You Fixed the Appliance. But Do You Know If You Made a Profit?
Updated: Oct 2
The customer needed you. You made it happen. But do you know what that job actually cost your business?
I’ve seen this happen more times than I can count.
The call comes in and, on the surface, it sounds like a good job. The customer is nice. They really need their appliance working, and they need it fast. Maybe their mom is coming into town. Maybe they have a big event coming up. Maybe they are having surgery next week and need to get things taken care of before they are down for a while. Maybe their refrigerator is full of food, or they have medication that has to stay cold.
There are a lot of reasons someone can call and say, “Can you come out today? I’ve got an emergency.” And sometimes it really is an emergency. You want to help. Of course you do. Someone needs you. They need a person with the knowledge and experience you have to make their life better. They have a problem they don't know how to solve, and you have the ability to walk through their door and make that problem go away. That's why you started this business. Not so you could work your butt off every day, have no time for yourself, or spend your life putting out fires. You started this business because people matter to you, and the person who just called you is one of those people.
So, you move things around. You squeeze them into the schedule. You ask your technician to make it happen. You rush the part. You rearrange another appointment. You stay late. You make phone calls. You start solving problems that weren't on your schedule five minutes ago because somebody needs you and you want to be the person who helps.
You make it happen! The customer is relieved. The appliance gets fixed. Your technician gets the job done. The customer thanks you, leaves you a great review and maybe tells their neighbor about you. You feel good about it, and you should. Helping people matters. Taking care of people matters. That part of what you do is important.
But here's the question I want you to ask yourself: Did we actually know if you made a profit on that job?
Bringing in money and making a profit is not the same thing. Not what you charged. Not what the invoice says. Not what hit your bank account. Not what you think you made. Do you actually know what that job contributed to the business after the real cost of delivering that service was accounted for? It is imposible to make up in volume especially when keeping your techs full is main way to keep cash moving.
Busy Does Not Always Mean Profitable
One of the biggest problems I see with appliance service companies is that the owner knows how to fix the appliance, take care of the customer, get the technician where they need to be and get through a crazy day. What they don't always know is exactly what it costs to operate the business and whether the money coming in is actually producing the profit they need.
You can have your phone ringing all day, trucks running all over town and technicians working from morning until night. You can have a full schedule and thousands of dollars going through the books, then look at your bank account and wonder where all the money went. You can work your butt off, have happy customers and a busy team, and still not have enough money left over to pay yourself the way you should.
That's when the natural reaction is often, “We just need more business.” More calls. More technicians. More trucks. More advertising. More revenue. But if you don't understand what it actually costs you to provide your service, more activity can simply create more work without creating the profit you need. You can build a company that is busier, more complicated and more stressful without actually creating more freedom for yourself. You can't solve a numbers problem with more activity. Just because your busy does not mean your profitable.
Do You Know What It Really Costs to Serve Someone?
If you want to know whether you're making money, you have to understand what it really costs to deliver your service. Your technician's wage is only one part of that cost. There are payroll,taxes, worker\compensation, insurance, training, uniforms, vehicle expenses, fuel, maintenance, mileage, phones and everything else that comes with having that technician on the road representing your company.Then there are the costs that are easier to overlook because they don't show up as neatly on the invoice. What does the wrong part cost you? What does a callback cost? What happens when a job takes two hours instead of the hour you expected? What happens when a technician has to drive across town because the schedule was rearranged for an emergency? What does it cost when someone stays late?
Your office has costs too. Advertising costs money. Credit card processing costs money. Software costs money. Your building costs money. The person answering the phone costs money. The time spent coordinating a job costs money. Your trucks, tools and equipment all cost money. All of those things are part of what it takes to provide the service your customer is buying.
The money left over after you pay the technician and the part is not automatically profit. You have to understand the actual cost of delivering your service before you can know whether the price you charged created a profit. That's why profit has to be intentional. You cannot just hope there is enough left at the end.
Pricing Is About More Than What the Customer Will Pay
Pricing often gets misunderstood in this industry. Pricing isn't simply, “What will the customer pay?” It isn't about being the cheapest company in town, and it isn't about charging the most either. Your pricing has to support the business you're trying to build, give your clients options to pay for repairs and maintenance that gives them true options over replacing expensive units and might even give them ways they can remove repairs that could have been avoided.
The customer needs to receive something they understand is valuable. They need to see that their problem was handled professionally and that they were taken care of. Your technician needs a job that makes sense. They need fair compensation, good training, the right tools and the information and support they need to do their job well. You need to be able to run the business without constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul. And the business needs to make a healthy profit. We as appliance repair business owners can create opportunity for wins or losses. The difference is can be small actions or mindsets that not only change but create things that allow others to see possiblilities.
I love helping business owners create win! . The client wins. The technician wins. The business wins. The relationship wins. You don't have to take care of the customer by sacrificing your technician, and you don't have to take care of your technician by losing money on the job. You also don't have to make the owner absorb every problem because you're the one who can somehow make it happen. Everyone can win when the right actions are taken.
When Someone Else's Hurry Becomes Your Operating System
Let's go back to that emergency call. The emergency itself isn't necessarily the problem. The problem is what happens when somebody else's hurry becomes your operating system. A customer calls and says, “I need you today,” and suddenly everything changes. The schedule gets blown up. The dispatcher starts scrambling. The technician gets rushed. Another customer gets pushed back. Somebody has to make several more phone calls. A part has to be expedited. You stay late. Maybe that's the right decision. Sometimes it absolutely is. But was it a decision, or was it a reaction?
There is nothing wrong with saying yes to an emergency. There is nothing wrong with going above and beyond. There is nothing wrong with deciding that this particular person really does need help and you're going to find a way to make it happen. The problem is when you don't have a choice because your business has no process for handling it.
Then every emergency becomes chaos, and chaos is expensive. It costs time, money, energy and confidence. It affects your team, your customers and eventually you So ask yourself what happens when that urgent call comes in. Does the hurry throw you off your game? Do you start doing things you normally wouldn't do? Do you skip steps? Does your technician have to rush? Does your dispatcher have to rebuild the day? Does everybody start scrambling because one person called and said, “I need this today”? Does your team actually know what to do when that happens?Because if every urgent call turns into, “Oh crap, how are we going to make this happen?” then you're not really running the emergency. The emergency is running you.
What If the Hurry Is Actually a Pattern?
Here's another question worth asking: What if the customer's hurry is actually a pattern?
Maybe they really need the appliance fixed today. But maybe they also need certainty. Maybe they need someone to tell them what you can do, when you can be there and what happens next. Maybe they need an emergency service option. Maybe they need a different level of service that comes with a different price. Maybe they need better communication. Maybe they simply need to know that someone is taking ownership of their problem.
What if, instead of reacting to every emergency, you designed your business to handle emergencies? Now you're doing something completely different. You're not asking, “How do we wreck the schedule to make this happen?” You're saying, “We have a process for this.” You can have a defined emergency option. You can have pricing that reflects the cost of disrupting the schedule. You can have rules around what qualifies as an emergency. You can train your dispatcher on what to ask. You can give your technicians clear expectations. You can communicate with the customer about what they can expect.The emergency hasn't changed. The customer still needs help. What changed is the way your business responds.
That's intentionality. It isn't caring less. It's actually caring enough to build something better.
Profit Gives You Options
I don't want you to stop helping people. I want you to be able to help people without destroying the business you built to serve them. I want you to be able to say yes when the situation calls for yes, without having to say yes to everything. I want you to be able to take care of the customer, your technician and your company at the same time.
Because you can create a win today that creates a loss tomorrow. You can make a customer incredibly happy today and create a scheduling disaster tomorrow. You can make a technician feel like a hero today and burn them out six months from now. You can increase revenue today and discover at the end of the year that you worked twice as hard for almost nothing.
That's why profit is about much more than money. Profit allows you to pay people well. It allows you to train your technicians. It allows you to maintain your trucks and equipment. It allows you to build systems. It allows you to hire people. It allows you to survive a slow season. It allows you to stop being the person who has to solve every problem Profit gives you options. And options give you freedom. Profit isn't the reason you serve people. Profit is what allows you to keep serving them.
So What's Your Next Move?
Don't start by changing everything. Start by looking at what you already have. Pull your last 10 completed jobs and actually look at them. What did you charge? What did the parts cost? How much technician time went into the job? How long did the job actually take? Were there callbacks? Extra trips? Additional phone calls? Expedited parts? Anything else that cost the business money? Then ask yourself one simple question: Do I know what I actually made on each of these jobs?
If the answer is no, that's information. You don't need to beat yourself up about it. You don't need to immediately raise your prices, buy another truck or spend more money on advertising. You need to understand what is happening inside the business you already have.
Then start looking for the patterns. Which jobs are actually profitable? Which ones only look profitable? Where are callbacks eating into your margin? Where are emergencies creating costs you aren't accounting for? Where is your team spending time you're not charging for? Where are you making exceptions that your pricing doesn't support? Where are you creating a great customer experience while quietly losing money?
Those answers will tell you where the real work is. Because fixing the appliance is only part of the job. The bigger job is building an appliance service company that can serve the customer, empower the technician, create strong partnerships, create multiple wins and make a healthy profit.
A business where Service First doesn't mean sacrificing the business. It means building a business strong enough to continue serving people.
And when the business works, you don't just make money. You create the ability to help more people while building the bigger life you started the business for in the first place.
Ready to Find Out Where Your Profit Is Going?
If you’re busy, your customers are happy, your team is working hard, and you still aren’t sure where the money is going, it may be time to look at the business differently.
Let’s take a look at what’s actually happening inside your appliance service company and identify one place where you can make a real difference.
Book your Complimentary Business Strategy Session.
No sales pitch. No complicated homework. Just a real conversation about your business, what’s working, what isn’t, and what your next move could be.
Comments