Your electrical business is up and running—now it’s time to scale and make it successful. That means marketing to more ideal customers, making jobs more profitable, and growing your team.
In this guide, we’ll share tips from electrical industry experts for how to grow a small electrical business, including proven ways to manage and organize your operations.
How to run a successful electrical business:
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Update your business plan
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Join the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA)
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Advertise your electrical services
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Keep your pricing competitive and profitable
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Focus on customer service
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Invoice customers and get paid faster
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Hire the best electrical contractors to grow your business
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Stay up to date with electrical industry trends
1. Update your business plan
Review and update your business plan at least once a year to stay on top of any changes within the electrical industry or your customer base that may affect your business.
Don’t worry about rewriting your whole electrical business plan. Just focus on a few key areas, like:
Perform a SWOT analysis
Do a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) before updating your business plan to identify obstacles and uncover opportunities for your electrical business.
When you analyze strengths and weaknesses, take note of your revenue, equipment and inventory, employees, and any processes or policies your business has developed.
For opportunities and threats, look for any external factors that may impact your business (positively or negatively) like industry trends, emerging technologies, new business competition, and legislative regulations.
Pro Tip: Make sure to involve your electricians in your SWOT analysis. They can share insight on the obstacles they face on the job as well as any opportunities to add services, invest in new equipment, etc.
Services offered
Have you been receiving work requests for services you don’t offer? Or are there any services you currently offer that you never perform?
Look for opportunities to add, remove, or change any of your current electrical services to better meet your customers’ needs.
Market analysis
Are there any new competitors in your service area? Are you still targeting the right potential customers, or has the demographic in your service area changed?
The market has likely shifted since you first wrote your business plan. Research and write down any changes to the market in your service area that could be useful when updating your marketing strategy.
For example, are younger families moving into the neighborhood? Has the average salary changed? Have apartment buildings been built, adding to the area’s population?
It’s also a good idea to study your competitors and take note of what they do well. For example, if they’re using electrician software to send invoices and get paid faster, you should, too.
Marketing strategy
Based on your market analysis, you should update your marketing strategy to keep up with any changes. Include any new ideas you have for getting more electrical leads.
You might be targeting a new ideal customer, or needing to reach current customers in new ways.
Let’s say you were targeting young professionals five years ago. Today, those same customers are settling down and purchasing larger properties for their growing families.
Figure out where your ideal customer spends time and identify ways to reach them. If your audience is now spending time in community spaces and Facebook groups, these could be good places to advertise.
Financial planning
How much profit do you expect to earn this year? Do you need to fix or replace any of your electrical equipment? Update your budget to include your sales forest, expenses, and marketing costs.
Pricing strategy
Are your service prices still profitable? If the rising costs of electrician tools, supplies, and gas are cutting into your profits, it’s probably time to adjust your pricing strategy.
We’re not going to win because we’ve got the cheaper price.
We’re going to win because we were there first and because we do everything we can to win their trust and look more professional.
2. Join the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA)
Getting your NECA Gold Seal shows potential customers that you’re committed to quality and safety on the job.
To help you provide better customer service and make the right business decisions, your NECA membership comes with a ton of benefits, including:
- Member discounts on services and products like Budget, Dell, Office Depot, and more.
- Safety training and resources to help you maintain a safe work environment.
- Education and training that includes online management courses, business insight, and technical resources.
- Labor relations to help build and maintain positive employee relations through good management practices.
- Networking opportunities to connect with and learn from other electrical industry professionals.
To join, find your local NECA chapter and submit an application.
3. Advertise your electrical services
Use these tips for your electrician marketing plan to promote your business and get new leads:
Develop your online presence
- Create an electrician website that includes your service area, the services you offer, and an easy way for customers to request work or book services.
- Use local SEO to help potential clients find your business on Google.
- Advertise your electrical business to clients in your service area with Google’s Local Services Ads.
- Get more electrical leads by setting up a profile for your business on lead generation websites.
- If you haven’t already, create profiles on social media platforms where your ideal clients spend time, like Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok.
Pro Tip: Use Google Analytics to see which marketing strategies are working the best and track how new leads are finding your business.
Encourage customer referrals
Build a customer referral program to find new customers through your current happy customers. This kind of program rewards loyalty and word of mouth so customers tell others about your business.
You can even copy one of these customer referral program ideas to get started.
Referrals are a massive part of our incoming leads.
The minute a referral or any other lead comes in, we enter it into Jobber as a request. That way, we can use Jobber as a kind of pipeline for new business.
Send email campaigns
Send effective marketing emails faster with pre-made email templates and audiences for you.
Use a marketing tool like Jobber to create email campaigns and send marketing emails faster. You can choose from premade branded templates built for specific goals and customers.
First, edit the email with details about your electrical services. Then, edit your client segments to choose what group of clients you want to email—for example, past clients, all clients, or clients who received a specific electrical service.
Track your success over time from a simple dashboard. Every campaign sent in Jobber shows the number of customers who opened the email, clicked on a link, or converted into an electrical job.
Ask happy customers for reviews
Having lots of positive reviews on your Google Business Profile makes it easy for potential customers to find you online. Get more reviews by setting up automatic review collection in Jobber.
When you make an invoice in Jobber, you can choose whether you want to send the customer a review request.
After paying their invoice, those customers automatically get a direct link to leave a review on your Google Business Profile.
Keep an eye on your average Google rating in the reviews dashboard in Jobber. You can also see your latest reviews and access resources for managing your business’s reputation.
4. Keep your pricing competitive and profitable
How you price your electrical services has a direct impact on your business’s cash flow. If your prices are too low, you won’t have enough money to invest back into your business.
Learn how to estimate electrical work for profit, then review your pricing strategy every few months to factor in the rising cost of materials.
READ MORE: How to write a price increase letter for customers
The faster you quote a prospective client, the better your chances are of winning their business. Here are three ways to speed up your quoting process:
- Use an electrical estimate template to send out estimates fast. Simply fill in your customer’s information and job details to create a professional-looking estimate in just a few clicks.
- Send quotes by email so customers can view and approve them from anywhere. You can also do this using a self-serve customer portal like Jobber’s client hub.
- Send quote follow-up emails reminding customers to approve their quotes. It’s easy for customers to forget they have an outstanding quote, and you may not always remember to follow up. That’s why Jobber automates your quote follow-ups for you.
Pro Tip: When you don’t win a job, find out why. Did competitors send quotes faster? Did they provide the client with good, better, best pricing? Learn why they won and try to do the same.
I send quotes with a good, better, best option.
It helps me upsell jobs to clients. They appreciate it, and they can choose what’s the best option for them.
5. Focus on customer service
Build customer loyalty and get positive online reviews by offering exceptional customer service.
Using electrician contractor software like Jobber can help you create a better customer experience, before, during, and after the job is done. Here’s how:
Use a CRM to keep track of client details
An electrical CRM makes it easy to manage information about your customers, from past jobs and estimates to property and personal details. It’s even faster to access this info on the go.
You can also impress the customer with your knowledge of their needs. For example, you can walk into their home—even years later—and already know where their electrical panel is.
Give clients a self-serve portal
Let clients request work, approve quotes, confirm appointments, and pay their electrical invoices on their own time. This is easy to do when you use electrical software like Jobber.
Jobber’s self-serve client portal lets clients view upcoming appointments, request changes to scheduled services, and pay their invoices online.
The client facing image is incredibly important to me.
I need the client to feel comfortable that they’re making the right decision, that they’re hiring a professional.
Set up automated reminders
Keep clients informed before, during, and after the job with appointment reminder emails, on-my-way text messages, and automated follow-ups.
Your customers will appreciate the reminders and updates, and they’ll see you as a more professional business—all without any effort on your part.
We’re able to communicate more efficiently with our customers.
The follow up texts and calls from Jobber [are] passive communication that we don’t have to be on top of. Jobber handles that for us.
Create job forms and checklists
Deliver consistent service on every job with custom job forms and checklists. You can be confident that your electricians did the job right, because every step is checked off for your records.
When the job is finished, you can share the completed checklist with your customers so they know what services were completed during your visit.
Pro Tip: Use job forms in Jobber to create electrical site inspection checklists. Safety checklists help keep customers and employees safe throughout even the most dangerous jobs.
I get great feedback on client hub, the invoice reminders, and the customization.
That’s one of the biggest things that I tell people about Jobber. The client experience really is number one.
6. Invoice customers and get paid faster
Don’t wait to invoice customers. Unpaid invoices can hurt your cash flow, making it harder to pay your electricians and limiting your ability to reinvest in your business.
Using invoicing software helps you send professional invoices fast. When you’ve finished a job, just click a button to automatically invoice the customer for your services, and sit back and wait for payment to arrive.
At the end of every site visit, I have everything I need to invoice the client right now.
I mounted lights just the other day and sent the client his invoice before I left his driveway.
Jobber also makes it easy to keep track of who’s paid and who hasn’t. You can easily see which invoices are outstanding and what jobs you still have to request payment for.
You can also send automated invoice reminders to follow up with customers about overdue invoices. No more worrying about what to say to each customer—just send a templated request.
Finally, make it easier for customers to pay their invoices with credit card processing. It’s simple, it’s convenient, and it makes your business look even more professional.
We use Jobber for processing all of our payments.
It’s made our life a lot easier. The girls in the office don’t have to trace back, call customers, try to get checks sent in, try to use other payment processing systems.
7. Hire the best electrical contractors to grow your business
If you’re struggling to keep up with quotes, falling behind on paperwork, or in need of an electrical contractor with a specific skill set—it’s time to hire a qualified electrician.
Here’s how to find the best electrical contractors to grow your business:
- Write an electrician job description that includes a job title, a list of responsibilities, a list of required skills and experience, and any licensing requirements.
- Advertise your job posting through online job boards like Indeed or Monster or on your business’s social media pages.
- Offer a competitive electrician salary that attracts workers with the right level of experience and dedication to the job.
- Schedule interviews and ask electrician interview questions that cover your ideal candidate’s skills, experience, and values.
Pro Tip: Talk to local trade schools or community colleges about apprenticeships and internships you can offer to students looking to become skilled electricians.
READ MORE: Hire employees like an expert with Nick Huber’s top tips
8. Stay up to date with electrical industry trends
Keeping up with industry trends like pricing, marketing, safety, and licensing will help you beat the competition and win more electrical jobs.
Online electrical contractor resources and electrician blogs can offer a variety of tips and tricks on how to run a successful electrical business.
You can also network with other electrical professionals and business owners to get inspired by their successes and learn from their failures. The Jobber Entrepreneurship Group on Facebook is a great place to do that.
Run a better electrical business with Jobber
Whether you’re just learning how to start your electrical business or you’ve been operating for years, improving your processes can help you build a business that thrives.
The right electrical contractor software can help. Count on Jobber to improve your customer service, maintain cash flow, give you AI-powered business insights, and simplify your operations.
Originally published in August 2022. Last updated on September 5, 2024.