Take a look at our newsletter this month!
November 2017
A newsletter for service business owners who want more wealth, freedom, and market domination.
Smash Through the Roadblocks to Growth
Running a home-service business is like running a race on a course filled with obstacles that you can’t always see until they are right in front of you. The business owner who can overcome each obstacle and move forward is the one who will grow his business. But every day, you face something new. These problems are usually framed in a sentence like this: “My business would grow if only THIS wasn’t a problem!” or “I’d be able to run my business better if only THIS weren’t holding me back.”
“While a circumstance viewed as a problem becomes a problem, a circumstance viewed as an opportunity becomes an opportunity.”
Now, here’s the shocking truth about those roadblocks. It’s a truth few people realize, but realizing it and doing something about it WILL change your business instantly for the better. The shocking truth is, these roadblocks aren’t the real problem. The real problem is your beliefs about them. They’re only roadblocks because you allow them to be. In other words, the real roadblock is you. It’s called “limiting belief.” You fear that something is a roadblock, and that’s what it becomes. It’s your brain’s primal defense mechanism.
Back in prehistoric times, we had to be cautious so we wouldn’t be eaten by saber- toothed tigers. Anything outside of a very predictable pattern would be considered scary by our brains, and therefore something to be avoided. That thinking may have kept us alive then, but it’s different now. Our brains don’t know the difference between the danger or the modern challenge that seems to prevent business
Perhaps it’s a lack of resources to do the type of marketing you really want to do. Or, perhaps it’s a missing teammember or a team that isn’t quite operating at the level you need. Perhaps it’s a lack of time you have available to complete the work you need to do. From income to profit, taxes to equipment, and people to your marketplace, the challenges seem to appear regularly and hold you back.
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Your Website’s Not Good Enough
Sure, it looks good. It’s mobile-ready, SEO’d, and looks great. People can even schedule an appointment on it by text or phone. Your website has got it goin’ on. But it’s STILL not good enough. Why? Because it’s missing something vital. But before I get ahead of myself, I’ve been there. I was in your shoes this time last year, managing a $20 million-plus plumbing, HVAC, and rooter company. Four years before I started with the company, we were pushing the $8 million mark. We were growing and pulling in more than 20 percent EBITDA, and offers to buy the company were starting to roll in. It was great.
This time last year, I was approached with a new idea — a live chat on our website.
We launched HomeServiceChats in March of 2017. In the first month of providing full-service chat for my former company, we were getting up to 30 chats a day. And 30–50 percent of those chats were leads.
Now, you know as well as I do that people
If First You Don’t Succeed, Fail, Fail Again.
eyes shut, and wish upon a shooting star to start pulling those kinds of results. We were no exception to that rule. Our formula for
Like everything, I questioned the concept. Like many things, I failed at first. But if I only questioned, and I didn’t try something in pursuit of failing, then I would remain ignorant. I did my research and learned that only 5 percent of web traffic will take action with a company with a standard website, and by adding live chat, you can increase that to 40 percent. So I decided to give it a go. First, I had one of our eight CSRs use it during the day. People liked our chat and used it, but I did NOT get my 40 percent increase. Next, I played hot potato with my customers (never a great idea) to get the response time down. Didn’t work. Finally, after exhausting many other options of doing it in-house, I realized it was time to call in the cavalry. I had to bring the experts on board. Note: Why not just have one CSR do it all day? Even for a $20 million company, there wasn’t enough volume, so I researched the companies. Most of them are outsourced — Pakistan, India, and everywhere in between. None of them focused on our industry. The ones who said they did didn’t. There was a severe lack, and it needed to be addressed.
Why the Big Increase?
Part of it was the tunnel-vision focus. I was only focusing on chat.
“We believe in developing our people. Each chat specialist has KPIs and one-on-one coaching sessions
This is the HomeServiceChats way.
•We engaged with visitors, instead of making them engage with us, which turned shoppers into customers. •We trained our chat specialists into a new breed of salespeople, who understood how to guide a conversation. •We got really good and started bringing in industry experts to train our chat specialists first-hand. (We’re very excited to have Mike Agugliaro coming out in January, for example.) Here’s another vital point. We believe in developing our people. Each chat specialist has KPIs and one-on-one coaching sessions, as well as weekly training sessions to continue honing their skills.
to continue honing their skills.”
success? Fail a lot, and never settle. Try all sorts of things. Question everything. Failing is a fine and under-appreciated art. It’s simple.
1.
Try something.
2.
See if it works. It doesn’t? Perfect. You’ve ruled it out.
3.
Move on to the next thing.
But There Is More …
4.
Rinse. Repeat.
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2. Identify your belief about the problem by asking, “How do I think this problem is holding me back from growth?” 3. Look at each belief and identify how you might be wrong. Ask yourself, “What if this problem were actually an opportunity for growth?” 4. Create a simple step-by-step plan to attack the problem and move forward. Changing your limiting beliefs isn’t easy and may not happen instantly. But with practice, you’ll become adept at realizing it’s your limiting belief and not the circumstance that is holding you back — and then you’ll destroy your belief before it becomes the real problem.
growth. When we encounter something that seems to impede our progress, we say, “I can’t grow my business because of this saber-tooth-sized problem I’m facing.” What our brains think becomes our reality. A circumstance viewed as a problem becomes a problem! That marketing issue or employee issue becomes THE problem holding you back. And here’s an uglier truth: When confronted with danger, our brains desperately want us to return to our safe cave, away from the unknown. Consequently, those things that we now call problems become excuses for us to play safe, to play at a lower level, and not try as hard as we can or should. THE 4 STEPS TO SHREDDING LIMITATIONS
viewed as a problem becomes a problem, a circumstance viewed as an opportunity becomes an opportunity. Yes, those seemingly insurmountable problems could actually be opportunities to push yourself, to raise the bar on your business, and to get creative to find a different method. The difference is how you view them. How different would that make your day? Instead of allowing your limiting beliefs to be defeated by roadblocks, what if you saw each problem as something exciting that gave you the opportunity to grow?
Here’s a simple exercise to do right now:
1. Identify the top problems or
roadblocks that you feel are holding
But here’s the great news: The reverse is true, as well. While a circumstance
you back from growth.
- Mike Agugliaro
Ask These 2 Questions Every Day if You Want to Grow Your Service Business Service business owners face a challenge when they want to grow their business. They try different things, implement new ideas, dial in new strategies, but struggle to find the time to create a business that performs at a high level, even when it’s scaling up.
To help you address this challenge, here are two questions you should be asking yourself every single day.
filter holder and add the right amount of coffee grounds. Then, you turn it on, and coffee comes out. Without realizing it, you’ve developed a system that allows you to make consistent, predictable coffee whenever you want. Now apply that same thought to your business. I advise business owners to build systems for everything. From the moment you start your day to the moment it ends, many of the activities you do can oporate around a system. The benefits of system-building are amazing. You’ll be able to complete more work in the same amount of time because consistency and repetition build speed, without diminishing accuracy.
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Can I build a system for this? Can I improve this system?
Systems are simple steps, done in the same sequence over and over, that will help you complete a task. When you have a system, you can complete the work almost unconsciously and/or with a great level of consistency. Think about making coffee. You’ve probably developed a system. You fill the water in the carafe and pour it into the back of the coffee maker. You grab the filter and put it into the
You should be building systems every day, and then you should spend your time improving those systems so they run more effectively. That’s the fastest way to grow your business.
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It’s a Facebook group exclusively created to serve business owners like you, who want great ideas and strategies, and an opportunity to share your own insights and connect with others.
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It’s a closed group so you’ll need to request to join.
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Change Your Mindset, Change Your Money
You own a business … but howmuch money are you actually making? You’re grinding it out, working hard in your business, but does it feel like you’re moving one step forward and two steps back? Maybe you’re making some money, but not the money you were hoping to make. And maybe you’re now thinking, “Is this what it’s going to be like for the rest of my life?“ I see this among a lot of service business owners. Their business might be busy, and their company could seem successful from an outside perspective, but what everyone else overlooks is how hard you’re grinding it out every day, and the fact that you pay your team first, and you sometimes don’t have a lot left over afterward to put food on your own table. It’s easy to think that this financial shortage occurs because of high costs or high wages or a lack of customers. And those can play a part. However, it might surprise you to discover that there’s something else going on — something behind the scenes that you may not even realize. I’m talking about your mindset. Yes, this surprises and even offends some people, but when you understand it and address it, it will change the game for you. Here’s howmindset makes all the difference. Most service business owners think of their company as a job that they happen to own. They work hard and put in a lot of hours in the hopes of growing the company. They think that if they put in more hours, the company should grow larger. That thinking, though, only applies to jobs where you are paid an hourly wage by someone else, NOT a job at a company you own. No wonder some service business owners burn out even when everyone else thinks they’re doing well! If the paragraphs above describe your situation, then this could be the most important article you’ll ever read.
As a business owner, you need to think differently: you need to think of your business like a wealth-building machine. Your work as the owner is not to grow the business or keep it running. Rather, your job of a wealth- building machine is to build the machine so that it runs on its own. This was a big change for Rob and I in the service business we grew from scratch. We were treating the company like a job, showing up every day and putting in the hours. As soon as we stopped thinking of it like a job and started thinking of it like a wealth-building machine, we realized several things. The difference between the money earned from a job you own and the wealth created from a wealth-building machine is an “X factor” that changes everything and fuels your freedom and the lifestyle you want to live. •
place in our service business and empowered them to make a lot of the decisions. And here’s another example: We built systems and processes to automate a lot of our team’s work so that they could work without our constant guidance. The end result? We were able to step back from the company, and in the last three-to- four years that we owned the company, we didn’t even have offices there. That gave us the freedom to do what we wanted, to spend more time with our families, and to grow CEOWarrior. If your business is wearing you down, that’s perfectly normal. But the reason is because you’re thinking of it like a job — just a job at a company that you happen to own. Start thinking about your business as a wealth- building machine. Every single day you should ask yourself, “What can I do to make this company more successful on its own, without my constant attention?” If you want a great place to start, go read (or re-read) my book, “The Secrets of Business Mastery.” Follow the exercises throughout the book with this wealth-building concept in mind, and by the end of the book, you will have a powerful list of strategies to turn your business from an exhausting job into an inspiring wealth-building machine.
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If we could make it run on its own, we wouldn’t need to be there in order to control it.
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We could build more wealth-building machines that ran on their own.
Once you change your mindset to realize that your company is not a job but a wealth- building machine, you can start building it differently. For example, we put leaders in
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We started this business to get more leads, and we’ve mastered that. But thanks to the team at Dutton Plumbing in L.A., we realized that we’re good at recruiting, too —2 percent of our total chat volume. It was simple. We chatted with people on their career sites. We poured on the value, just like we would a customer. Two experienced plumbers who had chatted with us came in, and we hired them, and during the interviews, they talked about their experience with the chat representative. Now we help our clients hire new employees 24/7, and I’m happy to say that we’re exceptionally good at it. Have you ever had a negative review? Well, those people use the main website as a bridge to the Facebook, Google, or Yelp page. We cut them off at the pass, calm them down, then steer them away from the bad review and to your office to deal with it.
• Then, we build value for each lead with custom scripting for each individual company.
chat services to hundreds of companies, helping them get more leads, recruit more employees, and amplify their overall brand.
•We build a sense of urgency to get them to you ASAP.
•We call themwithin minutes of the chat conversation, ending during office hours.
•We empathize with their problem and warm- transfer them to your CSR after briefing them.
And there you have it. That’s why I say your website isn’t good enough. If you have any form of chat on your site, you’ll get results. Period. And if you have HomeServiceChats, you’ll get more leads, more plumbers, electricians, and technicians, and you’ll have a better overall brand experience. BIO: Trevor Flannigan is the COO of HomeServiceChats, (816) 282-0406 , www.homeservicechats.com, info@ homeservicechats.com . He managed a residential plumbing, HVAC, and rooter company in Kansas City for several years and helped it grow to over 75 trucks and $21 million in revenue. Now he is providing website
Conversion on Chat
Each office is different, but this is the process.
•We capture first and last name, number, address, and email address. That’s a solid lead.
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value to your business or customer), so you can focus on other things. Don’t automate service, though! Will this technology grow with my business? As your business grows, you’ll want to make sure that your technology can grow with you. Of course, there could come a point where you need to replace one technology with another because you’ve moved beyond its capabilities, but asking this question before you invest in technology will help to ensure that you minimize that effort-intensive change. Will this technology deliver ROI? This is the most important question, and it’s informed by how you answer all the other questions above. Technology is a tool, and, like all other tools, it should deliver a return on your investment. Consider howmuch time, effort, and money is required to acquire the technology and implement it within your company, and then weigh that against the amount of time, effort,
and money you can save from its use (or money you will make because of it).
like pen and paper. What really matters is how you use it and whether it helps you. Before you invest in technology for your business, make sure to ask these five questions to know if it’s worthwhile.
Technology is just a tool. It’s not necessarily better or worse than other (non-tech) tools,
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Inside Smash Through the Roadblocks to Growth
| 1
Your Website’s Not Good Enough
| 2
Ask These 2 Questions Every Day if YouWant to Grow Your Service Business
| 3
5 Steps to Change Your Company
| 4
Meet Gabe Wade!
| 4
Service Business Edge, New & Improved
| 5
Change Your Mindset, Change Your Money
| 6
5 Questions to Ask If You’re Thinking About Adopting New Technology
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5 Questions to Ask If You’re Thinking About Adopting New Technology
Technology has an impact on our lives and businesses. From hardware like computers, cellphones, and GPS to software like Facebook and Skype, technology has the potential to help us run our businesses better.
where many of your customers are. Or perhaps you live in a different country, and there’s a U.S.-based technology that just doesn’t play nicely with your country’s technology. See if the technology provider has service-level
guarantees or a trial period so you can test the technology.
Will this technology enable the team to work together more effectively? This is one of the best uses for technology — getting your team to communicate more effectively. Good technology will allow them to connect with each other in real time and communicate clearly. For example, mobile video-conference technology would be great to implement so you can have meetings with your teamwithout requiring them to return to the office. Will this technology enable me to automate my business? Another great use for tech is the ability to do something automatically that was once done manually. Automate Tasks that are time consuming, effort consuming, or are just plain necessary (even if they don’t add direct continued on page 7 ...
Technology can be a tool for growth, or it can be a deterrent that prevents us from growing. If you’re thinking about investing in technology, ask yourself these five questions. Will this technology work for me? Not all technology will work for everyone. Perhaps a great cellphone plan for your team only works in urban areas, but not in the rural areas
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