector batteries, the sort of thing that is easy for us to do, hard for the customer to do.
It turns out; this year will probably be tougher than last, just more on the consumer’s plate. So we have to get creative on how we get new customers. Team up with a local company who is in homes on a regular basis; pest control, pool maintenance, alarm companies, that sort of thing. Get them to include your service with each new customer they add. Maybe you offer a tune-up, perhaps a inspection, something the customer does not pay for. So it is a value added to the pest control company. You end up with a name of a customer who trusts you, since you came in with a company they are already doing business with. Offer them a reduced price maintenance agreement, something to show that they are on the inner circle, a friends and family type price.
Talking about adding customers, just sat in a webinar, saw a info chart that showed direct mail is the second best form of advertising (except in 18-34 year olds) to reach new customers. Direct mail followed up with a phone call, still gets effective results. Yes, calling your customers is the best way to make that phone ring, just pick it up and dial. You already have a relationship; you are not selling land in Puerto Rico. You are selling goods and services they need.
Finally, just saw an article about an Uber car driver (Gavin Escolar) who made $250,000 + last year. A little above the average for that industry. What he does is he also sells jewelry. Men’s and women’s. He has a couple of flyers and catalogues in the back seat pockets of this car. Which is immaculate. He made about $3000 per month from Uber, and the rest went from custom jewelry he made for many of his customers, customers he has in the car for 10-15 minutes at a time. What a great concept, he has new people coming into his show room each day; many are at an income level that is his target market. He tells you: what if I went door to door, bought a tiny ad or a huge ad? Would not be close to the response I get from my passengers. He has great reviews from his passengers, averaging 4.85/5 on Uber Black, the high end Uber service. Uber is fine with him selling his jewelry, they say they want to improve the local economy, and his ratings are at the high end of the scale. He has not forgotten his roots, he used his money last year to buy 3 new cars and hire 6 drivers. He recruits unemployed Filipino immigrants, his homeland, gives them a hand up.
He is a great example of doing something different, creating a niche market. Which is what we have to do today, something different. The old ways will not be as effective this year. Want to discuss, give me a call; I will share what I see across the nation! Thanks for listening, we’ll talk later.