Steve Stone
Owner/CEO
ShuBee®

To the two and three truck service company owner, knowing when to leave the truck and make the transition to a full-time sales or administrative position may be difficult.  On the one hand, if you’re in the field doing the work, you know it’s  getting done and you know what your company is bringing in. Office and administrative work may not be your strong points, they’re not what inspired you to grow your own business in the first place – but if you’re in the truck and not the company driver’s seat, who’s going to lead the business to success?  Where do you best benefit the company?  The answer just requires some simple math.

You should gladly turn in your truck keys when you can sell more jobs in a given time period than you can physically install. If you’re capable of making sales rounds in the morning and converting more calls to jobs by lunch than your team can install in a day, you need to seriously consider making the switch and get yourself out of the field.  If your time is being spent on site for installs and repairs you’re not  doing your due diligence as a business owner to fill your company pipeline.  Being tied up in the field does not ensure that new business will be waiting for you when the next job is done.

Break out of the “handyman” mentality. You don’t need to do every job yourself – that’s why you’ve selected qualified technicians to work for you! Close the sale, schedule the work, move on to the next opportunity. If you’re running a three truck business and have four techs working with you and you’re still in the  field, you’re worth the same amount you pay your tech, that $25/hr paycheck you write him every week is all you’re getting out of yourself.  If you make the transition out of the truck though, you have the opportunity to line up the next three jobs for your crew while they’re on the first call of the day. If you’re able to scucessfully close those three jobs with an average ticket of $350 per ticket, you’ve just bumped your worth up about 400{938cd9e8dae860e800efc538277d4f7684e6f6981618ba70d1c34357a53c2e1f}!

There’s only so many hours in a day. Spend yours ensuring the success of your company by generating new business, overseeing your marketing, reviewing budgets and spending. Make the leap, hand over your keys and get busy growing your business.