with Roger Grochmal
Top 10 financial leak points in a contracting business How to keep expenses from sinking the ship
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Roger Grochmal is the CEO of AtlasCare in Oakville, Ont. To submit a question about your company, business practices, or the industry in general, send an email to Mechanical Business Magazine’s editor, Kerry Turner, kerry.turner@ mechanicalbusiness.com.
Leak points and how to plug them
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Smartphone bills – rather than reimburse employees who need to use their phone on the job, see if you can negotiate group data plans and hardware purchases, which can amount to thousands in savings.
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Toll highways – this can run away quickly. There is no doubt that time is money and toll roads can reduce driving time considerably. Spend
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M e c h a n i c a l
e have all put a lot of energy into trying to keep the pipeline busy lately: as more customers postponed non-urgent HVAC work during the pandemic, we have had to work much harder to keep things moving. If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that keeping an eye on expenses is every bit as important as driving sales. The larger the company is, the harder it can be to scrutinize every last line item in your budget and seemingly small leaks can add up to quite a bit of money over time. Anyone from the smallest contractor to a large operation can lose sight of less obvious cost centres in their business. Neil Smith, my former business partner and one of the most practical businesspeople I’ve known, gave me a simple but crucial piece of advice back in the 1980s: always sign your cheques. Even today, despite our growth over 35 years, we always ensure an owner or senior manager personally authorizes all payments. It’s not about trust – we couldn’t trust our people more – but it is about awareness. When we are constantly reminded of business costs, they remain at the top of our minds. In the digital age, this is even more essential: electronic transfers and automatic payments can be invisible if we aren’t watching closely. This year will be better than 2020, that much I hope we can predict. It will take time for the economy and our markets to recover. My advice: spend some time poring over your cost centres now. Get ahead of these leaks and keep your ship afloat.
some time analyzing the cost-benefit of toll highways on your routes, and carefully monitor use or requests from employees for reimbursement.
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Digital marketing – this is a must have in our world, no doubt, and Google Adwords, display ads, Facebook and other targeted digital channels pay off in valuable leads. You need an expert hand on the wheel who can analyse and calibrate campaigns to make the most of advertising investments.
B u s i n e s s
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Subscriptions – there’s a reason so many HVAC contractors have gone with a monthly membership service model. Those monthly payments are easily ignored because there isn’t a large annual invoice to pay. This is a prime example of an invisible monthly expense that can pile up without careful analysis into usefulness. Reviewing payment items for monthly items, from software packages to online training, will ensure fees aren’t destroying your bottom line.
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