If you’re looking for a warm and welcoming place where community and faith truly come together, check out Immanuel Lutheran Church of Crosby. Its dedication to serving others creates an uplifting environment for anyone seeking connection and spiritual growth.
Ready to get truly connected with your community? Discover Stroll the Lakes magazine and enjoy exclusive Business Spotlight features, standout local advertising, and exciting in-person events that take you behind the scenes and introduce you to the best of the neighborhood.
Elevate your brand and contact the creative experts at Vivid Creative Studio! They go above and beyond to deliver professional services such as branding development, graphic design, and digital content creation, helping organizations communicate their vision with clarity and impact.
If you’re looking for a reliable condo management company, contact Foundation Property Management! Its professional and responsive team helps with everything from financial management and capital projects to day-to-day support, ensuring your community has a strong backbone to thrive.
Are you looking to take your business to the next level? Then check out Trina Lo and her company, Fresh Ink. From graphic design to event promotion and everything in between, Trina has the tools and experience to help your business thrive.
From Apprentice to Entrepreneur: The Story of Finan Home Service
When something stops working in a home, many homeowners in the London area make the same call. For John Finan, owner of Finan Home Service, that call is the result of more than three decades spent building a business focused on solving everyday problems for homeowners.
Finan Home Service handles residential plumbing, electrical, and heating and cooling repairs across the region. “Anybody in the London area wakes up and something isn’t working in their house, they give us a call, and we can pop right over and take care of that for them, usually the same day,” Finan said.
The company began much smaller. Finan entered the skilled trades after leaving university in the mid-1980s and starting an electrical apprenticeship. He chose the field partly because he wanted to run his own business one day.
After becoming a licensed electrician, Finan launched Finan Electric in 1994. At the time, the company focused solely on electrical work. Over the years, however, Finan noticed a pattern when homeowners called for help.
“When customers called us and said they had an electrical problem, they also had plumbing systems and furnace and air conditioning systems which needed work,” he said.
Instead of turning those customers elsewhere, Finan began expanding the company’s services. Through a combination of hiring skilled tradespeople and bringing in new expertise, the business gradually grew beyond electrical work. Finan Electric evolved into Finan Home Services, offering homeowners one place to handle several types of repairs and maintenance.
Today the company employs about 37 people, including office staff who manage scheduling and administration and technicians working in the field. Finan said the growth of the team has been one of the most rewarding aspects of building the business.
“To see people start here not far out of high school, and then see them get married, have children and take on significant roles managing the business, I’m really proud to see that,” he said.
Finan believes the company’s longevity comes down to maintaining strong relationships with both employees and customers. “We are priced properly, we treat our staff properly, we pay them correctly, and the levels of service that we give to our customers each year get better,” he said.
While Finan once handled nearly every task in the business himself, his role today is focused more on guiding the company and supporting the team around him. He still keeps a close eye on operations and believes discipline and consistency are key to running a successful business.
Looking ahead, Finan hopes the company continues to grow while maintaining the same approach that helped build it. “Good people, give them the tools they need to do a great job, match them up with the best customers, and repeat,” he said. “That’s the cycle that keeps everything moving forward.”
Spring is on the horizon – a time synonymous with a fresh reset and often serving as a trigger to start on our seasonal chore list. This is also a great time for businesses to partake in their own version of a ‘spring cleaning.’ Seasonal business check-ins can help to ensure that small issues don’t silently accumulate like dust bunnies behind the couch. In this article, we take a look at what aspects of your business could benefit from a reset.
Maintaining close vendor relationships is an important aspect of ensuring your business is getting the most out of your contract. Open lines of communication between you and your vendor allow for more frequent updates on things like changes in the marketplace or increases in fees. Having a heads up on some of these important items will prevent surprises to your bottom line down the road. Reach out to your contacts to reconnect and stay up to date, your business will thank you later.
With the busy nature of the day-to-day, it can become easy to wait on checking off those seemingly less-urgent items. When it comes to your business financials, maintaining them is always more effective than playing catch up. Making sure your books are in order, your payment methods are still accurate, and your contracts haven’t lapsed will save major headaches. Dedicate and commit to a chunk of time that works for you to focus on these small tasks, and you’ll be thanking yourself later.
This time of year is all about renewal and energy and that idea can and should translate to your operations as well. Throughout the year, minor setbacks, changes in staffing and other influences can quietly create bottle necks in day-to-day operations. Things like outdated processes, overstocked items or workflow inaccuracies can demand a much greater time investment later. To tackle these hold-ups, consider implementing monthly or quarterly reviews of your operational processes so you can spot inefficiencies early, streamline tasks and keep your team from getting bogged down by preventable delays.
As businesses enter the spring and summer season, demand often increases as well, regardless of the industry. Beyond internal operations, it is important to ensure that your external processes are set up too. This can mean checking in on your supply-chain for any weak links or verifying that the current systems in place are ready to handle a sudden surge. Take action now so your business can run smoothly even at full capacity later.
Think of this reset as less of a seasonal chore and more of a plan for proactive management going forward. When teams adopt more regular check-ins, last minute ‘fire drills’ can be avoided. This will not only foster a sense of accountability but also keep the business adaptable all year long. Treat this as a regular and necessary task, even schedule it into your calendar, soon it will become second nature.
Spring is the perfect time to revitalize your business. Just like we all enjoy a tidy home, a consistently fresh business can only benefit those involved. You’ll find the business runs smoother and more profitably but with less major disruptions along the way. Investing a small effort now will spare you the bigger hassles later.
