Service contractors: Grow like a software startup

Every Sunday evening I receive an email from the software investment banking team at Key Bank Capital Markets. The subject line of the email is “Software Valuations,” and the email contains a link to a weekly report that details the valuation metrics of about 100 different software companies. All of these companies are public corporations, […]

Good is not good enough

Amazon does not settle for “good” in the realm of customer service. It is not enough for the customer to simply get what they paid to receive. Amazon wants customers to enjoy the experience in the same manner as a guest might enjoy a good party. Great brands now want to copy Amazon because Jeff […]

AI, IoT, M2M, big data – the alphabet soup of technology jargon you need to understand (part 1 of 2)

In 1984 I was seventeen years old and working as an usher in a movie theater when the science fiction thriller The Terminator was released. It was a surprise hit, and I must have seen the movie a couple of dozen times. In case you are not familiar with the movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a […]

Two ways for contractors to attract more service technician job applications

Your reputation has always been important when recruiting talent because the best techs want to work at the best companies. But the mediums job seekers use to search for potential employers has changed. Word of mouth is still around but pales in importance compared to your company’s online reputation. Before a job seeker even applies, […]

Consistent results are worth billions, part 2

Read part 1: Fraud Doesn’t Pay, But Consistent Results are Worth Billions One day you will want to have some outsider set a value for your business as part of an exit strategy or for the purpose of passing the business to a new generation. What management metrics will you use to guide your efforts […]

Fraud Doesn’t pay, but consistent results are worth billions

Bernie Madoff was arrested in 2008 for running what is believed to be the largest Ponzi scheme ever. Over a period of more than twenty years, Madoff had convinced wealthy, high profile private clients like Steven Spielberg and the Wilpon family (owners of the New York Mets) along with sophisticated commercial clients like MassMutual, Banco […]

What’s technology worth? How to value your technology investments.

I hear customer prospects cry out for “the perfect application for my business that does everything” in nearly every sales call that I make. It does not exist. I have argued again, and again, and again that every business of any size will ultimately buy multiple applications to serve the diverse needs of their business functions. […]

Soon: The smart service revolution

Predicting the future is tough, but predicting the future of customer service for commercial service contractors? That’s easy. The technology is already here. It’s already permeated the consumer world. It’s just a matter of time before it revolutionizes how you do business. Just like local retail was rocked by e-commerce and video rentals were decimated […]

How valuable is your brand? Part 1

I am amazed at how often I see service contractors spending extraordinary effort to measure the gross margin of each service call, job, or project to two decimal places while simultaneously making zero effort whatsoever to measure and understand the value of their business in total. Service call gross margin is a very poor proxy […]

How valuable is your brand? Part 2

As I indicated in my previous post, the basic finance formula for determining the value of an investment is to assess the amount and the risk of future income streams. Of course, predicting the future is tricky business, so it is best to rely on historical trends as a proxy for future performance, along with […]