Elektrobetrieb skalieren: Wachstumsstrategie im Workshop

0:00Unternehmer/Gast I'm an electrical contractor. I do 1.6 million a year. Uh probably keep about 650 of that. Awesome. >> And um I'd like to be about five is kind of what I can see right now. All right. Um obviously more better, but I My biggest constraint is myself plus hiring quality candidates. So you can handle the volume you have right now. So you can't handle the volume you have. You could get more business, but you can't handle it. I can handle it when the whole crew is here. Okay.

0:28>> as soon as one guy is gone, I'm back in the van. >> Yeah, so you need more people. More people. Yeah. I got >> So we have to think about like so this is probably a multi-step thing just for everybody like as we're falling through this is like if we have if you have enough business, which it sounds like you do, that's not the constraint, then it probably means we need to bump price. And we bump price so that we can have the cash flow, so that we can hire the extra person, so that you have redundancy in the team.

0:52Right? Like if Alex had to hop in if if Tim's sick, that's not going to work, right? We have to have two or three backups for any person who's here so that I can keep doing my job, right? And so but I can only do that if I have the cash flow to sustain multiple tips, right? And so this is where I sometimes it's like a multi-step solution. So it's like we have to fix the pricing component and it's like, "Okay, well, I feel weird charging more because other people in my market charge even less than I do and I'm a little bit above the market, right?" So then we have to think about the offer. It's like, "Okay, so the offer might be the issue, which is like, okay, can we make our thing faster? Can we make it more reliable? Or we can make it easier, right? Can we guarantee around that?

1:31And if the answer is yes, then it's like, "Great. Well, then that's what we're going to charge our premium and bump prices by 20 to 40%, which sounds like a lot, I know, but we say, 'Hey, if we don't meet any of these qualifications, I'll give you all my profit back.' Which means that you raise the price and if for some reason you don't meet it, you go back to the exact same price you're charging now, but everyone that you do meet everything on, you get all the juice." And if no one else does these kind of guarantees, which basically no one does, uh then you can basically say, "Well, the reason that they're not doing that is because they're not confident they're going to be on time and on budget, right? And I am." And so it's very easy for me for somebody else to say, "Hey, I'll do this job for you and maybe I'll be on time and maybe I'll be on budget." Uh but if I have no teeth in that agreement, I'm promise that it'll be free and I'll be done tomorrow, but if I don't have to be right about it, who cares? Sure, I'll be done tomorrow. And they'll be like, "Oh, I guess I get your point." Like, "Right.

2:19I'll be done by this time and it'll be done satisfactory at this price, period." And you know that when you sign this, you get that. That's it. And if for some reason something happens, we'll come back and fix it. Right? And so by doing that, um you'll be able to increase the cash flow, which will then allow you to go recruit the extra tech that you need so you can stay above the business and then ultimately honestly just keep advertising it so that you can keep hiring and and backfilling. Okay. I can see that totally for my service calls and stuff like that.

2:45Kind of my bread and butter is I chase six or seven different heating and cooling companies around and do all their electrical work. Cool. So they take the lead, they Yeah. I have a flat rate sheet for that. But the biggest thing they always complain about is price. And we're super efficient, Yeah. get out, but they're always complaining about the cost that we came in at. Do they still buy from you? Have for six years. Yeah. I mean, I care more about what people do than what they say.

3:13Alex Okay. Everyone would like it cheaper. Right. I would like it cheaper. I would like all of you guys to get paid less. Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Right? But it's it's it Yeah, I just I I pay very little attention to that. Okay. Like customers will always want it cheaper, they will always want it faster, they always want a guarantee. Like these are all thing like that will not change. So when I'm moving my prices, don't even Yeah, be like this is what it is. Okay.

3:37Yeah. Now, to to make yourself sleep better, you have six or seven guys, it's like wouldn't it be cool if you had like 60? Yeah. Right? So then we go back to the top here, which is you have your way of getting customers, which is mostly chasing these six or seven heating and cooling companies around. >> Mhm. And so it's like, what do you get What do you do to get the heating and cooling companies? Basically, I've worked for one for 15 years and it's just constant. Yeah. And then the other ones since I opened my business shortly after, they've been with me. Yeah.

4:05Alex >> really I have no You have no marketing function. >> Yeah. So you should start doing This is what I would do if I were you. I'd start doing outreach to other heating and cooling companies say, "Hey, let me quote some of these jobs for you." Like a lot of people are just stuck with the person they're they're with. They're not happy, they're not unhappy, they're just whatever. Like let me at least bid something up. It'll It'll just keep them honest at least, Mhm. right? And so then you can start bringing business for yourself and that'll just give you more leverage with all of the other kind of uh negotiations that you have with the existing companies. Okay.

4:33Cuz right now you're just dependent on them. So they have all the leverage. Well, yeah, and then as soon as they like I'm missing out on work Yeah. because as soon as they say, "Hey, we have a job tomorrow," Yeah. I'm going cuz they're my they're my whales. Right. So it's a pain in the ass. >> Okay. >> Yeah, so you need more whales, but to get more whales, we have to tweak price to get so that we can hire the manpower. Like it's usually multi-step solutions. Cuz like for most businesses, it's if it were one thing, you probably would have already seen it. So it's usually second order or third order that has to change so we can reverse engineer back to the fixing the core problem.

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