How to Make Billions Selling Nothing – The Story of Red Hat
The following story is a preview from an upcoming book about how commercial service contractors can earn “money for nothing” by rethinking the way that they present and deliver the services that they provide their customers. I left IBM to join Red Hat in late November of 1998. Red Hat would record five million in […]
Keeping Score is Not the Same as Winning
Every major sports venue has a prominent scoreboard so that fans and participants alike can easily review the score with a glance to the outfield or upward at the jumbotron. Knowing the score is a critical element in decision-making. No point in running the ball up the gut in football when you are behind by […]
Get Busy Growing
“It comes down to a simple choice, really . . . Get busy living or get busy dying.” — Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption Growing your business is a simple choice. And if you are not growing, the business is in decline, whether you […]
Build a Services Brand that is Worth Something
ServiceTrade talks a lot about using technology and great customer service to increase the value of a service contractor’s brand. It is worth exploring what we mean when we talk about a brand. What do we mean when we say brand? As your personality makes you different from everyone around you, your company’s brand is […]
Case Study: Ressac Implements Sage Intacct with ServiceTrade Integration
For more than 85 years, Ressac has established itself as a high quality, low-cost commercial contractor for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration systems. Specialties include low-rise office parks, mall retail, and big box retail sites. THE CHALLENGE Ressac recently implemented ServiceTrade to improve their service management and customer service. While this solved their […]
Break the Profit Vise
Service contractors, you’ve got 2 huge problems. First, skilled workers are expensive and hard to find. We call this the “Skilled Labor Squeeze.” Second, small-time competition is undercutting you on price. We call these fly-by-the-night operations “One Truck Chuck.” With expensive labor driving costs up and cheap competitors driving prices down, you’re stuck in a […]
Scattered Data Could Sink Your Ship
Every day, we talk to service contractors that think the biggest problem with their business is double-data entry into their accounting system. We tell them the same thing every time. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Below the surface, it’s hard to see the hundreds of small, but cumulative inefficiencies caused by scattered customer […]
Best of 2016
As 2017 kicks 2016 to the curb, take a minute to revisit our most-loved blog posts of the year. Whether they’re new to you, or you need a review, check out these blog posts for inspiration to start the new year. The Google Lesson for Service Contractors Rise of the Machines in Service Industries Photo […]
The Metal Benders Will Steal Your Customers
If you ask equipment manufacturers (metal benders), they will claim that your customers are technically their customers. What’s changing now is that they want to have their customers pay them for maintenance and repair services instead of you. I am, of course, speaking about how manufacturers are increasingly embracing the service business as the […]
What’s your company worth?
In The Digital Wrap Book, Chapter 14 was titled the Digital Wrap Formula for Maximizing the Value of Your Business. The chapter covered the technical, financial calculus that can be used to determine the amount a financial buyer might pay for a service contracting business (read the related blog post). It also offered a good […]