about business growth. please read and comment.

[16k_zx81]

Im now well past 12 months in business as a sole trader. The business is starting to make money. Things are taking shape as they should. Very happy with the progress so far. My focus has been on building 'retainer customers', as it seems that this is where the best income is for a mobile repair service - definitely seems to be for me. This year I plan on finishing my A+ and doing a Microsoft cert in the hope of getting more small business customers, hopefully working towards a body of maintenance contracts.

Im thinking about my goals for 2011 and trying to get my head around how to grow the business further to make it more profitable and more stable, particularly in terms of the business model itself.

I worry a lot about what would happen if I got sick for any period of time, and I guess this is the biggest threat to a business as a sole operator. I also want to do the best I can financially for my family and can see that eventually there will be a ceiling on as a single person enterprise. The stability aspect concerns me.

So I wonder about the obvious moves, ie getting a shop (not keen), and building some sort of franchised mobile repair business (from where Im sitting this looks extremely difficult to make workable), or something else - not sure, and thats part of the question Im trying to ask.

What directions have others taken from sole-trader doing onsite repairs? What in your opinion is a good strategy for business development from a sole-trader model?

For those of you who went from sole trader to larger businesses, could you comment on the process, or steps you took to do this? What was your trajectory?

What are the pros and cons of shifting away from a sole-trader model to one of working with and then managing employees?

Am I better off sticking it out by myself, or is the only route to bigger income to grow the throughput of the business?

Thanks for any contributions / thoughts on this. Very interested to see what path others have taken and how its worked for them...

 

[NeutronTech]

I'm still a stand alone guy, but moving into a shop was by far the best thing for my business. My exposure drastically increased. On top of getting many more customers, I became much more efficient. Mostly because I wasn't wasting so much time on site and driving around. People bring their computers to me, and I can work on several at a time. I'm almost always here at the shop, so I don't miss out on walk in customers by traveling.

I still do onsite work, but it's more expensive for people so most just bring their computers in to me. Too much time was wasted by traveling onsite, diagnosing computer, disconnecting computer, driving back home, then driving back out to customer's house, reconnecting their computer and peripherals, and then driving back to work on the next.

You don't really even need a shop to do this. A drop off point would be an idea as well. Anything to just get rid of the time spent traveling and disconnecting/reconnecting their equipment.

However, if people are willing to pay extra for that service, then that is fine. There is nothing wrong with working out of home and working under this model. I did it before as well. But moving into my office was really the single best thing I've done for my company, in terms of client base, efficiency, and image.

 

[Xander]

On the note of "drop off point": 'Lotfi' on the Podnutz podcasts was talking about how he'd used dry cleaners around London as drop-off locations. At the corner of my residential street, where it meets a main road, is a water depot. At one point, I was considering approaching them to see about having customers drop off their computers to a brick and mortar site.

As it is, we've opted to close in our porch and make that a drop-off location. The long-term plan will be to have a situation where my wife will be able to receive for me while I'm on a housecall, with me having something like M/W/F am & Tu/Th aft in-shop..adjusting based on supply and demand.

 

[NeutronTech]

On the note of "drop off point": 'Lotfi' on the Podnutz podcasts was talking about how he'd used dry cleaners around London as drop-off locations. At the corner of my residential street, where it meets a main road, is a water depot. At one point, I was considering approaching them to see about having customers drop off their computers to a brick and mortar site.

As it is, we've opted to close in our porch and make that a drop-off location. The long-term plan will be to have a situation where my wife will be able to receive for me while I'm on a housecall, with me having something like M/W/F am & Tu/Th aft in-shop..adjusting based on supply and demand.

That's an interesting point as well. Setting guaranteed in office times. I had considered doing this, but most of my jobs are dropped off to me. Basically say, I am in the shop and available from 9am to 1pm. From 1pm on I will schedule service calls. That way no matter what, people will always know an exact time that I can be reached in the office. I never implemented this, because like I said, not enough service calls to justify it.

There are so many ways to make things work, whether you work from home or an office, as a stand alone owner. It just depends on how creative you can be.

 

[BostonGeek1]

The hardest thing will be for you to find someone reliable and trustworthy that is going to believe in your brand and long term growth. Unfortunately if you are just starting out, your employees WILL be able to smell that inexperience on you, and their output will suffer (people don't like working for a boss that's green). They will expect you to be perfect, to forgive them mistakes, to let them off the hook, to put up with them lying, being lazy, etc etc...and at the end of it all, still badmouth you. You should DEVOTE MOST of your time, to nurturing the relationship between you and your first contractor, to build trust and communication.......buy them lunch, pay to have them pass microsoft exams, etc etc........at teh end of the day you may not have much left over. This is where your BILLING and retention and marketing and sales and accounting abilities will ALL COME INTO PLAY. You'll be expect to generate leads, make sure your guy bills them correctly, collect enough to pay for both you and him, bill your OWN hours as well, follow up with clients, make sure your clients LIKE YOUR CONTACTOR, make sure he arrives on time, does everything correctly, PLUS collect from these clients.

The truth is there just ISNT enough hours in the day for all that.............which is why you'll have to be VERY VERY GOOD at treatign your employees and customers with respect, and bill WELL for your time. You ABSOLUTELY CANNOT underbill........EVERY INVOICE MUST BE FULL FACE VALUE AND A GOOD RATE.....otherwise you won't make any money. Your subcontractor will also not respect himself if you market yourself as an affordable brand, because no one likes to work for a 'value-brand'. Everyone wants to work for a 'premium' company. Paying your contractor on time, and being CONSISTENT with them is key.

The greatest benefit, and probably no one else will tell you this, is that it will force YOU as a person to grow up. Your contractor will tell you immediately if you're being inconsistent, if you're not paying them on time, they'll hold you accountable more, your clients will give you feedback, etc etc. You will be forced to maintain a relationship with a person that depends on you financially, and vice versa. It will improve your overall maturity significantly, and I would say positively impact your business indirectly in ALL other areas.

That and unless you're in the top 20 cities by population, there's no way to break the 100k revenue mark without at least a part time contractor.....

You want to have them bill around 20-25 hours a week as a goal, at 50% of what you charge......so your first guy should be billing out 20 hours at 80/hour, keeping 40 for himself..........while you're doing all the marketing/accounting/client relationship stuff and a little bit of onsite/remote stuff.....


Also bear in mind you will always have a very low revenue/customer if you do things like

1. have a mediocre looking site
2. rank poorly in the search engines
3. have a strange drop off location
4. not have all your paperwork
5. look unprofessional in ANY WAY
6. be inconsistent with expectations
7. beat yourself up over price.

You will always be scrambling for customers and ultimately burn out, esp with subcontractors to feed........you'll need to get everything together to really do well and take the next step.