Want to be the winner in your market? Be the first to innovate.
These words of wisdom were imparted by Reese Bobby to his son Ricky Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (clip and clip). Winners get more than their fair share, and a loser is just a loser. No one cares about second place. In our fast-moving world, the winners often take all […]
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 […]
Make your business more valuable by being more valuable to your customers
Billy Marshall often speaks to industry association groups on topics that help service companies be more valuable, successful, productive and more important to their customers. This past May, he spoke in Indianapolis to fire protection companies about The Digital Wrap. What is Billy talking about? Watch the video to see! This 15-minute recording is crash course […]
The Google lesson for service contractors
About two weeks ago, Google (or Alphabet, if you want to be strictly correct) briefly eclipsed Apple as the most valuable company in the world. Apple is back on top today, but Google is much more valuable as a multiple of their sales to the stock value of the company. Google’s stock value is trading […]
Daydreaming of big Jackpots and 1975 fuel prices
I had to chuckle every time that I walked by the Powerball signs last week that couldn’t display full $1,500,000,000 jackpot because the signs have just 3 digits to show the number in millions. This past weekend, there was the opposite situation in Houghton Lake, Michigan where they didn’t need the dollar digit when the […]
Why Google’s relationship with home advisor matters to service contracting businesses
There is a new chapter to the story of Google’s expansion into home services. In a ServiceTrade blog post that generated a lot of conversation among our readers, we told you how Google has been experimenting with changing search results for home services in San Francisco. (Re-read Google Home Services and its Impact on Small and […]
Don’t let the back-office tail wag the company dog
All too often, as field service companies are considering new software, they base decisions on their historical software usage patterns and let the tail wag the dog. Since accounting software is the primary, and often only, business application in use, companies search for ways to extend back-office capabilities to the front office and beyond. This line of thinking is understandable, but […]
Modern tools for service contractors, part 1: Operational efficiency
Over the last couple years, we’ve compiled a list of free to low cost, easy-to-use applications and products that we often recommend to service contractors. These products range in benefits from operational efficiency to lead generation and fit into a modern ecosystem of tools necessary for service contractors to adapt to the business challenges (and opportunities) […]