Profit is your FUEL

This is Part 3 of a series taken from the our new E-Course "show notes"
 45 Days to build a STRONG restoration company. 

Profit is your FUEL

Let's talk about my favorite topic. 

PROFIT 

I have a sign in my office that says:

Gross revenue is vanity

Net Profit is Sanity

Cash is KING. 

It’s true!

Profit is your everything and I stand on mountain tops screaming that if you are not truly profitable you put a terrible strain on the engines, your wings and sometimes force the plane to land (to use the metaphor of your business being like an airplane).

The number 1 reason a business fails is CASH FLOW. Cash Flow, as we have discussed all along in this section is affected by a combination of many things.

 

Your marketing gets your product/ service noticed and entices people to buy from you.
Your sales effort to ensure that you are selling enough of a service to meet the financial needs of your company.

Then your control of the overhead. Keeping your overhead light and lean of course increases your profit.You don’t need to be so lean that quality is affected but I am a huge fan of monthly review of your expenses and asking yourself the hard questions “Do I need this?” or “is this expense returning a profit?”

 Profit in terms of our aircraft is your fuel. Your fuel tank is filled and emptied with the fluctuation of your cash flow, which is driven by your profit.

I have a saying. No one leaves the parking lot if the service will not return a profit. You can’t. At least not habitually.

Our industry will have some unique occurrences that will make you believe that you must sell your service for a low profit.
It's a LIE and you should not believe it.

Here is the truth about Overhead and Profit. 
"The claim is usually that the “restoration industry standard” is “10/10”, or that overhead and profit (O&P) cannot be included in the invoice. Let’s be clear here, there is no such industry standard. "

 
Let’s discuss a few areas where profit is vacuumed out of your business. 

1. Estimating/ Scoping and Invoicing: Your base unit charges are likely very low in comparison to the cost to produce the service. I mean the real cost. You are likely using some software that has you believing that the industry standard is where you should be priced. That just doesn’t work and it sinks great restorers daily. You MUST use our formula on developing the right price that covers your actual overhead and yields you a profit that supports the business. Especially the timeline of receiving payment.
2. Franchises have royalties and often other associated costs that will mean the cost of doing business is more expensive. You must account for this. Not doing so will cause a serious drag on the plane and keep you on the runway until checks trickle in to buy fuel. Profit is your reserve so you can continue to fly, the engines thrust with sales and your wings carry more services. This is the fluidity of a business. Stopping and starting to stall you out.
3. Vendor Programs/ TPA’s: This is likely one of the leading killers of a business. Anyone that runs a business knows that top line revenue means very little and often provides this false sense of success and growth. If that revenue is being produced without adequate profit, you will be caught sitting on the runway and everyone will board other planes that are flying. It is also important to understand that you cannot outsell bad margins. This means when your profit is low, more sales may feel like the answer but are in actuality causing more damage as you are financing more of the jobs.
4. Quality and Warranty. This is at times a true profit killer. Not having great processes and communications with the client and internally will lead to mistakes and scope creep that end up causing you to break even or lose money.
5. Services you provide. If you are not designing the pricing correctly for your different services, you are likely overlooking a huge potential for profit. Fire, Water and Mold all have their own unique complexities and each have areas of estimating and invoicing that can be identified and maximized. Not all work is created equally. 

This is also very true for reconstruction, especially if you are utilizing subcontractors. It is well known that while construction can have better payment terms, you are dealing with thinner margins and even finer margins for areas of error.
Construction may be your background and seem like a logical add on for your business but you must carefully look at the margin delta, management expenses, timeline and overall value. 

If you do not strategically develop a profit driven company, your ability to grow and even seize opportunities will be more limited.

Profit is absolutely required to survive and thrive. 

We have a service that is loaded with opportunity to provide a strong response to customers in need and requires a large amount of strategic empathy, but that cannot be extended to a point where you are not responsibly watching the bottom line of your own business and the livelihood of those that commit their days to helping you build it.
Our clients do not need us to carry the complete financial burden for their loss. While we cringe at the thought of a client having hardship, you should equally be concerned with your profit and keeping it in the company so you can build it to help MORE customers.

You need to shift your paradigm.

Whats needed is a balanced approach to your business.

Placing the survival of your company ahead of the poor treatment of the client by their insurance company is critical.

Profit is your fuel 

It will help you weather through the quieter calm months and stay ahead of challenges.