0:00
Callahan’s corner where you ask the
0:01
questions Anthem live right here on
0:02
Facebook got a email submitted question
0:04
by Angie this morning uh Angie writes
0:07
good morning uh I remember remember you
0:10
showing me how to build a cleanup
0:11
estimate with pricing in-service
0:13
autopilot but simply can’t remember any
0:15
chance you have a video on how to
0:18
actually do it so I clarified if Angie
0:20
uh this morning wanted an exact price or
0:23
a price range when she was quoting her
0:25
uh cleanup estimate and she said she
0:28
wants an exact price and she’s looking
0:30
for bed cleanup pruning trimming bark
0:33
application pre and post emergent for
0:35
weeds all an exact price range so Angie
0:38
good news is this can be tackled pretty
0:40
quickly
0:41
um in just about any software I’m going
0:43
to show you how we do it uh in a
0:44
blueprint and then actually get it into
0:46
service autopilot so Callahan’s Corner’s
0:48
question today is going out to Angie
0:51
um
0:52
so first thing I’m going to do is open
0:54
up my screen and
0:57
pop into the simple growth blueprint
1:00
here so uh knowing Angie and her company
1:03
working with them
1:04
um we’re probably going to go in and
1:06
drive her Revenue goal at about the
1:09
maintenance division at about 65 bucks
1:11
an hour and it would probably break even
1:13
my gases somewhere around 42 dollars per
1:15
man hour so we’ve already established
1:17
our Revenue goal and our Breakeven for
1:19
that division so what we’re going to do
1:21
is tackle uh her first question here
1:25
uh on there is probably going to go in
1:27
and
1:29
um take a look at how many minutes it
1:31
she thinks it’s going to take based on
1:33
the square footage of the bed so
1:35
actually
1:36
um well yeah we’ll go in for the the pre
1:38
and post-emergent spring as well so this
1:40
can be done
1:42
um on square footage linear feet however
1:44
you want but we’re going to go in and
1:45
drive that in here uh for Angie so
1:48
that’s going to be our Roundup per
1:49
minute that’s going to be our post
1:50
emergent it could also be the same way
1:52
for a pre-emergent if we’re spraying it
1:53
if we are not spraying it let’s go in
1:57
and Tackle her pre-emergent as well
2:01
so as we’re going in we’re driving in
2:05
some pre-built formulas so if you’re
2:07
working with us on an essay setup or
2:08
deep dive this is kind of how this all
2:10
Lays into the program
2:13
um
2:14
so right now she’s got her Roundup per
2:16
minute uh well based on how many minutes
2:18
she thinks it’s going to take and we’re
2:20
going to go in and do our uh bed
2:26
emergent
2:29
and we’re going to build some uh
2:30
matrices around here so the next one she
2:32
had was based on
2:38
mulch installation so we’re going to go
2:40
in and I’ll build this one on the Fly
2:43
here but I’m going to grab a template
2:45
here
2:48
so the idea is we want to blueprint
2:50
these out before we actually do them
2:53
ought to confirm our projected profit
2:54
and profit margin so what we’re going to
2:57
do is go in and create this one as
3:01
shrub pruning
3:04
and we’ll be able to iterate off that
3:05
and then I’ll tackle the mulch as well
3:07
so to answer Angie’s question here we’re
3:10
going to tackle our bed post-emergent
3:12
then pre-emergent obviously probably not
3:14
in that order but that’s the way I
3:15
pasted them in so we’ve confirmed that
3:17
she wants 65 bucks an hour her cost per
3:19
operating hour is let’s say 42.35 that
3:23
number is
3:24
um
3:26
now driving through our blueprint so the
3:29
first question I’ve got to ask Angie is
3:30
what is your product cost on the actual
3:34
post-emergent uh non-selective herbicide
3:37
so we’ll call that a Roundup uh so if
3:40
there is 125 ounces in The Jug and or
3:43
the cost per jug is 125 and there’s 64
3:46
ounces in there
3:48
um what we can do then is literally go
3:50
in and take a look at it and drive
3:52
through this formula what is their cost
3:54
for the whole entire four gallon
3:56
backpack so what we’ve done now is
3:57
driven uh the cost per gallon and then
4:00
the cost per minute uh per spraying into
4:03
the actual equation so for one to one
4:06
it’s going to be one minute divided by
4:09
60 should give both 0.02 so that’s how
4:12
we would go in and drive the labor cost
4:15
with materials overhead recovery
4:18
everything loaded in so now an estimator
4:20
can look at a landscape bed and our
4:23
first step of estimating which would be
4:24
our guesstimating based on experience
4:26
and then eventually Angie you’d want to
4:28
roll into a square foot production rate
4:29
I’ll show you how we do that with the
4:30
post with the pre-emergent uh depending
4:32
where you’re at in your estimating
4:33
Journey so I’m going to kind of show you
4:34
both of those so uh right now
4:37
based on one minute
4:40
and the cost per minute for that
4:43
um poor four four gallon backpack uh
4:46
it’s gonna be about a dollar twenty
4:47
three so just to break even she’s got to
4:49
be charging a dollar twenty three per
4:51
minute so uh she’s at about 1.65 that’s
4:55
going to get her to a 25 profit margin
4:57
so in that maintenance Division I think
4:59
they’re running around 30 percent so I’m
5:01
going to go in at about a dollar seventy
5:03
five now the other question here is if
5:06
you want and I’d recommend do we have a
5:09
base price so what’s the minimum to show
5:13
up so I would probably say this is a
5:15
dollar seventy five for one minute
5:18
and at about a 30 profit margin but I’d
5:21
say Angie what is your minimum show up
5:22
for that bad pre-emergence so let’s say
5:24
she has a minimum of 45 dollars per
5:26
visit so what we would do then is go in
5:28
and take our break even our budget hours
5:31
and say okay 45 divided by 60 which is
5:34
0.75
5:35
um and then we would need to go in and
5:37
make some assumptions on okay if it’s
5:38
costing her 32.48
5:43
that’s going to get her about a 40
5:44
profit margin so if we go in and say hey
5:47
our base price is 50 it’s 35 percent net
5:52
and then what we’re going to do here is
5:54
go in and readjust our formula and take
5:57
our one minute
6:03
times our Breakeven
6:06
and with a little math here we can add
6:09
in the product cost per minute that we
6:11
figured out based on her actual product
6:12
cost off to the right so now we’ve got
6:14
production rate overhead recovery and
6:17
material recovery uh without any markup
6:19
but we could Mark that material up if we
6:21
wanted to traditionally you’re not going
6:22
to have that in a chemical situation so
6:24
what we’ve got is the ability now for
6:25
Angie’s team to go out and put in how
6:27
many minutes they think it’s going to
6:28
take
6:30
um here
6:31
and the final part is that right there
6:34
so between 1 and 45 minutes Angie’s
6:36
charging for 50 bucks should take 45
6:38
minutes or 0.75 man hours and labor
6:40
overhead and materials is costing at
6:42
32.28 and each additional minute over
6:44
the 45 minutes she needs to charge 175
6:47
it should take 0.02 uh hours which is a
6:50
minute and it’s costing 149 giving her a
6:52
14 profit margin here so with that math
6:55
if she wanted to be closer to 30 percent
6:58
she could go in and manipulate those
7:00
numbers here in the blueprint to get as
7:02
close as she wanted to so I’m not going
7:04
to waste the time doing that but that’s
7:05
how we base it on time now if we’re
7:07
going in as a bed pre-emergent
7:10
going to be the same idea so bed
7:12
pre-emergent here we’re going to go in
7:14
and change this to bed square footage
7:18
and I’m going to say Angie’s base price
7:21
is up to 500 square feet for a bed
7:26
let’s actually make it a thousand so up
7:28
to a thousand square feet uh it should
7:30
take 0.05 man hours based on a uh
7:34
production rate there to actually lay
7:35
down that bed pre-emergent and obviously
7:37
want to make sure these production rates
7:38
are accurate for your company so don’t
7:40
copy these right out of the sheet
7:42
um and then what is her base price to
7:44
show up that bed pre-emergent so I would
7:46
say it’s probably still 50 based on the
7:48
post-emergent charge I would manipulate
7:51
this every thousand down to every 100
7:53
square feet
7:55
and go in and manipulate
7:59
the production right here of
8:10
here so that every 100 over a thousand
8:12
is an additional four dollars and 17
8:15
cents and she’s charging so we’ve got
8:17
our information in here we’ve got our
8:19
margins in here but we haven’t figured
8:21
out is our product cost so uh let’s
8:23
assume that our bed pre-emergent is not
8:26
a liquid like in the example above so
8:27
we’re gonna get rid of that
8:31
um but we’re going to go in and use a
8:33
um something like a snapshot or a Preen
8:37
um but we’re going to go in and use
8:38
let’s say our cost our bag is 85 bucks
8:40
it’s a 50 pound bag and the coverage is
8:44
8 500 square feet
8:47
there is no markup the coverage is going
8:48
to be 100 so in that scenario based on
8:51
these fictitious numbers her cost per
8:53
thousand would be ten dollars so what
8:55
we’d want to do then is go in and make
8:58
sure that our cost per thousand here
9:01
would be accurate so that would go in
9:03
there and our budgeted cost here
9:05
since we’re doing every 100 square feet
9:10
divide that by 10 parts
9:13
that would be her her charge
9:16
so she’s at a 10.31 cents here so we can
9:20
go in and actually manipulate that if we
9:22
wanted to be at eight dollars say per
9:24
100 square feet or whatever that was
9:27
um and that’s our margin right there
9:29
so obviously some of these numbers are
9:30
fictitious but this is the process
9:31
you’re going to go through you’re going
9:32
to go in and set your hourly rate your
9:34
Breakeven and you’re going to figure out
9:36
your product cost liquid or granular and
9:38
drive that into the system especially if
9:40
you’re using service autopilot uh final
9:42
part here is our shrub prune that’s
9:44
going to be our parent service
9:46
um
9:47
and we’re going to go in and we would
9:48
tackle this as the number of small
9:50
medium and large shrubs traditionally
9:52
with a production rate but let’s just
9:54
use the example of
9:56
um
9:57
that Angie may have been using there is
9:59
let’s say how many hours it actually is
10:00
going to take so maybe we’re not ready
10:02
for production rate based estimating
10:04
that’s something we obviously can help
10:05
you with and give you those in mystery
10:07
production rates but this is usually the
10:09
biggest question is what if we did uh
10:11
shrub pruning so we go in and build our
10:14
shrub
10:15
pruning man hours and then that is going
10:18
to be our custom field
10:20
team methodology all we need to do is
10:22
say what’s our base price to show up so
10:24
Angie’s uh charging 275 that’s her
10:26
minimum to show up and what the sheet
10:28
does now is automatically calculates the
10:29
hours
10:30
that are budgeted and the matrices with
10:33
the overhead recovery so uh it’s easy as
10:36
that once you build these formulas in
10:37
and that’s what we’ve been doing on our
10:38
deep diving essay setups here so we’re
10:40
going to base that shrub pruning on the
10:42
shrub pruning man hours that’s going to
10:43
be a sub service of that now that’s
10:45
where we could also break in our small
10:47
medium and large shrubs so Angie’s final
10:50
question here I’m just going to copy and
10:52
paste this for Speed
10:54
is we’re going to build out
10:56
um
10:58
maybe we’ll build out let’s grab this
11:00
whole thing we’re going to grab this
11:02
format here and I’m going to build out a
11:03
mulch installation for her
11:06
so let’s just say this is mulch
11:20
translation and our custom field would
11:23
be bad square footage
11:26
so as we’re going in here we probably do
11:29
not want to include the materials in
11:31
here there’s some instances you may
11:33
um but right now I’d say Angie what is
11:36
your base price for the mulch
11:37
installation uh so let’s say she has a
11:39
three yard minimum
11:41
and we’re doing a three inch depth so
11:44
that would be one to three hundred and
11:46
then every
11:48
actually yeah that’d be one to three
11:49
hundred and every 100 over the first
11:51
300. uh basically if we’re using an
11:53
industry average that should probably
11:55
take three hours and one hour per yard
11:58
installed
11:59
um and that is going to be
12:02
foreign
12:06
based on the three hours so she’s got
12:08
about a 34 to 35 percent net margin on
12:11
the Labor uh which is jiving throughout
12:13
the sheet here so now we’ve got some
12:15
consistency how to uh check our profit
12:18
profit percentage so when we go into a
12:20
product like service autopilot um
12:22
unfortunately on the service level and I
12:24
don’t think any of the other softwares
12:26
as well do this for you so this is why
12:28
we really recommend Blueprinting this
12:30
and if you’re a business owner looking
12:31
to delegate and get some of this stuff
12:32
off your plate to a VA an admin or a
12:34
manager this is really
12:36
um going to be essential here for you so
12:38
what we’re going to do is go in and add
12:40
a service now we’re going to make some
12:42
custom Fields that’s our first process
12:44
but I want to show you something really
12:45
quickly here is uh this is the data
12:48
table that drives that nowhere in here
12:50
does it tell you your profit or profit
12:51
percentage so it’s really essential to
12:54
be able to go into something like the
12:55
simple growth blueprint confirm your
12:57
profit profit percentage especially if
12:59
we’re working with uh post-emergent like
13:02
Roundup or bed pre-emergent we’ve got
13:03
some product costs whether it’s granular
13:05
or liquid here um the liquid or granular
13:08
and we really want to be able to drive
13:10
that in now the the chemical
13:13
um applications are the one exception
13:14
inside at least service autopilot that
13:16
uh you do want to include those on the
13:19
actual service level themselves
13:20
everything else like mulch pine straw uh
13:23
design build things like that we want to
13:25
keep the products separately but there
13:26
is no good way of tracking that and it’s
13:28
going to lead this inefficiency as far
13:30
as delegating the estimates so right
13:32
from service auto Pilots Dev development
13:34
they do recommend including this so this
13:36
is going to be the best practice I do
13:37
agree with here so the first thing we’re
13:40
going to do is go in
13:41
and service to autopilot here
13:43
foundationally from the beginning for
13:45
Angie here’s uh Angie you’re going to
13:46
want to make some custom Fields so we go
13:48
in
13:49
um and Angie if you’ve worked with us
13:51
before obviously uh just confirms these
13:53
custom fields are not there we do want
13:55
to duplicate them just like we’ve
13:56
duplicated a lot of these in my test
13:58
account so her first one is going to be
14:00
the number of backpacks
14:03
um
14:06
and I would just say we’ll put Roundup
14:08
the client’s not going to see this but
14:10
we want to be able to go in and build
14:13
that out so it’s going to go in or build
14:14
the name associated the customer and
14:16
it’s going to be a number I’m going to
14:18
go in here
14:21
and just put three a couple threes in
14:25
front of it so I can find this quickly
14:26
on this Facebook live in this test
14:27
account I need to clean it up a little
14:29
bit next one’s going to be our bed
14:30
square footage so we’re just walking
14:32
down the blueprint and we’re just
14:34
dropping them in as they lay once again
14:36
to the number
14:38
say the new
14:39
and our last one I believe is our shrub
14:42
pruning man hours now you’ll notice as
14:44
we’re going down the sheet I got bed
14:46
square footage twice no need to make two
14:47
custom Fields uh it will double dip for
14:51
this process so this is literally kind
14:53
of diving under the hood of what a
14:56
seven-figure business should be doing
14:57
really a half 250 and up uh you really
15:00
need to drive these things in here uh
15:02
you will be the bottleneck and you will
15:04
not be able to make that non-emotional
15:06
uh delegation and not emotional pricing
15:09
without this so the next thing is we’re
15:10
gonna go into gear icon Services then
15:12
we’re gonna go back to the blueprint
15:13
we’re actually going to build out our
15:14
services here so
15:16
this is what we’re doing we’re driving
15:18
it in
15:18
uh so Angie hopefully this is helpful
15:21
but we’re going to go back to simple
15:22
growth blueprint you should have a copy
15:24
from when we worked previously but we’re
15:26
going to go in and grab our Roundup per
15:28
minute we’re going to add that service
15:32
foreign
15:39
s that we need to select
15:43
to make this work
15:46
we’re going to go on our rate Matrix
15:47
here quantity rate times visits and I’m
15:49
going to go right back to our custom
15:51
field here
15:53
and pull that in
15:57
and literally copy the top five lines in
15:59
the bottom lines and I’ll show one two
16:00
45 minutes is Angie’s base price of 50
16:03
bucks
16:06
that includes
16:08
0.75 man hours I believe
16:11
and it cost me 32-28 labor overhead and
16:15
material so that is the number that she
16:16
wants to be doing and every one minute
16:18
over the first 45 minutes she needs to
16:21
charge uh two dollars and it’s going to
16:23
be one minute
16:25
and that one minute with material labor
16:28
time overhead is now costing her a
16:30
dollar Forty Nine so we’ve done is
16:33
created our pre-emergent for Angie we’re
16:36
gonna save a new and walk down the sheet
16:37
here so we’ve got our uh actually that’s
16:40
our bed post emergent we’re onto our bed
16:42
pre-emergent
16:47
same exact process we need a code we
16:50
need a service mode is it taxable is it
16:51
not invoice description needs to be
16:53
selected to an account we need an
16:55
estimate description and we need to go
16:57
into our rate matrices
16:59
and we’re going to grab our
17:02
set square footage
17:05
and ignore those threes and fun
17:06
obviously I’m just doing that right now
17:08
for Speed and simplicity top five lines
17:10
are going in the essay one new a
17:12
thousand is 50 bucks
17:14
foreign
17:21
costing us 11.99
17:26
and every 100 square feet over the first
17:28
thousand for our bed pre-emergent which
17:31
is a granular with the product built in
17:32
here on the left
17:34
um it’s gonna be eight dollars and .005
17:39
that is costing Angie and the team a
17:42
dollar twenty
17:43
so if you have questions you want us to
17:45
kind of demo how to do this inside
17:47
service autopilot let us know but we do
17:49
this with hundreds of companies each
17:51
year
17:52
um in here so first Simplicity here
17:54
because I have a meeting in a minute I’m
17:56
going to grab our pruning we already
17:58
have an example for pruning just like
18:00
the backpack last one I’m going to do
18:01
here is our mulch installation
18:05
business
18:09
we’re building this out and now we are
18:11
going to drive this all into a estimate
18:13
template here in a second to bring it
18:15
all the way across the finish line for
18:16
everybody
18:17
watching
18:21
and that is that square footage
18:25
and we’re going back 1 to 300 is 195 in
18:29
labor so
18:34
it’s three hours and it’s costing Angie
18:37
127.05.
18:42
and every 100 square feet over the first
18:45
300 so after our three yard minimum
18:48
that is 60
18:50
65 bucks in one hour
18:54
and 42.35 it’s cautious so save last
18:57
part of this that we’re doing is going
18:58
to be driving this all home into a
19:01
scalable process so now what we’re doing
19:03
is going back to the simple growth
19:05
blueprint if you need some help uh feel
19:07
free to drop us a line or check us out
19:09
at simple growthsystems.com uh but what
19:12
we’re really doing now is we’re going
19:13
into the gear icon and we’re grabbing
19:15
our job estimate templates
19:18
all right
19:25
we are going to create a new one here
19:35
Facebook live Angie all right she’s got
19:37
her name in here now both and we’re
19:39
going to connect this to a estimate
19:40
document that connects our email
19:41
estimate document and our acceptance
19:44
email
19:48
and what we’re going to do is now go in
19:50
and add the services from top to bottom
19:53
so Roundup per minute is our first one
19:56
obviously we named this a little bit
19:58
different if we’re showing it customer
19:59
facing but for today’s
20:02
example this is just fine and our bed
20:05
pre-emergent now this would probably in
20:07
my opinion be put together in a package
20:11
so we could actually go in and
20:16
apply those different applications in a
20:19
set start to end around but for this
20:20
example I’m going to do is set services
20:22
and we’re going to go in and grab
20:25
our mulch installation
20:28
and now we’ve got our three surfaces
20:30
that were built out in the live show
20:32
here we’re going to save and close and
20:34
then we’re going to drive in some
20:37
um
20:37
workflow so we go in
20:40
go to our test tester ideally you’d want
20:42
to create a form to capture these custom
20:44
fields and plug it into the on-site form
20:46
in the mobile and then when you open up
20:48
this estimate they are going to drive in
20:50
there automatically but for time right
20:51
now I’ve got uh symbicro Financial
20:54
meeting here in about two minutes so I
20:57
want to make sure that we’re not missing
20:58
that uh so we’re going to go in and add
21:00
a template
21:02
that template now is going to connect to
21:03
our estimate email estimate document and
21:05
acceptance email
21:06
and Angie where’s your template there we
21:09
go
21:11
all the service equipment and if we had
21:13
a on-site estimate form we would be
21:16
filling out the form and the data would
21:18
come in so let’s say I thought there was
21:19
35 minutes for
21:22
um the spraying per visit and our bed
21:25
pre-emergent is based on square footage
21:28
so let’s say I got a 600 square foot bed
21:32
here
21:33
and our mulch installation I measured
21:36
was 900 square feet
21:38
and we want to go in on the template
21:40
most likely that you could select it on
21:42
the Fly here you would go in and grab
21:43
your hardwood mulch
21:45
and since there’s nine hours here and
21:47
we’re using that production rate that
21:48
would be nine yards of mulch that we’re
21:50
charging 50 bucks or a yard cost us 38
21:53
with a profit margin markup of 24
21:55
percent so we’re going to draft a quote
21:57
on all of these
21:59
um now Angie if you’re quoting in a
22:01
package you may have multiple rounds or
22:03
if you’re doing it separately at least
22:05
in my area I may have eight visits
22:07
or that post-emergent so this would be
22:14
uh
22:15
bad maintenance
22:22
he visits obviously you want to dial
22:25
this all in on the template but I just
22:27
want to add ask or answer her question
22:28
live here uh this next thing you’re
22:30
going to hit save and close I’m going to
22:32
email this to myself so you can kind of
22:33
see what the finished product looks like
22:35
any comments or questions drop them
22:38
uh right to
22:41
us write to us on Facebook here we’re
22:44
happy to answer them just like we did
22:45
Angie’s pre-submitted question actually
22:47
by email uh so if you’re a client of
22:49
simple growth and you have some
22:50
questions around this
22:52
uh let me know and we are just waiting
22:54
for this email to come on the other
22:56
screen and I will pull up
22:58
the actual estimate
23:03
and time wise here we may just
23:06
looks like I did not send it so that
23:08
would be part of the problem
23:10
all right so we’re gonna hit email
23:14
got a pre-templated email and we’re
23:15
going to hit send and with any luck that
23:19
email will be in my inbox and I can show
23:21
you what the live version actually looks
23:23
like of this email little known fact too
23:25
with these um
23:27
estimates here sent through service
23:29
autopilot they’re a live edible docs you
23:31
can do actually changes in it until it’s
23:32
accepted or won so that is actually
23:34
going to be a massive benefit here uh so
23:37
as we’re going in and pulling this over
23:38
from my email that just came over less
23:41
than a minute we’re going to click view
23:43
my proposal and this is the answer to
23:46
Angie’s question so we’ve got our bed
23:50
pre-emergent eight visits or
23:52
post-emergent eight visits we’ve got
23:54
pre-emergent I would suggest building
23:56
this in a package Angie I’ve got remote
23:58
installation is here so uh best practice
24:01
we probably have two columns that’s the
24:03
way we traditionally build that out we
24:04
set these up for folks that estimate
24:06
grid can be a little bit tricky so I’ll
24:08
definitely make a video in upcoming
24:10
videos how to actually manipulate the
24:11
estimate grid to get it to show how you
24:13
want for your maintenance fertilization
24:14
design build they’re probably all
24:16
different grid views that you want to
24:18
put together so appreciate you coming
24:19
out today Callahan’s corner you ask the
24:21
questions we had some live right here on
24:23
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