Episode Overview
Taking care of business is a common topic at Pantheon, ServiceTitan’s annual user conference. Helping trade business owners master their finances is the job of The Virtual CFO for the Trades CFO Kristen Deese.
Deese sold her own home services company. Now, she spreads her expertise around with a fractional CFO strategy to help several other business owners at the same time.
Her crucial steps toward financial health include departmentalizing financials and calculating gross profit margin.
Deese can’t say enough on the topic of gross profit margin.
“Your gross profit margin is gonna be what's left after you pay for the technician labor and the materials to do the job,” she says. “Everything after that is overhead.”
Know your gross profit margin, Deese emphasizes.
“Not only know what your gross profit margin is,” she says, “but know where you should be operating for your industry. And then net profit trumps revenue.”
Deese is a big fan of ServiceTitan for staying on top of your finances. She says you have to pick the right platform, and then you have to educate yourself on how to use it.
“If we jump into a new service or a new software or a new add-on or whatever, and we are not implementing it properly, it's not the fault of the company,” she says. “It's on us to…put the bandwidth into it that it needs.”
And that’s the bottom line.
Kristin Deese recently joined ServiceTitan’s Jackie Aubel on the “Toolbox for the Trades” podcast, which included Deese’s thoughts on:
[3:48] How a fractional CFO can help contractors with their financials and training
[7:15] Common issues Deese sees in the books of struggling businesses
[14:30] Prepping companies for a private equity sale
[18:03] How contractors should factor new tech into their financial planning
[24:48] KPIs every contractor should focus on
Additional Resources
Contact Kristen at kristen@kristendeese.com
To hear more stories from the trades, subscribe to Toolbox for the Trades on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or anywhere you get podcasts.
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About ServiceTitan
ServiceTitan is a comprehensive software solution built specifically to help home service companies streamline their operations, boost revenue, and substantially elevate the trajectory of their business.
Our comprehensive, cloud-based platform is used by thousands of electrical, HVAC, plumbing, garage door, and chimney sweep shops across the country—and has increased their revenue by an average of 25% in just their first year with us.
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