Wednesday biz tip: Customer demand? New service?

 When times are tough we all have a tendency to stretch
 ourselves and take whatever jobs we can get, often doing
 things out of our experience.  


Once in a while that is good and opens new doors. And other times it can lead to disaster. 


It is important to make  sure the "new" thing you do..is one that you can take your experience and expertise and transfer that to the new project without major risk or cost. 


For example one of my clients a specialty automotive shop who installed transmissions would take an engine overhaul job.  Why? Because one of their guys (the owner's son) liked to fool around with engines and it was "good" money  Yeah, sure!   
When we reviewed costs it was a disaster.  


We found that those "good money jobs"  always ended up taking twice as long as promised, cost more and produced very disgruntled customers. 


We still needed to develop additional revenue.  One of the younger employees pointed out "we are changing fluids all the times".   We have have the lifts and the equipment, why can't  we dedicate one bay for quick oil changes and lubes etc.  And that's what we did...and it worked out very well.  We increased income by 15% and the profit was excellent. 


Moral of story:  Make sure the new customer /project dollar you are chasing is one that you can do without losing your shirt.