00:00
You’re listening to the Simple Growth Podcast. The show that
00:03
helps business owners get their life back. Here’s your host,
00:06
Mike Callahan. Welcome back to the SA Weekly Talk Show. Your
00:11
host, Mike Callahan right here coming in a little bit earlier
00:13
right before the holiday weekend coming up in the states
00:17
and uh happy Canada Day for our Canadian viewers as well. Uh
00:21
missed last week cuz I’ve been really knee deep in uh helping
00:24
people as a certified adviser of Service Autopilots set up
00:27
their systems with uh two-day, one-on-one deep dives but
00:31
really important I thought to get back and answer some of the
00:33
questions that have been presubmitted for the SA Weekly
00:37
Talk Show. So, what we’re gonna be talking about today, I’m
00:39
gonna open up my screen and dive into it but what we’re
00:41
really gonna talk about is um the office workflow. So, one
00:44
service autopilot is set up. How do we utilize a
00:48
standardized workflow? So, if you have separate admin or
00:51
different people working in your office or maybe you have a
00:53
manager working in the field and out of the field. How do we
00:55
create a predictable workflow to make sure the data intake
00:59
and the call intake from leads and estimates and everything
01:02
else that goes on in your office is standardized. So,
01:05
what I like to call it is the six to eight screens of
01:07
success. So, we’re gonna do is take all the features and
01:10
functions of service autopilot. Once it’s fully set up and
01:13
consolidate a standardized workflow for predictable
01:16
results and um a process that the business owner and manager
01:20
doesn’t have to babysit and if the business owner or manager
01:23
is still working in the office or in the field, that’s totally
01:25
fine. What this is gonna do is streamline your and start to
01:29
buy some of that time back. So, without any further delay, what
01:32
I’m gonna do is open up um a slide deck here. I had some
01:37
problems with my second monitor so it’s actually gonna have
01:38
some previous slides on the left but uh nonetheless, you
01:42
will be able to see exactly what I’m talking about and how
01:44
to actually build this um system in your business inside
01:48
Service Autopilot. So, uh I’m really excited to show you this
01:53
but basically, we’re gonna talk about to get your service
01:55
autopilot pilot ready for twenty twenty-one. So, La times
01:58
in the spring season we have an influx of work our offices
02:02
aren’t necessarily set up for success uh we’re kinda
02:05
scrambling to get it going but right now going in uh to July
02:08
is really probably one of the best times to do that cuz
02:11
things are gonna start to slow down if the holiday season um
02:14
far as the craziness let’s focus on getting process and
02:18
systems built in and built uh with a process before things
02:22
ramp back up the end of August into September again and in
02:25
addition what we find is most business owners here after the
02:28
will start to take their foot off the gas pedal. Whether it’s
02:31
working on the systems in the business or even in the sales
02:34
inside the business. So, really it’s important right now to
02:37
dial in and really accelerate because bottom line profits are
02:41
made in Qthree and especially Q four. So, rolling into just the
02:45
beginning of uh Qthree, quarter three. If you’re watching this
02:49
starting in July, this is a prime time to actually dial
02:51
this in and get this going for yourself. So, uh without any
02:55
further delay, I’m gonna kinda walk through and build this
02:57
out. So, First thing, we wanna look at what are the key
02:59
factors for better profits with Service Autopilot in twenty
03:02
twenty-one. So, we wanna be able to create estimates and
03:04
ensure profits, have jobs with budgeted times that can be
03:07
tracked for accountability, jobs, um that have job costing
03:12
and overhead recovery built into them. A process ensures
03:15
that budgets are being reviewed daily. So, we’re gonna review
03:17
how we do this in the office. Public accountability and
03:20
rewarded team members based on production and quality. So, we
03:23
not only want a production standard but a quality standard
03:26
to go having systems that track and report this automatically
03:30
for you. So, one thing that is kinda crazy is we’ve got all
03:34
this data coming into the software and it’s really um
03:37
it’s really important for us to use especially if you’ve got
03:40
good data in and good data coming out, we need to go in
03:43
and actually take the time to look at it. Well, um either
03:46
later today or on the next essay weekly, depending on the
03:48
time constraints here, I will actually show you how to get
03:50
this out data out of essay automatically for even able to
03:54
make those financial decisions and be able to see where you’re
03:56
at every day every week, every month, and at the end of the
03:58
year and at the end of that, we wanna be able to set a process
04:02
for raising prices with no emotions. So, based on the
04:04
actual job, not just going out haphazardly and raising our
04:07
prices $5 a visit or a percentage across the board.
04:10
Wanna be able to take that data inside service autopilot and be
04:14
able to raise our prices too depending on average uh with no
04:17
emotion. So, those are the things we’re gonna be talking
04:18
about but the main thing we’re gonna be focusing on today is
04:22
what is the workflow in the office leading up to these
04:25
things to create success and then I’ll have another um
04:28
probably next week, the SA Weekly Talk Show will go over
04:30
how do we actually take all this data with the standardized
04:34
system and automate it and go in and uh have price raising
04:37
and things like that. So, that’s what we’re gonna be
04:40
diving into. So, what we wanna do is standardize our lead
04:43
intake for predictable and scalable results. So, uh back
04:46
in the day, we were running all the estimates out of the
04:48
estimate truck here. So, we had a printer, we had a laptop, and
04:52
a WiFi connection. We’re running service autopilot
04:54
literally right out of the truck. Uh on the other side of
04:58
the screen here, you can see, uh this is me actually at a uh
05:02
print house where we went out and sent uh probably about
05:06
forty to $45,000 of direct mail uh to properties um that were
05:12
surrounding our existing client base as well as every door
05:16
every door direct mailings to all the neighborhoods that we
05:20
serviced and the surrounding neighborhoods around them but
05:23
as we went in and exploded the lead intake and the estimate
05:27
request, we needed a process. So, you can’t mail out
05:31
forty-five, forty to $45,000 worth of advertising in thirty
05:35
to 35 days and um not have a process in place to handle it.
05:39
So, this is one thing that I learned uh when I actually went
05:42
to Service Autopilot’s original office from Jonathan, the
05:45
co-founder of Service Autopilot and of the Lawn Care
05:47
Millionaire. Well, Jonathan um helped me kinda develop this
05:52
process because basically, I went to their office before we
05:56
went really nuts and blew past a million. I wanted to make
05:59
sure the office and the workflow Inside Service
06:01
Autopilot was set up in such a way that it could handle the
06:05
load of calls coming in and we could provide a great customer
06:08
experience externally for our leads and clients as well as
06:11
internally for our staff and not have them go crazy. So,
06:14
after four or 5 years after meeting with Jonathan, this is
06:18
the process I refined in my office and we help now other
06:21
companies do this as well as a certified adviser but the first
06:24
place you wanna start looking at is and it seems very
06:26
simplistic and if you already have service autopilot, this
06:28
may seem like review but Trust me, this is where the benefit
06:32
comes in and this is where we go in and train all the new
06:36
admin that we work with to this process. So, this is a very,
06:39
very important thing but we should be going into the green
06:42
plus icon here and adding a lead. So, we’re always entering
06:45
a new person in the systems, a lead, not a client. Reason
06:48
being is we wanna be able to go in and be able to see how many
06:51
people are leads that can become a client and then how
06:53
many people are a closed-out lead that are beyond the point
06:56
of no return and then through marketing, we can actually go
06:58
out and nerd them and then upsell them a service when
07:03
they’re ready to buy but the idea is we need to get their
07:06
first name and last name in here. If it’s a commercial
07:08
client, we’re putting the company’s name in here and
07:11
we’re going in and filling out the service address that’s
07:14
gonna automatically populate the billing address and we
07:17
wanna make sure that we have um Email and II recommend putting
07:23
all the phone numbers in the cellphone field because it is
07:26
going to be able to tap into two-way texting natively in the
07:29
message center as well as automations. Now, if it’s not a
07:32
cellphone, that’s okay. Eventually, it may turn into a
07:34
cellphone because Most landlines are going to voice
07:37
over IP which acts like a cellphone, receive, and send
07:41
text messaging as well as most landlines are now going to
07:44
cellphones as well. So, that’s kind of the main area that we
07:46
need to take a look at here. One other thing while I’m
07:49
looking at master property, if you have one master property,
07:53
let’s say a management group, we have multiple subproperties
07:55
below that, you can hit that in all your properties. So, you
07:58
can assign that to a master property. If it’s a new
08:01
property underneath a master property. So, next thing is
08:04
under the tab. We always wanna go in into in the account type,
08:09
commercial or residential. Even if you do only one of the other
08:12
residential or commercial, highly recommend you putting
08:14
this in here. Reason being, it’s great for database
08:17
segmentation for your marketing. So, automating um
08:21
residential, commercial, uh different marketing through
08:24
automations. You can have different communication versus
08:27
residential commercial and it’s also a great place to start to
08:30
segment your reporting as well. So, by clicking this, you can
08:33
dial into the uh report center by Logi Inside Service
08:37
Autopilot and really dial into your commercial and residential
08:40
work as well. So, I’ve that is a major thing that we wanna
08:43
take a look at and have our team do. So, if we go back,
08:47
first, we’re filling this in, first name, last name, company,
08:49
name, service, address, billing address, Email, cellphone. Next
08:54
tab across the top is details, commercial to residential and
08:57
then the third tab is the uh billing tab if we wanted to go
09:01
in here. Actually, we need, we skipped one here. So, we’re
09:04
down to the bottom, we’re going to the third tab, the sales tab
09:07
source. How do they hear about us? Was it from the Everydoor
09:10
Direct Mailing? Was it a refer by a client that already exist.
09:13
We wanna go and be able to track how did they hear about
09:15
us? Once again, we’re going into the reports later and say,
09:18
how many people came from this marketing source? What was the
09:22
ad spend? And then we’re gonna be able to figure out what is
09:24
the conversion ratio. So, from lead to client, per marketing
09:27
source and we’re gonna get a average client acquisition cost
09:32
from that and once again, a client lifetime value. So, a
09:36
Facebook ad may cost you $150 to get a new client and they
09:40
maybe worth say a to $10,000 on average where a home adviser ad
09:44
may cost you $30 to get the client but they’re only worth
09:47
two to $300 on average so obviously the higher cost of
09:51
acquisition through Facebook is higher but the client lifetime
09:54
value is probably gonna be better than let’s say
09:56
HomeAdvisor ad um obviously making this up fictitiously
10:00
each market’s different how that’s gonna run out but you
10:02
get the idea but the cool thing is if your admin is sticking
10:05
this in twelve to 8 months from now you’re gonna have all that
10:08
data your fingers have automatically pulled up through
10:11
I’ll show you some screenshots of those reports. This is how
10:13
we build a marketing system. So, a lot of times we’re just
10:16
haphazardly right down on a piece of paper in the office.
10:19
We need to get this in and take it in in a standardized way.
10:22
I’m gonna show you another way to do that with a phone intake
10:25
form but we wanna tackle those areas and then last thing, once
10:29
they become a client, um we can take a look at it. We have
10:32
billing here and this is where that’s gonna be. So, we can set
10:34
when to invoice. So, whether it’s daily, weekly, monthly, or
10:37
custom day of the week. Say that the fifteenth of every
10:39
month if that’s on you need to do in your business but this is
10:42
where we can override the defaults of the system and then
10:46
we have office notes as well so those are the main areas that
10:49
we’re training in admin to for basic workflow that’s
10:52
streamlined but once again we’re really only working one
10:54
tab in the system we’re gonna consolidate that workflow down
10:57
to the sixty-eight screens of success now the next thing is
11:00
if you’re using uh Pro Plus in service autopilot highly
11:04
recommended that’s the automations part it’s gonna
11:07
give you the ability to marketing uh automations in to
11:10
automate up to five of these reports that we’re looking at.
11:13
You can have them automatically Emailed daily, weekly, monthly,
11:16
quarterly, whatever you want but that pro plus subscription
11:19
is gonna be a valuable marketing. It’s gonna give you
11:21
this A for auto assist and it’s gonna give you the ability to
11:24
automate up to five reports and the main thing here is that we
11:29
want to go in under this A for auto assist and this is a
11:32
shortcut key. So, this is ideal, ideal because we’re once
11:36
we’re working this lead or client screen, we’re not going
11:38
in and trying to click on a bunch of things to get where
11:41
we’re at. We’re gonna streamline the workflow. Once
11:43
again, we’re working the same screen and we’re gonna get that
11:46
admin trained up as quick as possible. So, what I’ve got is
11:48
a fillable lead sheet or phone intake form here and we click
11:52
that and what that’s gonna do is literally go in. So, Debbie
11:56
Sardone of Cleaning Business Fundamentals, CBF has allowed
11:58
us to share this uh but we make this for lawn care and home
12:01
cleaning companies, pest control, uh but this is
12:04
something that um I kinda developed when I was using
12:07
Service Autopilot. My and now they’re helping people set it
12:10
up is that we really wanna create a standardized form. So,
12:15
first name, last name, cellphone. If they didn’t
12:18
select how they heard about us, we’re gonna ask about that. Is
12:20
this a one-timer ongoing service? Are you looking for
12:23
weekly or biweekly mowing or weekly or biweekly cleaning? Um
12:27
have you ever hired a professional before? What’s
12:30
important when hiring a professional? So, you get the
12:32
idea. We’re going in and grabbing the information that
12:34
you need um standardized from your admin staff and basically,
12:39
this can be um saved and call fields on the back end and
12:43
easily located um on the bottom of the leader client screen. So
12:46
once again, we’re working one screen fully systematized and
12:49
it can be delegated for predictable results. We can
12:51
train somebody within five to 10 minutes how to fill this
12:53
form out and then they’re getting the information you
12:56
need each and every time. Next thing is a lot of people when
13:00
we work with them uh do not have website lead captures. So,
13:03
they may have a WordPress form or something with Wix uh but
13:06
basically, what you really need to do in my opinion is go into
13:09
forms and autopilot um and go in and create an estimate
13:13
request form and that estimate request form is going to be
13:19
placed on your website. So, the published tab and you give the
13:22
stripped HGML codes, your webmaster. They’re mobile
13:25
responsive. They work great. Uh we have a couple of people up
13:27
here that have given us uh permission to share some of the
13:30
stuff that we’ve built with them or they’re using uh
13:32
Garrett Matthews out of Shreveport, Louisiana. Uh this
13:35
is a service autopilot form. So, you put your first name,
13:37
last name, some information, what services you’re interested
13:39
in and then at goes in its segments, a short-term nurture,
13:42
and based on the service they’re interested in and it
13:45
also notifies somebody in your office through a ticket now or
13:48
a to-do basically to go out and get that estimate done. Other
13:53
thing I really recommend is tying in your service autopilot
13:55
forms into your social media and bots. So, uh one of the
13:59
next shifts for if you saw my essay um talk virtually last
14:03
year, we talked about the new shift in buying. So, we’re
14:06
talking about on-demand buying with the expansion of and
14:10
everything being accelerated. So, your Ubers, your Netflix,
14:12
your Amazon. They figured this out. Well, lawn care and home
14:15
cleaning companies or service businesses can do this as well.
14:17
So, what we’re looking at is Rob Treppandale here of
14:20
Treppandale Landscape has got it dialed in but Rob has a bot
14:23
on his social media here. Um and this is what we’ve built
14:27
out for ’em but it ties in the service autopilot and
14:29
automatically syncs all the data in the service autopilot
14:32
including property specific pricing. So, what we’ve done is
14:35
built this bot out. It goes through uh an API where two
14:38
softwares can talk. It pulls the information from the square
14:41
footage of the lawn or the property into the bot and
14:45
automatically calculates a price based on Rob’s pricing in
14:48
a price matrix. So, once we’re again, we’re taking that bot
14:51
for on-demand buying and sinking it with service
14:53
autopilot and pumping the lead information in and potentially
14:57
the new client information where they can sign up
14:59
automatically through the bot in the essay. So, no double
15:01
entry and we’re eliminating that multiple system chaos.
15:05
Now, it’s not only for social media uh Rob has entrusted us
15:10
to actually get this on his website. So, we gave him the
15:12
code and now he has a live bot on a social and his website.
15:16
So, live on demand quoting, signing up, and then it sinks
15:19
into service autopilot and triggers um the additional
15:22
tickets and information that needs to happen with that new
15:25
job sold over the bot, social media, uh Facebook, Instagram,
15:30
and the website. Now, the last thing you hear is best practice
15:32
is um an exit pop up on the website for that bot. So, this
15:37
literally when it you hover to get off that website, maybe go
15:39
to the your next competitor, um this pops up, Get an instant
15:43
quote and that happens within two to 3 minutes but the idea
15:45
is we wanna have all these different entry ports being
15:48
standardized into service autopilot, no double entry, and
15:51
duplicate checking. So, the way we’ve done this is we’ve used a
15:55
Vthree form with dupe checking and synced uh Facebook
15:58
Messenger bots, and the estimate request from the
16:01
website and we drive them all in the service autopilot for
16:04
standardized intake where the admin would take over now. Now,
16:07
next thing is, if you’re using this uh on the Messenger
16:10
platform or even an SA, what we’re gonna recommend is SMS,
16:15
um text messaging, So, we can actually take that bot and
16:19
still sync it with service autopilot but they don’t have
16:21
to be on your website or social media. They can actually text
16:24
AA number um or use a QR code and actually go through the
16:29
same automated online um on demand buying estimate through
16:34
text message and we can use this on our websites, vehicles,
16:38
mailers, nine arounds, and door hangers. Um so, this is a great
16:41
way to create another area of online, on-demand buying of
16:46
estimating and then drive it in service autopilot with no
16:48
duplicate or with no with no duplicates. Basically, it’s
16:50
duplicate checking and it triggers a ticket or to do in
16:53
the system for someone in the office to make sure it’s
16:56
followed up on what should happen happens each and every
16:58
time. So, really, really important in my mind when we
17:01
train this out and build this out in your office. We’ve got
17:04
the website, social media, Instagram, text messaging, and
17:08
QR codes all now being synced into service autopilots. Visual
17:13
clues. So, once again, we don’t want a death by a thousand
17:16
clicks. If we’re not training a new admin, they’re gonna go and
17:18
build their own kind of workflow. Well, I recommend
17:21
kind of using this workflow and you may tweak it for your
17:24
office but this is what we’ve done with hundreds of people
17:26
here um and at SA six, when I gave my talk, this is exactly
17:31
what I was talking about with Chris Folky who um now works
17:34
with launch and support. They’re doing an amazing job
17:36
over there at Service Autopilot um but really as a certified
17:39
adviser, I’m trying to come in and and help uh build a
17:42
workflow at least expose the workflow that uh we used in my
17:46
seven-figure business as well. Um Aaron says, love this.
17:50
Aaron, thanks for the feedback, brother. I hope this is
17:52
helpful. So, uh next thing is if the when you’re searching
17:56
here on the magnifying glass, you’ve got basically four types
17:59
of people in the system. So, you have a lead and that’s that
18:03
little avatar of the person with the red L. Now, what I’m
18:07
gonna recommend is if we lose an estimate and they don’t have
18:10
a service with us, we’re gonna close that lead out and there
18:13
would be no avatar. So, you’ve either got a lead or a closed
18:16
lead. Now, we can see them but when we go into the this uh
18:19
magnifying glass. Now, we have visual clues. So, the other
18:21
visual clue is this long uh gray bar here. So, we can see
18:26
that that long gray bar is another visual clue that it’s a
18:28
lead because when they become a client, there’s three distinct
18:31
columns. So, once again, we’re training visual clues to
18:34
minimize the clicks and really stay focused on these
18:37
sixty-eight screens of success. Now, on the left here, you can
18:40
see this red L, that’s a lead. There’s nothing here. This is a
18:43
closed lead, the little avatar, the person but not next to it
18:47
is a client and now that avatar with a diagonal slashed through
18:51
it is a cancelled client. So, now, we’ve created a
18:53
segmentation for reporting and visual clues where people are
18:56
at. Now, if someone cancels and they come back and become a
18:59
client, we can convert that cancelled client back into a
19:02
client or we can take the close lead and convert it back into a
19:04
lead, estimate it, and that event These are the different
19:08
areas for reporting that are really important. So, we’ve set
19:11
the foundational workflow um all the way through. Now,
19:16
action items for success, this can be done in Vtwo or Vthree.
19:21
Both work really well. Uh we actually use uh with Simple
19:25
Growth as a certified adviser. We use the Vthree forms
19:27
exclusively for website lead capture. Um they’ve got a
19:31
couple extra things in there that work especially duplicate
19:34
checking um and a code and that can be manipulated uh a little
19:38
bit more uh but the main things you’re looking at whether it’s
19:41
Vtwo or Vthree uh I’m gonna stick with Vthree here um you
19:45
want your first name and last name in here they need to be
19:47
mapped back right here to first name last name the address
19:51
needs to be mapped back to service address so when the
19:54
software sees that information filled in it maps it back to
19:57
the particular leader client um other thing that you’re gonna
20:00
need to do is we want to maybe create some tags on submit so
20:04
if we have some tags um basing on what services they want. We
20:09
wanna auto approved create on submit and we wanna create and
20:12
submit the the uh lead on submit. So, if that auto auto
20:16
approved create on submit and create on submit is not
20:19
checked, that form basically will take a snapshot of it and
20:22
they’ll be sitting on the leader client’s record but that
20:25
data as far as the custom fields or the variables that
20:28
you’re collecting will not sit on the actual leader client’s
20:31
record when we’re going down and looking at. So, once again,
20:34
we wanna minimize the clicks and just streamline the We
20:36
gotta have that all hooked up once before we deploy them and
20:40
that’s gonna be also for your phone intake form as well. So,
20:44
action items for success, we wanna learn about why we’re
20:49
winning and losing these estimates and the reasons. So,
20:51
we wanna go to the gear icon in the upper right hand corner and
20:55
we’re gonna go into estimate reasons right here and these
20:57
are the estimate reasons. So, you can add an estimate reason.
21:00
So, if someone wins an estimate or loses, you’re asking like,
21:04
hey, missus Smith, you don’t be asking, why did you hire us? Or
21:06
hey, uh unfortunately, you’re not going with this but if you
21:09
don’t mind me asking, why are you not going with us? Well,
21:12
They decided to do themselves. They gave the business to a
21:15
friend. We were too expensive. We never got back to ’em in
21:18
time. What are these issues so we can start to track and see
21:21
why we’re winning and losing work. There may be some issues
21:23
that we can dial in once we have some data on it to
21:26
actually go and improve our customer service and workflow.
21:29
But if we don’t track it, we don’t know. Data talks, emotion
21:32
walks. So, next thing is the cancel service reason. So, when
21:36
people cancel your service, we probably should be um asking
21:41
them why they cancel. A pro tip as we started the scale,
21:45
obviously, you’re gonna lose customers. Um here and there.
21:47
It doesn’t matter how good your service is. Eventually,
21:50
everyone’s gonna cancel at some point. Um so, why not put a
21:54
process in place for that admin or manager has to get on the
21:57
phone with them before they can cancel. So, there’s two reasons
21:59
why we do this. A, we’re gonna make sure that that admin or
22:02
manager is gonna track why they’re cancelling so we know
22:04
and I’m gonna show you some stats here in a bit. Um the
22:07
other reason is like, you may be able to save that
22:10
cancellation or churn uh just by having a conversation and
22:14
maybe something as stupid as the guys or girls aren’t
22:16
blowing off the back patio on a regular basis and you might
22:19
just say, hey, listen, let me let me copy a free mowing next
22:21
week and let’s make sure that’s taking care of and moving
22:24
forward. If it happens again, you know, we understand you
22:27
wanna leave but let’s try to make it right. Um but something
22:30
simple as that may be able to save a cancellation and if it
22:33
cost you 100 to $150 to get a new client, it’s worth maybe
22:37
giving up a free mowing or part of a mowing to actually fix
22:40
that problem and get ahead of it but if you just let people
22:43
cancel without having a conversation and requiring it,
22:45
my feeling is you’re missing out on a lot of opportunity to
22:48
save cancellations. So, why do estimate one and loss
22:53
cancellations reason? Well, we kinda talk about this before
22:55
but we really wanna see the trends why people are hiring us
22:59
and why they’re not hiring us and new market trends. So, if
23:03
we weren’t tracking these numbers um and trends, we
23:07
actually started this online automated bots about five,
23:10
almost 6 years ago in my lawn care company um but we started
23:13
to see a trend that people are buying online and requesting
23:16
more estimates online and then with Uber, Netflix, all the
23:20
other things going on that just started to shift but very
23:23
similar to Wayne Gretzky, the hockey player. Uh Wayne always
23:26
wanted to be where the puck was gonna be, not where the puck
23:28
was um and that was his key to success cuz he was looking to
23:32
the future of the game and where the play was gonna go and
23:35
not where it was at and he he he predicted with great
23:39
success. Well, I’m gonna suggest you do the same. It’s
23:41
the same thing in your business. If you don’t track
23:43
these things, you will have no benchmark to say, hey, where’s
23:46
the market going and how do I get ahead of it and be an early
23:49
adopter. That’s been one of the key success of my lawn care
23:52
company in Simple Growth is we have been um really
23:56
aggressively looking where’s the next shift in buying or
23:59
technology. Uh automation is still somewhat new in the
24:02
service industry. Believe it or not, uh I’m going on probably
24:06
nine or 10 years at least of automating my lawn care
24:09
business and that was a huge shift. no1 in my market knew
24:12
what we’re doing or what the success was coming from um but
24:15
it was automations. It was automating of those nine
24:18
arounds and all the different things we do and talk about but
24:21
taking a look at it right now, if you haven’t jumped on the
24:24
automations bandwagon, it’s probably a good time to do that
24:26
with ProPlus and Service Autopilot because that’s where
24:30
the market is but it’s still early adapters. So, there’s a
24:33
lot of time to adapt. Um but without this data, some of that
24:36
stuff may not uh might not be as um So, next thing is action
24:42
items, we wanna add our cancellation reasons and how we
24:46
do that is we go to the gear icon um and cancellation
24:48
reasons here and we we go in and put this in here. So,
24:53
standardizing the workflow to create predictable success. Um
24:56
so, when we go into the gear or the report center, uh in the
25:01
report center, there is, I’ll have a screenshot here in a
25:03
minute but basically, on the left, there’s a little icon
25:05
that looks like a toaster oven. The numbers that we’re gonna
25:07
take start to look at is how many leads were generated, how
25:12
many, how many of Those leads were converted into a client.
25:15
What is the percentage from lead to client? So, converting
25:18
a new prospect into a paying client and cancellation, so
25:23
churn, how many people cancel and why are they cancelling?
25:26
So, that’s why those cancellation reasons are
25:28
important and what’s the average percent of new growth
25:30
um from twenty to twenty-one and and let’s take a look at it
25:34
cuz a lot of us probably at this point just have our heads
25:36
down and we haven’t looked yet. We’re just going, going, going
25:39
but let’s take a half a day or maybe over the holiday weekend
25:41
and see where at compared to last year and where we growing
25:44
and where we are growing. Uh so this is right out of one of our
25:47
sample test accounts but we had some fictitious data here of
25:50
2015 through twenty twenty. So it looks like this test client
25:55
basically would be they just started out in twenty fifteen.
25:57
They had thirty-four leads and 100% of them turned new
26:00
clients. Probably on if this was a real client. They or
26:03
company they would probably be under pricing and just winning
26:06
all the work. Not uncommon. Now we bumped up to 101 and we won
26:09
ninety-six. We’re closing 95% of our estimates. Probably same
26:13
thing. We have a worked out our pricing and we’re probably
26:15
basing it on market pricing. What we think the market will
26:18
demand. What we really need to go is what is our hourly cost
26:21
to operate with a percentage profit margin built in with a
26:26
realistic paycheck for the business owner. Um and then
26:30
what is it with at least a fair market value of the business
26:33
owner’s expense. So now you kinda probably get a little
26:35
savvy in twenty seventeen. Uh we’re invested some money and
26:39
now we’re at a 57% close ratio. So 57% of the estimates were
26:42
winning uh income clients. That’s probably pretty
26:46
realistic. So now, this happens when uh itty bitty company
26:49
kinda starts moving up. You got 271 estimates basically you put
26:52
out that year. At least for new leads. Now, you double down and
26:57
your conversion ratio goes down to 51% but you got 461 leads or
27:02
prospects. Um and we’re hovering around fifty percent.
27:05
That’s probably okay. Fifty to sixty-five percent. Um some
27:08
would argue that maybe your prices are too low but if
27:10
you’re doing this correctly, and you automate it, you follow
27:13
up uh five or more times cuz statistically, 80% of all your
27:16
estimates are closed on five or more communications. I’m
27:19
recommending they should be Email text and phone calls or
27:22
ringless voicemail bombs but now we’re we’re driving into
27:25
twenty nineteen. We got 869 estimates um and we’ve
27:29
converted at forty-one percent. Still not too shabby at that
27:31
volume and you’re probably doing some really good um
27:34
estimating at this point. Now, in twenty twenty, fictitiously
27:38
here, you’ve got 1,100 you’re closing at thirty-five percent.
27:41
Well, probably not too shabby honestly at that number like we
27:44
probably wanna get a little bit higher but I that’s very
27:46
respectful if this was a real company. I think that that
27:48
would be that would be acceptable. Now, the issue here
27:52
is we’re not paying attention to how many people are
27:55
cancelling. So, we’re running as many people through this
27:57
basically imaginary funnel right now and just as many
28:00
people are starting to drop out and cancel. So, all the new
28:02
clients come in and old clients go out and cancel. So, we wanna
28:05
keep an eye out of not only the prospects and conversion of new
28:08
clients but we wanna look at terminations. So, it wasn’t too
28:11
bad as we’re going here um but then, from something happens
28:15
here pretty significantly between 2019 and 2020 like they
28:19
almost double. Um so, if this was a real I would look at this
28:22
‘cuz like, we’ve got some issues here. So, let’s go into
28:25
the cancellation report and see why did they cancel? What’s
28:28
going on? Is it maybe people are just moving out of the area
28:31
that you service and you can’t control that or right here, um
28:36
not happy, seventeen percent. So, increase uh year to year,
28:41
growth. They were growing pretty good here fictitiously
28:44
and then, wait a minute, we’re actually going backwards in
28:47
twenty twenty. So, these are numbers that we need to um take
28:52
a look at and your cancellation percent was about thirty,
28:55
seventeen, thirty-eight percent. Boom. Now, it jumps up
28:57
to almost seventy-five percent. You’ve almost doubled the
28:59
cancellation rate. So, this is why setting those up and
29:02
standardizing the office inflow uh work intake is really
29:05
important cuz as a business owner, manager, you really need
29:07
to see this data. Um so, why do the lead sources matter and why
29:11
do we need, what do we need to know? So, we need to know how
29:13
many of those leads come in per source, how many convert into a
29:16
client? So, once again, we need to start as client and convert
29:18
or start as a lead and convert to a client cuz those are some
29:22
of the um points where the reporting is gonna dial in for
29:25
you and then we not wanna know our client acquisition cost.
29:28
What does it cost to acquire a client per lead source and then
29:30
what’s the client? Lifetime value. So, the Facebook versus
29:33
HomeAdvisor example is basically um the example like I
29:37
now marketing is gonna become fun because if I know I take
29:40
that forty to $45,000 and spread it across my top five or
29:44
six advertising sources. On average, I should get X amount
29:46
of leads, X amount of those leads should become clients and
29:49
X amount of them uh client should last so long on average
29:53
and be worth X amount of dollars. So, this is uh the key
29:57
to getting the data in to run your marketing and sales
29:59
machine. So, how do you access report? I talked about it a
30:03
little bit earlier. We go into reports up top report center
30:07
and we go to little toaster icon here. And that is the
30:11
report that we’re pulling out. So, uh once again, out of our
30:15
test client here but we’ve our test account. We pump some data
30:19
in here uh and this just another look of the new leads
30:24
converted in conversion ratio um and then we’ve got let’s
30:27
just say Google here you had 562 leads uh 191 of them became
30:32
clients you got a conversion ratio of about thirty-four to
30:35
35% um so that is the idea we go through all our marketing
30:38
sources so we’re able to take a look at that data now and go
30:42
out and put a plan in action for next year or take a look at
30:46
this year’s um numbers and uh I’ll show you if I have time
30:50
here quick at the end how to actually put this in cuz I
30:53
don’t think I have a slide of it but the cool thing is if
30:55
you’ve been tracking your lead source You haven’t been
30:58
tracking your marketing campaigns, that will actually
31:03
allow you to go back retroactively at least this
31:06
year to get that data and get these marketing numbers for you
31:09
so you actually have it. So, that’s um in my opinion is is
31:13
really important here. So, let me uh on my other screen, see
31:18
if I can open up. That’s account for service autopilot.
31:22
Perfect. Okay. So, here’s one of the simple growth test
31:24
accounts uh but the idea here is that if you go into the gear
31:28
icon, it and go into client source. It’s not only enough to
31:34
set up the client source but what I really recommend is if
31:38
we had a door hanger campaign per se. Right here, we’d add
31:41
the campaign and we would start in. So, let’s say we had, we
31:44
did one in 2018 uh but let’s say we’re doing one in July.
31:48
We’re gonna go out for our second round of pruning in bed.
31:50
Um we’ve distributed 5,000 uh at ease here and the total
31:54
expense maybe was 1,200 bucks.
31:59
5,000 our total expense is 1,200 dollars. So now, we can
32:03
have multiple marketing campaigns in here uh but when
32:06
you assign the door hanger, whatever that is, Facebook ad
32:09
to the lead source, if it falls within the start and stop date,
32:14
this is where the client acquisition cost and closing
32:16
ratio comes based on the the distribution quantity and the
32:19
total expense and if it was an internal upsell, we could
32:21
actually track that as well. So, this is what I’m gonna
32:24
recommend you set up on the back end. So, the good news is
32:26
if you don’t have this, you can go back and put this in,
32:29
refresh the reports, and then pull the date up for this year.
32:31
So, that’s something we’ve been doing a lot of. So, you get the
32:35
idea here and now, going into the cancellations. Once again,
32:39
under that little toaster icon, cancellation count report, uh
32:42
we’re gonna go in and see how many people are dissatisfied,
32:45
pricing, are you too expensive? Um or how many people moved out
32:48
of the area. So, if you’ve got um right here, let’s see sold
32:55
house, 6% of your client base, six sells their house every
32:58
year. Well, then you know, if you wanna at least stay even
33:01
where you’re at, we need to replace six to seven of our
33:04
client base just to stay even. Now, in big markets, that’s
33:08
pretty common. You can have seven to 8% of your client base
33:11
literally just leaving and it’s totally out of your control.
33:14
So, that is one of the things we wanna take a look at. So,
33:17
that’s why we’re tracking these cancellation or cancellation
33:20
reports and if they’re dissatisfied, they lost their
33:23
job, maybe due to covid, whatever that is, now we know
33:26
so we can go out and scale that business with no emotion. So,
33:30
hopefully that was helpful. We’re always here as a
33:34
certified adviser to help you and if you have any questions
33:37
or concerns, feel free to free to hit us up. We are still
33:40
doing Audits at SG dash Audit.com uh but the main idea
33:43
here is we really wanna go in and um help you grow and scale
33:49
your business uh with service autopilot and create that
33:53
predictable workflow inside your office literally from lead
33:56
acquisition and tracking all the information. So, good data
34:00
in, good data out obviously. Uh the other thing that I find
34:03
with uh most softwares that I work with is no data in, no
34:07
data out. So, I wanna make sure that we’re getting the data we
34:09
need to make those decisions down the line um and by
34:12
standardizing it to basically screen with the auto assist in
34:16
Pro Plus, that is gonna take your administrative staff’s
34:18
learning curve and shrink it down significantly. On the next
34:22
episode or in 2 weeks or next week, I’m gonna probably go in
34:26
and dial in the remainder of the workflow for the office.
34:29
So, literally, now that we’ve won the estimate, what is that
34:33
workflow look like from stem to stern? So, we’ve really gone
34:36
over maybe one screen, one and a half screen as far as getting
34:39
the lead in and converting the client. Now, what does that
34:42
rest look like to really kinda consolidate that workflow. I
34:45
think that’s the key to bring a new person in any software but
34:47
especially service autopilot. If we can make it predictable
34:50
and simple with a phone intake form and standardizing
34:52
information that you need and make it predictable. Uh those
34:55
are gonna be the key success. So, comments, questions, drop
34:58
below. Wanna thank Aaron for hanging out here uh on the SA
35:01
Weekly Talk Show. Be coming to you live once again uh around 1
35:05
PM Eastern, twelve Central uh with the holiday weekend here.
35:07
Um I had one of my meetings uh had to get rebooked so I wanted
35:11
to make sure we got in here before things got created later
35:14
in the day but I’m off to my team call and hoping to see you
35:17
soon at some live conferences in GIE coming up here as well
35:21
in the future. So, as things kinda loosen up, the Simple
35:26
Grow team, myself, will be out and about making our rounds at
35:30
the hopefully some of the normal conferences as they come
35:33
about. So, we’ll see you again next week. SA Weekly Talk Show,
35:36
your host, Mike Callahan. We’ll talk to you soon. If you like
35:40
this show, you might wanna check out our resources at WWW
35:44
dot Start Simple Growth dot com. While you’re there, enter
35:48
to win an estimator chatbot. Mike Callahan is available for
35:52
private coaching.
