5 Easy Wins That Will Actually Transform Your Business
Running a home service or trade business is a grind. Between juggling jobs, managing people and making sure your team has everything they need, it’s easy to push the business side to the back burner. For most businesses big transformations don’t always come from big flashy changes.
In fact, it’s the exact opposite. Consistent, simple habits create the most impact.
Here’s 5 tips that’ll transform your business:
1. Review Your Pricing
Reviewing your pricing is one of the easiest wins out there. This is especially true if you offer more than one service. I recommend reviewing your pricing formally once a year and checking your margins quarterly. Also, review anytime there is a major shift such as: inflation spikes, significant rise in costs or added new services and upgraded offerings, For service business owners, pricing isn’t just about covering costs, its one of the biggest drivers of profitability and growth.
Here’s why regular pricing reviews matter:
Protects margins – Costs rise, and your prices should reflect that.
Reflects your value – As your expertise grows, your prices should too.
Keeps you competitive – As the market shifts, your positioning should shift with it.
A common trap business owners tend to fall into in the beginning is setting prices low in the beginning to bring in work and never raise them appropriately. Most likely you’ll find you can raise prices by 10-20% without issue.
2. Track 2-3 Metrics Weekly
Pick 2-3 simple metrics and track them each week. They need to be short cycled so that you can tell if operations, revenue and customer satisfaction are on track week to week.
Three financial metrics that are commonly tracked are:
Job margin (profit margin per job or engagement)
Accounts Receivable Aging and AR Turnover
Cash on hand
I also advise tracking one or two operational metrics as well. These will help you make sure operations are running smoothly.
Doing a quick review on these each week will help you catch problems early.
3. Hire A Bookkeeper
I’m not just saying this because I’m an accountant. Bad or no bookkeeping is one of the costliest mistakes you can make
It hurts in three ways:
Poor information to base decisions
Missed deductions and inaccurate tax returns resulting in over or under payment.
Costly cleanup fees from accountant.
Hiring a good bookkeeper will save you money in the long run.
4. Timing New Hires
Most businesses tend to take on work more than they can handle, struggle to deliver on said work and then hire in a frenzy to catch up. A better approach is to treat new hires as an investment in the business. Run the numbers and hire just before you need them, so when you do bring on more work, it’s not pure chaos.
5. Upsell Current Customers
It’s much easier to upsell your existing customers or ones you’ve worked with before rather than finding new ones.
Why?
Zero acquisition cost
They already trust you
Potential for high ticket sales
Focus on increasing lifetime value over growing your customer count.
To Recap
1. Review pricing annually and check margins quarterly. Adjust for cost changes, new services or market shifts. Most businesses can raise prices 10-20% without issues.
2. Pick 2–3 key financial or operational metrics (e.g., job margin, cash on hand, AR aging). Weekly checkins catch problems early.
3. Good bookkeeping prevents costly mistakes, missed deductions, and poor decisions.
4. Hire just before you need extra capacity to avoid chaos and overload.
5. It’s easier and cheaper to increase revenue from existing clients than to find new ones.
Till next time,
Cheers!
Preston Kidd, MBA