In Part 3 we discuss:
Transcript
The following transcript is autogenerated so may contain errors.
Matt Nally
I suppose for our last topic, then I think what we’ve discussed and then the first to tie in quite nicely. So how can you position your business for better success? So I think some of the things we were discussing before this were things like how you can get reviews to I suppose it adds into what we were just discussing around credibility and so on potentially visibility, because obviously, if we’re coming up on review sites, then you’re more likely to be seen by people. But yeah, I suppose from the work you’ve been doing with people, how can you position your business better? I think it all ties into some of the stuff you said around ultimately profit margins and understanding. Do you start with pricing you know, beyond standard profit margin, you then know what you need to build into your fee and then you can position that better.
Marion Ellis
So then you’ve got you’ve got two things to look at One is, your business has got to be viable. You know, otherwise, it’s not a business. It’s a hobby. And I get that totally, you know, I’m a small business, I work part time. Sometimes I’m busier than others, sometimes the way that life throws you curveballs, you have to take a setback and not burn as much, but you’re looking at generally, like, we look at the family pot, you know, my husband, and, you know, we’re not just working for myself, it’s very much about me. But I look at the family pot. And that affords me the flexibility and a lot of surveyors want that flexibility in their lives, they want to be able to see their kids and, and different things. So the first thing is to start with your family pot. You know, I’m not a financial adviser or anything like that, but just share what I do. Pretty family pot, and then it’s looking at, you know, what you’re able to do realistically, and there’s loads of things I love to do. There are loads of things that people ask me to do or expect me to do. But I do what I feel like doing I do what I’ve been capable of doing at that time with the resources and things that I’ve got. But your business has got to be viable. And you’ve got to know what your in your your your incomings and outgoings are, and you’ve got to be alive too. am I wasting money somewhere. And a really good place to start, if people haven’t come across it is a book or a method called profit first. And what it does is it teaches you that, you know, we say your income comes in, then you’ve got your expenses, and then you’ve got your profit at the end. And what it does is say, know, your income comes in, and you take out a slice of profit. And then what you’ve got left is what you’ve got left to run your business. And it’s a bit like when you have tuba toothpaste, and you get to the end, and it’s empty, you can still squeeze out something, you know, it’s about cutting your cloth and being sensible about it. So your business has got to be viable, you’ve got to manage your cash flow, be alive to what’s in, and what’s out, have the tool to support you on that. So good, good business accounts that help you do that. So for example, stalling is a great one, because you can manage parts and your catchy pay invoices and things through it. You know, so having the tools to do it. But you’ve got to have that, you know, I’ve got Bau business as usual, this is what I need to run my business. These are my targets, I need to do three surveys a week, for example. You know, this is how many days holiday I’ll have this is how many adverts a week on Facebook or whatever I’m doing, you know what, what does that look like? Have it on a good day or a good week? What’s What does that look like? Because that will get you to getting that income that you need for the year, which means you can pay your mortgage as a as a minimum. The other part of it is defining what success means to you. And that is different for everybody. Yeah, for some people, for some people it is I want to make a million bucks, and have, you know, a load of surveyors across the country. I want you know that that recognition, and etc. And they’re very, and there’s no right or wrong. It’s not not judgement, but it’s understanding what motivates you. And if money security and those things motivate you, then, you know, you’ll come up with a plan on on how to get there. And behind that, there’ll be a strategy of well, how do I get more smokers? How do I get more work, you know, I’ll go on panels, I’ll get referrals, I’ll do this, I’ll do that, and you’ll have a plan around that. For other people, it’s not that they’re not motivated by money, it is just that it is not as important to them. And you don’t have to have, you know, a big family pot for a better description to, you know, to be that motivated. You know, for me, I’m very motivated by the injustice of some of the things that I see. You know, that for the work that I’ve done over the years, the way that surveyors are treated, and I wish, wish we will treat surveyors better, but I also wish they’d pull their finger out and be visible and be better not and all those things, too. But it’s what success looks like for you. You know, and for me, success means being able to flex my work over the past couple of years, you know, well, you know, my son’s had some health issues and I’ve got young kids could do the school run, you know, all of those things. And I’ve been able to flex that while still being able to do the things that that bring me joy, and be able to to experiment and do different different stuff. You know, so that’s what success is. Looks like for me, and some, some days, I feel like I’m there. And some days, I feel like I’m not there. Because we then get into that comparison itis. And the judgement and what do other people, people think? And we’ve got to get over ourselves, because actually, nobody really cares. You know, they’re just jealous, or, you know, they’ve got their own issues going on. You know, it’s hard to say it doesn’t matter. It does her, you know?
Matt Nally
Yeah. I was just I started stripping, I was gonna say it also, often people won’t even be thinking about what you’re thinking what you’re worrying about, in terms of the judgement aspect, you might be thinking, certain people might be thinking certain things, and actually, they’re, they’re not at all, they’re busy doing what they’re doing.
Marion Ellis
And it’s, it’s easy to say that it’s easy to say that, you know, it’s like, it’s like, with the kids, you know, saying, Well, you know, there’ll be friends with somebody else, or you’ll get other friends. And, but I think coming back to concentrating on what success looks like, and how you’re going to get there in terms of the values, what’s important to you, the way that you work, you know, some people will take referrals, some won’t at all, and it’s been really grounded in that means that you can then come up with a plan to, to get to where you want to be, and to be to feel successful.
Matt Nally
Definitely, in terms of the viability part. Because obviously, I completely agree business has to be viable, otherwise, you’re gonna end up having to shut down and move on. Where do you start with that? In terms of I know, we’ve discussed the fees aspect and people, you know, sometimes entering the race to the bottom. And sometimes not considering the profit aspects were what how should people go about reviewing, I suppose that their pricing and understanding how that profit aspect works? says how much profit margin do you need to build into allow for marketing? Or the travel time? Do people break down their fee enough? Do they understand the time they’re putting into it? Or do they focus on spend an hour on the property price it based on that, rather than actually, I spent two hours in the property? Two hours driving three hours writing up and doing research? Where do people start with that?
Marion Ellis
So you start with a big piece of paper and a pen, or a spreadsheet, you start you start wherever you like, but you often start with a reality check of how am i How am I spending my time. And what people tend to do is they’ll say, Well, I can I can fit in five surveys a week, I’ll do one every day, and I’ll finish the reports at night, or you know, or whatever, they’ll they’ll start to break it down. Whereas you were really You start off with, you know, over the year, it’s reasonable to have, you know, five weeks holiday, and then we got bank holidays, and then I’m gonna be there to pick up my kids, you know, and you you, you break it down to a reasonable amount of, sorry, to understanding the kind of the amount of time, you’ve got to do this job. And then we see that, you know, like, for me, when I first did this exercise, it was part time, and I was thinking, how on earth can I do anything part time that’s just not gonna work. And sometimes I work part time, sometimes I work full time, sometimes I take time off you, you flex it, particularly if you’ve got got family or caring responsibilities, because guess what, everybody has school holidays, for goodness sake. And I actually shaped my mastermind around that now. You know, I do sort of three cycles in I have three quarters rather than four over the year because people need time off. So you start by sort of breaking, breaking all of those things down. And then it’s, you know, included things that will travel time, how long does it take for me to write up a report? You know, I might want for lunch. I’m not having lunch, you know, maybe I need to put 15 minutes half an hour in for for lunch, I’m really sort of breaking all of those things down, you realise that you’re squeezing a lot of things into a day. But perhaps that’s a bit much. So as they’re looking at, you know, what, what can I achieve in that time, the time that I’ve got, what can I choose maximising that, and you’ll then start to see that, you know, doing the cheap, not profitable, high risk work is not serving you. You know, but it’s that sort of off with, I guess, sort of, you know, a reality check, doing an audit of your time. You know, bear in mind, we wasted a lot of time. You know, if reports are taking you hours and hours to write up. It’s usually because you’re using the wrong software or the wrong method to do it. You’re doing it at the wrong time of day because if you’re doing at the end of the day, you’re tired mostly You know, loads of surveys, I know a dyslexic, you know, so there might not be having the right, the right support around them. So you’re doing an audit and but recognising that you are probably inefficient in lots of ways. And so the first thing is they will, how can I get more efficient, and people think, well, I need to buy software, you know, I invest in different technology. And sometimes it could be just well, if you write the reports in the morning, and then go out, you’ll do it a lot quicker, you know, and for some of those, if you’ve got a time limit, or I need to leave at half 10, you’re more likely to give something a go than drifting in and out where you got one eye on EastEnders, or whatever it is, you know, put the kids to bed while you’re, you’re typing a report, you know, so there are things that you can start to, you know, start to change and, and be honest with you, yourself. And so there’s lots of things you can do before you even get to pricing, you know, and looking at your competitors and what they’re doing.
Matt Nally
I think that’s a very good point, though, because it, when you’ve gone through that justifying not justification process, but analysis, you can then justify the fee in your head better. And so you’re gonna be more confident charging a given fee, rather than feeling that you’ve practised out there, or you’re based it just purely on someone else’s per burst, suppose it also stops you chasing your tail. So if you are charging the wrong level, and you know, you need to do more jobs to get the the income you need, you’re going to start packing more into the week, which then ties into what you said about taking too much on and on the potential risks and claims and stuff that come with that. But But I think it also means that you, you end up costing yourself time and being more inefficient. So because you then start to rush emails, you don’t actually quite fully respond or read through the email properly. So then you end up getting another reply and haven’t respond to it again. So you start creating duplication of work by being inefficient? Because the pressure adds on I think, so I think that’s quite important process to go through. One of the other things we touched on, that we discussed before, this was reviews as well for positioning yourself better. And I see this as a sort of discussion point a lot online as to, you know, some firms having hundreds of reviews. Some have been around for ages, but only have like, five, is it something that’s quite important to do as a business? Or can you get away with ignoring it, I suppose what’s the benefit to collecting reviews as a business
Marion Ellis
cycle, come back to this visibility plus credibility equals opportunity. And what you’re doing with reviews or what you’re trying to do is social provide social proof that you are as you’re as good or you’re worth it, evidence that you come back to this customer wants to pat on the head for doing the right thing. It’s social proof that someone else agrees with that. You can chase online reviews if you want. But we’re a very cynical bunch here in the UK, you know, we all know about TripAdvisor is not quite real, or, you know, all the other ones ones out there. And, and for my experience in, you know, so in dealing with complaints and claims I got qualified in customer experience. And, you know, there’s a professional industry full of jargon, if ever, if ever there was one, the online reviews are great, do you need to have loads of them? No, not really, you just need to have some sort of recent what you need is a what you should have is a mix of different places where that social proof is reinforced. So, you know, a word of mouth referral, somebody who’s prepared to do an online review, a case study of something, you know, a blog or something on your website, an endorsement by somebody else. You know, if you’re saying that, you know, you’re a local business, all about the community that they do see you active doing something in the community, you know, not just sponsoring a kid’s football club, but actually getting involved. So it’s, it’s that holistic approach to social proof that, you know, as a business, this is what you do, these are the values that you stand for. And it all aligns. Because, you know, we see it with lots of different brands and things out there where, you know, we some firms will say, Yeah, we do a lot of mental health and yeah, you know, we we look after our clients and we are employees and we send them a bunch of basket of fruit and all of those things. And yet we hear the stories behind that that is not what it’s like, you know, it’s a wash of, this is what we do, but this is not what it’s really like, and consumers absolutely alive to that. So reviews are really important. They give you you feedback. You know when you can use them but it’s that holistic The approach to social proof. One thing I would say on on reviews, you know, most of these, I mean, Google, I think is the most honest, honest one in that it’s not manipulated behind, you know, so I’m putting a review on, that’s it, you know, they weren’t your client or wherever you couldn’t, you can address it, and it’s a pain to get it taken down. But a lot of these other ones with ratings will have an algorithm of manipulation of something in the background, you know, some will only post or come up with a score, if you’ve got the top score and the worst score, you don’t seem to have any in the middle, you know, that there’s usually something behind it. And, you know, so you’ve got to treat it as well, this is helpful information rather than they really are offering a Five Star 10 Star, whatever service. So, but the thing about reviews that I think a lot of people miss, and certainly surveys do is that it’s not just about the good feedback, or the bad feedback, it’s actually it’s actually reading and listening to what people say, and those who give you great feedback, you go back to them and say, Thank you for that. What, what more could we do what would have made this even better for you, because they’re your biggest champions, you’ve just wowed them. And they might say, well, if you’d have found it three o’clock on a Tuesday, that would have really helped me, you know, or if I could have found this or, and, and they want you to do well, customers who buy from you just want you to do well. And they want to go on that journey with you and share that success. You know, they’re not out to get you, they’re not all out to sue you. You know, that’s a culture that for lots of reasons we’d be created. And so when you get this feedback, make sure you’re asking the right questions, and that you really use it because it’s those small things that then make a difference. And you’ve just, you know, the fact that you’ve taken their comments on board and made improvements, and then tell them that you’ve done that they will, that’s the best free advertising and recommendation you could ever get. Yeah,
Matt Nally
that’s a really nice point actually around, not just accepting the five star review. But understanding what else you could have done to make it even better for next time, because you can continue to be improve on any job. So there’s this really nice point. I think my final question on this topic, and probably for the episode then would be, and this has popped into my head as we’ve been talking, when you’re going through the planning part, I suppose in terms of looking at your time and how it breaks down to enough people planning, from your experience, time to spend on on their business reviewing it, and on their sales and marketing process. Because in terms of positioning your business for sort of better success, a lot of I think what comes out of success is consistency. And do people plan in that time to be consistent? Do you think? Or is it often reductions earlier? Like a knee jerk reaction to, oh, it’s got quiet, I need to suddenly spend money on Facebook ads? Or do you find people generally quite good at that planning consistency, but
Marion Ellis
I think everybody’s got something to learn on it. You know, I can’t say whether people could be better. I don’t see surveyors working on their businesses a lot. Yeah, they’re all busy doing their surveys, their surveyors first business owners second work is coming in, so they don’t need to need to work on their business. And yes, there’s things that you can do to make sure you’ve got a business when the market dips or work gets quiet. But there’s also, you know, looking at the risk aspect of it and protecting your business. But it all comes down to the planning. And this is the work that I do with with clients and certainly on the mastermind is when you break things down as to you know, you have a task and you break it down into small, you know, the small things that you need to do, the execution becomes a hell of a lot easier. And you can do things a lot quicker, because you’ve done the thinking and there’s nothing worse, you know, you might find a survey has a quiet day. And I said, right, I’m going to do some social media posts, and they’ll sit there and have no idea what to write. They’ll waste the time then they’ll just get get frustrated. So it’s in the planning where the magic happens, but you’ve got to make time to plan. As a general rule. You want to be you know, and everyone’s different depends what support you’ve got, as a general rule. You’ve got five days a week, you want three days fee earning or going out doing surveys, one day on your business and one day in your business. So one day out there attracting work and another day A doing this stuff in house that that not just doing the admin but setting things up protecting your your business in terms of risk that will ebb and flow of the course of a year. Depends on support you’ve got, as I said, But you know, it’s separating it out and dedicating that time. And I said, three days fee earning everything that you do five days a week is earning a fee. But it’s about as always say is what I’m feeling when I go out and do a survey, when I’m sat at home, working out what to do on social media. That’s not fee earning. But it is, you know, it’s earning in your business. So it’s, it’s a real reframe of, you know, how you how you approach your business. So, you know, but spending the time periodically to break down, okay, what things do I need to work on, I want to review my website, I want to set up a proper complaints procedure and handling, you know, process, you know, different things that you will, that you want to be doing in the business that you never get time to do. Breaking it down, means that you have the task. So I want to change bank account, well, I need to go and research the bank accounts, I need to speak to accountants, accountants helped me more in this financial advisor, Director capacity than just doing the returns. You know, it’s thinking about who I need to ask what phone calls I need to make who I need to email, do, I just need to go online research, and you break it down to a list of things, and you put a little bit of time, 20 minutes, five minutes an hour, and you’ve got a list of things that you could be doing, when the work gets quiet, you know, or when you’re in the headspace or right, you know, on Friday, I am going to decide which bank account and here are all the things that I need to do. And so you never start with a with a blank page. And, you know, so whatever it is you you do. That’s what that’s that’s how I work. That’s how I encourage people to work. And it’s not. It sounds like it’s quite regimented and quite quite strict. It’s not, you know, you need to have a rhythm and routine, your business consistency creates certainty and confidence for you and for, you know, for your clients. But you consistently work on your business, no matter how small some of these things are, will pay off dividends in the in the long run.
Matt Nally
Yeah, completely. It’s a very interesting point, that reframing I think I agree with you, it’s very easy to see something’s having a direct impact on turnover, as as a fee, anything and everything else is fluffy waste of time around it. And it’s taking away from potentially more fee earning, because actually ultimately, that’s all helping to build up your your fee structures, how you want to put yourself out of the business, the pipeline that you’re generating, it all feeds in. And so the fee earning is only driven by the two days that you’re spending on planning prep.
Marion Ellis
And ultimately, lots of money because it’s it’s smarter, because you can spend money on, you know, ads, sponsorship, lots of different things. Whereas if you consistently, you know, shared posts on on Google, and taught cars, you can post on it, like social media, you know, if you shared posts on there, talked about you being a surveyor in this location, and what you do, you’re going to be halfway there, you know. And you don’t need to be at the top of the search, you just need to be where your clients are, you know, you’re and you’re not so you, it’s about attracting who you want to work with it and not competing with some of the big people, the big guys, you know, and the low fees, because they’re not your client, either. You know, you don’t want someone who’s not going to pay you properly, or pay you enough. You want people who are going to pay you enough, you know, and so and so it’s there’s a lot that you can do by consistently, you know, you can use tech schedule these things and get help with various stuff. But there’s so much that you can do that actually, in the long run. It’s cheaper, or when you do make an investment. It’s the right kind of investment with the right kind of company. It’s not desperate. Buy me some leads or you know, help me with with this. It’s much more considered. So. Yeah,
Matt Nally
yeah. No, I agree with that’s me. It’s a very interesting topic. So I think we’ve covered today. Thank you for coming on. If anyone wants to get in touch with you around any of the tough things we’ve discussed or anything else, other people get in touch with you.
Marion Ellis
You can mostly find me on LinkedIn social media, pop over to the Facebook group, the survey hub, or just visit love surveying.com
Matt Nally
Thanks again After coming on and nope gonna have another catch up in another episode in a few months time
Marion Ellis
Yeah well thanks very much.