How to Write Down a Job So Someone Else Can Do It
The first helper in a service business usually struggles for the same reason. The job was never written down, so they learn it by watching, get most of it right, and you quietly redo the rest.
The One-Hour Weekly Review
Everyone has heard that you should work on the business, not just in it. Very few owners have a time on the calendar when that actually happens. One hour a week is enough if it goes to the right five things.
You're Booked Solid and Still Broke
A full schedule and an empty bank account is not bad luck and it is not a mystery. It is one of four things, and you can find out which in an afternoon.
How to Read a Slow Month
A quiet month is three completely different problems wearing the same clothes, and the worst thing you can do is treat it as the one that frightens you most.
What to Do When You Break Something at a Client's House
Everybody eventually breaks something. Whether it costs you a client has almost nothing to do with the object and almost everything to do with what you do in the next hour.
How to Take a Week Off Without Losing Clients
Most self-employed people do not take a week off because they cannot see how. It is a scheduling problem with a known solution, not a test of nerve.
How to Let a Client Go
Nearly everyone keeps a client too long, for a reason that is entirely rational and entirely wrong: the revenue is visible and the cost is not.
When a Job Grows After You Quoted It
Nobody asks you to do 40% more work. They ask for one small thing, eleven times, and each one is genuinely small. That is why it is hard to stop and why it costs so much.
When to Hire Your First Employee
Most people hire too late, out of exhaustion, at the worst possible moment. The decision is easier if you know the two numbers that actually make it, and neither of them is how tired you are.
One Client Is a Quarter of Your Revenue. That Is Worth Knowing.
The best client you have is also the largest single risk in the business, and the two facts are the same fact. Most people never measure it, because it only appears when the year is totaled in one place.
The Drive Between Jobs Is Costing You More Than You Think
Take the same lawn, the same price and the same mower, and change only the drive between stops. A four-minute drive returns $450.87 in a field day. Fifteen minutes returns $292.37.
How to Keep Track of Clients Without Buying a CRM
Most CRM software is built for a sales team chasing deals. A service business with forty recurring clients has almost the opposite problem, and needs about six things - none of which require a subscription.
When a Client Cancels at the Last Minute
You cannot fill a Tuesday on Tuesday. That single fact is what makes a last-minute cancellation different from a rescheduled one, and it is the whole basis for a policy.