One truck at a time

As a business owner, you’re constantly growing your business by grabbing more market share. If you are fortunate enough to live in an expanding market, you should naturally grow a certain percent based on population growth.

So, how do you grab even more market share?

Take the graphic above; it’s a zero-sum game. In that scenario, there is only enough business for 1,000 trucks. For one company to add a truck, someone else loses a truck. The goal, of course, is to be the one adding trucks.

To accomplish this, there are three simple actions to put into place:

Go commercial

If you provide residential and commercial business, target your efforts to go more commercial. This should be your bread and butter. If and when recession hits, commercial folks typically have to keep spending up as opposed to their residential counterparts. In my company, we ran about a 50/50 split, but our most profitable shops were closer to 70 percent commercial and 30 percent residential. To keep track of your own customer breakdown, use the Kickserv tag feature to mark customers as residential and commercial, then run reports based on those markers.

Deliver fast service

This starts on your website in getting leads quickly and responding to them right away! Embed your Kickserv Contact Form onto your site, so you can immediately capture and process leads into your account. Don't leave them hanging for an hour—call them back as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the greater the chance of losing a lead. After the call, get the customer on your schedule, get a tech out to see them, and secure that job right away. Remember that your customer probably talked to your competitors, too. Deliver the fastest service possible, and beat out the competition.

If you don't have enough techs, HIRE! This is a key moment where you push one truck out as you’re moving another one in. Don't worry about the slow times. Instead, build for the peak times. This is exactly how our family business grew: one truck at a time. From 1 truck to 450 across 18 locations, and it all happened one at a time.

Be an early bird, night owl and weekend warrior

Work those holidays, weekends, and late nights. Unless you are happy with your current market share, service does not stop outside of 8am to 5pm. If you really want to grow, take the work that others pass up. You’ll capture more jobs while providing service to those most grateful for your business.

In my experience, the customers I worked with during unconventional hours were the most appreciative to have someone actively working to fix their problem. To be available for as many customers as possible, we broke work up into three shifts: 7am to 5pm, 10am to 8pm, and noon to 7am for techs that were on-call in case of an overnight emergency. This might not be the best schedule for every industry, but it’s an out-of-the-box strategy to consider if it makes sense for your field.

Growing a business happens with consistent, dedicated effort. Remember: Rome wasn’t built in a day, but the Romans might have moved faster following the steps listed above. Put these three policies into place today, and watch your business grow steadily, one truck at a time.