Post 2: Do Your Job

Diving Deeper into the Magic of Doing Your Job (Organic Growth):

Let’s dive a little deeper into some of the actions you can take to increase the value of your business!

Revenue Expansion

• Pricing Lemonade: If you’ve been selling your lemonade for less than the kids across the street have been selling despite having a recipe as good as or better than those kids, your prices can rise, ensuring you’re selling your product for its value.

• Earn your worth: As a lemonade stand owner, you and your team’s time is worth something - you charge separately for every minute your team spends making the lemonade except - most people don’t want to pay for the labor in lemonade…the solution

• Bundles: How about selling lemonade, milk and cookies together and slipping in the value of your time, for a special deal? That's bundling! It convinces your neighbors not just to buy one story but the whole book series with the secret map included. You can account for the value of your time as well

• Upsell Master: Sell your original product, for more, by glossing it up. Convince your neighbor not just to buy any old glass of lemonade, but the luxurious version with flavored ice, and salt around the rim?

The Quest for More Services (Service Breadth):

• Menu Expansion: Add not just milk and cookies but also smoothies and protein bars. Suddenly, your lemonade stand becomes the one-stop shop for every thirsty gym-goer, dog walker and adventurer!

Sticky Glue of Customer Love (Increased Customer Stickiness):

• Omnichannel Spellbook: Make sure you're ready to hear from your customers, whether they send a message in person, in your customer feedback book, or via text. This way, everyone can reach you in their favorite way, making them more likely to come back.

The Banner of Fame (Marketing):

• Shiny New Signs and Ads (Be visible to your customers wherever they shop): Sometimes, your lemonade stand needs fresh lettering to stand out. And you can maybe create an online presence so that people know where they can get a cool glass of tasty lemonade - maybe you can set up an email campaign even? People should find you, wherever and however they shop

• Team Sales Training: Train your team to sell to your customers with the same charm that you have, and have them win over the hearts of the neighbors with the same experiential descriptions of your magical concoctions.

Costs (Cost Control):

• Lemons cost cash too!: Imagine getting all your ingredients from the local supermarket at a special rate because you buy so many lemons, sugar and salt that they cannot afford to lose you. More ingredients, lower price!

The Lemonade Stand Academy (Increase HVAC Tech Retention):

• Master Classes: Offer your apprentices extra lessons in lemonade-making, ensuring they want to stick around for your lemonade empire’s growth. Have them learn how to make fancier lemonade (more license certifications)

• Recruitment: You’re a smart lemonade owner who wants to enjoy the summer so you cast your recruiting net far to find young apprentices (individuals in HVAC tech programs) (maybe even someone who will take over the business next summer), showing them the wonders of lemonade-making, guaranteeing a never-ending line of eager young lemonade baristas and increasing the likelihood that you can enjoy the summer with passive lemonade income.

The Expansion (Transformational M&A):

• Merging Kingdoms: Sometimes joining forces with the kingdom a block over, especially if the king is dreaming of retirement, means you inherit their customers, pricing, and approaches to business, expanding your realm overnight! If what you pay to take over that business allows you to make more money, it’s worth a look

Some tweets worth your time (and tweeters worthy of a follow)

A barrier to mass-deployment of new HVAC technology: the workforce https://twitter.com/JesseTayRiver/status/1757096550122000883

The Future of HVAC: https://twitter.com/ddesignllc_/status/1755986565262675988

If you have any questions about this brief note or about value creation for your business, shoot me an email. I will be happy to respond to all the notes that I can. Look out for a follow up post in the next few days in which I deep-dive into each value creation lever.

If you are looking for a thought partner with whom to think through the growth of your business, I’m also happy to chat. I’m always an email away.