Nov
16
A Sure Fire Business Plan Guaranteed to Make You Millions
November 16, 2007 |
Step 1: Offer a service that people need, which they cannot complete themselves either due to lack of skill, motivation, or licensing (plumbing, electrical work, construction, etc.) Pick a market where you can charge a hefty premium for your services (plumbing, electrical work, construction, etc.)
Step 2: When they call you, answer the phone. When you promise to come out to give an estimate, show up. After you show up, complete the work or schedule a time to complete the work. If future work was scheduled, show up on time and complete it.
Step 3: Make a kabillion kajillion dollars, as you’re not only charging an arm and a leg for your necessary services, but customers will love you and tell all their friends about you, for simply being responsible, showing up, and completing the work as promised.
The sad thing is that I’m more than half-serious. Spent most of the last two days trying to get plumbers and electricians out to House #2, to no avail. Three scheduled times to show up to give me an estimate, all three never showed, never called, never answered their phones.
And yeah, I do understand that much of it is explained by my ranting above, as far as the necessary evil of their services which allows them to act any damn well they want to, with no real drop-off in business, but geez.
Comments
4 Comments so far
I feel ya - let me give you the flip side (haha) as my husband is a self-employed carpenter and believe me, we are NOT gazillionares! OK, so the sub-contractor goes to the homesite, or tries to find it with iffy directions. At arrival, maybe the customer is there…maybe not. With “luck” the customer is there and shows you the work to be done. A proposal is submitted in writing, but the owner begins to bicker over the cost/wants to do part of it himself/ can get UNcle Charlie to “help”. I can only wish our homeowners would be like you! I wish we lived near you and Jeff could do all your rehab! I hope your subs straighten up so all of us wanna be-s in cyber can see how it all turns out! I’ll be lurking! :)
Yes, we see that here also. My husband is in this business and can’t believe that people do not call back or show up. I was just telling him that he would get jobs just for calling back and showing up. He just got a great project that is scheduled for late February for this reason. The folks are from out of state but own an investment condo that they rent out. They are just looking to do the bathroom over. Because they have rentals books through February they marked off three weeks for the work to get done. Being from out of state was a little challenging but I think he was the only person willing to meet with them. That and he really is great at what he does.
I hope you find someone soon.
Something else that adds to your frustration at trying to get a tradesperson out is that you won’t have much in the way of repeat business - you’ll have a little, but not like the Gc’s have. I’m also amazed that some rehabbers will settle for “cheap but slow”. We went across town (on the same day she called us, BTW) to give a bid on some running trim and cab installs for a woman doing a whole bunch of apartment rehabs. Jeff gave her a fair price and an excellent time frame but she opted to go with a guy she said did it cheaper. She said it took the guy a week for “X” and Jeff said he could do the same work in 2 days. She went with cheap. Which I guess made sense as these were really low-rent. So there are all kinds of factors in the mix. The really good ones are usually really busy, add that problem in! I understand your dilemma - you are at their mercy since you can’t take the house there! Hang in there!
[…] A Sure Fire Business Plan Guaranteed to Make You Millions […]