Grow Your (Snow) Business - Part 2

In our last blog, we talked about improving your snow business (or any contracting business, for that matter), and focused on 3 areas: leadership, customers and staff. Today, we'll cover the final three areas: finances, operations and safety. 

4. FINANCES

• Create and review your budget: Your budget keeps you on track and lets you know how you’re doing. Create a budget and then review it monthly against actuals to measure how well you’re doing and address any issues before they become problems.
• Check your margins: Is each job profitable? Are you charging enough to cover your costs and make a profit? Job costing will provide great insight into where you may need to make changes.
• Everyone gets a number: How do you measure a win? Give everyone a clear and measurable goal that helps you determine how well the business and the employee are doing.  

FINANCE KPI’s/REPORTS

• Profit - gross/net by division
• Cash flow
• Expenses (labour, materials, equipment, overhead)
• Sales
• Accounts Receivable
• Accounts Payable
• Balance sheet
• Overhead as % of revenue

5. OPERATIONS

• Standardize your processes: Standardizing processes and systems can save you time and money. 
• Standardize your equipment: By using the multiples of the same equipment, you can save money on the purchase of the equipment (think Costco). In addition, by having the same equipment, every crew will know how to operate the equipment and your service staff will be more efficient simply because they’re familiar with the product.

OPERATIONS KPI’s

• Revenue per man hour per division
• Field labour as percent of revenue
• Employee downtime
• Property & equipment damage
• Material usage per event

6. SAFETY

• Standardize safety training for each employee: There are many great resources for this. Ensuring that your staff receive the same training will reduce the chance of injury or accident.
• Health & safety program in place with regular meetings: We all know this should happen, but often with the busyness of the winter season, this is one of the first things to get pushed aside. Don’t let that happen. The safety of your staff is your highest priority. 
• Senior management team involved in the process: If the leadership team is not involved, the chance of success and buy-in from the rest of the organization is slim (or none).

SAFETY KPI’s

• Good catches (near-misses)

• Accidents per man hour

• Lost days
• Annual OSHA and WSIB rating