How To Win More Profitable Work [+ Free Workbook]

Money is the one thing your business can’t survive without, and there are three ways you can get more of it. 

The first is time. You could streamline your workday to get things done quicker and more efficiently (software is great for this) or you could start spending more hours at work—which nobody who’s working 60-70+ hour weeks wants to hear.

The second is to get more enquiries. Winter is a great time to run a heating business (financially speaking, at least) but summers can be a bit quiet. Getting more enquiries helps you fill your schedule throughout the year. We’ve written an in-depth guide on getting more enquiries—check that out here. 

The third is to become more profitable. In other words, make more money for the same amount of effort you put in. 

The last is what we’ll cover in this article, providing you with an actionable framework to apply to your business starting today. 

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A clear checklist-style guide to winning more work for your business.

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Understanding your costs, prices, and profit margins

To say you need to lower costs or charge more sounds like an easy solution to making more money. But do you know where all your money is going each month? And have you worked out a properly costed hourly rate that you know will make you profit?

Calculate your costs

To start, you’ll want to calculate all your running costs and work out a monthly average. This includes everything from…

• Office rent 
• Office utilities, internet & cleaning fees
• Insurance policies (general liability, vehicle, workers’ compensation, tool/equipment, professional liability)
• Licenses (like MCS)
• Software subscriptions
• Accounting
• Marketing
• Bank fees
• Employee payroll
• Fuel
• Phone plan
• Yearly van repairs
• Saving for new van/tools

As a business owner, it’s important to remember you don’t get any paid holiday or sick leave. Both of these, as well as ‘unpaid’ time spent on admin, paperwork, and driving, are costs for your business – just in time, not money. 

Work out a profitable pricing strategy

Now that you have a detailed breakdown of your costs, including an average monthly figure, you can put together a pricing strategy that guarantees you make a profit. 

There are lots of different ways you can price your services, and you can read more about them here. 

However, we’d always recommend calculating an hourly rate that factors in all of your costs and how much money you’d like to take home after all is said and done. 

Once you’ve got this number, you can then very easily set servicing rates and price larger jobs based on how long you expect them to take. 

Download our free pricing calculator to quickly generate an hourly rate figure by just entering in your costs and desired profit:

Free Pricing Calculator

Add up all your costs & get an hourly rate.

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When all this is done, you can go into all your jobs confident in your costs and that you’re making the money you need to cover all your costs and earn a decent living.

Review your prices regularly

If you aren’t keeping up with inflation, you’re essentially earning less money than you were for the previous year. Your suppliers, running costs, and general living expenses all increase each year, so it’s important to review your costs and adjust your prices accordingly. Speaking of which…

Keep suppliers on their toes

Suppliers need you more than you need them. It’s in their best interest to keep you happy and coming back to them instead of one of their competitors. 

With this in mind, it’s a great piece of advice to regularly compare prices from two different suppliers. This ensures you get the best prices—which directly translates into more profit or cheaper prices for your customers.

Factor in consumables in your quotes

Consumables, like PPE, dust cheers, inhibitors, fittings, and so on should be passed onto your customer. Whether you want to include this as a separate line item on your quotes or bundle it into a fixed price or hourly/labour rate charge is up to you.

Winning more work

On paper, lowering costs or increasing prices are the only two ways to boost your profit margin. The problem with thinking about profit in this way is that it’s all too easy to forget your labour and time are real costs. If you can win more jobs, you’ll spend less time on marketing and admin—and therefore make more profit. 

So what can you do to win more jobs? Let’s break it down into two sections: 

1. Customer communication

How you communicate with a customer before they accept your quote is every bit as important as afterwards. Here are some tips:

Respond to enquiries quickly 

The longer a customer is kept waiting, the higher chance they have of going with another business. At the very least, they’ll be a little unhappy. 

Set aside time every day to check and respond to enquiries. If need be, block out a time in your schedule to do this. You won’t get paid directly for this time, but it’ll help you earn far more money in the long run.

Listen to your customer’s needs

Your customers should feel like they are important to you. A great way to do this is to talk to them like their job is a priority, even if it’s not so urgent in reality. 

Beyond this, asking questions, checking details, and generally listening to what the customer is asking for is a great way to show you care and intend to do your best work.

Manage customer expectations

Jobs can get delayed because of parts on order, unforeseen circumstances, traffic – the list goes on. 

Customers are generally understanding of this, as long as you communicate clearly to them and keep them on the same page. 

Follow up the next day

If you’ve sent a quote out, don’t feel that following up in 1-2 days is too pushy. It shows that you care about the job and is a great time to run through details and answer any questions. 

Professional touches

Confirm their details

If details are incorrect from the beginning, it’ll be hard to win a job. Emails or phone calls won’t go through, you might go to the wrong address, and you’ll end up looking unprofessional. 

Simply confirm all details you get from your customer beforehand—it always pays off. 

Create professional-looking quotes

When the job calls for it, professional quotes can make a huge difference. A quote should have clear, broken-down pricing and be easily understood by your customer. 

Gas Engineer Software can help you save hours on admin and paperwork like creating quotes—and they look neat and professional, too.

Read more about creating quotes, using custom saved templates, and more on Gas Engineer Software. 

Work with referrals in mind

The ideal customer is one that recommends your business to a friend, family, or neighbour. Every time you do a job, ask yourself how you could go the extra mile and give them a reason to recommend you.

Understanding when to turn down a job

Turning down a job seems like a bad move for making money. As long as you’re getting other jobs to fill up your schedule, it’s never worth lowering prices just to satisfy a customer. Price-focused customers can sometimes be the most demanding, and the time could be spent elsewhere rather than taking a hit to your profit margin.

In general, it’s a good rule of thumb to make your decision based on the type of work you want and the type of customer you want to work with.

In the words of Dan Voice from an episode of the FieldRocket Podcast, “Charge slightly more, trust your services, and trust your worth.”

Get more done in less time with software

As well as professional paperwork and more jobs won, you can easily save time with your certificates, scheduling, and lots more on Gas Engineer Software.