Remodeling: Sales Benchmarks

How a Structured Sales Process Benefits Your Clients and Your Company

Fri, 8 Feb 2013 02:35:20 EST

Richard Steven describes how using your production schedule as inspiration to create a sales schedule keeps clients and your company on track.

Benchmark: The Gift

Fri, 8 Feb 2013 12:35:31 EST

You can recapture lost time by improving lead quality and close rate. It’s easy, and it’s free.

Taking Charge: Template for an Individual Sales Plan for Sales Reps

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 11:48:22 EST

College City Design-Build creates goals for each salesperson and holds its salespeople accountable for achieving those goals.

Top Remodelers Reveal Their Year-Ahead Budget Changes

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 10:12:43 EST

Which expenses do you expect to change most from 2008, and how will you offset them?

2007 Business Benchmarking Survey

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 09:15:50 EST

How do remodelers measure their companies' financial performance?

Benchmarking your sales process

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 01:41:53 EST

Sales are the fuel of your company. Benchmarking your sales process can help you fine-tune your fuel efficiency. Sales process metrics are especially helpful for full-service remodeling companies because they have a unique sales process.

Big50 objectively evaluated

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 09:00:10 EST

Every year since 1986, we have devoted this issue to profiles of the Big50 -- owners of successful, growing remodeling companies of various sizes that are among the best in America. To select the Big50, we measure hundreds of candidates against an array of objective benchmarks, looking for those companies whose policies, performance, and best practices set the standards against which winning companies must compete. Meet the 2007 Big 50 inside...

Ten Most Common Sales Mistakes

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 08:41:24 EST

Learning takes place in many ways. Most often, we introduce something new or we learn by imitating a best practice, step-by-step. Sometimes, however, we can make the most progress just by learning to avoid mistakes. That's especially true when it comes to sales performance.

Communicating your payment schedule

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 08:29:55 EST

Some potential customers need to hear about the payment schedule information at our initial meeting. However, we usually discuss the payment schedule after we have gone over the base bid and described what the next steps or processes with our firm will be.

Be careful with costs

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 08:28:58 EST

A critical benchmark of good financial health is keeping your actual job costs within 2% of projected job costs. This requires the close cooperation of all departments and the willingness to follow these essential guidelines:

Judging the value of a referral

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 08:25:20 EST

Who is the better referral source, a client who sends you 18 leads of which 2 become sales or a customer who sends you 4 leads of which 1 is sold?

Matching budget to revenue goals

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 08:23:31 EST

Benchmarks help remodelers evaluate their company's performance. Some benchmarks are averages, some represent reasonable targets, still others set thresholds. The danger, however, is that a benchmark that is meaningful for most companies may not be appropriate for some.

End-of-Year Accounting checklist

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 07:49:03 EST

By Sal Alfano. The data you collect throughout the year for each job holds a wealth of information about what aspects of your business are running smoothly and what parts are costing you money. In a perfect world, you would evaluate critical numbers weekly or at least monthly, but an end-of-year review is essential.

Referrals based on project management

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 07:45:07 EST

Back in January 2000, REMODELING set the benchmark for customer referrals at 95%. Even follow-up surveys that ask homeowners to rank performance too often ask the wrong question or draw the wrong conclusions from the answers.

Establishing benchmarks: Measuring performance

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 07:04:45 EST

The more often you measure performance, the easier it will be to make needed corrections before problems grow out of control.Compare historical with current lead counts to forecast sales for the next quarter.

Owner's compensation at greatest risk when business grows or shrinks

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 07:38:50 EST

A recent Benchmark column prompted an e-mail response from Bob Hanbury, CGR, of House of Hanbury Builders in Newington, Ct. Hanbury points out that the relationship between risk and owner's compensation isn't static and is affected by any change in a company's normal course of business. More important, says Hanbury, risk increases with any change in volume, but especially with rapid growth.

Small jobs

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 07:12:21 EST

Call me old fashioned, but I still think it's possible to make money doing the kinds of small jobs that got a lot of us started in this business.A good portion of this work is under $1,000, but for Cowgill, anything that doesn't include design is classified as a small job.

A Marketing Formula For Growth

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 07:13:37 EST

How do you determine what to spend on marketing when you need to boost sales efforts for growth?Joaquin Erazo Jr., marketing vice president at Case Design/Remodeling, Bethesda, Md., uses a formula that relies on history as an indicator of future performance. "The goal is to make sure you are not overspending or underspending," Erazo says.He recommends working through this process twice a year, once for planning, then once midyear.

Benchmark: Fair Compensation

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 07:16:48 EST

In the March 2001 issue, we set the benchmark for owner salary at 10% of gross revenue. Fortunately there are lots of other perfectly legal ways for company owners to compensate themselves.

Benchmarking the Big 50

Thu, 7 Feb 2013 07:29:37 EST

Membership in REMODELING's Big 50 now numbers more than 1,000 individuals. That's a large enough number to make for some interesting statistics.