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 […]
Are your services significant?
Significant objects are worth more than regular objects. At least that is the conclusion arrived upon by the significant objects project and its team of researchers. Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker, a writer and a journalist respectively, set out to prove that stories can increase the value of objects. While it is tempting to view […]
Amazon prime lessons for service contractors
Everyone knows Amazon has been on a tear lately. Here is their stock performance over the last 5 years as compared to the broader S&P 500. Wow! A big part of that success has been the Prime subscription program. Amazon customers who subscribe to Prime to receive the following benefits: Priority shipping. It varies […]
Service repair funnel
As a commercial/industrial service contractor, what is your ratio of repair to recurring service revenue? 1 to 1? 2 to 1? 5 to 1? If you don’t know, you could be missing out on a gold mine of high-margin work. If you do, you probably know that there’s room for improvement. And, when skilled labor […]
Give the people what they really want
If you asked people in the 1890s about personal transportation, they’d say “Give me a cheaper, faster horse.” Instead, they got cars and they happily spent more. If you asked people of the 1990s about entertainment, they’d say “Give me more selection and cheaper rentals at Blockbuster.” Instead, they got Netflix and they happily spent […]
Whole foods whole world
I bet the grocers that had a bad day when Walmart got into groceries about fifteen years ago are having a really bad week now that Amazon has announced their intention to buy Whole Foods. The innovations Amazon is going to bring to grocery buying go well beyond low price and internal operational tweaks. Amazon […]
Fill the stadium for your customer service features
So now what? You’ve completed a big project to add new capabilities or value for your customers – something like implementing ServiceTrade or adding the Service Portal to your website. How do you get the word out so your customers start using and appreciating it? If you have asked those questions, you aren’t alone. I’ve […]
5 mistakes most commercial service contractors make
Dear commercial service contractors, Your cousins, residential service providers, have it figured out. What are you doing? Why are you still acting like a company from the 90s? Why aren’t you taking a page from their book and modernizing your customer service and marketing? I get it, they play by a different set of rules, […]
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 […]