The 1 Year Post And What’s Coming Up

By: Corey Philip | Updated: September 29, 2018

It was one year ago (apprx) that I decided to start taking my experiences with running and growing a the contracting company and sharing them on a blog. With 131 posts and a Facebook Group of over 500, it has came a long way! Some of my posts and insight have been featured on podcasts and other blogs / publications such as; Contractor Coachcast, Sales Babble, and The Site Shed (full list to come). While some of my posts are on the topic of operations, and the most popular post is on financial management, the

The Success Formula For Trades Business Entrepreneurs

By: Corey Philip | Updated: June 29, 2018

No service business starts off ‘successful’. No matter how much planning and preparation go into it, the day you go into business, you’ll run into challenges that make you question every piece of your plan. There will be frustration, and confusion, sleepless nights, and lost family time. What Makes Business Owners Successful I’ve achieved a moderate level of success in my service business. There are systems in place to make sure customers are happy and revenue is earned. The company has built a solid reputation and has a marketing system that pulls in customers. Most

One Powerful Word for More Referrals: Appreciation

By: Corey Philip | Updated: February 6, 2018

Customers are essential to any business so it makes sense when organizations spend a long time trying to entice them. But often, after the initial wooing period, a customer signs up and barely hears from them again unless it’s to market or try and sell them something. We’ve been there as a customer, and possibly as a business owner. Ever sold a project and then 3 weeks later call the customer to tell them you’ll be there in 20 minutes? Or worse have the customer call you to ask when you’ll be there? We’ve all

Best Blog Posts Of 2017 For Contractors & Service Business Owners

By: yogesh | Updated: January 4, 2018

I started publishing this blog in the summer of this year. I had a hunch there were many service business owners; plumbers, electricians, pressure washers, maintenances companies, roofers, and many other tradesmen out there looking for help growing and operating their business. Hell I’m one of them. I’ve found very few regularly updated and active resources for home service entrepreneurs online. While there is no shortage of information on how to operate you ‘work from home’ business, or ‘tech start-up’ little of that stuff applies in the trades. So I started this blog and this

2018 Top Home Improvement Franchise Niches

By: Corey Philip | Updated: December 31, 2017

The riches are in the niches. I believe it, and I practice it my own company. As I’ve learned through the school of hard knocks, it is really difficult to be profitable, efficient, and maintain quality standards, if you’re taking every project that rolls across your desk. I’ve written about this extensively on my blog in this post and have many more posts on it in the queue. As we roll into 2018, I’m heavily invested in launching some franchised brands. My personal expertise and favor ‘work area’ is largely in branding and marketing home

How Specializing Benefits Your Business & Your Customers

By: Corey Philip | Updated: November 4, 2017

You see them everywhere. The guys that ‘specialize’ in everything. They have advertisements for a wide range of services such as kitchen remodels, bathroom remodels, new carpet, drywall, windows & doors usually prefaced with the words “specializing in”. The problem? Their services are all mediocre, their bottom line is horrible, and they get little sleep. That’s because they aren’t actually specializing in anything; they’re generalists. What I’ve found works best for our business is to specialize in one thing and do that one thing extremely well. For my company, it’s new screen enclosures. However, it

Billboard Campaign: Touche Or Go Home and Try again?

By: Corey Philip | Updated: November 3, 2017

[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” custom_class=” av_uid=’av-svk2y’] I never pay attention to billboards. Besides this one, the only one I can remember is the vasectomy doctor who has them plastered on the high way. This one caught my attention, because well, it is clearly upside down. When I first ran across this billboard by Best Home Services, a company that does, HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and maybe even appliance repair, in Fort Myers, my initial thought was “somebody’s getting fired” as I smirked to myself knowing that I wasn’t alone in dealing with employees that don’t always

Facebook’s Powerful Marketing Features For Home Service Businesses

By: Corey Philip | Updated: November 1, 2017

Facebook is one of the most powerful marketing platforms in the world. One of the reasons why is that no other advertising platform enables users to target an audience specifically based on demographics, purchasing patterns, and certain behaviors. Traditional advertising methods of the past such as billboards, community mailers, yellow pages, radio, and television never had the same capabilities. Using Facebook’s marketing features allows you to advertise with such precision that you can target an audience based on a time of day and location, making sure that your ads actually get noticed. Mailing to people’s

Where To Start: Hammering Down Your Marketing Costs For A Better ROI

By: Corey Philip | Updated: October 20, 2017

One thing that really shocks me is how many contractors and home service businesses just waste money on advertising. I’ll see people running those DexKnows websites in AdWords all the time – multiple ones for the same company. It’s like the DexKnows sales people sold the same company the exact same marketing package and they all high five and leave these website owners in the dust. The same goes with Yellow Page ads. In the Fort Myers area, a yellow page ad is running upwards of $5000 year, (on the low side) and that was

7 Simple Rules I Follow to Keep My Business Efficient

By: Corey Philip | Updated: October 18, 2017

When you’re first starting out in business, you’re going to find that you make a lot of mistakes. Like, a lot. I know that I did. When I first started my home service business when I was 22, there were a lot of policies and procedures that I would use that I thought would keep my business running efficiently. Most of them were more complicated, and were drilled into my head by the academic world (Gant charts lol) However, many of them only served to muck everything up and slow things down. In practice, simplicity