As a business owner, you may be constantly looking for new ways to generate revenue. You may be trying to find that new line of service to add that would beef up the numbers. 

 

Be careful. 

 

Grabbing onto something new, haphazardly, could do serious damage to your company. Sometimes you can drop the ball when you reach for that shiny object that someone else has. 

 

You started your business with something that you are good at doing. The community knows you as one of the best carpet cleaners. Now, customers want to know if you can do other things.  Some examples would be water damage restoration, fire damage restoration, mold remediation and wood floor refinishing. Expanding your business without sufficient preparation though can bring the whole house down. If you cause serious damage or do a very poor job with one of these new services, your entire reputation is on the line.

 

Do your homework to get prepared. First, do you have the capacity to take on more work? Do you have the right people in place to accept that work? Do those people need training and time to learn the craft? Do you have the right systems in place? Run some test calls through to see how the flow of the customer’s experience would go. Do you have the right marketing plan set in place to give this new service a healthy start?

 

Many times a new service can seem so exciting that you don’t realize that it is a bad decision. You have to make sure that it is a service that makes sense to add to your line. It should be related in some way. A carpet cleaner that also provides at-home oil changes to vehicles doesn’t make sense, right? It’s because it’s not related. A carpet cleaner that decides to become a flooring cleaner and adds tile and wood floor cleaning makes a lot more sense. The important part is to do your research, get prepared and don’t drop the ball you are already carrying.