Ready, Set, Scale: How to Grow Your Business
Through many trials and tribulations, you’ve grown your business to where it is today. It’s taken blood, sweat, tears, long hours and sacrifice. But, it’s all been worth it to have something you can call your own. It’s even more worth it when you can finally take that next step to further grow your business and expand into bigger and better projects. But then it hits you – you’re not really sure how to take those next steps or which tools you need to make sure you don’t fail.
So, how do you make sure you’re set up for success as you scale? A solid foundation in three key areas – sales, operations and marketing – is a good place to start. Having this foundation will ensure your business can scale as well as withstand the highs and lows of the growth processes.
Here are some helpful ways in which simPRO helps businesses grow that foundation:
1. Sales: Create competitive estimates on the fly to easily win new business
How long does it take to get a customer an estimate? Thirty minutes? An hour? A day? Or do you lose them in the paper shuffle?
If you really want the customer’s business, impress them the second you win the sale:
- Get them an estimate in minutes
- Send an electronic version so it doesn’t get lost
- Ensure accuracy (how many times have you had to erase or modify a missing part?)
Easier said than done, right? While you can try and be as efficient as possible with your processes, having job management software does speed up the estimating process significantly. In fact, with job management software such as simPRO, you can quickly create, update and submit accurate, winning estimates in your first meeting with a potential new customer via a mobile app. This also allows you to accurately forecast the project and control costs with tools like takeoffs and features such as pre-built assemblies, individual catalog items, labor rates, subcontractor costs, contingencies and disbursements.
More importantly, job management software enables you to exceed customer expectations during the life of the project with the capability to make ongoing updates, review approvals and send estimates to your customer from anywhere and at any time.
The faster and more accurately you can create competitive estimates, the more likely you will stand out from the competition and win new business.
- Operations: Make timely, strategic decisions with intelligent business reporting
Want to know how long it takes field staff to arrive on-site? Need to know where you’re making and losing money? Or do you just want to see the number of jobs scheduled for the week? Business reporting allows you to answer all of these questions and many more so that you can adequately manage your operations.
Solid reporting processes are essential for identifying trends, seeing where you are making and losing money and highlighting inefficiencies while you scale. And when all of your project details are housed in one cloud-based software, it is easy to generate reports and gain insight into crucial parts of your jobs and projects as well as your overall business health.
simPRO job management software offers standard reports such as Work in Progress and Cost to Complete, which help keep your projects on track. Advanced business intelligence reporting, such as a BI Reporting Add-On, allows you to create more customized reports, dashboards and data visualizations that can help you make predictions and forecast growth while you scale.
- Marketing: Automatically request reviews after service to build credibility and attract referrals
According to software review site G2, “about 50% of consumers need to see at least a four-star rating to consider a business.”
Besides simple word of mouth, online reviews can be the make or break for customers when deciding if they want to hire you in the first place.
Put your best foot forward by asking satisfied customers to leave positive reviews online. The more reviews you gather, the higher your overall rating, which helps you stand out on review sites.
Some job management software integrates with review sites, such as Podium (a top review site for field service businesses), to automatically request customer reviews as soon as you’ve completed a job or project for them.
For example, with the integration, completing a job in simPRO triggers a text sent to the customer requesting a review. This integration makes capturing reviews and boosting credibility simple by incorporating the process directly into any workflow.
The more positive reviews you can gather, the easier it is to fill your website or other marketing with honest feedback about your business that shows credibility and builds trust with potential customers. Plus, there’s usually an opportunity for a great referral and more new business for every positive review you gather!
Ready to learn more? Find out how simPRO can help scale your business with a personalized 1:1 discussion: www.simprogroup.com
