Happy New Year! I hope you’re getting over the food coma and maybe starting to think about doing a little work. Let’s get after it! 2022 is going to be a killer year. As you know, we sat down inside of my CI business, Livewire, last month and mapped out our goals. Here they are — feel free to copy and steal every bit of it. I want you to have an amazing year.
1. 80 percent of projects sold will be packaged solutions
It’s no secret that most of our projects tend to follow a predictable pattern. Maybe the family room gets a flat panel with some enhanced sound, multiroom audio around the house, a security system, and maybe some lighting control. How am I doing so far? Sound familiar?
Related: Planning for 2022 — Start Here
Here’s the kicker, we’ve tended to start these projects over from scratch every time. Don’t get me wrong, we have a ton of pre-built groups and SKUs that make our quote-building process go quickly, but we don’t have whole room solutions that companies such as Theater Xtreme or Mammoth are offering (I know, those guys didn’t quite make it, but the concept is still appealing). I think 80 percent of our projects could easily fall into buckets where it takes less than 5 minutes to engineer a scope of work. The customer can still feel like they’re getting a custom solution, but meanwhile it’s all now infinitely easier for our salespeople to sell, system designer to build, and installers to, you know, install. The other 20 percent of our work will remain true custom. We’re not trying to fight the flow of business, just better guide it along. Why haven’t we done this sooner?
2. Generate $1.5MM in closed-won commercial business
According to the economist at last month’s Total Tech Summit in Orlando, residential projects will decelerate in 2022. That means we need to amp up our efforts to be doing more commercial work as a means of diversifying our portfolio. This will mean significant investment in figuring out our ideal commercial client profile and engineering packaged solutions for them. Thanks to our recently hired content marketing manager, Ryan Trapp, we’ll then market the hell out of these offerings as a means to create the proverbial “sales rep who never sleeps” and catch commercial project decision makers in the buying mood while they’re browsing online.
Also by Henry Clifford: Zoomification and BYOM
3. Achieve RMR revenue to cover 20 percent of operating expenses
We’ve been chipping away at this goal for years, but 2022 is going to be different. This is the year all our systems will now include one year of basic 24/7/365 support. [Full Disclosure: I’m a co-founder of Parasol.] Customers will receive a coupon code they can redeem for our entry-level plan or apply it toward more premium levels of support. I am so excited about this one I could just burst! I think I’m starting to understand why my kids think I’m the biggest dork on the planet.
We’ll also be setting RMR attachment goals per sales rep, begin delivering on our same-day and next-day on-site service promises, and beefing up our service team.
Are these goals perfect? Is all of this going to be easy? Hell no! It is, however, better than approaching the year in a reactive state, taking whatever comes our way.
What are you doing to make 2022 your best year ever?
Stay frosty, and see you in the field.
