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The problem with the software you bought to run your business and how to fix it.

February 3, 2020

Video Transcript:

Hey Mike Callahan here, want to make a quick video a lot of people talking about software’s around the service industry and how they don’t work or they’re not setup correctly and all the issues so I’m not going to go through the laundry list of complaints regarding an industry specific software but what I am gonna do is kind of expose the truth . Now being in the lawn care industry for the last 25 years and now helping other service business owners specifically in lawn care and snow removal and believe it or not cleaning as well probably 35 or 40 percent of the people we talked to are in the clean industry so I think I’ve got an interesting perspective. The main thing is well usually it’s not the software that’s the issue now there is some pretty old outdated dinosaurs out there in the service industry there aren’t cloud-based and aren’t a good CRM customer relationship management software may not have automations or an open API but the video today really is instead of blaming the software that you have chosen as long as you made a good choice of a software platform it usually comes down to not having optimized systems and processes in the business at all or even worse if you’ve created processing systems that are not efficient and not streamlined and trying to force those broken processes or the lack of processes into a software system when you start it. In my opinion if you’re going to be successful in customer relationship management software such as Service Autopilot or any of the other ones out there in the service industry before you go out and buy it or before you go out and reinvent it and get it setup for success this season you really need to define your processes and those processes need to be streamlined literally from lead acquisition all the way through billing and fulfillment and a lot of times we see some really crazy things like maybe they want to someone does a carbon copy estimate they then go through their facts to make a copy of it and then they will scan it and put it in the back end of the software and then mainly try the estimate in the system and then instead of emailing it out they’ll print it out and do it hardcopy mail or drop it off in person when the streamlined solution would probably get them into the CRM grab the turf square footage off online measurement or home-cleaning grab the square footage of the livable area off Zillow and create an automated pricing matrix that pulls up your price budget timing cost based on your numbers so I’ve seen so many different ways of utilizing a software that actually creates 15 to 20 extra steps to the salesperson and it never gets fully implemented so it’s not the software it’s the fact that most companies do not have a set process and procedure that’s streamlined and to try to take a broken process and put it into a software system is literally setting yourself up for failure basically. What I’m gonna do over the next few videos this week is go through and define whatI would prescribe is one of the best workflows from lean acquisition through billing and fulfillment and break that down so if you don’t have a processing system right now that’s streamlined you could use this as a model and tweak it for your lawn care home cleaning business but it’s usually not the software it’s the fact that business owners don’t have the time and they don’t spend the time to get out of the day-to-day grind to set up an actual workflow process that’s systematized for the best customer experience internally and externally and what I mean by internally is a lot of times these broken processes we’re gonna consider our staff an internal customer and this broken process is probably causing turnover or at least massive frustration for your office. I want to say what’s up to Michelle at Pink Callers so Michelle runs a really streamlined process with Pink Callers it’s a virtual assistant setup and I’m sure Michelle would agree with me that sometimes as industry experts we have to take a stepback when we’re working with people in the service industry to help them know what their workflow process is because a lot of times we just do do but we don’t look from the outside as a business owner to see what a good workflow process is and then how to implement it into a software system. Like I said over the next week or two here I’m going to break down the perfect process or close to perfect process thatI would recommend to drive through a CRM but if you’re having problems with your software program right now whether it Service Autopilot job or Single Ops whatever those services are that using Zen Made there’s all pros and cons of all these software systems but the problem usually is it’s the business owner trying to put a broken system or even worse a non-existent system into the software and it’s obviously not going to work. I’m gonna highlight over the next couple videos here how to actually create a workflow process to systematize it and if you haven’t defined it then by all means take a look at this video and tweak our workflow process to your business but if you can’t standardize it it can’t be delegated and if it can’t to be delegated then the business owner is a slave to the business because they are becoming the single point of failure and usually the frustration point of their staff because you’re forcing people to get into a CRM that that’s not fully setup or optimized and the biggest issue here is once we have a CRM a customer relationship management software or an automated platform that should be set up to actually support the mission of the business so if your mission is to give the best service with quick response and support your customer throughout the buying process and then after they bought to continue to be able to follow up with good communication the issue here is is if you have it utilized the CRM to support that mission you’re not only failing your team but you’re failing your customer so I highly recommend whatever software you’re using or if you’re going to look and buy a software develop those systems and processes and then implement them into the system in most of the really good CRM around the market right now that a cloud-based will support most process and systems or some minor tweaks. Recommendation today is go out build a processing system then implement it into your CRM at Simple Growth and it Callahan’s we used to use a basically a process we call the price matrix blueprint so to take our pricing matrix and systematize that we’d actually blueprint it out and then put it into the CRM so it allowed us to visualize the process and system and then be able to execute it inside the software system without any missing link so it was optimized once we got it in there. Talk today is really just defined a processing system then put it into your CRM and then make sure it supports your mission so whatever your mission is Callahan’s Lawn Care we wanted to give you the lifestyle you desire and in the idea was that our internal client our employees wanted we want to give them the lifestyle they desired so if we was getting out of work early and spending more time with the family the softwareand the system we built was to basically promote efficiency and not be bogged down and have to work to 10 o’clock every night but you could get in get your job done and get it right and then on the flip side of that our external customer we wanted to give them the lifestyle they desired so if they wanted to be able to have the ease of hiring a service provider with transparency and go see their kids say football game or their daughter’s ballet class or whatever it may be if that’s the lifestyle they desired we gave them through the CRM the ability to go through the customer portal and see all their billing all the history the ability to communicate with us things like be there and been there so we would automatically text or email them before we went to the service and after we left they’d get an automated message but that CRM in the process supported our mission of giving our internal staff the lifestyle they desired and or external staff the lifestyle they desired another interesting example is basically our mission and Simple Growth is to help service business owners take their life back from their business sowe do this by using a CRM that automate the workflow and helps our customers streamline their process to help take their life back from the business and by that time back so that process of that CRM with automation supports our mission as an organization but if we didn’t have the process and procedure built before we bought that platform it would have never worked. Spend the time this week get away from the grind before things get real crazy here getting into spring season especially in lawn care define your systems implemented into your CRM if you haven’t bought a CRM make sure those systems will go into the CRM flawlessly or very close and make sure that CRM is one that you can go inscale into. One of the previous CRMs we were on was desktop based before we moved to Service Autopilot and I will tell you when we had to convert from that desktop base to the cloud-based software it was a lot of work and not a small undertaking so as you’re going to look at a software very similar if any of folks watch and I talked to at GIE you want to look at a platform that it’s scalable for not only where you’re at now but where you want to be in the future so don’t be short-sighted and buy something that’s not scalable to where you want to go but applicable to where you’re at now so build your systems make sure your CRM in your system supports our mission and you’ll be in good shape this upcoming season

SimpleGrowth’s Weekly Talk Show with Dani Collinson: Recruiting & Retention in the Digital Age

February 3, 2020
“Dani Collinson is the Pest Division Manager at Blades of Green where she is active in recruiting & retention in the digital age. Learn more about Dani and Blades of Green.”

 

Why your business is viewed negatively by the general public and why you need to address it.

January 31, 2020

Video Transcript:

This video is actually going to be addressing the misconceptions of your industry and how they directly affect your business . The previous video yesterday was talking about who the best is in your local market and how to basically acknowledge who the best is outside of your company if somebody else is not going to hire you. The second part of this is going out in addressing the negative connotations of your industry and even if you are the best lawn care or home cleaning or pest control business in your industry you are subject to these misconceptions. So my opinion is if we are gonna go out and differentiate ourselves to our future consumers and get that trust we need to be different unlike the misconceptions of our industries, One of the biggest things that we see in the service industry is that people don’t care about quality they don’t return phone calls they’re not professional they don’t cover insurance whatever those major concerns are around your service and your industry my suggest is going out through content marketing just like this video and create educational information for your future consumer how to go out in fact and hire a professional services. In the lawn care industry a lot of the big things that we see as issues is that the person will never call you back, they don’t show up when they should they don’t care about the quality so if you pay them and they don’t do the job right basically you’re left on your own to fix it, insurance- if something gets broken, you throw a rock through a window from a mower and inverting it’s gonna happen who’s left to be responsible to fix that well obviously if the contractor doesn’t have home insurance it’s up to the homeowner and their home insurance to actually take care of that obviously it’s not fair and that’s not the way 99% of us do business but unfortunately the 1% is what’s absolutely killing us in the service industry. So in order to gain that future trust, frame yourself as an expert and shorten that sales cycle close more sales I’d recommend going out proactively on social media create content videos or if you don’t like videos written text PDFs around these topics. An example in my business is what we did is in snow removal in upstate New York, residential snow plowing is a little bit different appearance II the third highest snowfall mark in the whole United States believe it or not we have 120 to maybe sometimes 130 or 40 inches of snow lakeside so it’s a it’s ripe for the picking for people trying to make a quick buck and rip people off. What happens is every fall without fail for the last 15 to 20 years basically people come in and pose as contractors and they literally take cash money for the whole entire season of a contract usually preying on the elderly but everybody falls victim but we’ve seen and it’s on the news people have been put away for 10-15 years in jail literally in the fall in upstate New York Rochester, Buffalo and Syracuse and this is very very common. The residential snow plowing industry in this area has a very very bad perception publicly that they can’t be trusted and even when it does hit 3 inches of snow and the trigger they’re not going to show up and if there’s an issue they’re not gonna help you they’re gonna take your money and robbed you blind. In order to combat this basically misconception or problem we’re addressing the problems upfront we created a series of videos and even Facebook ads to talk about the nine top things you need to talk about when hiring a snow removal professional in the residential industry inn Rochester New York, believe it or not this was new because no one really had I guess the thought of addressing these things head-up I’ll be honest was things I never really wanted to answer when people brought them up but they needed to be addressed so they said how do you handle payment what if there is a town or city plow that comes by and buries the drive and we can’t get out is that included in the contract is it not included in the contract? So all of these questions around the conceptual problems of the snow removal industry we addressed them up systematically stated the problem and answer them as honest as possible and then we repurposed them on different social media outlets such as YouTube Facebook Twitter and Instagram and the question or the misconception of our industry was actually the headline so it has good SEO and search ability. But one of the main examples was here is in our unlimited plowing contract it only included plowing the driveway in the unobstructed areas, people for some reason were under the misconception we could literally pick their cars up and plow underneath them obviously not happening but we addressed exactly what the service included and did include. So it included every three inches of snow we would not guarantee an exact time based on the snowfall event or potential traffic conditions we did shoot for 7:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. as clear out times for average snowfall it did not include drifts or snow from town plows or sidewalk plows that was a misconception of our consumer that we should be doing it but in the contract that we did we didn’t cover it and 99.9% of the contractors in our market didn’t cover it but that was considered by the public a problem because they assumed that we would just do it because no one up to that point really had stated what is included not included in the contracts. Addressing the problems upfront and minimized their headaches and let people to trust us because they knew exactly what they’re getting from the service so we addressed the timing issue what was included what wasn’t included upfront and the other additional problem in that industry was people literally getting robbed blind by contractor so what we did is we changed the name of the game and said we will only take credit card or check and we have to have a signed contract if you fail to have either one of those on file a contract signed aided understanding and accepting the terms of the agreement and payment and check or credit card if you gave us cash we wouldn’t take it and if you failed to even have a contract but you paid us we would literally refund your money. The biggest issue is concerned of paying a contractor for the hole in season upfront we differentiate ourselves by saying you needed a signed agreement and we need a credit card or check payment so we had written record to protect you as a consumer but by addressing these problems upfront we were different and in my opinion we gain the trust of the consumer a lot quicker than our competitors must allowed us to basically book our entire schedule to capacity usually before the middle of September. Comments or questions drop them below. Main point of the video here is our industry no matter what service industry has a bad public perception because of short few people actually go out and do what they shouldn’t be doing so if you’re willing to and I believe you should you need to go out address these problems upfront through education and if you’re not willing to address them more honestly and more transparently than your competitors than one of your competitors is going to do it and go out and win the trust of your future customer and your current customers right now. Tip of the day thought of the day go out and address the misconceptions of our industry and the problems of each type of service through education become the expert become the trusted service provider for that service and win more work in your industry. I want to say what’s up to Charlie, Bill, Sam and Jeff on our way out to another two-day deep dive in Rochester New York lawn care company coming in where we’re gonna revamp their whole entire estimating bidding and literally workflow system in the next two days here so this would be day two of two days here so pretty crazy day as we’re going to back into this but we got probably I would say close to six thousand data points that the simple growth team is just pumping into this service autopilot application so as they’re gearing up for the next twenty twenty season they understood the value that they needed a systematic estimating system to create predictable zor-el so they could delegate it to literally someone who had never done lawn care snow removal estimates and literally plug in variables out on their phone off the square footage number of shrubs any of the variables are looking at linear lengths of bed for bed edging but basically when they walk out here in the next eight to nine hours they’re gonna have an estimating system that took me six to probably seven years to build in a matter of two days so kind of crazy I absolutely love helping small business owners like myself take their life back from the business and create standardized processes for predictable results that does not involve the business owner to have all the information that had to be the singlepoint of failure because be honest in the beginning when I first started my company that was the mistake I made so it’s become my passion now to help other small business owners just like myself have that journey of a freedom based service business where they can leave at twenty to thirty days a pop and have a think run as good if not better without them and let’s be honest this is small business owners we’d like to get in there and sometime micromanage become that bottleneck of growth but by creating these predictable systems internally we’re able to overcome those growth hurdles break that million in market well behind but before we get that million market beyond those sales we need to address these five key things I’m talking to to you about the and over the next few days last one was basically literally who is the best in your market how do we address that and if people ask we’re transparent about today’s topic is going out and addressing the misconceptions of our industry and the problems associated with the services we’re providing and how we handle them differently than everybody else to be that go-to expert to be trusted. Comments or questions drop them below and we will see you at tomorrow’s video.I want to say what’s up to Matt Green as we exit the video another guy just absolutely crushing it out there so congrats brother love the content too

Who is the best in your market?

January 31, 2020
Video Transcript:
Hey Mike Callahan here with a quick video to talk about who is the best in your market so whether it’s lawn care, home cleaning, or any other service industry one of the questions that most consumers want to know, even if they can’t afford the best, who is the best? Well to put a little framing and background on this question and topic I’ve got to give you some background on the term ZMOT – zero moment of truth. What zero moment of truth is, is the time that you actually realize your future lead actually exist, according to zero moment of truth- which was an independent study done by Google and one of the top research companies in the UnitedStates and they came to separate conclusions approximately 70% of our buying decisions are made before you as the business owner know your consumers that actually exists. Before you turn the video off I’m going to suggest that your business and every other business in your market are the same and why that is is because we’re all in the business of earning the future lead or client’s trust before we know who they are. One of the five key elements that your future lead is going to want to know about before they know about you or even after they interact it is who is the best in your market so the concept of this is all service businesses are now in the game before we meet the consumer of buying and getting to know the lead that we don’t know who they are yet so we’re basically of creating trust to get them to know like and trust us before we know who they are and that is going to be done through content and video marketing that’s educational. One of the biggest questions that we’ve got and Callahan’s Lawn Care is if so let’s put an example is if we hand out a bid to someone commercial or residential and you get that very awkward question and they’re like well Mike I think we really want to go with you but if we don’t go with you who’s the best what’s the next best solution and company in the market that you would recommend and truthful be honest this is a seed I saidI’ll tell you exactly how we handled it and did it wrong in the beginning but I told this story at aASCA the snow Contractors Association in Pittsburgh Last year I’ll kind of tell you what happened which was really interesting because one of my direct competitors was actually in the audience of several hundred people obviously I didn’t see them up there but interesting perspective. What happened is when the future this potential client asked us who’s the best in your market if we don’t hire you originally we would say well we have no idea you know we’re the only person in our market that we know that doesnt lawn care and snow removal so everything we’ve done up to this point was to gain the future customers trust to know like and trust us so obviously they knew who the other competitors are obviously we know who the other competitors are we’re basically it’s a bold lie or skirting the question but everything we’ve done up to this point systematically to gain their trust and get them to know like and trust us immediately have lost that that level of trust so obviously that’s not the right move so the next move was you know who else would you recommend if we don’t hire you so we thought well maybe we’ll just send them to the worst competitor in the market they don’t return phone calls it’s the Chuck in the truck in the truck and when they don’t answer the calls and they see they don’t have insurance and it’s not a rep your business well they’re gonna call us back so next thing we did is we did that and that obviously was not the right move either because once again it lost the trust of the customers so who the best in your market is is honestly it it’s a it’s a tricky slope and honestly what we did is we had two or three main competitors that we played nice with in the same sandbox we knew that they were good companies and we trusted the product they put out i’m so in a leap of faith we actually suggested through these three companies and what that did is even if our price was a little bit higher than consumer trusted us even more because we were honest enough to literally say well if you’re not going with us the best next option in our market are these three companies and let us just do you just a solid and basically give you the phone numbers. So fast forward to August of last year at ASCA’s snow conference one of our direct competitors Rick Lemke who actually owns RM landscaping out of Rochester New York his son is actually Bret Lemke who’s ahead of the president of the National landscape Association with the lights on the stage basic embed this gentleman jumps up in the back of the crowd and goes thank you and I was like okay I’m like who are you and he was live up on I’m up on the screen and I said well I Know you’re not one or two of these guys but you may be this one so lo and behold it was Rick Lemke of R&M Landscape whose son now pretty much runs the business is the president of the National landscape associates interesting his perspective unprompted I didn’t stick him in the crowd obvious yet no idea who is there but he actually stood up for a few minutes and talked about how he actually referred his company as the next best option he didn’t come out and say it but if I was to infer from the the comment and testimonial he kind of gave from the back of the room when they had capacity they weren’t servicing an area that my company was already in it actually played back where he referred us and their company referred us back now not knowing this was happening we were just playing by the new gate rules of the game for marketing and when people asked who the next best competitor was outside of our company we literally told him here’s your next best three options in nine times outta ten it didn’t backfire in a face it actually solidified us as the expert and truthful and honest contractor and it won more work than it lost. So when people go out and ask you who the best in your market is don’t be cocky don’t say that you’re the best cuz if they’re calling you the assumption is you probably are the best but be honest about it if that question comes up don’t skirt it address it with honesty and sincerity and let them know who your two to three direct competitors are that you would recommend if you didn’t hire them and trust me it will pay bottom line profits in the upcoming season. Once again if you just join us the background on this is zero moment of truth that’s a study done by Google and Forrester Research and 70% of all buying habits are actually made before the consumer knows who you are so we are all in the service industry in the game of buying in basically buying for our future consumers know like and trust and once we do that if they do ask you the question who the best in the market is be honest because all that work upfront is gonna be basically lost if you’re not honest about who the best in your market is. Over the next couple weeks here or the next few days I’m gonna be going over the rest of the other five key things that you should be addressing up front in your content in conversational marketing strategy this year to go out and buy the consumers trust in the five main questions you need to be addressing upfront with honesty before your future consumer and ask and if it is a consumer that’s just about to buy that you’ve submitted an estimate or bid to you definitely need to be honest with them. This is number one number five that things that we need to address to get the new consumer to know like and trust us before zero moment of truth zero moment of truth you have no idea who these people are so it’s really important to go out and be honest and be the content and expert of your industry and service game. Comments or questions drop them below

Accountability in your business and clear expectations in your business with to do’s.

January 28, 2020
Video Transcript:
Hey Mike Callahan here with a quick video had question submitted last week or so asking about accountability and how to scale a business extremely quick and building a team not having to babysit the process. This is something I can definitely speak near and dear to my heart right now as of late as well with other companies I’ve scaled in the past and right now our company has grown over a hundred percent each year for the last three years so creating accountability and scalable systems is something that was just absolutely necessary to create a business could actually service people and have predictable results as well as not the business owner getting sucked in literally for a hundred hours a week as I was in my previous business when I first started it it didn’t know any better so the use of to do is no matter your CRM customer relationship management software can be used several platforms we’ve used to do’s in Infusionsoft is one service autopilot Monday pretty much any of your project management softwares that have a CRM customer relationship management function will actually be able to do this for you. What I recommend is defining the six or seven core areas of the business so once we looked at off the top time I had while I’m driving here is going to be sales, customer service, billing, scheduling, maintenance, accounting and owner so there’s approximately seven of them without looking at him exactly but we broke him out in those main HUD headers and yes it was very important to actually define the owner as well for accountability but what we did is we defined those roles at first never put names on them and defined what the daily workflow or weekly or whatever workflow that look like should have been and defined those processes and we detail them out to exactly what had to be done when it had to be done how it had to be done with very very specific details outlining it literally right down to including manufacturers videos for equipment maintenance the shopping list equipment. Think about all of the repetitive daily tasks in your business that need to be accounted for and if you aren’t telling someone do it as the manager owner they’re traditionally not happening and if they aren’t happening or even if they are happening you have no good way of tracking if they’re actually being done so in comes the process of a to-do for a task and they’re basically the same thing depending on the software you’re using but what this basically looks like is now I’ve got in my drop-down list under service autopilot I’ll use that example but we’ve used this another software program so this is very platform independent but basically go into CRM to-dos and I’ve got a list of all the things that are assigned to me now is the business owner I haven’t been able to assign that to each person or role as well so my office may be getting notifications live from every time somebody hits a Facebook Message on our Facebook message page so they’re not missed so it’s basically a tasker or to do to basically ping them to respond to that message complete with a link they could click inside the to do we can also go in and create accounting follow-ups things for like filing your taxes whatever those things are that need to be done we’re documenting them and we’re actually creating a deadline and then the positive thing is when the aJew is completed by yourself or your team you want to be consistent across the board is we’re going to  check market done electronically and under comments so 99%of these software’s have the ability to actually create a comment and this was a key turning point that I’m I always took I took away from one of my mastermind groups from another gentleman that was in a fire department in that chain of command and his methodology was if it wasn’t documented it didn’t happen so thats something that actually resonated with me immediately and we actually adopted that in the lawn care company as well asSimple Growth but in order for it to do to be complete it actually needs to be checked off electronically that it’s complete the CRM has an audit trail and then the individual completing it must leave a note so if you’re leaving a voicemail and maybe something is LVM send an email customer signed up I booked a call whatever happened needs to be documented so when you go back in three to six months from now on the consumer or an internal customer on your team says this never happened you know exactly what happened when it happened and I’d say 99% of these CRMs are gonna time and date stamp these as well. So we’ve got accountability and the most beneficial part for the manager owner if you’re becoming an absentee owner if you want to leave on vacation for a week or two or if you got the crazy spring rush and lawn care or home cleaning you want to be able to dial in within minutes and look down from a high level what actually is happening so what’s up today what to do in the next seven days what’s due in the next 30 days what’s past due and another really important one that people overlook is no due date so something has been assigned without a due date so just like accountability of checking it and making a note to do is have to have a due date for accountability so I don’t care if it’s a day from now or 45 days from now whatever that is we need an executable deadline for accountability and transparency we’ve run these reports. Comments or questions drop below want to say what’s up – David, Tim, Matthew, Snyder- little lice up here in the Northeast Today buddy hope you got out and did a little salting- making some cash today it’s been a pretty light year in the Northeast here if anybody who’s been snow and ice removal as well so gotta make that money when you can do hope you got some unlimited contracts as well. Video today is all about accountability and to do’s documenting the process create accountability with instructions and clarity that does include the manager owner on a daily basis in let the system work for you. The next level of those two duis a process we ended up automating that we call repetitive task automation so it automatically assigns each one of these to-dos instead of physically assigning them and then the cool part is let’s say you have a full-time salesperson maybe his name is Dave if Dave doesn’t do his job at the end of the day so maybe as a sales role daily he’s got to complete all his estimates and make his follow-up phone calls what happens is this actual automation will trigger off this to-do tasks and literally text message Dave or email and depending how you would set it off but on the severity of it and say hey Dave basically you didn’t do your job today it’s 5:15 5:30 get on it and get it done and then based on the level of importance and this is where it’s interesting is the automation will actually text message or email the business manager or business owner to alert them that the job or task has not been completed so the manual processes created these to do is manually assign them with deadlines and instructions and videos all the information you need the next level of that is to automate the assignment of these for predictable results so you kind of put the business on autopilot in the most important part with that is we create automated triggers to alert the assignee that they didn’t do the job that they didn’t do it and we take the power of the software so we’re leveraging the software to manage the repetitive workflow and if it doesn’t happen it pulls a human in to actually manage the process so that that’s the really most important part of this if you go to automate it but it’s interesting a lot of misconceptions are around automations that they actually take humans jobs away and they’re built to replace I will tell our tell you our  sales automations with 20 days to close will actually reduce or replace the physical mundane repetitive tasks in the office around the sales process if you’re between about 750 to a million or beyond it’ll do anywhere from aboutthirty to probably forty hours of manual tasks on the normal season but we’re not looking to replace that person in the office we’re actually looking to have the automations delegate in the communication and then bringing human in when the biggest return on investment is there so we’re amplifying that admin or office person or manager business owners time so if it’s not in your budget you end up going with like the sales automation package that we built and if you’re building it yourself there’s a lot of videos out there how we did it but the idea is let’s buy back 30 maybe 35 hours a week on the high side 40 hours a week of manual low end and tasks and allow you or your admin to focus on $100 an hour tasks versus the 15 the $20 an hour tasks as a higher return on investment in the consistency and things that when we get busy never happen the automation makes sure they happen in if they don’t happen even for the business owner if you set it up correctly in my opinion it’s gonna hold you accountable so main topic of thevideo today is to dues or tasks assigning them with a deadline to a person for accountability they aren’t completed until they’re electronically checked off and having note on them and that is the business owner manager we can go in really quickly and see what todo today 7 days 30 days with no due day and past due and then we can dial in foreach role in the business and different statuses so it gives you that granularity for 40,000 square feet and then you can dial in. Comments or questions drop them below what’s up – Matt Harris as well just driving into the office another day helping other business owners take the life back from their business and it’s kind of been my personal journey after my business kind of took a toll on me in the early years until we automated so just having a hell of a time but comments or questions drop them live or recorded and if you’re looking to answer your questions around business practices software or service autopilot specifically drop a comment here we’re going out several times a week with Callahan’s Corner where you ask the question and the Simple Growth team answer them live on Facebook so till the next video I will see you then

The three D’s to success in business. SA

January 28, 2020
Video Transcript:
Hey Mike Callahan here wanna make a quick video just drop the kids off at daycare and started thinking about how do we start this week off with success and one of the things that came to mind is the three D’s and they are deal delegate and delete or slash delay. Where this predominantly is going to be used is your email inbox but really if you look at it from a holistic view the three D’s can be applied to just about anything in your business and business owners tend to get stuck in the minutiae in the weeds in the day to day grind and you really just need to have an unemotional approach to business and how we handle the things not only in our email inbox but in our day-to-day business life. After just three DS that were going to talk about here our deal delegate and delete slash delay and the first one is going to be is deal so I’m gonna use the example of your email inbox like I said this is applicable to just about anywhere in your business so as you’re going through your email inbox and you’re looking at hopefully you’ve got some filters set up already to buy some time back and standardize it but if you’re looking at the key things in your email inbox or the key things in your business is you really want to be looking at it and go is it a deal is it delegation or is it delete slash delay. Deal is gonna be things that you need to just get off your plate these are the things that are going to be bogging you down and you really just need to get them off your plate so when we do that we go out and just literally deal with it in the moments we’re going into your email inbox we’re going to deal with business things that were that are coming up we want to make sure we have the appropriate time and blocked out attention span what we do is deal is just deal with them in the actual moment. Next example is delegate so an example is as you’re going through and you’re like crap as a business owner I’ve got to make a dentist appointment I’ve got to order save some materials for tomorrow but I can’t do it in the middle of the night and  I’m looking at a 9 10 o’clock at night that’s gonna wear on you at least most business owners like myself that will be a nuisance in your head almost an anxiety so if we’re not going to deal with it in the moment we need to delegate and we delegated to our admin our personal assistant the manager whatever that looks like so either we’re gonna deal with it in the moment we’re gonna delegate it with the signing deadline instructions to make sure it happens when it should and there’s no question so it’s not coming back and relying on you we’ve dealt with it we’ve delegated or we’re going to delete or delay and delete is literally what is the opportunity cost so is it something like you know this is a massive design-build opportunity for a landscape company or a massive maybe post construction cleaning for a home cleaning company but right now it’s really a distraction of what you’re you’re focusing on may be your goal of your business is recurring revenue creating maintenance contracts whether it’s weekly bi-weekly mowing or weekly or bi-weekly cleaning if the focus of your business right now is recurring revenue this huge design one build job one-time or huge post construction job with a massive ticket on it maybe a quick revenue source but you’ve got to look at the opportunity cost and if that’s the distraction of where you’re going you may just want to delete it or if you have the ability to say in the late-season in the design-build opportunity to delay it when you’re still trying to fill a gap and you need that extra income but it’s not taking away from your main business goal of recurring maintenance revenue then that may be the play. By tackling three things in this three D approach it’s going to give you some clarity with a non-emotional approach. We want to look at it as either we deal with it right now deal with it in the present so we take care of it as we see it we’re gonna either delegate it if it’s something we can’t do in the time or it’s not good use of our resources is it $100 our our job that’s warning the business owner or is it a fifteen to twenty dollar an hour job that can be delegated to an admin or a virtual assistant or is it the third d are we going to delete it it’s not worth it atall to complete distraction or delete /delay we delay it when it’s appropriate and it’s an appropriate time that it’s not distracting from our methodologies. Hopefully this helps but the three D’s in business have been huge for me and my two businesses and they are dealing with it in the present right now they are delegating it to get it off your plate and you’re not dealing with the anxiety of it needing to be done in the future because you know what’s going to be done once you delegate if you do it correctly or you delete / delay those  3ds right now in my opinion are one of the keys to fundamental success of being able to run a business and avoiding the entrepreneurship anxiety and stress that we all face because we’re trying to do way too much and wait a little too much time. Comments or questions rot below but hopefully I was helpful the 3ds success deal with it and right now in the present we delegate it or we go out and delete or delay it so 3ds success this week comes two questions let me know how you deal with the things that are on your plate in your day to day business

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