Video Transcript

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hey welcome back to Callahan’s corner
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where you ask a question since I’m live
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right here on Facebook got another User
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submitted question uh right out of the
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service autopilot Facebook members group
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here I’m going to read it off the screen
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uh Barry says he’s looking for some
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input into route reorganization for when
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uh to go for every week mowing um
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they’ve had customers quit sold some new
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accounts
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um and he’s got some new work coming in
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all normal stuff that we all face in our
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service business really
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um as we gain clients and we’ve
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attrition through churner cancellation
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uh his question is how do we how do you
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guys go about making the best routes
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between property size location budgeted
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hours and etc
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etc is this something you do inside
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service autopilot so uh Barry with a
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great question here in the service
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autopilot group and I want to uh kind of
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shed some light how we did that in my
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seven figure business and now help
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hundreds of businesses each year do this
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um inside service autopilot so yes you
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could use an Excel sheet a Google sheet
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I’ll have double triple entry but really
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the idea is we want to be able to get it
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inside died one software and avoid that
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multiple system chaos so uh Barry a
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couple things you talked about were
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great is size location budgeted hours
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and uh when we’re going to Route these
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jobs if we don’t have a budgeted hours
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and generated or pinned Revenue goal for
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each type of crew in our business
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um that can literally either accelerate
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or potentially deteriorate probably most
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likely deteriorate our profit margins in
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that division so for instance if you’ve
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got a fertilization crew with one
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technician you may be running 1250 to
1:32
1300 a day in annual revenue so that
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would be a goal something you want to
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stick in uh like a Post-It note or
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something up the top right hand corner
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of your computer when you go to Route
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these jobs that’s what Christine and my
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office did when she routed waiting list
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jobs in normal fashion I’m going to open
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up the screen and show you how I would
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suggest tackling going into this new
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season how to reorganize your routes um
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there’s two different ways of routing
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inside service autopilot actually three
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so
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talk about that quickly before we dive
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into actually how to break this down uh
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first one is a one-time job you know the
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particular day so that is not going to
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come into player routing for next year
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the next one is a waiting list job so it
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needs to be done some sometime maybe
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this month but not today or it’s a
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package job basically same thing as a
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reoccurring where that goes uh what
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we’re talking about here is really a
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reoccurring weekly bi-weekly every four
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weeks or custom recurring that’s where
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this is going to fall into play whether
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it’s lawn care home cleaning so I’m
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going to show you how we actually tackle
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this in my seven figure business so what
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I’m going to do is open up the screen
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here and uh what I’m going to recommend
Create a Cruise
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is the first step we want to do is going
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in from stem to stern going to team and
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teams which used to be cruise we want to
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actually build out a cruise so what
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we’re going to do is go in here
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and create basically a placeholder
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cruise this is going to be our 2023 uh
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mowing
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to be
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routed or scheduled however you want to
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put that in there and we can do that for
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any of those reoccurring jobs what we’re
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doing is basically creating a
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placeholder here
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um to get all those jobs in there um
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this is something especially in the
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Northeast where uh for about three to
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four weeks we were recreating these
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schedules almost on a weekly basis
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before we actually solidified them uh
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because we it wouldn’t be uncommon to
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have 30 40 sometimes 60 or 70 new
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clients come in in a one week where we
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have to actually get them caught up and
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then get them on a schedule so we want
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to continue to optimize that
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um and let the customer know that those
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schedules for the first few weeks May
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alter but once you’ve got those in there
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we want to be able to go show and
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calendar review and I’m going to select
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a color now that color is going to be
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the color that is going to show on the
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map
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and then we’re going to put the starting
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address of our shop here uh there will
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be no team assignments but basically
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you’ve got this 2023 mowing to be routed
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or scheduled uh we’re going to go to our
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dispatch board now and pull up a list of
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all our mowing clients from the previous
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year and show them on the map so the
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idea here is that once we have all of
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our clients here
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we’re going to go into Maps Pro grab our
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group selection and literally grab our
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whole entire
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um allotment of clients here that we
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have
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um and basically go in and then we would
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go in and assign to
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our 2023 to be
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scheduled and it may not be in here um
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in risk of refreshing the screen and
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losing this I’m going to just leave it
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where it’s at but the idea is we’ve got
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our 2022 list here from previous years
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we’d go in and permanently assign that
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and hit update now in this test account
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I’m not going to go in and manipulate
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but that’s your first step now once they
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come in they’re all going to be in that
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yellow colored pin so what we would do
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then is go in
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and dial in and ideally you want to have
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a zone so this is actually the service
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area where I service in Upstate New York
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uh our Zone one was right here we had a
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Zone two right here
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and zone three was this whole area here
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and then out on the east side of town we
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split it along this highway uh two
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different zones so we had basically
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different zones and the idea is what we
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did is uh we took the route as we did it
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so 25 to 30 lawns in a residential
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scenario we would go in and Route two
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Crews end to end so they would end right
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next to each other so if we were all the
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way out and our shop was out here we
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were out on this side of town about a
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half hour 45 minute drive depending on
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traffic this route potentially would
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start here and the other one would start
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here and they’d end somewhere in the
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middle so if we had to go back out to
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the area for rain delay we could send
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one crew and we could still re-optimize
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that route that was left over
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in addition if we had breakdowns or any
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other issues or one Crews running behind
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uh those crews could help each other out
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so that was the the ability to minimize
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that non-billable drive time not having
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to send a crew out um one of our values
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there was no crew left behind so we
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always worked together to help each
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other uh with those jobs so the first
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thing we want to do is take all of our
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jobs assign them to a crew and I would
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sign them for a reoccurring uh job
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probably on a Sunday or Saturday where
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we’re not scheduling any work Sunday is
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probably the closest day I picked that
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up from one of our Deep dive coaches we
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used to do Monday but I think Sunday
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would be the closest day and then you
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kind of Chunk them out off that one
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Sunday uh Monday Tuesday Wednesday
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Thursday if you’re doing five days a
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week Friday so we’re gonna get those all
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in there
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and drive those in uh second part of the
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question if I’m inferring from the
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Facebook question is how do we actually
Custom Fields
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go in and make sure we’ve got uh the
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different information there based on
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Commercial residential square footage so
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we can go into custom Fields here and
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what I’m going to suggest is you’ve got
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a Turf square footage column under the
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column there’s going to be something
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square footage if you’re tracking it
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right here
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and that would be the true square
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footage of those properties so that’s
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going to be one of the things we want to
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do once we have that we’re going to go
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into
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um
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the dispatch board area here and this
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may take a while to update just based on
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the amount of volume that data is in
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there but up near the top here we want
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to go in and create a view and before we
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do that we’d go into resources and
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correct a filter down to uh this year
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2023 list so that is probably the
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process I would go in and then chunk
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them off so everything we sell from now
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till March or April we chunk them in
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there right before the season starts we
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drop them in now second part of the
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question was Mike well how do we how do
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we do that to make an Ensure
Building a Crew
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profitability so early in the video I
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talked about our fertilizing crew was
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about 1250 to 1300 a day in annual
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revenue so all we want to do is actually
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build out a crew here based on the
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number of people on the crew how many
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hours we’re budgeting a day
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um the average wage for that mowing crew
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the labor burden or overhead recovery in
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our profit markup so we know based on
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this our daily labor costs are 852 with
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a 15 or 20 profit margin built in our
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truck trailer cost us ten dollars ten
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cents ten hours a day overhead recovery
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is 1.25 and we’ve got our 20 profit
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margin so truck and trailer is 152.
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mowers on the crew while they’re being
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utilized cost is 73 bucks and our
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maintenance equipment package weed
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whackers blower stick edgers are all
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bundled in there so what we’ve got is a
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daily sales goal for this mowing crew uh
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needs to be routed for eleven hundred
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dollars here uh one thousand one hundred
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two dollars it’s costing us 918 and
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we’re budgeting for 20 hours and based
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on that data and the profit goals and
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the overhead recovery uh it’s costing us
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45.90 break even before make a profit so
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in order to get a 20 net margin we need
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to be charging 55 bucks an hour so those
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that’s the actual data that you need
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um when we go to take those routes and
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build them out what is the projected
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revenue and budget hours we need to work
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around those numbers as well
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um so it’s not only that we have routes
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that are profitable and dense but we
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have a non-emotional number of Revenue
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and budget hours that we assign to that
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particular
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crew so once we’ve got them in on the
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dispatch board and we take all those
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um clients here
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and add them into our holding 2023
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mowing bucket and then right before the
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season we take these guys and chunk them
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out and route we want to go back to the
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uh equipment calculator here from simple
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growth and take a look at it and say
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okay based on that crew or division we
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need to be budgeting or at least routing
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eleven hundred dollars and budgeting 20
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Mana so it’s a 10 hour day for two guys
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so those are the things we need to do
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I’m going to take quick three to four
Budgeting
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minutes and kind of show you what goes
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into these numbers just so you can
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understand how it was actually uh
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derived at so the first thing we did is
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we looked at our average wage for
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that division tax and crew leaders what
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is their wage and how many hours are
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they budgeted for for the whole entire
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season upstate New York is going to be
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around 1800 hours so what we’ve done is
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said okay five percent of my payroll I’m
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projecting is gonna be overtime to my
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average wage across all of those
10:18
employees is 23.88 and we’ve gone and
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figured out our labor burden which
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fictitiously in this example is 19
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percent
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so we know now what our average wages
10:29
and our labor burned across there next
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thing we do is we break down that
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equipment so how much is a truck costing
10:36
us that 2500 truck our GMC or Chevy 2500
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and we’ve got that down at 7.78
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including oil changes maintenance
10:46
repairs and replacement uh we’ve gone in
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and grabbed our trailer uh built that
10:50
out right down to
10:52
um gas repairs oil changes Tire all
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that’s included
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um obviously no gas on that trailer it’s
10:58
costing us 2.23 and then we’ve gone into
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our mowers and machines so we’ve got a
11:03
60 inch mower here on that Crew That’s
11:06
run as five dollars and 17 cents and
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then we’d go into a maintenance package
11:11
here uh where that would include the
11:13
weed whacker stick edgers and blowers
11:15
that’s two dollars and 18 cents so what
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we’ve done is through a budgetary
11:19
process now
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um driven all that data in here and not
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emotionally no we need to charge 1100 a
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day and routed work and we cannot go
11:28
over 20 budgeted hours so uh once we get
11:31
all those jobs off the mapping system
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service autopilot we saved that bucketed
11:36
list we start to chunk them out
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we need to start to go in and Route them
11:42
and then through the navigation area
11:44
here we can start to take a look at some
11:46
of those selected resources and hit go
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and that’s going to actually give us the
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idea of how much drive time is there
11:52
billboard non-billable and see how that
11:54
plays into our budgeted hours and our
11:57
projected Revenue so those are the
11:58
things I’m looking at as I’m going into
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the new year take all the accounts stick
12:02
them on a holding account uh get real
12:04
with your financials and go in there and
12:07
as well as depending on what kind of
12:08
overhead recovery model or number you’re
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looking at to get that break even number
12:12
make sure you’re taking a look at that
12:14
Debt Service those long payable
12:16
long-term payable notes that are hanging
12:17
out those truck loans equipment loans
12:19
that you may have those are not going to
12:21
show up on your profit loss statement
12:23
but where they are going to go show up
12:25
is on your balance sheet so we do want
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to make sure that we are accounting for
12:29
that debt service because a lot of
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companies on paper are making money
12:32
profitably but they’re cash poor flow
12:35
cash flow poor because their Debt
12:38
Service is out of wax you want to take a
12:40
look at that as we’re putting the
12:41
schedule together final note here is
Route Density
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if you’re going into your CRM leads or
12:48
clients here and you pull up those
12:50
clients he mentioned about route density
12:53
and how do we go in and tackle that once
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you go into the CRM leads I would highly
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recommend taking a look in these
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neighborhoods of your clients and filter
13:01
that down to
13:03
um
13:04
your team here or your customers and be
13:09
able to go in and take a look at what
13:11
services they have and if it’s a
13:14
reoccurring service so filter it down
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but basically
13:18
go to the map
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and once you have that map up you can
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click this little guy here that’s going
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to pull up the same dots but it’s a
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little bit different here so once we
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have that mowing route labeled here and
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you may want to uh
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tag them as a 2023 mowing customer for
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database segmentation but we may drive
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right in here and say okay where where
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are my little light on density or where
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do I have a lot of houses and I need to
13:47
build some more density so this little
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block here is pretty dense but it could
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definitely get a little better so if we
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went into the satellite view we can go
13:55
in now and drive right down into the
13:58
other houses on the street
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foreign start to cherry pick these and
14:04
by clicking on
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these houses here
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and dropping pins on them
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as you can see in the lot the addresses
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are come up so that’s where we can go in
14:17
and start to build databases of the
14:20
houses that are near in the
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neighborhoods where your blue pins are
14:23
here of your existing clients start to
14:25
build route density and now’s a great
14:27
time to go out and measure those online
14:28
and send it to property specific pricing
14:30
to them on the end on the envelope as
14:34
the address lawn mowing customer so this
14:36
is how we grew a really good density in
14:38
my company and created some domination
14:40
in these markets because we were able to
14:42
build databases of the existing leads so
14:45
not only do we want to schedule the
14:46
existing and pull the cancels off and
14:49
the new one’s on we probably want to
14:51
also go in this time of year and create
14:52
some route density uh by building
14:54
leadless and sending property specific
14:56
mailers so hopefully that was helpful
14:58
how to go in and reroute your schedules
15:01
to minimize that non-billable drive time
15:03
create efficiency and don’t be afraid to
15:04
do that for the first two to four weeks
15:06
of the Season as we did in our company a
15:09
huge bottom line effect by minimizing
15:11
that drive time and then go in through
15:12
the lead screen and create
15:14
um additional leads by clicking on those
15:16
houses to build more route density in
15:18
the light areas in between or the areas
15:20
where you’re already dense to continue
15:21
that density so we’ll see again at
15:22
Callahan’s corner you ask the questions
15:24
we had some live right here on Facebook