After attending Strategies for Success my partner Brad and I knew we had some goals to meet. The first thing we did was set a hard number on what we wanted to make as a company. We took last year’s numbers and set a 25% increase.
We had always had dreams but didn’t know how to get there till SFS came along. Brad and I had many talks while we were driving on how to reach our financial goal as a company. Here is how we did it:
The first thing we did was complete our company hand book and cover it with our employees. We have had a few changes in staff since we implemented our SFS procedures. We quickly lost two “non-believers” within a month. This helped with structure and the rest of our guys truly wanted the new rules.
We also made a commitment to each of our insurance adjusters that we would “bring peace to their valley”! When we would go out to the loss during the scope we would get to know the homeowner. Then Brad or I would become the “point of contact” with our customer. (Some people just connect better with others.)
Then we would “over communicate” with the home owner AND the adjuster on everything! The adjusters loved the fact that they had zero problems and no unhappy calls on the losses they gave to All Kleen!
In fact, we are now to the point where adjusters are calling us to help them scope the job and that lands us 95% of the losses we go out on. One adjuster has told another and then another so the snowball keeps rolling and is constantly getting bigger! What a great feeling to have more than enough work!
We are also building a much better name in our community. For example, we always ask, “How did you hear about us?” on the initial phone call. We find 80% of our calls are due to “word of mouth” that we are a “good company”. 10% of our calls still come from the phone book. Plus we get 10% because one of our bigger competitors schedules the water or fire loss for a few days later instead of giving immediate service!
With just the few concepts and procedures we have implemented from SFS we are up 125% over last year’s earnings. The best improvement we had was a 30% increase in our profit margin! We went from 10% to 40%! We now have a budget to work from and a matching business plan for the short and long term.
Eric Blessitt
All Kleen Services
Another great story! Isn’t amazing how some tweaks can make such a big impact on the bottom line? SFS is filled with awesome tips (and, lets face it things we already know we should be doing but aren’t). Those who haven’t, really do need to experience it and see how doing so becomes transformational for their business.
Thanks, Meg. As an entrepreneur obviously Papa Nick wants to make a profit … long term. That’s good because he loses money big time short term on each and every SFS we put on. Plus our entire after-the-seminar TIPS support program loses money on paper too.
But Jon-Don subscribes to the old-fashioned notion that if we help our customers become successful they will take us long for the ride. It must be working- after 15 great years Papa Nick keeps me around! 🙂
Steve Toburen
PS Say hi to John and let us know how you are doing. You have built quite a following with your “Meg’s Story” dispatches from the front lines!