The Hardest Thing You will ever do in Your Business

Well now, that's a catchy title.. but that doesn't make it any easier for you. I guess I could have taken a poll here but then you might want me to write about something that I don't know anything about.

For some, the first thing that comes to mind is balancing the check book and that would be close to today's topic. However, we are going to talk about knowing your break even. Since this is done so seldom we need to talk about what "break even" is.

We will define this term as how much money the business needs to make to pay the bills... all the bills. Owners' salary, supply bills, building rent or note, lights, phone bill, advertising, direct labor, the whole thing. You need to know just how much staying in business costs you. Since I am such an advocate of using "Billable Hours" to manage your business, this is how it should be expressed.

Charging by the hour or by the job?

You all ready know how I feel about consistency in your business.  One of the most empowering thing you can do in your business is to standardize your pricing.

Standardizing, allows your technicians to work independent of your supervision and makes sure that your customers are billed the same amount.  This a huge factor in keeping customers happy.  Since I like to use the example of a water heater here is a graphic example.