The home services industry is a gold mine. But no one tells you how many home services businesses struggle to find their feet over the first couple of years after launching. In fact, many folks silently close businesses and switch industries.
But you don’t need an MBA to succeed in growing your home services business. Success awaits those brave enough to be patient and put in the required work. From our experience working with tons of home services businesses, here are a few notable keys we’ve proved to be effective:
- Maximize Your Strengths
- Market Strategically to Win New Customers While Retaining Old Ones.
- Go for a Team of Experts
- Let Quality be Your Watchword
- Maintain Visionary and Proactive Leadership
- Ensure a Solid Accounting Structure
- You Can Use Legal Help
- Use Reliable Business Policies
- Increase your Supply Options
- Great Vendor Service
Sounds close? Then read this article to the end! You’ll learn the basis for each factor in growing your home services business.
Maximize Your Strengths
Which do you think is best? Learning the ropes of a new niche, alongside the trouble of regulations and growing the business, or taking roots in your already established area of expertise?
You’ll find it easier to pick up one of your services and invest in honing your employees’ skills until your company becomes the leading expert on that service. For instance, if you’re into house home services and zoom in on finishing basements or setting up add-ons, you’ll stand out from your competitors.
Higher-paying clients looking for luxuries like solar technology and micro houses would instead go for specialists in these services than general contractors, all to ensure that they’re served premium quality for their money.
Market Strategically to Win New Customers While Retaining Old Ones
Business grows with increasing awareness. As crucial as operations, human resource management, or budgeting are, they don’t play into the expansion of a company like marketing.
So you want to take it more seriously as your home services business grows larger wings to fly higher. You can engage these four strategic action points to boost your home services marketing:
1. Encourage Word-of-mouth Marketing
Get the word about your company’s work out through person-to-person marketing. Word of mouth has been the mainstay of home services marketing. You do excellent work for your clients, and out of excitement, they spread the news about how good you are to their friends.
If a customer has been with you for the long term, don’t forget to remind them to tell others about you, as they might have gotten used to your service or may not be natural advertisers.
2. Retain Previous Customers
Although retaining previous customers in retail-based industries is more accessible than in the home services business, it’s still profitable. You can give a discount or free handyperson service to hold back previous clients and encourage referrals.
3. Don’t Slack on Your Online Presence
In today’s online world, referrals and traditional media are far from enough for your marketing. Even local home services businesses must update their contact information on Google, Yelp, and social media handles.
Five-star reviews and recommendations don’t mean much if potential customers can’t reach you easily.
4. Gear Up Your Website
Your website falls into the online marketing category but is an entirely different ball game. Intentionality about converting viewers into leads means:
- Spelling out your services and what makes them unique.
- Including awards, client testimonials, and a digital portfolio of past projects (especially pictures).
- A prominent contact point on every page of the website.
Go for a Team of Experts
Building a formidable home services business requires beyond individual expertise; it needs many heads thinking alongside each other. That’s why it’s best to be picky on recruitment; based on the skills, experience, and qualities you need.
After gathering a great team of employees, also take care to retain them. If your experts are good with their work, you can be sure someone else also needs them on their team. Besides, your representatives deserve to be treated well by their company.
Let Quality be Your Watchword
A high turnover rate is the dream of every home services business owner, but QUALITY is the secret sauce to success that many companies overlook. Quality here cuts across the materials you use, the experience/expertise of your workers, and how you treat your customers.
A quality-minded business will not give trying to meet deadlines or targets as an excuse for poor and shoddy work. Your customers will always appreciate a job well done, a service they can trust. Their assurance of the excellence of your service also boosts their confidence when referring you to others.
Maintain Visionary and Proactive Leadership
When it comes to the growth of a home services business, everything rises and falls on the company’s leadership. Like every organization, your business thrives on prior and proper planning based on a vision that everyone works with.
As the leader of such an organization, spell out the direction of your company. Working with a vision makes the difference between growth-minded companies (and employees) and those working only for money.
With everyone reaching out for the same goals and objectives daily, growing your home services business would be a more satisfying experience for you.
Ensure a Solid Accounting Structure
The more your business enlarges capacity, the more the need to nail down your numbers. Even on a personal basis, there’s a need to have a hold on how much comes in and goes out daily. With such stringent monitoring, you can ensure your company’s growth.
Furthermore, when bigger opportunities come — like securing larger clients or funding for projects, your lender or surety will need to see beyond impressive machines and staff. They’ll need to review your bank statements, accounts payable and receivable, and other financial documents.
If what you call accounting is a few pieces of paper documented away, you shouldn’t expect larger projects.
You Can Use Legal Help
Unlike how it seems, the home services industry goes deeper than helmets, hammers, and trucks. There are also many more suits and ties involved than people would know. Why? Because payment and contract agreement disputes happen every day!
A competent home services attorney is what you need to make a difference in your business. They’re experts on navigating your state’s home services laws and handling unsettling disputes that would normally disturb you.
The truth is, the big home services companies have teams of lawyers, meaning you’re missing out big time if you don’t have one on your side.
Use Reliable Business Policies
By reliable, we’re talking about business policies that systematize your work and remove any room for oversight. Successful businesses take the policies written in the employee handbook seriously.
For example, you’ll extend credit to the correct types of clients with a strong credit policy. The security of your payments is assured with a good collection policy. A lien and notice policy also takes care of legal issues.
Putting such policies in place is critical to avoiding guesswork and growing an excellent home services business.
Increase your Supply Options
One or two suppliers suffice for a startup or small home services company. But as a company expands and projects become more expensive, problems with the supply chain also cause more damage to a business.
You don’t delay your esteemed customer because metal roofs or tiles don’t arrive on time. So how do you ensure your company isn’t stranded when there’s a problem on one end? Diversify your supply chain! Having several supply options, alongside the credit needed to use them, will significantly reduce the time spent waiting for materials.
Great Vendor Service
As mentioned earlier, your customer service should be excellent. But there needs to be more talk regarding company-vendor relationships. Growing your home services business will require you to satisfy your suppliers by ensuring their early and complete payment!
With such a reliable relationship, it’ll be easy for your vendors to see a great future doing business with you, ensuring their loyalty to your company. The opposite here will dent a company’s reputation, giving them access to only low-quality vendors. Or they’ll have to pay heavily for the good ones.
Final Thoughts
Scaling your home services business is no child’s play; it requires a lot of effort and consistency. You’ll need to invest time and resources into building an expert team, getting legal help, providing excellent customer and vendor service, and other points discussed above.
Many companies have conquered this stage, making your dream very realistic. We’re your go-to experts if you need more professional advice on growing your home services business. Contact us today and let us know how we can help you out!
