Since 1993, we have been providing business analysis and expertise for the trade services of Electrical, HVAC, Builder-Developers, Auto and Truck Repair, Landscapers, Plumbers, Retail Marine, Safety Training, (lately we added Solar) and other operations nationwide. Whether you desire to be more profitable in retail, residential, or commercial services; we can help you utilize and implement financial, operations, accounting, and sales strategies that save time and garner profits.
We invite you to browse our website at http://www.business-coaches.com/ for information regarding our company, customer experience, products and services, or to contact us with your questions. Our business is about finding answers, and we are happy to respond to any inquiries you may have. We recognize that "motivation" is very important in every company. We strive to implement things in your company that will help it be the place where employees want to work and customers want to do business. As a specific way of providing a tool for your business please go to http://www.gobewords.com/ and take a look at the business product offerings.
Feel free to call, send an e-mail, or fill out the contact form so your company can discover how the utilization of better business strategies, organization, and communication results in increased profits for your business. At Business-Coaches, LLC, we listen, we understand, and we can help.
Sincerely,
Gordon Oberg
p.s. Over the years no matter what our customers have invested in us, "We have consistently demonstrated a return of 5 to 8 times their dollar investment in the form of Profit Dollars".
Items updated continually, Please check back often..
1. To select the right person. I would suggest the following.
a. do your normal recruitment process.
b. narrow your selection down to the top 10 interviewees.
c. contact each of the top 10 and narrow that down to the top 3, using your gut instincts.
d. interview the top 3 using all of your testing processes.
e. have two other people interview the top three.
f. develop a list of the 10 most important things about the position. Each point has a valule of 10
g. rate the people interviewed using your 10 point criteria.
h. call only those folks back for a final interview and a job offer who have scored 80 or greater in your 10 point criteria.
2. 3 people you must have in your business.
In the beginning, the owner does everything. As the business grows,
the three "key" people are.
- Sales...someone needs to sell something
- Operations...someone needs to get the work done
- Accounting...someone needs to keep track of Income and expenses.
- Some business owners think they need to be at the company every second of every day, attending to the multitude of operational details involved with their businesses. I would suggest that you as an owner structure your business so that you don't need to be there all the time and that you have the proper systems and processes in place that enables your business to operate as if you were there. It is as if your business is operating without you...that is the secret to a business that is poised for eventual sale and operating at a profit...
4. How to price your Service dept services.
- Take your highest hourly paid person and "triple that figure"..as an example, if your highest paid person is $25 per hour...you need to add 30 % for benefits or 7.50 to that figure....ending with $32.50 muliply that by 3 and you will calculate $97.50; therefore your services would be priced at $97.50 per hour. However keep in mind that your average service time on the job is approximately 30 minutes...and your average travel time is 15 min. So, here is what I recommend...with the figures above...Your service call should be $97.50 for the 1st half hour and $24.00 for each 1/4 hour thereafter. That will cover your direct wages, benefits, travel time to the job, vehicle expense costs, etc...
1. Salary--gives you the most control, but is limiting to the sales person
2. Salary plus commission--good combination of control to the company and freedom to the salesperson.
3. Draw against commission...basically this is full commission..--The company has No control over the salesmans daily activities...
The one that I have seen most successfully used is "Salary plus Commission". It allows you to control the activities of the salesperson to a certain degree, yet still allows the salesperson to have freedom in the amount of sales they make.. A suggestion would be to structure the ratio of Salary and Commission in a 40/60 ratio. as an example, if the sales person wants to earn $100,000 a year..they would have a salary of $40,000 a year and commission of $60,000 a year totaling the $100,000 earnings figure. When you look at a salespersons earnings you need to consider the total earnings package...e.g. if the sales person sells $1,000,000 a year, and you pay him/her $40,000 in salary, + $60,000 in commission, your cost of sales is 10 %....in order to justify a 10 % sales cost of goods sold, plus the other direct wages, sub contractors, permits, etc...you need to have a gross margin north of 42 %....that would allow your company to have an overhead of 35 to 38 % and a net profit of 7 to 4 %.
6. Rainmakers, Are they necessary for your business success :?
- Basically there are two types of Rainmakers..
- One is your present Advertising-Marketing plan. Properly designed, implemented and executed it will provide Sales and Service leads for your company.
- The second Rainmaker is a person or group of persons that you employ to bring sales and service leads into your company. This is the one that I want to discuss for a few moments. If you have a sales staff, they should be Rainmakers. If you have an inside office customer relations person, they should be Rainmakers. The Rainmakers that operate outside of your company are the ones that promise a lot, want to earn a lot of money, and unless you hold their fingers and toes to the grindstone, will end up costing your company a lot of money in a very short period of time. If you are going to employ an Outside Rainmaker, I would suggest that you pay them per lead produced, appointment kept and resulting sale produced. If you pay them a salary just to provide leads you will find that your cost per lead far exceeds the national average of $275.00 per new lead.
7. . ****New***** "101 Ways you can improve your business." Some of the topics we will be discussing in this section are:
a. 10 ways you can get more Sales.
b. 10 ways you can increase your gross profits.
c. 10 ways you can reduce your company overhead expense.
d. 10 ways you can improve productivity.
e. 10 ways you can improve morale.
f. 10 ways to have more time.
g. 10 ways to give out raises.
h. 10 ways to figure bonuses.
i. 10 ways to interview new employees.
j. 10 ways to conduct performance reviews.
For information on any one of the above...."like" business-coaches on Facebook, and/or link to me on "twitter"...I will contact you...
8. One of my favorite recipes. "Lemon - Pepper Chicken"...
a. you can use, legs, thighs or breasts
b. legs seem to work the best
c. plan on two legs per person
d. directions:
1. pick out a pan whose sides are about 2 - 3" and has a tight fitting cover.
2. put about 1/8 cup olive oil in the pan along with 2 Tbsp of butter, heat until the butter is frothy.
3. at the same time, lightly season the chicken with either poultry seasoning or lemon-pepper seasoning on both sides..
4. put the chicken in the pan and lightly brown on both sides...about 5-8 minutes.
5. turn the heat down to low...put the tight fitting cover on the pan and cook the chicken for about 20-25 minutes...you can tell the chicken is done by the fact that the chicken meat will be separating from the bones. You will find that this chicken is extremely moist and delicious.
Yes, you cold add some garlic to the pan along with the oil, butter, chicken to add a little more flavor.
Gordon
p.s. one of my grandson's (who is 7) liked this chicken recipe so much...that he ate 5 drumsticks !...
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