Finding the Right Price: How Do You Charge Fairly While Still Making a Profit? As A Small Business
One of the biggest challenges for many small business owners is knowing how to set prices. You want to be fair to your customers while also making sure your business is profitable and sustainable. How do you determine what to charge for your services? Do you base your pricing on time, materials, competition, experience, or your desired profit margin? What advice would you give to a new business owner who is trying to find the right balance between being affordable and making sure they are not undercharging themselves?Have you ever fired a marketing channel?
What's something you used to spend money on that you finally said, "Never again.” Google Ads? Flyers? Something else? What made you pull the plug on it? In this Masters of Home Service episode, Gabe Chrismon of Oply unpacks why throwing more money at marketing isn't always the answer to landing new customers. Learn about customer acquisition cost (CAC) and how to get more value from every marketing dollar. Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What's one small change that helped you book more jobs?
Have you made a change that's helped you book more jobs? Maybe it was responding faster, offering text messaging, or changing how you send estimates. What's worked well for you? In this Masters of Home Service episode, Brandon Downer of Pink's Windows breaks down the systems behind a frictionless sales process, from simplifying online quote requests and speeding up follow-up to making estimates easier for customers to accept. Want to put these tips into action? Download our free frictionless selling playbook for this episode. Never miss an episode of Masters of Home Service. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What Automated Follow-Up Campaigns Should Home Service Contractors Set Up to Get More Repeat Business?
Hey guys! For those of you that have access to the marketing suite - there's a few things you can set up today, that will pay off as long you have it active. 1st - Check in on your work 2-3 months after it's done. This timeline is what I'm using for our type of projects so yours could be sooner. A lot of contractors will do a project then never reach out to the home owner again. I can't tell you how many jobs we've received just because we had this automation set up. In the settings you just set it up for XX amount of months after the invoice is paid. 2nd - Ask them for a referral. This isn't asking for a review. That's a given. But you want to be asking home owners if they have any friends that could use your services. Jobber actually has a referral tracking system integrated in it as well. I will say that people are a lot more motivation to refer when there's a benefit to them. Personally, I don't think it's valuable to just offer $$ off your own services. I think you need to give them something they can use anywhere. Just my opinion. Set this up for 1 week after your job is finished/ invoice paid. 3rd - Set up a 1-2 year sequence of emails. You could set one up for one a week. 2 a month. The main thing is you want to show up in their inbox every week. You know those brands that you are too lazy to unsubscribe to so you see them in your email? Ya, be more like them. This can take some time but start out by giving them a monthly email, then start to add to it. It can be the same nurture sequence for anyone that gets added. How do you not be annoying? Make it more about education than selling them a service. Have AI come up with something for your industry and just make some time every week to chip away at it. Over time this will pay off. And i's a set it and forget it type thing that can have a massive long term impact in your business.When did you hire your first sales person?
I think a lot of us owners, if we aren't in the field, we are doing the sales and marketing. For you larger businesses, when did you get your first sales person? What support positions did you hire first? Would you do it any different? I've never worked a sales job (other than owning my company) so I don't know what compensation structure would need to be in place to get a good sales person. How much meat needs to be on the bone for this hypothetical sales guy? This is what the ol AI told me - My honest estimate: a home service business usually needs to be around $1.2M–$1.5M/year in revenue before a true salesperson makes sense, assuming the company already has consistent lead flow, clean estimating, production capacity, and gross margins around 50%+. Below that, you can maybe afford a salesperson on paper, but you probably cannot give them enough opportunity to make the role attractive without crushing cash flow or starving them of leads. A good salesperson is likely going to need a believable path to $75k–$110k+ total comp, which means they need enough leads and deal volume to sell roughly $600k–$1M+ per year, depending on average ticket and margin.Sweat equity
Building a pressure washing business with sweat equity. I've been leaving flyers and tear aways at local businesses. About to post some on local Facebook groups, is there any additional advice for adding customers but keeping it local and personal. I am hoping to build a locally recognized company... patriot Pressure Washing, PPW!Are cheap competitors actually your fault?
This is probably going to rub some people the wrong way, but I think it’s worth talking about. A lot of service business owners complain about cheap competitors. I get it. There is always someone willing to do the work for less. In my industry, I’ve seen people charge prices that make no sense once you factor in drive time, labor, supplies, fuel, insurance, taxes, and the actual time it takes to do the job right. But I also think we have to be honest as business owners. If the only thing a customer understands about your service is the task itself, they are going to compare you against the cheapest version of that task. For us, that would be: “They scoop dog poop.” So the customer starts comparing: price frequency who can come sooner who seems cheaper That’s a weak position to be in. The customer has no reason to value the difference because we haven’t explained the difference well enough. That’s where positioning matters. For us, we had to get much better at explaining what the customer is actually paying for: proactive communication reminders before service on-the-way messages gate photos after every visit waste hauled away thorough multi-pass yard checks professional invoicing and scheduling reliable weekly service trained and background checked technicians a company that shows up consistently Those things matter to our best customers. And when we looked through our reviews, customers were already telling us that. They were saying things like: “worth every penny” “like clockwork” “one less thing to worry about” “they text before they come” “they send a picture of the closed gate” “they take the waste with them” “our last company left the gate open” That changed how I thought about cheap competitors. Some customers will always choose the cheapest option. That’s fine. But if too many good-fit customers are comparing you only on price, your message may not be doing enough work. Your marketing should make it clear why your service costs what it costs before the customer ever asks. That means talking about: risk trust reliability communication safety convenience consistency the cost of hiring the wrong company The cheaper competitor may still win some customers. But I don’t want to lose the right customers because I failed to explain why we’re different. Are cheap competitors hurting your business, or is your positioning making it too easy for customers to compare you on price?Brand new junk removal biz grossed $9k from June 1 - June 22nd
I was learning how to market while trying to rent websites to businesses (set up a lead generating website and sell all the leads to an exclusive partner on a monthly flat rent) and realized I wanted my hands on that blue collar service. I always wanted to run a business that genuinely helps people and the community and found that junk removal could do just that. Making money of course is important. I want a good life just like everyone does. So here is what made our junk removal business start paying the bills in our first month of ditching W2. Verified Google Business Profile Clean website with SEO/Keywords Google search ads (pay per click) Google local service ads. Meta Ads Posting organically Begging on Facebook marketplace (actually got a good amount of jobs but is not super reliable or consistent. I know that customer acquisition is tough but so necessary for running a business so really focus on your online presence!
