Being pro-active in business
Discussion
I'm (rightly or wrongly) assuming that there are some successful business owners and managers etc here in varying industries and something unique between you all is that the success probably didn't knock at your door and invite itself in.
I run an electrical contractors with my dad (as well as a separate online retail business), been working for my dad for nearly 10 years starting as an apprentice electrician. The company is now managed by just me and him and he is slowly but surely taking a step back and leaving me to get on with it. The company has been around for 30 years and my dad has done very well from it, problem is the past 4-5 years with recession etc the company's been struggling, no one wants to pay on time and he has put in a lot of money when others probably would have called it quits and moved onto the next thing so we have a bit of catching up to do. We have survived, but that's about it.
This year we have binned off 7 of our staff as they were poison, changed our admin and accounts staff, updated the brand and started to specialise in certain areas of the industry. The transition is going well but work is coming in fairly slow and we're struggling to break into some of the areas we want to be in. We are still reliant on working for our existing customers and councils which is becoming too competitive with smaller companies going really cheap on pricing.
Heres the problem, whilst I'm definitely more businessman than tradesman, I'm still guilty of the traditional tradesman waiting for work to come to me stereotype and I need to learn how to break free from this hence asking here for advice. I don't know many other business people locally so haven't got many people to bounce ideas with. I have started following up with people I've done quotes for and talking to our clients in general more.
Just wondering if anyone could offer some advice on building confidence in business and how to go out and find work. I don't really want to walk in my dad's shadow all my life if you know what i mean!
I run an electrical contractors with my dad (as well as a separate online retail business), been working for my dad for nearly 10 years starting as an apprentice electrician. The company is now managed by just me and him and he is slowly but surely taking a step back and leaving me to get on with it. The company has been around for 30 years and my dad has done very well from it, problem is the past 4-5 years with recession etc the company's been struggling, no one wants to pay on time and he has put in a lot of money when others probably would have called it quits and moved onto the next thing so we have a bit of catching up to do. We have survived, but that's about it.
This year we have binned off 7 of our staff as they were poison, changed our admin and accounts staff, updated the brand and started to specialise in certain areas of the industry. The transition is going well but work is coming in fairly slow and we're struggling to break into some of the areas we want to be in. We are still reliant on working for our existing customers and councils which is becoming too competitive with smaller companies going really cheap on pricing.
Heres the problem, whilst I'm definitely more businessman than tradesman, I'm still guilty of the traditional tradesman waiting for work to come to me stereotype and I need to learn how to break free from this hence asking here for advice. I don't know many other business people locally so haven't got many people to bounce ideas with. I have started following up with people I've done quotes for and talking to our clients in general more.
Just wondering if anyone could offer some advice on building confidence in business and how to go out and find work. I don't really want to walk in my dad's shadow all my life if you know what i mean!
Simpo Two said:
The frustrating thing for you is that you know you have the ability but can't connect it to income. The engine is running but the wheels aren't going round.
That pretty much sums up how I feel actually. I've felt this way for a while now, ironically since I sold my 350Z for a house deposit (and a boring Mazda 6 TS2!)I have spoken to distributors and sales rep asking what others are doing and it seems there are a few newish companies popping up doing similar things (one for instance door access control systems) and they are gaining their work from the internet and have built up companies worth far more than ours in a much shorter space of time. I think we've got a good website but we don't get a lot of traffic so I guess that's open for debate.
I think you're right in the sales & marketing. I do well with most of our clients, quotes are quick and we seem to win quite a good percentage of them, but there simply isn't enough quote requests coming in and certainly not enough in the more profitable sectors we want.
Thanks for the replies so far, knew I'd get some helpful advice here! I do sometimes worry if the company is too far behind to catch up, I think ultimately that's played a big part in the downfall. Up until recently poor website, no social media, no SEO or adwords, inconsistent branding and the MD (which he'll happily admit as a fault) tried to semi-retire too early (although this was partly due to an injury that took him out for 8 months) without the right management in place, he put his trust in the wrong place unfortunately. Those past managers are now gone and he's back full time and things are turning a bit. He is a bit of a nightmare though, he'll price anything for anyone, no job is too small no matter what the industry. He often goes off on a tangent thinking he can make a profitable shop instead of our office etc. etc. I'll often challenge him but get told I'm negative, despite the fact he used to have a shop before and it didn't work out in our location.
I've found this past 6 months that I just have to do things and force it, hence the brand update, vans have started being wrapped (first update since the company incorporated in 1984!!!) new site etc. It's all me. He hasn't really put up a fight if I'm honest but I know he is/was getting tired of the whole business before these changes. I would like to get to the point where we are turning down the less profitable low-end domestic work and concentrating on commercial (electrical, converged IP solutions, LED lighting) and high end residential (electrical, structured wiring, home automation, lighting control and entertainment) I have already started branding this way but have not made my intentions clear to him just yet as he'll not be impressed at the thought of "turning down work". I've learnt from my e-commerce business about targeting niches and being best at that niche, which can ultimately lead to more sales than targeting too wide of a market.
I'm convinced that internet is the way forward, we currently, for a company turning approx 1.4m p.a (yet making no profit for past 4-5 years, until this year), only spend £1000 a year on advertising and that's yell.com, and this says it all I think!! However until he sees results from something he's reluctant to invest money that we admittedly have little of. I spend (almost) that a month on my retail business and I haven't even hit a 6 figure turnover yet!! He is still of the Yellow Pages mentality.
I like the idea of a marketing intern for the summer, does anyone know how I go about finding one?
To answer the question about trusting our staff etc.... well I'll be honest I have my doubts about them, we only have 4 on the cards staff left now as we binned off all the piss-takers. They are a lot better and a lot more trust worthy than the past staff, but they are far from the perfect bunch. They do however get jobs done on time and to a very good standard, they just take a fair bit of mummy-ing to get there at times. We also regularly use a few subbies who are much better. We can definitely move forward with them, but they aren't the A team!
I've found this past 6 months that I just have to do things and force it, hence the brand update, vans have started being wrapped (first update since the company incorporated in 1984!!!) new site etc. It's all me. He hasn't really put up a fight if I'm honest but I know he is/was getting tired of the whole business before these changes. I would like to get to the point where we are turning down the less profitable low-end domestic work and concentrating on commercial (electrical, converged IP solutions, LED lighting) and high end residential (electrical, structured wiring, home automation, lighting control and entertainment) I have already started branding this way but have not made my intentions clear to him just yet as he'll not be impressed at the thought of "turning down work". I've learnt from my e-commerce business about targeting niches and being best at that niche, which can ultimately lead to more sales than targeting too wide of a market.
I'm convinced that internet is the way forward, we currently, for a company turning approx 1.4m p.a (yet making no profit for past 4-5 years, until this year), only spend £1000 a year on advertising and that's yell.com, and this says it all I think!! However until he sees results from something he's reluctant to invest money that we admittedly have little of. I spend (almost) that a month on my retail business and I haven't even hit a 6 figure turnover yet!! He is still of the Yellow Pages mentality.
I like the idea of a marketing intern for the summer, does anyone know how I go about finding one?
To answer the question about trusting our staff etc.... well I'll be honest I have my doubts about them, we only have 4 on the cards staff left now as we binned off all the piss-takers. They are a lot better and a lot more trust worthy than the past staff, but they are far from the perfect bunch. They do however get jobs done on time and to a very good standard, they just take a fair bit of mummy-ing to get there at times. We also regularly use a few subbies who are much better. We can definitely move forward with them, but they aren't the A team!
Edited by MrSparks on Monday 21st April 10:21
VEX said:
Also, GET YOUR WEB ADDRESS ON YOUR PROFILE ON HERE.
Great mistake, lots of interested and HNW client prospects on here who want to share with other PH Friend.
V.
I'll add it in a bit then, but I really didn't want people to think I'm advertising or spamming as I've had this on forums before when asking advice. I'm here first and foremost because I'm obsessed with cars, previously had a Nissan 350Z and am working my way to a V10 R8. My dad has some nice motors also (albeit not supercars, he's not interested!) then I thought of asking for advice as if you can afford a super car you probably have a successful business of some kind. But if it's okay I'll add it in, may make it easier to offer advice if you know exactly what we do. Although I am quite pleased with the level of advice given so far. Certainly given me a few things to think about.Great mistake, lots of interested and HNW client prospects on here who want to share with other PH Friend.
V.
Vex,
Thanks for your detailed reply, seems you're in the same industry as some of our services so that you for replying.
We have a lot of clients so I get what you're saying, we do look after them fairly well most of the time but this could be improved massively which as you say could lead to much more referral work. We don't seem to be getting as much referral work as usual, maybe that's because clients know we've changed so much lately and maybe they see it as us struggling? We do a lot of work for other trades, and we try to find or recommend them to our clients when they need a service they offer which seems to go down well.
I think I will try to get around a bit more, visit my staff on site, check the clients happy, fix any problems/issues/extras there and then to try and improve our reputation further.
I also agree on the web thing especially for the home entertainment market, we rank top 3 for certain searches yet hardly any visits or enquiries, so either no one searches for this type of service or we're ranking for the wrong words.
To be honest it's the electrical, energy saving, LED lighting, structured wiring and converged IP where we would want to focus, we do a lot of commercial lighting control and some residential so we're more on the electrical side, just so happens I know a lot about multi room audio and video and home control so we try to upsell these as we can offer a complete package. We've got genuinely happy customers in this field but it hasn't generated any further work for some reason, largely because our customer base is in the wrong demographic.
Previously i've tried to advertise the top product in each of our services, i.e Elan G! home control systems, but not many people know they want this so they ignore it, I'm going to start taking the tact of selling structured wiring for internet, tv and security etc and lighting control then up-sell from there. And upsell Led lighting to standard office refurbs and addition of lighting control such as absence detection etc.
Thanks for your detailed reply, seems you're in the same industry as some of our services so that you for replying.
We have a lot of clients so I get what you're saying, we do look after them fairly well most of the time but this could be improved massively which as you say could lead to much more referral work. We don't seem to be getting as much referral work as usual, maybe that's because clients know we've changed so much lately and maybe they see it as us struggling? We do a lot of work for other trades, and we try to find or recommend them to our clients when they need a service they offer which seems to go down well.
I think I will try to get around a bit more, visit my staff on site, check the clients happy, fix any problems/issues/extras there and then to try and improve our reputation further.
I also agree on the web thing especially for the home entertainment market, we rank top 3 for certain searches yet hardly any visits or enquiries, so either no one searches for this type of service or we're ranking for the wrong words.
To be honest it's the electrical, energy saving, LED lighting, structured wiring and converged IP where we would want to focus, we do a lot of commercial lighting control and some residential so we're more on the electrical side, just so happens I know a lot about multi room audio and video and home control so we try to upsell these as we can offer a complete package. We've got genuinely happy customers in this field but it hasn't generated any further work for some reason, largely because our customer base is in the wrong demographic.
Previously i've tried to advertise the top product in each of our services, i.e Elan G! home control systems, but not many people know they want this so they ignore it, I'm going to start taking the tact of selling structured wiring for internet, tv and security etc and lighting control then up-sell from there. And upsell Led lighting to standard office refurbs and addition of lighting control such as absence detection etc.
VEX said:
That the way I do it, start at the bottom and sell up. Not the top and sell down.
Take time to sell the basics and the higher end stuff will follow, because people understand the basic start point. My specific story is 'get the cabling right first, then add the wizzy stuff when you want to or can afford to'
Where abouts are you based?
V.
It's all about the cabling, residential, commercial, high end or low end, I've lost track of how many times I've told people "whether you use me or you don't use me, make sure you get the right cables to the right place" but until recently I've never tried to sell the wiring before the fancy systems!!Take time to sell the basics and the higher end stuff will follow, because people understand the basic start point. My specific story is 'get the cabling right first, then add the wizzy stuff when you want to or can afford to'
Where abouts are you based?
V.
I'm down in Portsmouth, we cover Hampshire and often work further afield but tend to ignore London (yes I know it's the biggest market for the A/V and converged IP services, but also most competitive) most of our work is Hampshire council and direct for builders/main contractors/other trades. The high end residential that we have done is via one of our regular main contractors, but it's very few and far between.
fridaypassion said:
Electrical contracting and retailing is an odd combination. The retail side must be frightening with players like YESSS coming in and a lot more awareness amongst mainstream retailers on specialist stuff like access control systems.
Do you know which side of the business makes more money? Just follow where the existing revenue is coming from. I suspect the contracting side of it should be picking up and for a medium sized business in this sector I would say thats where you want to be concentrating. Unless you are highly specialised electrical retail has to be a dead horse surely?
Sorry to confuse but the two businesses are completely seperate, I have a niche online store with no links to the contracting company, it's a mostly automated sideline which does okay for what it is, obviously I would love to continually increase sales but essentially its just a bit of extra money for an hour a week of work and little effort (now that it's set up and established!). It's gaining momentum in an upcoming market and I would intend to sell it to a competitor in the future when it's worth enough. (that's the dream anyway!)Do you know which side of the business makes more money? Just follow where the existing revenue is coming from. I suspect the contracting side of it should be picking up and for a medium sized business in this sector I would say thats where you want to be concentrating. Unless you are highly specialised electrical retail has to be a dead horse surely?
Back in the day my dad had a shop selling electrical bits and bobs, fans and other assorted 'junk'. it didn't do all that well and started costing more to staff it than it made so he closed it and it's now our offices (and half of it is rented to another shop). He has been talking about a shop again for some reason, but I can't see any feasible route to this. I tend to humour him and bat it off and concentrate on the core business.
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