68 | MAY 2017
Business
Read online at www.proinstaller.co.uk
5 WAYS TO BOOST
YOUR BUSINESS
Some people running their installation business are very ambitious. Others prefer to pick up their
kids from school every day and just want to make a reasonable living. Ben Dyer of Powered Now
suggests some of the quickest ways to make your business more successful - for all types.
1. Be innovative with
your marketing
If you are at all ambitious, you
need to generate new business
above and beyond word of
mouth. There are lots of ways you
might do this, and the traditional
methods of printed directories
are largely thought to have pretty
much gone the way of the dodo.
Matthew Stevenson of The Land-
scape Company says: “We have a
free yellow pages and Thomson
listing but they are useless in
terms of getting new business”.
Here are some of the ways that
you might like to consider:
• Look at becoming a member
of Checkatrade or using My
Builder or Rated People. They
don’t work for everyone but
they certainly do for some.
However, you need to be com-
mitted as without reviews you
won’t get much work and you
need work to get reviews. So
it’s hard to get started.
• Have a really good website
where you can show your
work with before and after
pictures and testimonials
from satisfied customers. Most
people with serious money
want some reassurance that
they will be spending it wisely
and your website will often be
their first port of call.
• Get a system that helps you to
send regular reminders. Your
installation may need regular
servicing for the warranty
to remain valid. Customers
may want a service when the
warranty expires. Gas Safety
certificates need renewing.
Reminding your customers by
text or email at the right time
is sure to generate some extra
business and it’s virtually
free.
2. Concentrate on
what matters
There are always a million
things that you could do to im-
prove your business. That’s why
prioritising things is so important.
If you don’t prioritise, you can
either waste time doing the wrong
things, or do nothing because you
feel overwhelmed by the choice.
One technique I have found
useful is to list out the top things
that come to mind. Then mark
them on a two or three-point scale
in terms of importance/impact,
how much effort they are and
maybe how urgent they are. For
instance, your tax return is of im-
portance because it must be done
but you won’t go out of business
by missing a deadline. However,
it becomes urgent as you pass the
deadline as the size of fine you
will face will start then keep on
rising.
Using any simple system will
help you to focus on the things
that need doing today and that
will have the biggest impact. This
stops you spending too much
time on for instance, driving down
the price of parts you don’t spend
much money on while maybe not
finding the best possible leasing
deal for your van, which may rep-
resent a much higher expense.
Another area where effort pays
back many times is in planning.
Guy Hodgson of HandyGuy,
Screwfix Regional Winner of
Tradesman of the Year has this
to say: “Planning carefully what
materials are needed is very
important. Additional trips to the
builders’ merchant can be a big
time waster. Make sure you buy
all of the materials you possibly
can in one go at the start of the
week”.
3. Invest in the
right things
When I ran my previous busi-
ness, we had tens of thousands
of small businesses using our
software. Some of these business-
es started from nothing and went
on to make tens of m