Pricing For Profit is Now Available!

My newest book is now on the presses being prepared for shipment. It is titled Pricing for Profit: How the Right Pricing Strategy Can Make You Wealthy and Drive Your Competitors Nuts!

My shortest book yet (85 pages), it will teach you the right way to price jobs so you make a profit. More importantly, it will teach you what kinds of jobs to go after (and show you how to do so with a sharp competitive edge) and what kinds of jobs to avoid (sending them to your hapless competitor instead).  Designed for a contractor in ANY trade (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, cabinet making, landscaping, pool installation and maintenance, and so on), the principles taught in this book are fundamental to all contracting businesses and cut across specialty trades with equal power.

If you follow the advice of this book consistently, you could easily do 50% more sales with the same employees and overhead. This means that virtually all the gross margin on that extra work would go directly to your bottom line! Could you use THAT this year?

One drawback: your tax bill will probably go up, because you’ll experience bracket creep. But what a problem to have!

You will learn three powerful job pricing methods:  SID, COWL and DORM. You will learn that SID is the most common method (and most dangerous to a contractor’s financial health!), while COWL and DORM can help you land more material-rich low-labor jobs than contractors using SID (or SWAG for that matter).  [If you don’t know what SWAG stands for, you are not a contractor.) And the amazing thing about all of these methods is that they are based on a document you should already be getting– the income statement– and do not require the use of special nomographs, curves or mumbled incantations under a full moon.

Here is what others have said about this book:

The financial practices that Richard teaches can help any contractor improve the bottom line.  We use many of his tools in seminars with our customers, and it is pleasurable to watch the astonishment on their faces.  Put into practice the information he gives you, and watch your profits increase rapidly.

Eric Griffin
Sales Director
Mitsubishi Electric Cooling and Heating

 

Pricing For Profit, penned from the fertile knowledge of Richard Harshaw, is an absolute must read for every HVACR contractor.  The beginners will learn how to earn a profit from day one.  We old timers will re-learn what we have become negligent in applying.  By applying the principles of Richard’s vast knowledge and experience, success will be assured from day one. 

Aaron York, Sr.
York’s Quality Air
Indianapolis, IN

 

Dick has done it again. He puts mathematics into an easily readable style that will make every contractor profitable if they follow his teachings. If you can implement just one item from this book, the price is well worth it. Put this on your book shelf, right next to The E-Myth.

David S Taylor
Sales Manager
National Excelsior Company

 

Pricing for profit steps directly into that secret world of: do you really make the kind of profits you would like in your business?  This is a scary subject for most small business owners.  Harshaw outlines simplistic ways to assure you will know whether you are or are not making your profitability goals.   In this business climate knowing your bottom line is critical for success.  Pricing for Profit guides the reader to those sometimes shocking, always import answers.   

Mark Gaylor
Gaylor Business Services
The ACT Group Inc.

Richard Harshaw has given us another helpful and informative book.  Pricing for Profit is written in an easy to understand format to help you know how to price any job, at any time and make a profit!  Using the methods that Richard effectively explains will definitely make you wealthy & wise!
Thanks for a great book, Richard!

Natalie DeRousse
Senior Sales Training Manager
Johnson Controls, Unitary Products

 

Wow!  Dick taught me Pricing For Profit in a seminar over 25 years ago and he has now put it in an easy-to-follow recipe that will make anyone a master chef!

It is as true now as it was then and it really, really works. You gotta try it!

Tom Gabrilson
President, Gabrilson Indoor Climate Solutions
Davenport, IA

 

In my early years as a contractor manager, I learned from my mentors and accounting textbooks how to utilize and apply some of the techniques Dick has applied in Pricing for Profit. However, my competition evidently did not understand the principles of good accounting. Asking several friendly competitors how they priced their jobs surprised me. Their focus was on being the lower price and not selling the value of their company. Dick describes these flaws and explains why one should consider focusing on one’s business health and not his competitions’ pricing. This book is a must read for every business owner or manager regardless of their skill at accounting practices and sales practices.

Rhamy Morrison
Consolidated Services
Tyler, TX

 

You can download the book from Amazon for Kindle ($9.95), or you can order an autographed copy from me by clicking this link.

 

DISTRIBUTORS: This book would make an excellent gift to contractors at your annual dealer meetings. Contact Lodestar (using the “Contact Us” link on this page)  to request pricing details on bulk quantities.

 

Warning: A tax advisor does NOT come with this book. But the money you make might make it worth your while to hire one!

 

Tax Changes for 2011

I received my monthly e-zine from my accountant today and it had an article I just had to pass on to you. Here it is:

Whether you file as an individual, a corporation, a small business owner, or are self-employed, as the end of the year draws near, you’re probably thinking ahead to tax season and filing your taxes.

Most tax provisions of course, remain the same (IRA contribution limits for example), but a few such as personal exemptions have been adjusted for inflation and others have been extended due to legislation and are set to expire at the end of 2012.

From tax credits, exemptions and deductions for individuals and Section 179 expensing for small businesses, here’s what you need to know about tax changes for 2011.

Read more…

State of the Onion

Blogging is a paradoxical thing. My web master tells me I need to do it often to keep my search engine hit rate high, but to blog takes time and when I am busy, I don’t have time to blog. When I have time to blog, it is because there is not much going on like workshops or consulting gigs. So here I sit today, between gigs with time on my hands, and thinking about a new blog post. So here it is.

I subscribe to a service performed by The Risk Management Association (formerly the Robert Morris and Associates organization). Every year, this group publishes financial data on hundreds of business types in the United States, including in particular the HVAC sector. So I pay a few hundred dollars every year to get 2 pages of data, but it is well worth it. In this blog, I want to report some of the new data I received and the trends it shows. Read more…

My Tribute to My Mentor

I received an email today from a friend and former colleague from my Carrier Air Conditioning days. It contained this sad news:

 

Stewart Docter August 10, 2011 Stewart Docter, 85, of DeWitt (New York), died Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at Crouse Hospital after a short illness. He was a life resident of Syracuse. Stewart was a graduate of Syracuse University, where he received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees. He was employed by General Electric as a technical writer in the heavy military department. He later served as manager of the Dealer Development Department of Carrier Air Conditioning. Upon retirement, Stewart formed Management Options Group. He was member of Temple Adath Yeshurun and DeWitt Rotary. Predeceased by his wife, Marian Jacobs Docter, in 1999. Survived by his son, David (Jan); daughter, Karen Docter Johnson (George); sister, Betty Ruth Raines; and five grandchildren. Funeral services will be held at Birnbaum Funeral Chapel, 1909 East Fayette Street, at 1:30 p.m. Friends may call from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Friday at the funeral chapel. Burial will be at Woodlawn Cemetery. Contributions may be made to Temple Adath Yeshurun. Birnbaum Funeral Service, Inc.

Read more…

Eight Years in the Making!

I am so excited to announce in today’s blog that I have finally completed a project I have been working on for eight years, and today (August 1, 2011) it is ready for release!

I am talking about my powerful Excel-based business tool, The Financial Management Control Center (or FMCC), a suite of workbooks that cooperate to help you understand your business from a financial vantage point like never before.

Those of you who are Carrier dealers (or know any that I may have taught in the 1990’s) may remember the old “Financial Management” software program I developed and taught for Carrier in the 1990’s. I have letters in my file cabinet from “graduates” of those courses that testify how the software changed their businesses for the better. (One letter even said that the banker was so impressed that the bank agreed to up the dealer’s line of credit and lower his interest rate!)

FMCC is light years beyond where the old Financial Management program could ever go.

With FMCC, you enter data from you latest year-end financial statements into a file called the VAULT. You then activate the VAULT for use to analyze your business.

Three main program groups tap into the VAULT when they run. These groups are:

1. Where We Have Been
2. Where We Are
3. Where We Are Going

In turn, each group drills down into the details using 40 different spreadsheets to explore such things as your financial statements and a detailed ratios analysis (with advice and commentary) to setting a solid labor rate (both installation and service) to service agreement pricing (residential and light commercial) to forecasting and growth planning.

For a full treatment of this powerful new suite of programs and how to obtain a copy for yourself, click this link.  I promise you that you will be amazed and excited by what FMCC can do for you!

The first twenty to order the program can get a discount of 10% off the published price. To get the discount code (needed when you fill out the order form), contact Lodestar (use the “Contact Us” link on this page).

And HVAC distributors– contact Lodestar about quantity discounts for acquiring the program for your Territory Managers!

Beware The Stealth Tax Hikes!

Read more…

I Love it When a Plan Comes Together!

I just got off a conference call with  my publisher and his production team. We were discussing layout and designs for my new book, “The Power of Throughput: How Mastering the Basics Can Create Stunning Profits In the HVAC Business.”

I should have a prototype by next Thursday. After that, we are off to the races!

The manuscript is 111 pages long and the book will be released in an e-book format (readable on Kindles, Nooks, iPads, and the like– even my Android Phone has a Kindle app I can use to read it on my phone!).

For those wanting a hard copy, it will be available in a printed version, but I will be putting most of my promotional efforts into the ebook format.

Stay tuned!  Should be an awesome summer!

A New Future?

This is the third in a three-post series on what I see coming for the future of the HVAC industry.  In the first blog post, I wrote about the Second Curve and described a product’s life cycle curve and brought your attention to the fact that there is a critical point on the life cycle curve of an established product when it becomes advantageous to jump from that product curve to a new and emerging curve—but timing is everything, and identifying a real success curve can be difficult.

In the second blog, I wrote about the horsepower we expend in America to push air through 1.5 billion feet of ductwork, to say nothing of duct losses, air leaks, balancing problems and zoning.

In this posting, I will describe what I think is the emerging successful new curve. Read more…

Two New Books Coming This Year

I am excited to announce today that I will have two new books coming out this year, both involving the HVAC trade. Both manuscripts are completed.

The first book will go into editing and production in April. (It takes about 60-90 days for this process to be completed.) The working title (and this may change) is The Power of Throughput. This is a book for contractors and territory managers that explains how to improve daily procedures so that more work can be done with the same (or fewer) people. It will be over 100 pages long and contain 70+ sure-fire and simple (and best of all, inexpensive) things that can be done to get more done with the resources a contractor has. This book should be ready for release sometime around July1.

Throughput has to do with how fast a process can be completed (and completed well). It is a non-financial measurement, although it does utilize data from the Profit and Loss Statement. The book will contain about a dozen benchmarks for high-throughput companies and explain how to calculate each one. Then, if you find your numbers are not where you want them, you will be presented with a checklist of things you can do (most of them at no cost) to improve the procedures. As I point out in the book, better procedures mean better numbers on the P&L. Read more…

Getting Our Ducts in a Row

In my January column for AC Today Magazine, I wrote about the Second Curve and hinted that I think we are on the rising cusp of a new curve even as our traditional HVAC curve is starting to decline. In this column, I want to continue that discussion before I reveal what I think that new curve is.

American homes are somewhat unique. As a general rule, our homes are larger than the world average, with more complex layouts and often eye-popping features. Such is the capability of the world’s wealthiest society with more time on its hands than ever before. Read more…