This year, unlike the past 5 or 6 Xmas' I've been in China, I did not send an update out, nor cards. The original plan was that I'd call everyone, but things got busy in the end, I snuck away to the Philippines, and well, you know how it is. If the company every goes public, I'll buy you all ranch houses :)
Small business owners frequently say that they didn't take vacations for years in the early, lean times. That probably means that they didn't have something like the Philippines nearby and they were really busy, which is a good thing. Because: (a) my customers all went away for holidays in December or weren't thinking about testing, I didn't have much demand; (b) I don't run a retail store or other business that requires a regular working day presence; and (c) was able to get a roundtrip ticket to Manila for about 1000rmb (~$160), I escaped to go diving for about 5 days with a couple of buddies. Sarah couldn't work, but went to HK for NY's, where I joined up with her to celebrate a friend's birthday.
As soon as the New Year's holidays were over, I expected things to get hot and heavy, as I caught up with unfinished conversations and sales leads from before the break. Things were frankly, slower than I had anticipated, and honestly, I started questioning the business model and asking myself if we had fooled ourselves into thinking the market was ready. Or was it the wrong marketing approach? Wrong segment? Wrong pricing?
For the past month or so, I've been thinking hard about the scalability of the business. The sales process of an average residential air/water assessment is long and the execution and followup is as well:
1. Once I get contacted, I need to introduce the company. I could probably use the website to introduce this more, but right now, I type out emails or have calls.
2. I then conduct an interview with the client to understand their background, health sensitivities, building structure, occupant activities, and any other concerns. All of this background info is used to recommend the appropriate test panel and come up with potential hypotheses about any potential problems (ie. think there is mold, humidity is or a source of water is usually the primary cause, need to confirm that this exists or not)
3. Send a project scope and cost quote
4. Wait, wait, follow up, convince, wait some more until client finally agrees
5. Schedule event & coordinate with relevant staff/partners
6. Conduct site visit, sampling, and investigate the building, which may take 1-3 hours
7. Wait about a week for lab results to come in. Translate results and do analysis to complete detailed graphical assessment report for client
8. Schedule followup debrief with customer and wait for them to pay me before debriefing
9. Debrief with customer to review any problems found, impact, severity, root cause analysis, and recommended solutions -- usually a 60-90 min session, since I answer their questions and also discuss remediation
10. Follow up with them on solutions -- air filter sales, mold remediation, VOC elimination, plant sales, etc.
As you can see, this is a pretty painful process to make the small amount of money I am each time I do this. I have to keep reminding myself that right now, this is worth doing because I learn from each client, gain good baseline data, create good word of mouth, can use the testing as an intro into the higher margin remediation work, and most of all, to get reference clients. But, long-term, there has to be a way to make this more automated, easier, or to not have to do this all by myself.
In recent days, I've been looking at two things. One is certification -- it's a set number of parameters and pricing, and only two packages, so it streamlines most of the pre-sales and sales. Plus, by working with relocation companies, I can actually incent them to push my services because they get a markup themselves.
The other is getting into the upstream green or sustainable design space. When a building is designed, the architects need to consider indoor environmental quality. To get certified as a LEED project, there are specific rules and credits gained through testing that the air, sound, electricity, etc meets certain standards. This means that I don't need to do the selling -- my services are needed to get LEED certified. I only started exploring this maybe 3 weeks ago, attending a couple events, getting a couple introductions. The book is still out on whether I can do this successfully, but I think if I stick to the boutique or smaller firms, there is not a lot of specialized knowledge about air quality, so I can help be the expert on LEED projects to do not only the testing, but also all of the paperwork as well as investigations if there are any problems. Or, I can recommend ways on getting more points as related to indoor environmental quality.
Last Friday, I had two meetings. Met with a Singaporean sustainable design firm that is quite impressive for their R&D know-how, deep knowledge of engineering science, and green building innovation. I thought I would have little to offer them, but apparently, in China, they are almost brand-new and don't really have a lot of knowledge. We were able to help each other, just through info transfer and through promises of joint intros to other people. I do think that this is how business is done in China. Then, I met up with a friend who has been helping me do website optimization, marketing, and other related work. Originally, she was supposed to do a lot with Google Adwords and search engine marketing (SEM), but this went on ice when Google Adwords inexplicably decided to blacklist us (whole separate blog post). But, we agreed that she would work until the end of January since she had other commitments and also we are really cash-strapped. She did make a difference. If nothing else, it's very good to be able to really toss around ideas and brainstorm with someone with a lot of initiative. It will be lonely in Feb back on my own with my interns!
So, on Friday, aside from these two positive outcomes, a few other very happy things happened:
1. I was given the green light to do a testing project with a very prominent, high end green architecture design firm
2. Had the same design firm suggest that I would be able to fulfill an IAQ role with a large property development project
3. A commercial company that Sarah introduced me to and has been a little bit of a black box, invited me to give a presentation to their finance director and facilities manager (this would be a great "reference" project)
4. An acquaintance I met last week (for whom I had made an introduction to someone else) returned the favor by introducing me to yet another architect
5. A request for a mold problem conversation turned into a formal meeting request
6. One of our website visitors contacted us through the form and was in the ideal target segment (couple with a baby on the way)
So, just as I am about to leave for 2 weeks in a couple days, we suddenly have a lot of stuff going on. I am thrilled of course, and very excited. If things keep up like this, I will really have to start looking for reliable help.
How is everyone else's New Year's going? Any resolutions you want to share since I didn't even think about making any?
Louie:
ReplyDeleteGreat to read about the POSITIVE NEWS!
So excited that I burned my food!
Keep up the effort & stick to your vision. A live seed can't remain dormant for long; it breaks through the ground one day and it heads for the SUN!
Dad
Dad