Videos

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growth live office hours uh Mike and Dylan here with the simple grow team
where we go on live uh once or twice a
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week and answer your questions regarding your software questions and
business questions to help you along your way to
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seven figures and well beyond uh Dylan well welcome back to the show here
and uh just about going on and it’s probably
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uh just like last week where uh there we go you were you were front and
center so we’re good now video wise
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awesome yeah we got a couple uh returning questions from last week uh that
we didn’t quite answer properly I
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guess uh we needed a little bit more clarification and then we got a new
question from Orbin this week about
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scheduling so I kind of have some initial answers sort of fleshed out here
but I’m curious to definitely hear your
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opinion on them and how you tackle them in service autopilot all right and
since I haven’t seen the questions yet this should be interesting so let’s
see what
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happens yeah well let’s let’s go back to the one from last week just to
make sure that we don’t forget it so I’ll share uh
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my screen here [Music]
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Support Center got an area
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this one’s from Steve Delaney from last week so I’m gonna hop off here a
second hop back
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on so I can get that I think from last week we figured out how to actually
get that on top yeah no worries
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um let’s see if we can get that a bit bigger if not we can just kind of
just all
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right hold on I’m gonna I’m gonna pull you off and we will uh
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what could go wrong here we go I think we are good here all right perfect
we got it big enough okay by week three
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we’ll have this down pat sure um week 300. so
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yeah the the issue if you remember from last week Steve wanted to know what
I thought was
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um basically who had can who who was still active in his company how many
clients were still active in this
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company and how long they had actually been with the company but I guess
either I misread it or Steve added some some
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additional information I guess he was actually looking for the client
lifetime value which I don’t know how I I messed
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that up but um so Mike I don’t know if you did this at your company or
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um with any of our clients at all but I was just kind of spitballing a
little bit before this um I don’t think we have like a
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pre-canned report for that or anything we do not but kind of what I I know
a lot of the
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actual service details like when we’re doing our kpi reports and stuff like
that this is typically one of the main
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analysis that we start with so I pulled in the job cost detail here
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I pulled in you know obviously we need some client information so I did
client name client sense
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um and then cancellation reason and then this was just like the next thing
that it the only next level of
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information that it allowed me to pull up so I don’t know if we necessarily
need that per se but
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It’s tricky sometimes with these reports because you kind of go down this
Rabbit Hole of what does service autopilot or
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low G kind of let me pull into the reports and with this kind of string
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that I’ve created it doesn’t let me pull in like cancellation date or
anything like that so this might
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honestly not be the the optimal way to do it but I think this will actually
work so down here I have it set and this
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is just our our demo account to kind of mess around with but
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I have these columns here client name actual revenue and this would be for
each individual service with the date
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uh cancellation reason and then client sense so
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Mike I’m curious your opinion but I would think if they have a cancellation
reason they would be a canceled client and we
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can filter those people out right correct yes I think that um had a pretty
interesting conversation
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with jonathoshnick the founder of sa um or co-founded with John Caldwell and
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one thing that Jonathan and I did a lot in the early days is we did a lot
of these Regional events or spoke at conferences or did Facebook lives we
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answered questions and um Jonathan and I were pretty much on the same exact
page if we hadn’t served with someone in probably 12 to 13 months
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that that would be considered basically a a dead client um so there’s a
couple different ways of
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tackling it ideally I would look at it yes cancellation reason first place
I’m looking uh for sure
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reason and if you’re going in we should be tracking the cancellation reason
on all our clients now uh if that’s not the
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case we may be able to build some logic and a case statement in saying has
this
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if it is a reoccurring service um we could take a look at it based on
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reoccurring but if the service hadn’t happened in over 13 months of the
case statement we could filter it out that
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would obviously take some formulas being built in yeah I think the one
thing that I would probably look at though is is
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really going in and getting those cancellation reasons because that’s going
to be the cleanest easiest way of doing it the way you’ve done
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um the other thing that’s interesting is you got actual Revenue total there
and the service name so if you scroll back
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down they’ll know some other things here it looks like you probably have
done that didn’t touch uh touch on yet uh but
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it looks like you went into the client and actually grouped them is that
correct
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and Dylan may have froze here so we’ll see in a minute um but as we’re
waiting for Dylan to
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kind of glitch back in here uh a couple of the things it looks like he
probably did was under uh the test client on the
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far left there under client need he went into aggregate group and that is
probably I’m guessing so actually did
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you just on aggregate I did can you you can’t hear me can you I can hear
you now oh okay there we go
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at Verizon commercial over here but yeah so we uh so client so you did a
couple things here obviously so the first thing
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as you build in that data table you would want to go in your client name
and actually group the clients
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exactly yep so that was the first thing I did I actually forgot that I I did
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that um the the other thing that I did is like um
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it will make the report many many pages if you have a lot of data so I don’t
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know this is just more so a personal preference but under the data table
right here if you go into settings and
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then uh paging you can select to show all rows rather than have you know
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sometimes up to like 80 pages of data yeah completely agree the bigger
companies we work with with kpi reports
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that’s that’s definitely the way you want to go and then
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the if we now on that do you have the ability to do
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um service date uh yeah yeah I believe we do let me just I think it’s right
here
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so that might be another one that I would look at too because then we’ve
got clients in service date and uh if we
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were so inclined we could probably go in and sort it um from oldest to to
newest or newest
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oldest we can actually build some formulas in there but I think down and
dirty if you’re looking just to answer the questions today uh the way I
tackle
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I would tackle Donuts probably just the way you tackle it identically um I
would go in and make sure
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everything has a cancellation reason and then be able to uh put in the
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termination or cancel date and then run some math off that yeah and that’s
like
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kind of what I was trying to say earlier is this is just my first step
there might be one A different kind of pathway
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starting with a different item here that would actually let you pull in the
actual cancellation date yeah and it may
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not um because I think on job costing detail as well it does it the uh that
and then
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the the over one on leads and clients it does not so I think this is
probably the closest you can get to it
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um so I would probably drive it off the cancellationary uh I hope it’s
helpful that people can just
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kind of hear our like thought process too because a lot of this stuff in
service autopilot it’s like you can there’s so many different combination or
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things that you can do that it’s like you kind of just need to sometimes
take a second think about it and a little bit
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of trial and error and you’ll usually get there um yeah filter
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the cancellation reason and we would go uh
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not equal to I suppose
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and I think there’s only one cancellation reason so yeah and the test count
there’s probably not a lot but
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yeah you would put your test your cancellation reasons in there yeah you
might have a bunch of them
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um but then if we add this filter then it should kind of filter out one
other clients anyways so then in theory
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we’d be left with every client who does not have a cancellation reason
which should be active now whether or not
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you’re you’re keeping your database nice and clean by canceling the clients
that don’t have any active service with you
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that’s a maybe a topic for another day but let’s just assume the remaining
clients are the active clients
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from here um Steve basically like this still isn’t
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very useful you’d really have to start doing some totals for for some of
these
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items so under this Revenue column that’s the first one that I would
definitely want to basically Aggregate
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and then do a summation and that should give us the total
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revenue I don’t have a date filter applied here so it’s not only pulling in
like this year for example this should
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be pulling in once again this is our test account but for test client
number one their total
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revenue their total value essentially to the company is six thousand two
hundred
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and eighty now if you want average um lifetime value of your current active
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clients then you would need to do an average of course as I’m sure you
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probably know so let’s see kind of what how that looks here
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and so you know once again a test test account your average might be four
thousand dollars or or something like
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that right who definitely depends on what uh what field you’re in but in
this example our average kind of client value
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is 191 14. now if you have like your costs and
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things like that in the system you could drive this down to like a net
profit amount and then average it from there
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that might be a little bit better because maybe some of these services are
a high
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dollar amount in Revenue but they’re a low margin service so you kind of
need to factor that in as well but this is
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basically what I’d be looking at and if this report is probably very
lengthy for for some
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people that are doing this um I believe you can actually remove the
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detail in some of these forget which one it is I think it’s this
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one right here so you can hit exclude detail rows
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and I believe that will get rid of basically every single line item in here
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so if you wanted to you know if you got thousands of clients you might not
be going in and looking at each single line
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item and say oh that fertilizer service was 60 bucks like that probably
isn’t the meat and potatoes of this report you
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probably just want to have this load fairly quickly and be able to pop in
here and maybe say well which clients
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are lifetime value under 500 bucks and we got to figure out why and maybe
Target those customers and maybe do some
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upsells or something like that and try to get that value up so just a
thought I know some clients
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that I’ve come across do have that where they do like a single aeration for
the client each year and it’s like that
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might be a good candidate to reach out to and try to upsell into
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you know overseeding or grow control or something like that so I’m hoping
with this version too
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Steve that’s a little closer to what you’re looking for it’s definitely not
the prettiest report in the world but
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hopefully this average here would get you to very close to what you’re
looking for like I said if you did want to do it
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based off of net profit instead of uh basically gross revenue
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that might be a little bit more useful to you but this would just be shown
you
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if you just wanted to do it based off of Revenue so hope that helps any
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yeah I was just playing on the other side here I think the only other thing
that you may want to put in there um we don’t have to do it on the screen
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here but it is client source so you may be able to see the client lifetime
value based on each marketing source so those
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are the things we’d want to dial in um there so I’m just looking on my
other screen here
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um other things you could potentially run into if you build uh some
formulas in there we won’t dive into that today uh but we do have the
ability of invoice
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date and invoice amount so we could potentially uh do some logic if they
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haven’t been billed within x amount for a reoccurring service or x amount of
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time for one-time service then that would that would basically filter them
out as a canceled client yeah and yeah that is definitely one
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thing that I I do um recommend you do whether you do it how Mike said or
you just look at your
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Client List CRM Client List and select um active service I think it is and
then
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do there’s a couple different like date filters that you can do there um
but yeah if you don’t have a client
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that receives service in the last year um I think it’s definitely safe to
to mark them as lost and you could just put
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a cancellation reason as a one-time client right I mean they were a client
they’re no longer a client it’s not
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really a bad cancellation it’s a natural cancellation but you definitely
don’t want to have
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like 10 000 clients in your system when in reality you have 500. yeah and
that’s
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that’s a good stat twos if that’s the case you’re probably not using an
automated upsell to actually go in and reactivate them so when we put those
out
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for clients 60 to 80 estimate requests in the first 24 to 48 hours is not
uncommon so those you’ve got some data
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points in there so you could really focus in and have some standardized
marketing copy ought to activate those people that have
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left too so we have a cancel uh basically reactivation nurture that that
happens there too sometimes so that’s
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those are things you want to look at if you’re building your own automation
to segment that database uh good work on that one Dylan what do you got
next for
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me so the next one is from Orbin and he was asking you know paraphrasing
here
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but I guess he has grown his fertilizer division it seems like and usage
have one technician and he’s curious what is
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like the actual steps that I need to do to break that route that was
previously one person into two routes essentially
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where two sales reps are fertilizer technicians are actually going to be
performing two separate roads
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um that makes sense so in my opinion there’s a couple different ways to
tackle that but
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I’m curious your opinion obviously as well Mike but how I would think about
it I’m just logically is I would probably
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go to the CRM Client List and sort for every single client who has a
fertilizer
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package with me right now if he hasn’t done this already and and maybe this
is just like because
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I did this in the past but I always thought about my service area in zones
and I I don’t know how I would
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necessarily survive without that so I I kind of just started a little bit
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of a Google sheet here I’ll share this sheet and I’ll zoom in a bit
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but I feel like a lot of people and we’ll get back to the fertilizer
example here in a second but I feel like a lot
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of people are they do know this method when it comes to lawn mowing like
most people because
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there’s five days in a week Monday through Friday they think okay it makes
sense to break my service area into five
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zones and it doesn’t need to be one ZIP code per Zone you might have 25 zip
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codes per Zone the number of zip codes per zone is is essentially
irrelevant but you kind of want to break it up into
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zones is that what you did at Callahan’s yeah we did I was actually just
pulling to see if I could pull up a screenshot
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of it you’re going to pull up a mapper I like this because we want to
blueprint it before we implement the change Yeah
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well yeah we can definitely go to the the map next um but I was just
thinking and I’ve had
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this conversation with a couple of people while we do deep Dives and stuff
like that where their fertilizer division is expanding and they they the
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mowing is fairly simple in service autopilot the fertilizer is a little bit
more abstract it’s a little bit harder
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to plan because it’s less frequent you’re doing it maybe once a quarter
once a month at the most so kind of how
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I like to think about it is you still want to have your zones for fertilizer
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um but it does work a little bit differently because you’re going
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you know five or seven times a year instead of once a week so for fertilizer
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Mike did you still have five or ten zones however you ran it yeah we did let
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me see if I can actually share my screen here I just pulled this up so full
transparency I was completely unprepared
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for this call doing some homework for some other stuff but let me see if I
can pull this up here
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and show it in the screen and I’ll get this CRM Client List
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while you’re doing that oh there you go perfect
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all right side note if you’re running this yourself down when you’re off
screen you people cannot hear you talk so uh what we’ve got here is the old
map
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here for Callahan so what you’ve got is basically we had three or four
different zones so obviously we kind of started
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the business shop was right about here um but basically this this area here
was
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like Zone one and then there was a major uh Highway that kind of went
through her Road this was kind of zone two
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three and as we came down this was basically four we ended up
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getting rid of this stuff up here past this 104 because Rob density um and
then this was the other Zone here so
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we had another one here it covered this area and this area here uh some of
these guys were Big commercials that were like
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hanging out way out of nowhere um just like the one that’s hanging out down
here there’s some some very large
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Big commercials over full day jobs uh but the majority of this was all
residential so we we broke those in uh
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Zone one zone two three four five and then these basically just bigger
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commercials um so that’s how we kind of tackled that the main thing that we
looked at too is
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we broke it up a lot of people have probably seen this here but this is
this would be for a mowing crew uh but if we
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went in and made this for a a Fert crew
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obviously it’s a one-person technician unless it’s a large commercial
property uh where you got multiple write-outs
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going but if you had one individual on there and you were doing four tens
uh we would go back to an average wage of that
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division so if we had certain techs or crew leaders you’d have an average
wage of say 30 to 25 with overtime would be
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33.86 so you’d go in and actually plug that in uh right here
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and the labor burden uh is that number that we came up with fictitiously in
this example for um uh FICA workman’s
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comp uh workers comp in uh see FICA unemployment workers comp
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liability insurance and some other things such as holiday pay vacation pay
and they come out as a percentage of the dollar so we’re going to add that
in as
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well to the the crew breakout on where I’m going with the stone so a lot of
times and then we have a overhead
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recovery if we’re using a bar system uh to cover a fixed g a cost that’s
about 25 here so let’s say on an industry
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average we want to make say 45 50 net profit on fertilization um let’s say
it’s 45 so 1.45
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our daily labor costs just for that technician with a 45 net margin is seven
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seven seven hundred thirty dollars um we’ve got a truck we probably don’t
have a trailer so we would zero that out
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um and our hourly rate then is going to be coming in for the truck at 758
10 hours a day
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because we’re going to capture the curb time as well not just the
utilization time got already recovery and our profit
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now built in at 45 um so why I’m doing this is the thing
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that orbin’s asking about a lot of people that ask about it with this is
when we schedule
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um fertilization or any service we don’t have a dollar amount that we need
to be producing so in callahans it was about
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12 to 1300 a day each technician had to produce to hit our numbers so it’s
without kind of giving it all away right
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here as I’m walking down what we’re going to see is we finish filling this
out is we’re actually going to see
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um what fictitiously this crew would have to bill out so if orban’s going
out he’s gonna have a fixed number he needs to
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bill out to hit his projected profit margin and his overhead recovery so
this would be not our truck but this would
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just be our truck um there’s no mowers but let’s just say our hourly rate
for our ride on spreader
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is 9.75 and we’re going to be using that probably seven of the of the 10
hours so
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it’s just the time it’s being used and
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our equipment cost for the spreader maybe the right on spreader and the
push spreader that’s possibly on there or the
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hose in real attachment is 98 bucks a day and then we really don’t have a
maintenance package we’re doing
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maintenance it’s going to be our stick address weed whackers blowers things
like that uh maybe you do have a
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backpack sprayer and some different canisters and things like that if
you’re doing perimeter pass that’s where this would be in come in but you
would
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actually add in how many hours a day are using that maintenance package or
what’s the hourly rate how many hours is being
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used overhead recovery and the overhead recovery so let’s assume maybe
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Orbit’s doing lawn care and he’s now he’s created a perimeter pest division
so he’s doing that at the same time as he’s doing the fertilization to
probably
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double or triple that ticket or if you’re doing um mosquito control so
that’s where we
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would bundle this additional equipment up uh so obviously this is
fictitious but the daily sales goal here before product
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is a thousand dollars it would be costing uh Orban or somebody 715 dollars
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before profit 10 hours a day and is Break Even to be 71.49 that’s what it’s
costing per hour
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before it makes a profit so he needs to have an hourly Bill rate of about
101 dollars
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so this right here uh my guess with product is going to put if this was his
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numbers would put him probably around 13 to 1400 a day in product with
product so
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when you when you break up the areas first and then use that 1300 a day as a
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kind of a benchmark or a guideline to make sure that the roots are at least
feasible so you yeah you absolutely nailed it so just like your Google sheet
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we broke out the zip codes or zones the zip codes that are in that zone and
then optimized it
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um here but obviously we need to build more route density down here can we
realistically in a 10-hour day
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capture all of these homes in this area yeah and what’s it going to
generate so
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really especially if you’re using a waiting list job we want to take that
waiting list job and be able to delegate
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it we don’t want it to rely on the business owner so not emotionally let’s
say with product in there uh it’s a 1300
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day that’s literally a sticky note like it’s going to be right here we’re
gonna stick the sticky note up on the corner
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Christine in my office did the same exact thing but she knew when she did
the waiting list and put that together per Zone that
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um that’s how it lined up now the other thing to take a look at too that I
would recommend is when we’re doing those
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waiting list jobs we’re grabbing say this route here
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one day and then this route here the next day um or if he has two Crews
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potentially have route group number one start from the farthest place in and
24:57
then group The Crew number two start from the farthest place out and work
its way in so the crews actually meet each other reason being if there’s a
25:03
breakdown equipment wise they can help each other or if there is a rain
delay or any issues if you’re tackling this
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whole side of town in one day and you only get half the day done on both
technicians and there’s like a washout
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with rain you can only have you only have to send back one truck and you
can reoptimize it and then that other crew
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can start working out the next day’s work so those are the things we looked
at when we routed especially with snow removal as well in the mowing because
25:27
that eliminated the drive time from out here all the way back and that was
probably an hour and 25 minutes round
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trip if you took two sides of traffic sometimes and the thing I’ve ran into
with a
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different company was they knew how long a round was taking them each round
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so I use that number to kind of back into like a similar system to like the
day of the week and the zip code
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but instead like the company that I worked with previously I don’t know
Orbin how much fertilizing you do
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currently but let’s just pretend he has like one round currently takes him
five
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weeks I mean that would be pretty perfect to kind of use almost the exact
same system
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as the mowing but instead of in this fictitious example 902 zip code 90210
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being on Mondays zip code 90210 could be potentially the first week of every
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round yep yeah and we keep consistency so it’s going to give that um the
CSR that’s routing that some
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consistency too and why I like using the CRM Client List like you’re on
right
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right here is let’s say Orbin you determine like Mike said the the North
26:36
West area is going to be Zone one let’s say well you can bulk
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select those jobs and then bulk apply a tag from here so I see some people
trying to do it from the dispatch board
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or the waiting list which can be helpful but I don’t believe you can bulk
apply
26:54
tags from the dispatch board or waiting list yet hopefully that’ll come in
the future so this is the way to do it so
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you can tag them and then from there you can find these customers and make
sure that they are getting routed um
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on the appropriate days if you’re pulling from the waiting list you would
pull everybody with the Zone one tag and
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make sure that those are getting scheduled on week one of the round and
week one of round two
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awesome advice love it um hopefully that answers the question or been there
uh I’m assuming that’s
27:23
probably all we had but is there anything else that we have uh lined up
here I think that’s it for today
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um those were the two big ones I’ll make sure to reach out to those people
and hopefully we did answer those correctly
27:36
if they need any clarification we can hit those uh first next week and yeah
any future questions just comment them
27:43
on this video and we’ll make sure to get them next week yeah Dylan and
after the video is up here uh can you put a link
27:49
to your calendar link because I know a lot of people after the call
yesterday wanted to basically have us go in
27:55
um and do for lack of a better term and Analysis of their system where it
was set up uh was it set up to scale for
28:01
workflow uh they’re having some issues so I think it’s like a 15 or 20
minute call that you were doing but basically
28:08
no charge you went in and actually gave some people some insight of these
areas I’d work on setting the system up a
28:14
couple people I know did it themselves and then a couple people actually
ended up uh one purchase to Deep dive on the
28:19
last seven days here um just because they saw some things they just didn’t
have the time to tackle it so if you’re looking for a free
28:25
resource to just do that Dylan’s gonna pop that in the chat uh right after
this or during the call and
28:31
um somebody on our team who’s done this will um we’ll definitely show you
how to how to
28:36
do that and then it looks like you want to share your screen so I will yeah
if I could just kind of show me uh hold on
28:42
one second I’m gonna pull this I’m gonna pull us both off again so we can
actually see it
28:47
uh but as we do it we will not be able to hear each other
28:54
all right you’re trying to talk I’m gonna take myself off here okay well
yeah this is just like a glimpse at our
29:00
audit that we do I’m sure you maybe have seen this before but um basically
yeah depending on your size
29:06
of business we kind of walk through all aspects of your your CRM and some
people
29:12
honestly like they got everything in there it’s just a kind of pat on the
back but others are missing some some
29:18
things that they just weren’t even aware about so at a bare minimum you can
kind of walk away this is just like
29:23
fictitious results here but you can kind of walk away with an actual score
of how your business is doing as it relates to
29:30
kind of service autopilot as a CRM so love it um yeah so make sure you check
29:37
that out Dylan and the team is available to do those analysis uh there is
no charge for him you walk away with an
29:43
actionable report like that and uh that’s your blueprint if something we
can help you with obviously we can get you some pricing on it but really
29:49
um you know some stuff on there that we we technically don’t even help with
uh but we can get you resources of people that could help you as well so
29:56
um Dylan appreciate you joining us I know we’re still trying to iron out
between your schedule nine set days and times this moving forward but we’ll
get
30:02
at least one of these live uh next week as well yeah awesome sounds good
30:07
everybody has a good weekend yeah so until next weekend drop your comments
questions below and we’ll be tackling
30:13
again next week

0:00
welcome back to Callahan’s corner where
0:01
you ask the questions we had some live
0:03
right here on Facebook got special uh
0:05
guest host here Dylan from the simple
0:06
growth team uh Dylan was not only uh our
0:09
first client but actually one of our
0:11
first team members um who actually has
0:13
gone out and mastered the skills of
0:15
service autopilot and scale the seven
0:16
figure lawn care and snow removal
0:18
business up in Sudbury Ontario um so I
0:21
was trying to mix up a little bit uh so
0:22
everybody is not just watching me
0:24
provide the content but with our team of
0:25
almost 30 full-time people now uh going
0:28
to get some of the simple grow team on
0:29
here to kind of expose some of the bench
0:31
and some of the skill set that we can
0:32
provide so had a question that was
0:34
submitted here I’m going to take a quick
0:36
look at it uh and read it but it was
0:39
around a V3
0:41
um estimate form here so
0:46
it says does anybody know if it’s if
0:48
there’s a possibility that I can connect
0:49
service autopilot to my web web page
0:51
curious uh when someone sends her
0:54
information for bid requests could it
0:55
all get entered in so uh there’s
0:58
automatically a lead in the system so uh
1:01
great question by um Matthew and uh
1:03
Dylan we’re gonna be jumping into this
1:05
but uh there is a bit of a confusion now
1:08
that there’s a V2 and a V3 website form
1:10
or forms in himself so there’s V2 V3 uh
1:14
we’re recommending as a company right
1:16
now for probably your website lead CAD
1:17
for using a V3 uh but for your on-site
1:21
estimate forms and things that are
1:22
interacting with your cruise uh as it
1:25
lays right now we’re gonna be using
1:26
those as V2 because they’re accessible
1:28
in the Legacy app so uh Dylan without
1:31
any delay really do you want to hop in
1:32
and kind of just break down the basics
1:34
of a V3 website lead capture
1:36
yeah for sure and I guess the main point
1:38
right off the bat is like yes you can
1:40
have a form that will primarily go on
1:43
your website and replace like a
1:44
WordPress form or whatever you might
1:46
have on there
1:48
um so that those leads can come directly
1:49
into service autopilot with no Double
1:51
Entry
1:53
um a lot of people are just accustomed
1:55
to having that just go right to their
1:56
email
1:57
they read their email they type it into
1:59
service autopilot you definitely don’t
2:01
need to do them so I’m in the marketing
2:04
forms section here and this is a V3 form
2:09
when you hit on the top right there’s a
2:11
little add form button
2:13
it brings you to this screen here but
2:15
it’ll actually prompt you to say like do
2:17
you want to just start with a template
2:19
of a form that that we’ve kind of
2:21
already created now this one’s not bad
2:24
and we can start with this template it
2:26
is a multi-page form which I know some
2:29
people don’t necessarily love but that’s
2:31
okay we can tweak it from there
2:33
so if you hit next down here then it’ll
2:38
prompt you to say do you want to rename
2:40
this form
2:41
I mean we can just put demo beside it
2:43
for now
2:46
and now it brings you to basically the
2:49
form editor
2:50
one thing that I thought was kind of
2:52
confusing when I first started using
2:54
these types of forms was the pages are
2:56
actually down here so what you see here
2:58
is not the the entire form
3:01
um when you when you first start out
3:02
you’re in the design section once the
3:04
form is actually designed the way you
3:06
want it then you kind of do some final
3:08
configurations
3:11
um we’ll get to that in a second and
3:13
then the third and final step is you
3:15
actually publish the form and that gives
3:18
you like the final code that you can
3:19
kind of copy and paste and put on your
3:21
website so it seems like a lot of steps
3:23
but once you have it down pad it’s
3:25
sometimes a you know couple minute
3:27
process at most
3:30
Mike I don’t know about you but I don’t
3:32
necessarily love the multi-step form
3:34
expially for like a website
3:37
um
3:38
so I’m actually going to click uh on on
3:41
here
3:43
and I’m going to delete the additional
3:46
pages
3:48
yeah I agree that they’re doing for sure
3:50
the multi-step
3:51
um experience for most thing most things
3:53
we’re doing is probably not ideal the
3:55
only place you may want to use that is
3:57
maybe for a um a cold lead capture
4:00
semi-warm lead capture off like a
4:02
Facebook ad or something like that where
4:03
you can go in and capture at least first
4:05
name last name and email
4:06
um so that’s getting registered in the
4:08
system yeah usually off your website
4:09
you’re going to want it one quick form
4:12
yeah and alternatively if you’re
4:13
drowning with leads and you can’t even
4:15
keep up with the amount of leads you
4:16
have well a multi-step form might make
4:18
sense where you’re like weeding out the
4:20
leads and saying what’s your budget do
4:22
you have a forty thousand dollar budget
4:23
for this patio if not
4:25
we’re not a good fit stuff like that but
4:28
if you just want to capture the leads
4:29
quickly you don’t necessarily want them
4:31
to go through three or four pages if
4:33
necessary
4:35
so I just renamed this field up here
4:38
when you click on a field the editing is
4:41
off to the left hand side here so if we
4:44
wanted to you know change any text here
4:46
we would just do that right here
4:49
now these are the actual fields that are
4:53
basically going to map to an actual
4:56
field in the client screen
4:59
or lead screen so when someone once this
5:03
form is already when someone types in
5:05
you know Dylan in here for their first
5:07
name that’s what’s going to filter over
5:10
and map over to the the first name
5:12
section when you’re adding a client so
5:14
that you don’t need to retype any of
5:16
this so this one’s fine first name last
5:19
name
5:20
contact email that might be a little
5:23
weird we might just want that to say
5:25
email that’s a little bit more common
5:27
yeah and if they’re using a V2 form
5:29
Dylan this is a necessary step so V3
5:32
kind of pre-maps a lot of this for you
5:34
yep exactly so I do I do really like
5:37
that about V3 now this might look really
5:40
weird on your website the way that that
5:42
these fields are very very small so I
5:44
won’t necessarily get into it right now
5:46
but you can increase the length or the
5:50
the width I guess of these fields if
5:52
you’d like for now we’ll just keep them
5:54
as they are
5:56
um but sometimes when you take this and
5:58
put on your website it’s going to look
6:00
kind of like really really skinny
6:01
instead of filling out to the the full
6:03
width of whatever kind of box you copy
6:06
and paste the code into
6:08
so obviously this isn’t all the
6:10
information that we need we probably
6:12
want to know what what’s their address
6:13
what services they’re interested and
6:15
things like that so you would just
6:17
basically click on this last one here
6:20
and then we’re going to add some some
6:22
additional fields
6:24
so we are probably going to want at
6:27
least address
6:29
and what it asks you what type of
6:32
address this is I mean presumably we
6:34
want their service address right we want
6:37
to know where we’re I’m actually going
6:39
to be potentially performing the service
6:42
um so it basically fills it all in here
6:44
for you if you want to double check and
6:46
make sure that it’s mapping to the right
6:48
area which it is already then that’s
6:51
great
6:52
we probably also want to make this a
6:54
required field we don’t want people just
6:56
putting in their name uh an email and
6:58
then we got to say hey where do you live
7:01
so we can kind of make all of these
7:02
required
7:09
and these ones already are required they
7:11
got the little asterisks beside it
7:15
and it says postal code if you want to
7:17
change that to zip code you can post the
7:19
code that’s what we call it in Canada
7:21
anyway so that that’s fine by me and
7:24
then the last thing is or usually this
7:27
is the last thing anyways we’ll usually
7:29
want to do
7:31
um
7:32
not multiple choice uh checklist
7:36
so like I made a error here very easy to
7:39
kind of fix that just by clicking on it
7:41
and then hitting delete
7:43
and then the checklist here is where
7:46
we’re going to prompt them to actually
7:47
choose the services that they want to
7:49
quote for
7:50
so normally what we’ll do is we’ll kind
7:52
of replace this and say you know
7:55
Services you are interested in
7:59
something along those lines you know
8:01
everybody kind of wants it named a
8:03
little a little differently
8:04
and usually I’ll kind of get rid of that
8:08
secondary option just to keep it as
8:09
clean as possible
8:11
and then if you scroll down here on the
8:13
left I will probably want to make that
8:16
required
8:17
don’t necessarily need to map it
8:19
anywhere per se
8:21
but we definitely do want to change the
8:23
generic options here so I’ll just do it
8:26
kind of what my services were but it
8:28
might be
8:29
lawn mowing
8:31
fertilizer and meat control
8:37
third cleanup
8:40
and maybe
8:41
you know removal and then you might want
8:45
to include a fifth one or however many
8:48
services you have include one extra one
8:50
that just says other
8:52
because people will have kind of Oddball
8:53
requests that you just want to make sure
8:55
they don’t
8:56
bounce off your website because you
8:58
didn’t have an other section so
9:01
um and then usually if you’re going to
9:02
have another section you probably want
9:04
to have one final field here and that
9:07
would be like a paragraph feel there
9:09
maybe it’s a long text entry yeah long
9:12
long text entering so you probably just
9:16
want to have like renate rename this to
9:18
something like other or comments
9:22
something like that or you know service
9:24
details
9:30
and that will allow them to you know if
9:33
they want to add any additional comments
9:35
they can do that there
9:37
um
9:38
if you want to change what this submit
9:40
button says you can just by clicking on
9:43
the button so you might want to say get
9:44
your free quote no
9:47
whatever you’d like it to be and I think
9:50
you can change the color and stuff like
9:51
that so if you want to kind of brand it
9:53
up to what your branded colors are
9:56
that’s great
9:58
um
9:58
next thing is you’ll actually want to go
10:02
over to the
10:04
configure section I believe it
10:06
automatically saves this as you’re
10:08
working but probably a pretty good habit
10:10
to get into just hit that save draft
10:12
button down there
10:15
um
10:16
so
10:18
you know if you’re doing
10:20
um
10:21
conversion tracking on your website you
10:23
might want to redirect them to like a
10:25
web page like a thank you page or
10:26
something but for simplicity’s sake
10:28
we’ll just leave it like this so when
10:30
they submit this form eventually this is
10:31
going to be on your website the lead or
10:34
the prospect is going to see this
10:36
message
10:37
so pretty common feature of a form on a
10:40
website
10:41
email notifications here this is
10:43
important
10:45
what do you want to happen when someone
10:46
submits this form you probably want to
10:48
get an email saying you know
10:50
Bob Jones just submitted an estimate
10:52
especially if you’re driving around
10:53
you’re not going to be on service
10:54
autopilot all the time so you would
10:57
actually add a notification here and it
11:00
could just be like a custom email
11:03
recipient I’ll send this to Bill
11:07
and
11:09
you could kind of just say it’s coming
11:11
from you know
11:13
oops I clicked off of there definitely
11:17
don’t want to do that
11:21
so you have to say who it’s coming from
11:22
which is a little weird you could just
11:24
say you know simple growth quote request
11:26
form something like that and then you do
11:29
need to put an email and there’s the
11:31
there’s the cat the cat is back
11:35
um so you do need to put an email where
11:36
it’s actually coming from
11:38
and then you do need to put a subject
11:40
line as well so usually that’ll just be
11:42
like website book form
11:44
and you know something like you for
11:47
receive a new estimate request
11:51
but something like that so that the
11:53
email that you receive with this
11:55
information actually makes sense and
11:57
then you’re going to hit save
12:07
and that’s the email notification you
12:09
can always click back in there and edit
12:11
it a little bit that’s that’s no problem
12:13
this right here though is specifically
12:15
what the um the person who asked the
12:19
question is is going to want to to look
12:21
at so this is where
12:23
you’re basically telling service
12:25
autopilot when someone submits this form
12:27
if they don’t already exist in my system
12:29
create them in my system so it might not
12:32
seem like a huge deal but manually
12:35
entering each one of these leads does
12:36
take you know 30 seconds if you’re doing
12:40
500 a thousand quote requests a year
12:42
that is just like monotonous time that
12:45
you can get back by by doing this task
12:46
once and for all yeah so this is
12:48
definitely the way to tackle it so I’m
12:50
glad you brought this up because this is
12:52
the part that everybody misses and ends
12:53
up sitting on your my day screen you
12:54
gotta do double entry
12:56
exactly so kind of like the default
12:59
things what it’s saying here is what
13:00
what is the matching criteria at what
13:02
point should service autopilot say don’t
13:04
add this person again they already exist
13:07
in the field in the system so for
13:10
example if Mike Callahan fills out this
13:12
form and Mike Callahan already exists in
13:14
the system based on how this is
13:16
currently set up it would say
13:18
I don’t need to create another Mike
13:20
Callahan where that becomes an issue
13:22
though is if we got two people named
13:25
Mike Callahan with two in your trouble
13:27
emails two totally different addresses
13:30
well now we might have just overridden
13:34
you know another Mike Callahan with this
13:36
Mike Callahan so you do want to have
13:38
typically at least one more field in
13:42
here and that would be the email so that
13:44
if you have two people with the exact
13:46
same name you know Mike Smith
13:49
um
13:49
but they have different emails
13:51
it would say oh this is a new person and
13:54
we’re going to create another person in
13:55
your system as a lead
13:57
so you can get a little bit more
13:59
granular with it if you wanted by saying
14:00
well
14:01
what if my Callahan has multiple
14:04
properties like rental properties that
14:06
we want to get serviced well if he
14:08
submits another quote request for a
14:10
different property
14:12
we might want to have an address field
14:15
in here that says all four of these
14:17
things need to match in order for
14:19
service autopilot to say this is the
14:22
same contact
14:24
that makes sense I appreciate you
14:26
hopping on here dealing with me and uh
14:27
breaking this down is there anything
14:28
else we need to know before we hop onto
14:31
the team call but I I think this is
14:32
probably an eye-opener for a lot of
14:33
folks that have not seen a V3 form
14:35
actually configured yeah last thing is
14:37
you probably want like a my day
14:39
notification so when this quote request
14:41
gets submitted um you’re probably going
14:43
to want to turn that on so that you can
14:45
see those notifications right on your my
14:47
day screen because you might not be
14:48
checking your email 24 7.
14:50
and then last but not least you’re going
14:53
to want to publish this form
14:55
so there’s a couple fields in the form
14:57
that I didn’t map like such as what
14:59
services you wanted a quote for that
15:02
information is just going to exist in
15:03
the form itself it’s not really going to
15:05
map anywhere on the the client file
15:08
typically
15:09
but so These Warnings aren’t sometimes
15:11
they are beneficial but these you can
15:13
kind of just disregard it’s I knew these
15:16
weren’t mapped anywhere
15:17
but you want to go to form options here
15:20
and when you hit publish
15:25
sometimes it takes a second
15:29
says your form has been saved and
15:31
published now we can actually take these
15:34
codes and it gives you a couple
15:35
different options and copy and paste
15:36
that and put it on your website wherever
15:38
you’re hosting your website so the most
15:40
common one that we recommend is this
15:42
actual embedded form just so that when
15:45
we copy and paste this we put it on the
15:46
website you don’t need to repeat this
15:48
process ever again if you want to change
15:51
your form
15:52
maybe you add another service well you
15:55
would just come into this form add the
15:57
option in here and then
16:01
come back here hit publish again and
16:03
that would actually automatically update
16:05
on your website
16:06
that’s one of the biggest issues
16:10
yeah so hopefully that was helpful and
16:12
if you do have any more questions about
16:14
that form just comment on the video or I
16:16
think Mike’s going to include a link
16:19
sgscall.com and we can chat more about
16:22
it absolutely yeah if any questions uh
16:24
around this or anything else in your
16:25
business check us out at
16:27
sgscall.com for free business analysis
16:29
or software analysis uh once again we’ll
16:32
see again on Callahan’s corner you ask
16:33
the questions we had some live right
16:34
here on Facebook Dylan and Mike on our
16:36
way to the weekly leadership meeting

0:00
are you asking questions Ransom live
0:01
right here on Facebook been a lot of
0:03
talk about emails and estimates going to
0:07
the spam folder and potential leads and
0:09
clients not getting the communication
0:11
from your business that you need to get
0:13
in their hands via email well uh there’s
0:16
a lot of misconceptions of why this is
0:19
happening and I’m about to
0:21
um literally demystify why this is
0:23
happening in a lot of your
0:26
um companies if you’re having issues
0:28
with email deliverability believe it or
0:29
not it has nothing to really do with the
0:31
software itself or their sender
0:34
reputation
0:35
um we work with service autopilot as a
0:37
certified advisor their user sending uh
0:40
ratings actually really really uh well
0:42
they meet from my understanding with the
0:44
email provider that sends these uh
0:47
emails and
0:49
it’s really dialed in this is something
0:51
to have a handle on uh the concern is
0:53
that the end user being us as consumers
0:56
contractors uh are unaware of some of
0:59
the simple steps we need to take so I’m
1:01
going to take the next few minutes and
1:02
actually talk about uh something that’s
1:04
not really sexy or exciting uh DNS and
1:07
SPF records
1:08
um but that’s really really important
1:10
I’m going to break down in just simple
1:11
layman terms what it is and what you
1:12
need to do to fix it in addition I’m
1:15
going to give you a link to a uh article
1:17
out of our help desk from simple growth
1:19
how to actually go in and connect uh the
1:21
DNS SPF records in service autopilot for
1:23
yourself and I’m going to hop into an
1:26
additional CRM that we use called keep
1:27
which used to be previously in Fusion
1:29
soft and I’m going to break down the top
1:31
seven or eight things that you need to
1:33
be looking at when you build email
1:34
content for email deliverability
1:38
um to your current leads and clients and
1:41
a lot of people ask what’s the
1:42
difference between simple growth and
1:44
some of the other providers out there
1:46
doing done for you marketing or done for
1:48
you automations well uh in the next few
1:50
minutes you’re gonna definitely see the
1:51
difference because when we go out and
1:53
write all your email copy and your text
1:55
message copy
1:57
um particularly as well as call scripts
1:59
um it’s done for you in the Box hitch
2:01
them but we don’t only just do that we
2:03
go in and actually check the email
2:06
deliverability and make sure it’s not
2:08
going to be flagged to spam
2:10
um and that’s the key thing and I’m
2:11
going to show you how to do it yourself
2:12
here over the next few minutes so
2:14
without any further delay I’m going to
2:15
open up the screen here
2:17
and talk about this so uh Tech Tweeter
2:21
had a great diagram I didn’t want to
2:22
recreate the wheel if it’s already out
2:23
on the internet uh so this actually
2:25
probably will bring a little more
2:26
credibility to me to actually drawing
2:28
this out on a uh Google slide sheet or
2:31
Lucid chart uh but what we’ve got here
2:34
is
2:35
uh what’s happening here is you are the
2:37
sender you’re sending your email here
2:40
um and it’s going out to this inbound
2:42
mail server and it’s looking up the SPF
2:45
at the DNS server and kicking it back
2:48
what you are doing is hopefully if you
2:51
have your SPF DNS record set that you’ve
2:54
given service autopilot basically the
2:57
permission to send on your behalf and
2:59
the other email providers are going to
3:01
recognize this is a credible source so
3:03
if it’s recognized here
3:05
um plus the reputation date of the
3:07
sender which essay has really good
3:08
sender information it’s going to go
3:11
either in the inbox spam quarantine or
3:13
blocked
3:14
um what we’re seeing here is a lot of
3:16
our estimates and emails if we have not
3:18
taken this essential step and this is
3:21
something that uh simple growth as an
3:23
expert in email deliverability and
3:25
automations uh has been teaching and
3:28
talking to all our clients about for
3:30
probably the last four and a half
3:31
probably five years so this is nothing
3:34
new
3:35
um so there is a difference when you go
3:37
out and work with someone they need to
3:40
be telling you about these things since
3:41
I’m here to basically demystify what
3:44
needs to be done even if you’re not
3:45
working with simple growth because in
3:46
the mindset of abundance this needs to
3:48
happen this is why people are not
3:50
getting their estimates out they’re not
3:51
getting their invoices out sometimes and
3:53
getting delivered
3:54
um so right from Tech Tweeter here
3:57
why is SPF important
4:00
um SPF is a senate centers policy
4:03
framework extremely important for
4:04
protecting your domain from being used
4:06
for fraudulent and email activities so
4:08
we need to go in and actually register
4:10
these for these to work SPF is a type of
4:12
domain service DNS record that
4:14
identifies which mail servers are
4:17
allowed to send emails from your domain
4:19
so we are going in and allowing service
4:23
autopilot to send emails from our domain
4:26
so simple growthsystems.com that domain
4:29
for me and why we do this it helps
4:31
prevent someone from spoofing your
4:33
domain and sending out malicious emails
4:35
which would not be good and I’ve seen
4:37
this in the past so we need to register
4:40
um those those things and SPF can help
4:42
prevent your emails from being marked as
4:44
spam sounds familiar correct we are
4:46
being marked in spam or not actually
4:48
getting there if we haven’t registered
4:50
this so it’s very very essentially we do
4:52
this so by adding SPF record to your DNS
4:55
you are essentially telling the
4:58
receiving mail server that this is where
5:01
my email comes from your Contracting
5:03
Company
5:04
um and that other mail servers claiming
5:07
to send emails from your domain is
5:09
fraudulent so once again once we have
5:11
gone in
5:12
we have registered with the service
5:15
autopilot
5:16
uh in SPF DNS records
5:20
the the mail services oh it’s good we’re
5:22
going to go through with the good
5:24
reputation we’re going to get in the
5:25
inbox this is why some of those emails
5:27
are going to spam or bouncing basically
5:29
getting blocked so we need to get that
5:31
DNS SPF record so the good news is in
5:34
the chat I am going to give you a link
5:36
to setting up your business email
5:37
addresses for use by service autopilot
5:40
so this was an article that we wrote two
5:42
years ago like I said we’ve been telling
5:44
our clients about four or five four to
5:46
five years ago when we really started
5:48
automating on service autopilot as a
5:50
certified advisor so this is going to
5:52
give you the step-by-step directions you
5:53
don’t need to be a simple growth client
5:55
um to do this but we’re going to give
5:57
you this here and I’m going to put that
5:58
in the chat after the live event uh next
6:01
thing I want to show you though is what
6:02
does this all mean
6:04
um so outside of service autopilot
6:07
um and and keep which used to be
6:09
Infusionsoft is where we first started
6:10
cutting our automation teeth
6:13
um so what is the most common triggered
6:15
messages for their spam Checkers I can
6:17
go in here and this is an email that we
6:19
wrote for the simple growth masterminds
6:21
for our live event in August 2023 uh
6:24
where we teach eight big eight figure
6:26
business
6:27
um methodology and actually Workshop it
6:29
uh what keep has actually done is off to
6:31
the left here there’s a Spam area so
6:33
when I go to create a email
6:36
um I can hit this and based on what I
6:39
have in here
6:41
for this actual email
6:44
this built-in spam Checker will actually
6:46
tell me the deliverability so obviously
6:48
we’ve tested this
6:50
um and this email had I think about an
6:52
85 open rate
6:54
um and almost a 10 click-through rate
6:56
but part of the reason why the simple
6:58
growth automations internally and the
7:00
ones we build for our clients work so
7:01
well is we go through this process and
7:05
do a Spam checking and deliverability
7:07
process now the good news is you don’t
7:09
need to have keeper Infusionsoft to do
7:11
this if we go online there is a lot of
7:13
free Checkers so literally
7:15
free email spam Checker and what we can
7:18
do and all of them are pretty much the
7:19
same
7:20
um some limit you how many you test
7:22
today but if you’re testing up to three
7:24
emails a day like it’s pretty much free
7:25
so you’re good but we go in and what you
7:28
can do is when you click in here
7:30
uh for that we can copy this email
7:33
address and you can send your emails to
7:35
it and it’ll actually tell you your spam
7:37
or spamminess rating to actually be able
7:40
to deliver your emails
7:42
the final thing is uh right from keep
7:44
where we’re certified advisors of
7:47
um I want to talk about some of the
7:48
things that uh the eight main things
7:50
that you as a contractor if you’re
7:53
writing your own copy and not using the
7:54
pre-built simple growth copy or if
7:56
you’re even editing on top of it or
7:57
customizing it
8:00
is the first one is the ratio of white
8:03
space to non-white space having a lot of
8:06
line breaks are other white space alerts
8:08
the internet service providers
8:10
um that critical information potentially
8:13
opt out unsubscribe list is actually
8:16
being buried at the bottom
8:18
so whether you’re in the US or Canada
8:20
Camp spam compliance we need to have the
8:23
opt out on the bottom uh some people
8:25
will inadvertently not know this and
8:28
actually push a whole bunch of white
8:29
space and push that opt out link all the
8:31
way to the bottom so it’s buried
8:34
um and these email providers now will
8:37
actually look at this
8:39
um
8:40
if you’re asking for huge sums of money
8:42
uh those are phishing schemes and then
8:46
uh the way you’ve formatted your numbers
8:48
in the US US on your actual uh document
8:51
may also trigger some spam so the next
8:54
one here is tax percent a lot of money
8:57
for you so basically
8:59
um those those ideas as big deep
9:01
discounts or
9:03
um discounts percentage off those things
9:06
in email subject line in the messaging
9:08
uh may actually trigger uh some actual
9:12
uh what do you call it uh spam rating uh
9:15
subject line isn’t all in capitals I see
9:18
this here in a lot of the documents that
9:20
we
9:21
um get from our clients or non-clients
9:24
um that they’re doing it so urgent read
9:26
things like this here that is going to
9:29
be considered spam and that will get you
9:31
a one-way ticket right to the email spam
9:34
box HTML format message contains
9:37
shortened urls
9:40
so the best idea here is any short URLs
9:43
we’re putting behind a button or a call
9:45
to action where it’s not actually having
9:46
the actual
9:48
um shortened URL in the actual email so
9:51
if you look at our broadcast here
9:53
for the simple growth masterminds attend
9:56
the register click here and that actual
9:58
short URL is behind there that’s going
10:00
to give you better email deliverability
10:01
this is the stuff that uh when you
10:04
actually dive in and get an education
10:05
around this stuff that this is what
10:07
we’re looking at here
10:08
um obviously I don’t think any adult uh
10:11
entertainment things would be in here
10:12
but uh if you’ve got something around
10:14
porn in there or Triple X it’s going to
10:16
end up in the spam thing but I think
10:17
we’re all probably safe in our lawn care
10:19
and home cleaning companies anything
10:20
around trading options probably also uh
10:23
but here’s a big one domain and IP
10:25
reputation
10:27
with this right here right
10:30
now it should not be an issue the domain
10:32
reputation is actually really good and
10:35
uh if you’ve got something around
10:36
coveted content we’ll probably get there
10:38
so um those are some of the things that
10:40
I’m looking at when we’re writing done
10:41
for you email marketing and text copy
10:44
um that needs to happen but once again
10:46
if you’re joining us we’re talking about
10:48
DNS SPF records so when we send
10:51
we’re giving
10:53
um and basically
10:55
the DNS record identifies which mail
10:57
servers are allowed to send emails from
11:00
your domain so we’re letting everyone
11:02
know that sa service autopilot is
11:05
allowed to send from our domain and then
11:07
it goes in through reputation and it
11:09
gets in the inbox that’s how you’re
11:10
gonna get your emails for your invoices
11:12
your estimates
11:14
and any other communication to your
11:16
client so you need to go in and register
11:18
your SPS and dnf Records otherwise
11:22
um you have not made it aware that
11:24
service autopilot is sending on behalf
11:28
of your domain like your website like
11:30
simple growth systems now the other
11:32
thing that probably no one has told you
11:34
which I’m going to tell you that we tell
11:35
all of our paying clients and I’m just
11:37
going to let this out as some expert
11:39
advice uh Mike at gmail.com is not the
11:44
email you want to be sending eventually
11:46
that is also going to get flagged so you
11:48
want to be sending from
11:50
uh Mike at simplelawncare.com so you
11:54
need to be sending from an actual domain
11:55
that’s registered
11:57
um and that is going to be the key so
11:58
what I’m going to put here is uh our
12:00
article here
12:01
to set up your email address to use by
12:05
service autopilot so in the chat here
12:07
I’m putting that in here and I’ll post
12:10
it again afterwards so this is how we
12:12
tackle it literally scroll down step by
12:14
step
12:15
and this will be the step-by-step
12:18
newsletters go out get a spam filter
12:21
check your emails before you send them
12:23
out to make sure uh just like I’m doing
12:25
in my email broadcast that I’m okay with
12:27
the spam check and
12:29
take an idea of some of the things if
12:31
you’re just joining us uh the top
12:34
nine things we should be looking at that
12:36
will uh almost guarantee you a one-way
12:39
ticket to the spam folder if your DNS
12:40
and SPF records are created correctly so
12:43
these are the things we’re talking about
12:44
I’m going to drop this in the
12:47
chat as well how to do this on your own
12:49
and go out and get an email spam Checker
12:52
to check your content uh if you’re not
12:54
using simple growth as a uh content
12:57
provider with your done-free automations
12:58
want to check that make sure you do it
13:00
correctly and this is one of the reasons
13:03
when people ask what’s the difference
13:04
between simple growth and other
13:06
automation providers we’re bringing 10
13:08
15 years of expert knowledge here for
13:11
things not only for the automations but
13:12
how to actually get those automated
13:13
emails and text messages to their inbox
13:15
and providing you tools with done for
13:18
you fashion and not only do we after the
13:21
first 30 days to launch is set up we
13:24
actually continue to support these so on
13:26
average with about 28 to 30 full-time
13:28
people on our team uh updating and
13:30
supporting these things we probably
13:31
average I would say 150 to maybe almost
13:34
200 uh updating and help tickets on our
13:39
team every week depending on the
13:40
seasonality of the season so that’s what
13:43
we’re doing we’re living this we’ve got
13:44
a full team that owns this does it and
13:46
uh we’re showing you here on this video
13:48
how to take care of yourself if this is
13:50
something you’re doing yourself so
13:51
Callahan’s corner you ask questions we
13:53
end some library on Facebook make sure
13:54
you check the link in the comments
13:57
um how to actually set up your SPF DNS
13:59
records to have essays send

0:01
there we go Sean so let’s uh we’ll start
0:05
this over here so uh if we’re looking at
0:07
going in
0:09
um Sean let me know if you can hear me
0:10
buddy but I think uh that should solve
0:12
the problem
0:13
um but basically the question here that
0:15
we submitted to Callahan’s Corner was
0:17
how do we go out and when should we
0:19
renew our snow and ice removal uh in
0:22
that process what we’re looking at is
0:24
going out right after the Fourth of July
0:26
within about a week to week and a half
0:29
we want to renew our snow removal
0:30
services so good news is I’ve got some
0:33
really
0:33
um great Insight because my lawn care
0:35
company Callahan’s lawn care located in
0:37
Upstate New York uh is probably the
0:39
Third on average one of the third
0:41
highest snowfall markets for snow
0:43
removal in the whole United States
0:44
averaging 120 to 130 inches Lakeside
0:47
where we’re at so the process of
0:49
renewing 600 residential contracts and
0:52
probably 40 or 50 commercials every time
0:54
we went out we plowed a little over
0:56
um 100 acres of pavement uh that was a
1:00
big task to get those renewed so we’re
1:01
going to do is go out right after the
1:03
Fourth of July
1:04
and renew those contracts we’re going to
1:06
do is create some scarcity and urgency
1:08
around that
1:09
um and we’re going to do the first part
1:11
is working our existing clients in our
1:13
our CRM or customer relationship
1:15
management software and actually send
1:17
out a renewal um and allow them to view
1:20
and up uh view their updated pricing if
1:23
there’s a price change and click and
1:24
accept uh the next thing is we want to
1:27
actually start working our database net
1:28
CRM of our leads and lost estimates and
1:31
previous clients that we actually want
1:33
to work with
1:34
um so this is where we’re going to dive
1:35
in and really start to create that
1:37
scarce and urgency because we don’t
1:39
overbook our schedule we provide quality
1:40
service and the way we do that is we go
1:43
out and sign people up so if you’re
1:45
going to renew in my case 600 plus
1:47
clients maybe 700 snow removal clients
1:49
that’s something you don’t want to do in
1:50
October September November you want to
1:53
know well in advance of where you’re at
1:54
and if we’re looking to grow by 30 how
1:57
many of our existing clients have
1:58
canceled so how many do we need to
2:00
replace the cancellations and how many
2:01
we need to grow where we’re going but
2:04
the the other cool thing is you’ve got
2:05
to jump on 99 of the competitors in your
2:07
Market by going out in July most of them
2:09
are still struggling to figure out their
2:11
summer Services we’re already going out
2:13
and selling our snow removal services or
2:15
if you’re not in the snow removal area
2:16
it’s going to be the same exact thing
2:17
for Holiday Lights
2:19
um but what I’m going to recommend is
2:20
after we create the new renewal process
2:22
through an automation
2:24
uh in your software we’re going to go
2:26
out and work that database to get new
2:27
people and I’m going to recommend that
2:29
we do it through email and also direct
2:31
mailing direct mailing right now uh not
2:33
the cheapest but having really really
2:35
good response because no one else is
2:37
investing in direct mail uh the last
2:40
week or so I’ve gone out to my mailbox
2:41
and it’s lucky if there’s anything in
2:44
there outside of a bill I think I’ve
2:45
seen in the probably last month maybe
2:47
one direct mail piece um that really
2:49
wasn’t well done with no call to action
2:51
so I’m going to break down some best
2:52
practice so if you’re going to start
2:53
selling your snow removing Services
2:54
right now in the middle of July this is
2:56
how you do it
2:58
um so our buddy Tyler of an Integrity
2:59
Paving also does snow removal
3:02
um what we’ve done with him for his seal
3:04
coating but this is the same exact
3:05
process we’re going to be doing with our
3:07
snow removal
3:08
um this is something we actually did at
3:09
Callahan’s lawn care with a new updated
3:11
twist I’m going to show you is we’ve got

0:00
welcome back to Callahan’s corner will
0:01
you ask a question to answer them live
0:02
right here on Facebook had a User
0:04
submitted question Mike when is the best
0:06
time to start going out and getting the
0:08
renewals for snow removal and upselling
0:11
people in our current database that
0:13
haven’t signed up for snow removal so
0:15
great question so at calhan’s Lawn Care
0:17
my lawn care and snow removal company in
0:19
the Northeast uh located in Rochester
0:21
New York actually the third largest
0:23
snowfall Market in the United States
0:26
um for plowing the time that we actually
0:29
went out and started up selling and
0:31
renewing the contracts uh were actually
0:33
the week or two after the Fourth of July
0:35
so perfect timing here
0:37
um and the rest of the question was like
0:39
what’s the best way to go in and get
0:41
your leads or other people in your
0:43
database that you’re upselling to
0:45
actually go in and get these estimates
0:46
because right now after the holidays uh
0:48
we don’t have time to actually get these
0:50
estimates done in a quick fashion so uh
0:53
first thing timing for your seasonal
0:56
upsells for snow removal and renewals
0:59
right now in July is the time to do it
1:01
right after the Fourth of July we sold
1:03
several hundred thousand dollars of snow
1:05
removal literally in the two weeks after
1:07
Fourth of July uh the way I’m gonna I’m
1:09
gonna have you approach this is we’d
1:11
send out automated renewals for existing
1:12
clients anybody who is in your database
1:15
that has not signed up we’re going to
1:16
send a email with a link where they can
1:19
up uh click and request it and we can do
1:21
a direct mailing to the neighborhoods
1:23
that we’re in as well so I’m gonna open
1:25
up the screen in normal fashion show you
1:27
what this looks like so this is simple
1:29
estimate and it’s an on-demand live
1:31
estimate that you can drive to your
1:34
leads so we can have a link behind a
1:35
button or a QR code or in this example
1:40
uh it’s seal coding but same idea we
1:42
would change this out to snow removal
1:44
and we want to go in and send this to
1:46
our leads so what are you tired of all
1:49
the things that your competitors are
1:51
doing wrong and why you should hire us
1:52
what we promise to do and there’s a QR
1:55
code if you’re doing the direct mailing
1:57
that’s going to open up this website
1:58
that I’m showing you in addition we’ve
2:01
got the address here Tyler of Integrity
2:03
seal great client of ours has allowed us
2:05
to share this but same idea uh Tyler’s
2:07
Direct Mail pieces are actually going
2:08
out live right now but same thing as
2:10
seal coding I’m recommending with the
2:12
same practice for our snow removal
2:13
services with some scarcity and urgency
2:16
for them to sign up and some route
2:19
density 10 off if you get nine or more
2:21
of your neighbors to sign up so once you
2:23
drive them in you’re gonna go to a
2:24
landing page just like this simple
2:25
estimate one I’ve got here demo
2:28
and what you’re going to do is go in and
2:30
your client is going to type in their
2:32
address for snow removal and literally
2:34
hit continue and what’s going to happen
2:36
is our tool on the right is going to
2:39
show them what not to do and on the left
2:41
we’re going to color it in in green and
2:43
that is what we actually want them to do
2:45
so once they color in their service area
2:47
they can literally in seconds buy your
2:50
snow removal services online and put a
2:52
PCI Compliant credit card on form so
2:54
they’re going to literally go in and
2:56
just highlight their driveway area
2:58
that easy
3:00
and save and see estimate and then when
3:03
we click that that is going to actually
3:04
drive a property specific price with a
3:08
checkout where they can add their credit
3:10
card and if you’re using service
3:11
autopilot it’ll automatically sync to
3:13
service autopilot with a PCI Compliant
3:16
credit card form a picture of the
3:18
service area to make sure it’s accurate
3:19
and then in addition it’s also going to
3:21
send that leader contact in the sa here
:25
um
3:25
and as this loads in you can see here
3:27
we’ve got the normal landing page with
3:30
this embedded in here and snow and3
3:32
pavement services so this would be your
3:33
snow removal services residential
3:35
plowing
3:37
um every three inches of snow for an
3:39
unlimited contract at three inches or we
3:41
could do per trip or with a retainer so
3:43
a lot of variability you can stick into
3:45
this a simple estimate but then
3:47
literally we go in and add the
3:49
subscription and we’d go to the checkout
3:51
and once we have the checkout we have a
3:52
service you could add in your custom
3:54
terms and conditions in here so not only
3:57
can you go in and estimate live your
4:00
clients can go live on your estimate now
4:02
to uh on your website to get live
4:03
estimates but now you can do your
4:05
pavement services such as sealing and
4:07
snow removal and to answer the questions
4:08
submitted we want to go in and sell
4:11
those snow removal services now with
4:13
scarcity and urgency just like our
4:15
friend Tyler Integrity seal act now
4:18
August only
4:19
and we want to highlight what the wrong

Transcript:
0:08
everyone welcome to this very first very first time ever the simple growth
0:14
business podcast I’m Dan Ralphs this is Aaron suttonfield and we’re kicking
off something that we have no idea if anyone
0:21
is ever going to watch or pay attention to but we’re doing it anyway
because we
0:26
care about a small business across the country especially service business
uh businesses across the country and we’re
0:32
really curious about how we might be able to help them um so Aaron welcome
welcome to our very
0:37
first inaugural edition of the simple growth business podcast we I don’t
even
0:42
know if we’re 100 decided on the name that’s what we’re calling it right
now sounds great I’m excited
0:49
so um I wanted just to introduce it this way so we
0:54
um I don’t know how long ago it was Aaron you and I are sitting in a a
beach house in Wilmington North Carolina
1:01
and we were talking about our experience because you’ve been coaching small
business lawn care companies for a
1:08
long time because you’ve run and been very successful in the lawn care
space you have a small company in Charlotte
1:15
and and we were talking about like some of the clients that you bump into
that
1:21
are like these service based companies these lawn care companies are like a
three hundred thousand four hundred thousand five hundred thousand and
1:27
they’re just kind of a mess a little bit is that fair to say yeah yeah yeah
so we uh at simple growth
1:35
uh systems I was helping companies build out
1:40
um their rate Matrix and their services and helping them uh use a software
to to
1:47
manage your business better um and we kept seeing that that when we were
kind of done helping them with sort
1:53
of some basic functions or some processes that they they really wanted to
talk more about their businesses they
1:59
really were you know lost to entrepreneurs and we we talk a lot about
entrepreneurship being a lonely place
2:07
um because typically it’s just the owner or maybe there’s a partner but
they’re they’re kind of lonely
2:13
um and I just could sense that as we were working with these companies they
they wanted more they wanted they wanted
2:21
just it is super lonely to be a business owner like you were doing you have
to tell the story you have to tell them
2:26
about the time when you you’re like maybe we shouldn’t say this public but
we don’t don’t you’re like I don’t even
2:32
go to certain parties unless there’s another business owner there like I
need someone I need another business or else I can’t
2:38
have fun at a party because I don’t know how to talk to normal people right
I feel that way sometimes too I’m like
2:44
people are like so what do you do and I’m like well I’m a business coach
and I help companies and and they kind of
2:49
glaze over as if being an entrepreneur is the most boring confusing world
right it’s like we live
2:55
on another Prime almost I I know I know that I have to kind of watch myself
in Social settings to not get really
3:02
excited about business and talking about business um most most people that
are you know
3:10
mid-level managers or managing a little division in a large corporation
I’ve got a great friend of mine
3:17
um who is he runs a pretty nice little group at Wells Fargo in Charlotte
and he’s a CPA and he’s like man I wish I
3:23
could get as excited about my spreadsheets as you do it and he’s someone
that for seriously 27 years he
3:30
has one friend that has always been he just loves talking to me about my
business and he genuinely does is
3:37
interested but they’re few and far between and I guess most people don’t
and so that’s what one of the reasons
3:42
why we’re here we recognize that most people aren’t as nerdy about business
as
3:47
we are like literally Aaron and I are sitting at a Charlotte Hornets game
and we just basically talk business during
3:54
the entire game wasn’t a very good game but uh we were sitting there
talking like the entire game we had good seats
3:59
we were just sitting there chatting business because we’re nerds for
business like we absolutely love it it’s all we want to think about it’s
all we
4:06
want to talk about so what better way to do that than starting a podcast
where we actually can give you some really sound business advice and so we
were sitting
4:12
there in North Carolina we were at this beach house and we were asking
ourselves the question question what are the fundamental steps what are the
4:18
fundamental like elements that if we were to meet any business owner and we
were to say how do we get that business
4:24
owner from 300 000 more or less the reason 300 000 because that’s like
right when you’re something you’re not a real
4:31
business before that but that’s like like when you’re finally got at your
first employee or two
4:37
and you’re you’re finally starting to get your head out of being just a
solopreneur and you’re starting to
4:42
really run a business somewhere around that 200 300 000 Mark where you’re
like
4:47
yeah that’s okay that point when you’re like I can’t really take venmo
anymore I
4:53
need you to like I need totally I need to take a credit card I I you know
cash
4:59
is fine but you know like I need to start reporting more things I got to
pay payroll taxes I gotta you know I gotta
5:05
do workers comp and all these things that that are real business things you
know I have to get like business
5:11
insurance and it it becomes less of a side hustle and more of the hustle
right
5:17
that’s from that’s the right where we get up like the transition from side
hustle to a main hustle is where we want
5:24
to talk to you and so if you’re that spot or anywhere beyond that probably
anything past 10 million we won’t have a
5:29
lot of good wise things to say to you but anywhere between like all right
it’s finally become my main hustle maybe we
5:36
should call this the main hustle podcast right where it’s like this is but
like when we finally got to our main hustle
5:44
and now it’s like all right we’re gonna try to grow it and we ask ourselves
the question what are the fundamental steps of how to go from from barely
becoming
5:53
our main Hustle to it being a million dollar company and that’s what the
primary that’s what
5:58
we’re gonna be talking about throughout this podcast and it’s going to be
the major theme of all of the different things we talk about is how do we
make
6:05
the main our main Hustle how do we turn that into a million dollar company
or
6:11
better and and we’ll we won’t talk too much about once we get to a million
plus we’re going to spend most of our time on
6:18
a simple growth business podcast I don’t know Maine hustle podcast might be
better but we’re going to spend most of
6:24
our time talking about that growth from point A to point B and and we
literally got together in a room and we asked
6:31
ourselves the question if we were trying to outline it what the steps would
be and we came up with five fundamental
6:38
steps five fundamental steps so I thought Aaron today on the podcast would
be cool
6:43
if we just talked through those five fundamental steps so starting at step
6:49
one so Aaron if you want to introduce step one of our five fundamental
steps again if you’re if you’re in that
6:55
category where it’s like it’s my it’s my main hustle now but I do not know
how to
7:00
grow this to a million like what what Where Do We Begin what’s step one yeah
7:06
so step one is just finding four hours each week each week find four hours
7:13
where you can you know separate yourself from your company from your you
know phone goes off you
7:20
treat this like you are unavailable so detached from you know social media
phones uh from the company you need to
7:28
have four hours dedicated to work on the business and I think it’s
important to kind of Define what is on the business
7:35
mean I’ll tell you what on the business is not really quickly it’s not
selling something it’s not producing something
7:42
and it’s not solving problems that come up from producing or selling so you
know
7:48
there would be things like reconciling your books or you know I I’ve
coached a lot of companies on the very first
7:55
couple of calls they’ll say I’m cash poor and I look and they have an
invoice for work right
8:01
um and so accounts receivable invoicing um hiring what’s your strategy for
8:07
hiring probably hiring is the number one thing we’ve heard about since 2019
2020
8:12
um you know how are you going to what’s your process for that what’s the
strategy all of that that stuff right
8:18
it’s all of the budgeting all of the stuff that isn’t selling and
fulfilling it’s all the stuff that isn’t selling
8:25
and fulfilling and and the truth is we all have we all have four hours
8:31
we every person in the history of the planet has four hours a week and I
like to say you know you have four hours a
8:37
week because if your tire went flat you would fix it you have four hours
and so what what’s
8:43
funny and I don’t know why this is Aaron maybe it’s like the question pops
the Mind why
8:49
don’t we I think every business owner that I’ve ever talked to if I said
hey should you be spending at least four
8:54
hours a week working on your resume not in your business they would all say
yeah yeah I definitely should be and yet yeah
9:01
for the most part if I ask how many actually are devoted committed
four-hour period it’s not as many as
9:08
like so why don’t we why don’t we yeah four hours a week because we’re very
9:15
much yeah we’re we’re we’re technicians like most of us got into this
because you know we like from a lawn care
9:23
perspective right we’re talking mainly Lawn Care here now so you know I
probably started in this business either
9:30
because in my case uh it became a summer job that became a career
9:36
um out of necessity if you don’t uh do well in college you got to find
another Avenue so you know or maybe there was
9:43
someone who really excelled at a lawn care company or a landscape company
and they became a leader in that company and
9:49
they’re like you know what I can do this I can I can do this on my own and
so so we kind of get here in two different
9:55
ways both of which require us to be really good in the field right we we
don’t
10:01
start lawn care companies rarely without knowing something about the
technical side of lawn care right whether it’s how
10:08
to stripe a lawn really well or how to fertilize a lawn or how to landscape
or or they love plants yeah it stays your
10:15
side hustle if you never figure it out it never becomes your main hustle if
you can’t figure those things out yeah and
10:21
so we we all are most comfortable in that and and and I can kind of tell the
10:27
the maturity of the lawn care business owner based on the things they talk
about most
10:33
um nothing wrong with this but you know they tend to talk about what type
of mower are you purchasing or you know
10:41
some of the you know less mature businesses what we’ll focus on man what
kind of blades are you running or or
10:46
some of the things that are honestly in the scheme of things aren’t going
to scale your company I think you’re right
10:54
I think because we because we start in the technical detail of the business
10:59
when it comes time for us to actually take our side hustle make it our main
hustle and then make our main hustle
11:05
like a legitimate business uh that’s a million dollar company like I think
sometimes we don’t even
11:11
know what to spend our time on it’s like I don’t know how to do that and it
reminds me I don’t know I’m sharing the
11:19
story but it reminds me of a buddy of mine who is playing tennis with his
wife and his wife kind of like said oh you
11:26
know I don’t really like tennis and his response was do you know why you
don’t like tennis because you suck at it
11:34
which which for the record is not the right thing to say to your wife when
she’s trying to we’re trying to
11:39
introduce her to a new hobby but there’s sort of some truth to that right
like the reason we don’t want to spend the
11:45
four hours the reason we don’t like discipline ourselves is to like get in
front of a computer screen and build
11:50
systems or whatever that four hours might need us to do is because we suck
11:55
at it like we just don’t know we’re just not very good at it do you think
that could be it right I mean I spend our
12:02
time there and yeah I mean I remember the days when I was starting a
company and and I was making a little bit of
12:08
money I didn’t know what a p l statement was I didn’t know what the balance
sheet was I mean I knew they were accounting
12:13
things but I didn’t really know like when I was looking at it it was you
know like like a monkey doing a math problem
12:19
like what what is this stuff and so I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at
it I certainly wasn’t concerned about
12:25
balancing my books every month or you know uh those types of things I
didn’t know how to look at those things and
12:31
project you know if my pricing was correct or not you know and so
12:37
um you know hiring like you know I have a job here’s how much I pay you
want to
12:43
come work for me you know like so those are all things and time that we
have to spend on those processes like a sales
12:49
process um you know I wouldn’t even know where to start with that stuff so
again early days step one step one is for us to go
12:57
we got four hours and I’m gonna I’m gonna sit down in front of a screen
even if I don’t know what to do even even if
13:03
I’m not good at it even if I suck at it I’m gonna sit down for four hours
and I’m gonna start working on things to
13:10
make my business better four hours a week and if and if if it’s like I
don’t know what to do Step One is
13:16
figure out what to do all right if you like and we’ll talk about what the
other steps are and what you should be
13:21
spending your time on but just the fact of the matter is we can’t like that
there are two core resources required
13:27
for us to grow a business and the first one is time like one of the reasons
we stayed treading water and we stayed pretty much
13:34
where we are is because we spend no time improving
13:39
um and making our business better like we just don’t spend the time there
I’ll I’ll tell you something Dan that makes
13:46
me think about this that I think is relevant here is um
13:51
sometime maybe about 11 12 years ago um I was a huge Sports fanatic I mean I
13:58
I watch sports I’ve invested a ton of energy into that you had the Dream
Team
14:04
be right behind you right yeah yeah I mean I I and I still love sports okay
but there was a point at which the the
14:11
Carolina Panthers owner at the time was gonna basically give away the year
14:17
because he was in charge of renegotiating the player’s cut of the of
14:22
the revenue share and he knew that they were going to be in a position to
be a more favorable share for the owners and
14:29
he basically gave away a season he didn’t sign any players he waited to
sign players till the next year and I
14:34
remember thinking you know that’s pretty smart number one on his part but
as a fan if he doesn’t care about this year
14:41
why do I need to watch this and it’s kind of done them it’s like by the way
I really don’t make any money my family
14:46
doesn’t become better because at the time I invest in sports you know if I
really invested this time of the things
14:52
that were made me a better person or a better company or you know were
invested
14:57
in something that would actually pay me back later like how much better
would my would my life be
15:03
um and you know I think that we all invest our time in something we all have
15:08
the same 24 hours a day and I think successful people um my son is a really
accomplished
15:15
guitar player he plays guitar three or four hours a day I mean they’re
really they’re literally I mean that may
15:21
be on the on the low end um and he also just started teaching some younger
kids how to play guitar and
15:28
he said they just don’t want to practice you know and and and you know so
we have to use our time wisely and business
15:35
owners don’t have enough hours in the day I used to tell my wife she’s a
teacher and I’d say you know you might
15:40
be able to accomplish some of the things that you’re supposed to at your
job today I have no chance of accomplishing most of what I need to in my
job today
15:47
and so I think successful business owners are very careful with their time
but they also prioritize their time
15:55
correctly yeah they work on the biggest things and good business owners
learn
16:00
how to delegate the things that they can pay someone to do you know we used
to talk about I
16:06
remember back in the day talking about you know work on thousand dollar an
hour ideas if you’re the owner and and
16:12
delegate those 20 an hour yeah the ten dollar an hour nobody you can’t
delegate ten dollars an hour anymore yeah it used
16:18
to be ten dollars an hour right so so step one step one is like go go cut
out
16:25
four hours of your week and sit down and if you honestly don’t move on to
step two until you figure that out until you
16:31
figure out how to discipline yourself in that way um because the truth is
you’re never gonna make to be a million dollar
16:36
company if you haven’t disappointed if you haven’t learned to discipline
yourself in the area of time and it really is a requirement I I’ve seen it
16:43
done a bunch of times I remember one woman she said Hey listen I just I
just told my husband I’m out of commission
16:49
from 6 p.m to 10 p.m on Wednesday nights I just do not have
16:54
just don’t plan on me being around from 6 p.m we’re not saying four hours
17:00
at one time it could be one hour four days I recommend at least a two hour
17:06
break it up I recommend at least into our blood because it can be hard
right to get
17:11
uh to do get a project significantly underway just like if you’re doing like
17:16
20-minute Sprints but but four hours that’s all we’re asking and it can’t
like I know another business owner who
17:23
he literally would like send everyone home from his business uh on Friday
afternoons at 3 P.M he called early
17:30
release Fridays and that way he could finally be alone and work on stuff so
whatever it looks like for you it
17:35
doesn’t need to be fancy special but we just need four hours so Step One is
the four hour rule you have to put in at
17:40
least four hours a week if you want to grow business that’s not fulfilling
or sales or the basic operations of your
17:46
business you need four hours a week step number two so once you have time
the first the next thing we’re going to
17:53
focus on is money so the next thing we’re going to focus on is money so
once you have some time to get your ducks in
18:00
order the first place we’re going to focus is on your money and that step
number two is we have to get our personal
18:06
and Business Financial house in order and it doesn’t mean our business and
18:12
personal house has to be a a nice house it just has to be an orderly one so
that
18:17
we can actually know what’s going on in our business because at the end of
the day our business our ability to build our business is really dependent
on cash
18:24
it’s the it’s the lifeblood of your business and so if we don’t have clean
arteries uh for us to pump our blood
18:31
around we’re going to have a business heart attack some people you know
have had business
18:37
heart attacks where literally I was chatting with a guy the other day who
said I’m having a business he didn’t say
18:42
this but he was having a business heart attack why was he having business
heart attack because he owed 250 000 in taxes
18:49
that he and they were unpaid and the IRS was showing up uh you may have a
business heart attack didn’t you have
18:55
one the other day that was having a business heart attack because he uh
hadn’t paid his what was the story
19:01
well yeah I mean you know it’s just you know when we’re small or you know
we’re running a business we might have you
19:07
know we might put guys on a 1099 you know and at some point they become
employees and and uh so yeah we’re
19:13
working through a situation where we we’ve got to figure out you know how
do we overcome a a situation we’re a pretty
19:20
large business running a lot of 1099 labor and the Department of Labor in
his
19:25
state is auditing his company and we call that a business heart attack right
19:31
it’s like holy cow business emergency and uh you know they’ve they’ve done
an
19:37
awesome job with this business and and we’re hoping that this situation is
something they can work through we’ll see we’ll find out
19:43
um but yeah you know understanding and having a good understanding uh of
your
19:50
of the finances of your business and of of you know just your break even
number like what is it you know Dan we were
19:56
talking at a conference in Wilmington uh site one invited us invited me to
speak there and and uh you know I show hands
20:04
who knows their Breakeven number I mean you know no one no one knows to
break even and they’ll say well we kind
20:10
of knew like what what it cost what our labor is per hour it’s like no no
like what does it cost your company per hour
20:18
um and and then you know it’s it’s pretty easy to figure that out um
doesn’t take long but then we got to
20:24
go to that other sheet that balance sheet we got to understand well how
much debt do you have yeah very few of the
20:31
companies we’re coaching are debt free um some have gone into some form of
debt so we need a ballot you know we need to
20:37
pull that number over um you know no one very very few that we
20:43
coach I shouldn’t say none but very few that we coach have a budget you
know what what are they what is their goal
20:49
for for this month in spending and and so at the beginning is just getting
all of those pieces in a row getting all
20:55
your ducks in a row financially now we could and we will spend a lot of
time talking about uh what the details of
21:03
your not a nice healthy profit loss look like what the details of a nice
healthy personal budget look like business
21:09
budget looks like how do we account for debt and all those things but if I
have my four hours and I’m I’m breaking away
21:16
on a Saturday afternoon and I’m just hiding up in a in a coffee shop
somewhere and I begin I begin by opening
21:23
up my my books and I make sure that we’re healthy and clean now sometimes
this means that we have some hard
21:30
decisions like right away we might start to discover things within our in
our family live or within our business life
21:36
that are hard because at the end of the day a small business can afford an
21:42
extravagant CEO they just can’t you can’t afford to be
21:47
an extravagant CEO at the level of a small business and if you’re living an
extravagant personal lifestyle
21:53
like you got to cut it because we we need that 300 you’re spending on your
jet skis a month we need that in your
22:00
marketing budget we need that 680 car payment you’re paying for that nice
22:06
truck we need 480 of that in your marketing budget we need so like
22:11
sometimes the reason our business is handcuffed is because our personal
finances aren’t in order and so at least
22:19
for a little while we have to like cinch up the belt personally and
professionally so that then we can go uh
22:26
you know spend extravagantly yeah what is it Dave Ramsey says like live
maybe like no one else so later you can
22:32
live like no one else or if you live like no one else today you’re probably
gonna live like no one else later
22:38
because you know if if you if you’re doing wrong things today you’re gonna
have pain later if you do right things
22:44
today you’re not you’re gonna avoid the pain so yeah you’re gonna you’re
gonna have pain or sacrifice at some point
22:52
um and I think you know we we talk about you know the personal finance I
think it’s important to talk about this for a
22:58
second you know a lot of times I’ll I’ll coach someone and I’ll say you know
23:03
um they want to make a big change or they make a pretty aggressive change
in their business and it a lot of times that means reducing revenue for a
period
23:10
of time to build revenue somewhere else right like we we we learn it we’ll
talk
23:15
about a little bit more of this in step three but I think the reason it’s
important to understand personally where
23:21
you stand is you know are you the breadwinner of this family are you the
23:26
person who needs who makes the majority of the money for this family off of
your business well then if you’re going to
23:32
make a big change in that we’ve got to be careful we’ve got to make that
slowly we’ve gotta you know it’s almost like a
23:39
business break even and then there’s a personal break even it’s like hey
what is our personal break even number
23:44
meaning how much money does my family need to pay all the bills and live
and eat and survive and and once I figure out that kind of
23:51
personal break even then I I know what my business I know the flexibility I
have now to build my business up or down
23:58
or remove that division add this product take on this debt but until we know
24:04
those numbers that like little personal break even number we don’t know how
to kind of move forward
24:09
yeah we don’t know how to coach you and then you know I’ve had clients who
say you know my wife makes three times what
24:15
I do and you know I’m thinking well why are you working you know no but uh
you
24:20
know she makes three times what I do so I can rip this Band-Aid really
quickly and we can transition really quickly to
24:28
this other you know model that we want to run which we know has the ability
to scale faster scale better you know have
24:34
a lot of advantages there the other thing I’ll tell you too is like you
know I’m 27 years in business and and I own
24:42
and operate a lawn fertilization Company in Charlotte North Carolina but I
haven’t always owned and operated
24:47
a lawn fertilization company for the first 15 years of my company’s
existence we we were kind of that we were a mess
24:54
you know we we did everything in the industry wait wait wait don’t scan now
three yet don’t skip to step three yeah I’m not I’m not I’m not but but the
25:02
reason I know how why I would sacrifice so much more than I did to
transition to
25:10
a healthy scalable business because I’m kind of living the scalable
business life now and I know what that looks like
25:16
and so I I would have been even more aggressive
25:21
um and so the cool thing is we’re going to give you the steps and
strategies to really that are tried and true right
25:26
these are things that a lot of our coaches are either doing or have done
25:32
um and and so knowing what we know I would have been I would have
sacrificed even more and so we talk about Dave
25:38
Ramsey someone here and you know why do people sell the truck or why do
people sell the car because they know their
25:45
debt snowball they know like why they’re doing these things and they get so
excited about they’re like yeah I want
25:51
that more than I want this other thing um and so um you know when we get
your house in
25:57
order in step two uh we’re gonna we’re gonna give you that that Financial
26:02
Freedom to go and invest in the things that that we know are the most
important
26:08
so you want to talk about step three so it’s step step one
26:13
get your time right have time step two get your get your head above
26:18
water once we have these two things accurate meaning all right I can pay my
bills
26:24
and I can and I have time to work on the business now we can really start
building the business but until we have
26:30
those that’s like that’s like the water line and before we’re there like
we’re underwater and and we just got to get
26:36
our head above water so we can breathe so that’s priority number one and
some of you are in a position and you know if
26:41
if you’re that person right where where you your head isn’t even about
water enough to breathe but once we do get our
26:47
head above water and once we can breathe once we know that our bills can
get paid well now what do we spend our next
26:54
amount of time on and that is we we need to build a simple business we need
to
27:00
build a business craft a business model that will actually work and that
will be simple and scalable
27:07
over time there’s a reason why companies like apple or Verizon or the like
the go
27:15
across the board of the biggest companies in the world why for the most
part they get really good at one thing
27:21
they get really good at just one doing one thing and crafting a business
model it’s a very simple
27:28
um and scalable and so our we always the you know it was my assertion Aaron
you
27:33
can tell me if I’m wrong but um it’s my assertion that far too often
business owners build a business a
27:40
little bit like um I I spent some time in Africa and sometimes it felt like
their homes were
27:46
just bolted on like when they got a little extra money they built this room
and then it feels like our businesses
27:52
are just kind of like a hodgepodge of different eras and moments in our
27:57
business but it’s not a elegant simple business and as a result we find
28:02
ourselves with our fingers in all kinds of different pies trying to make
money in all kinds of different ways and we
28:08
become just the center pin of that business and we can’t really grow and
scale it and so like
28:14
I I think to myself what can we do to build a simple business but the
simple business really should be the goal right
28:21
Aaron like simple yeah yeah I mean you it’s like your example
28:26
is like you would never build a house without a plan right like you and
when you do build something without a plan
28:32
what does it look like when you’re finished well yeah I mean maybe you get
lucky it’s kind of a mess yeah that’s
28:38
what it looks like yeah it’s like you get lucky sometimes yeah um yeah I
mean I I think
28:45
it’s it’s doing one thing really well and being really good at that
28:51
um when when I’m coaching companies um and and we bring them in for the
28:56
first call or a couple calls I’ll I just had one the other day and and the
guy said you know I’m right at 900 000 in
29:03
revenue and I was like man that’s that’s really awesome uh you know we’re
gonna get you to a million quick right that’s
29:09
what I’m thinking and as I dug in a little bit and we do we dig into the to
the company a little bit we find out he
29:16
really has three three hundred thousand dollar companies right he’s got a
maintenance division he had a tree
29:23
service Division and then he had a um and he had like a little small project
29:29
Division and each one of those made up about 300 000 in revenue and I said
so
29:36
awesome this is great we’ve got three strong little companies right um
under one umbrella
29:43
um are you ready to go hire three managers for those three small companies
29:48
and and hey do you have about a half million bucks in the bank to do this
and
29:54
and he goes heck no I’m cash poor right now I was like well we really don’t
have a simple business now and we certainly
30:01
don’t yeah we can maybe put your name on one of those divisions but we
can’t put your name on all three and scale that to
30:07
three million dollars because basically I look at the 3x you have to 3x
your work in a lot of those areas right you
30:14
have to have a great marketing campaign for tree and you have to have a
great marketing campaign first your projects
30:20
and you have to have a great marketing campaign and then you have to have a
great system for selling and estimating
30:25
trees and then you have to Great system for selling and estimating so every
one of those has to be like 3x and it’s hard
30:32
enough to grow one business much less trying to go three at the same time
so let’s go back to what our first two
30:39
steps so you you have to find you know 12 hours yeah 12 hours a week of
course
30:44
you know you have to find the money for three businesses and you said
marketing
30:50
campaigns like it’s it’s one thing to find the time to design all the
systems and things we need for three divisions
30:58
but now we gotta fund three divisions right and and a half million dollars
31:03
might not be enough right and and sometimes sometimes I think we do this
because we look at the other big company
31:10
in our neighborhood who’s like got 50 million and they’re and they do all
of the services and we think to ourselves
31:16
well that’s the model that’s what we should pattern ourselves after but at
the end of the day you can do that when
31:24
you have five great leaders in five different divisions that that works at
31:30
that stage in the game but early on the simpler really the better and by
the way
31:35
when I say simpler I mean means simpler across the board the simplest way
to service the simplest way to mow a lawn
31:42
the simplest way to write all of these little details of Simplicity add up
to
31:48
me creating room and space to grow even if we’re talking about a lawn
maintenance company we need to be very
31:54
simple in that are we going to be a residential company or are we going to
be a commercial company because you know those are two
32:02
different you know this is two different sales models right two different
trucks
32:08
yeah right and so yeah we need to simplify all the way
32:15
down like yeah to what we sell and how we do it it’s exactly right and and
when
32:22
you see it done right like the companies who do emerge as the million
dollar companies the ones who make it out uh my
32:28
buddy Mike Callahan who many of you might know but uh Mike Mike was showing
me he got all nerd at nerded out he’s
32:34
like do you know how simple we got like when we would pull up to the yard
we knew which side of the yard we wanted
32:42
the truck on because it was simpler for our guys to get the job done so I
mean we want to build a very so step three is
32:49
to build the simple business model build a business model is simple build
one that can scale
32:55
um because we want something simple because we want we want a business we
33:01
want to sell a product that’s simple we want to have fulfillment be simple
we want to have the sale be simple because
33:06
we’re gonna we want to do it uh thousands of more times
33:15
so like you there you’re talking sorry step three is kind of two parts right
33:21
you got three a which is we need to decide like where are we going to focus
33:27
our time what do we love what what do we like doing in the business we’re
not going to direct you into one space we’re
33:34
not going to transition everybody to a lawn mowing company or everybody to
a lawn fertilization company we’re gonna
33:40
let you choose that but we’re gonna push you to pick like what do you what
do you feel you can scale the best
33:46
um and that’s kind of 3A but 3B is is all these things you’re talking about
now which is like the systems and and
33:52
how do we hire people and what is the organizational structure look like
for this model
33:58
um you know what do our truck setups look like at this model um but
probably the most important part
34:04
of this this 3B is the cells and systems I mean the systems and processes so
34:11
sales processes hiring processes lead you know how do we make when we’re in
34:17
that same meeting remember this meeting we we were chatting you had a
competitor in the
34:22
room essentially a smaller guy and he go and you said how long does it take
you to get an estimate out
34:30
and his process from start to finish what did he say three days four days
so there were two guys they were
34:36
actually direct competitors to us they were wanting the same exact client
that my company
34:41
um goes after in the same market and they set one guy said I was about
three to four days for me to get to get back
34:47
to a car the other one was very honest and I appreciated him being honest
because he said I’ll be honest with you
34:54
I’m at least a week and he goes there’s times where my voicemail is full
and and he said this word for he said my
35:00
voicemail is full and they can’t even leave me a message yet and so here
were two guys and and one might not get back
35:07
to him at all One’s Gonna Get Back in two three days but if we want to go
sell that product a
35:14
thousand times and it takes in two to three days to get back to that client
35:20
you realize how many compounded days that is so so the spirit of this step
35:26
three is as we’re spending our four hours a day a week whereas a day that’d
be great four hours a week working on
35:33
the business we’re gonna start to look for ways we can make sure we have a
simple business model and look for ways
35:40
we can simplify the work that we’re doing because each time we simplify it
so in the same way when I go sell a
35:46
product and I I make a hundred dollars a month every time I go MO
35:52
I I’m I’m storing and and putting in the bank dollars I want us to think of
35:59
simplifying as a way of storing and putting in the bank hours so every time
I can simplify a portion
36:06
of my business I I’m I’m becoming time richer and we need in order for us
to get out
36:12
of the rat race of the business in order for us to finally be free of the
business and own it and not have it own
36:18
us is we have to store time and so I want you to think about each
36:24
time you’re doing something if it takes you 45 minutes to create an
estimate if
36:29
you can do that same estimate in 25 minutes or 20 or eight
36:36
like all of a sudden you’re gaining and storing in your book in your log I
have 40 more minutes than my competitor
36:43
and that 40 40 more minutes times a thousand that’s like years of your life
right
36:50
that you’re getting back each time you can simplify so the third step one
get four hours step two uh get your personal
36:58
and business house in order so we at least know what’s going on and we get
our head above water so we can pay our
37:04
bills and then step three is let’s start to go about the business of
crafting a business a simple business model with
37:11
simple Business Systems is step three then step four we’ll go through the
last two quickly because most of you need to
37:19
be working on one through three but step four is then we figure out and we
start
37:24
pouring fuel on by creating and and designing an awesome acquisition model
so how do we acquire new business how do
37:31
we do it at a price point that works within our business model and how do
we do it in a way that we can do it over and over and over and over again
uh so
37:39
that we can really start to put gas on the rocket right gas not on the
rocket in the rocket uh yeah we can really
37:45
start growing this thing yeah I mean I I was you know I always look at
steps one through three as kind of building the
37:52
rocket like yeah you know if you were NASA you know they’re not worried
about Rocket Fuel and pouring it on the launch
37:58
pad until there’s a rocket out there right yeah and so we need to really
build something that that one can handle
38:05
like imagine like you know and we’ve seen it tragically you know where
rockets explode
38:12
um and you know we want to make sure that when we build this model that it
38:17
can handle the pressure of a heavy marketing campaign right a marketing
38:22
campaign that is geared towards you know generating thousands of leads and
you
38:28
know hundreds and hopefully thousands of new clients every year and the
process of of just flowing that through your
38:36
business and you know the bad part about Lawn Care is you know it’s really
all
38:41
about February through May that’s when we get to get new clients and so
we’re
38:46
really even stress testing testing the business even more because we’ve got
like a four month window to really do
38:53
our sales well um sure we pick up clients in other months we all we all do
but I can tell
38:59
you as we’ve looked at you know you know 60 different businesses and look
at their scorecards that we compile with
39:06
them all the sales come in a really short period of time and so you know the
39:12
worst thing we could do is start marketing your business when it’s not
ready it would it would fail
39:18
um and uh and also we know that small businesses and if it doesn’t fail
you’re
39:23
gonna you’re gonna have the same pain like what’s the number one complaint
of clients in this industry is they’re
39:30
saying I can’t get a hold of anybody I tried to call that company I
couldn’t get a hold of them well why is that because they’ve marketed
they’ve out
39:36
their marketing’s outpace their systems but Aaron if anybody calls your
company is there ever a time where they can’t
39:41
get a hold of you live every day and and so we have to
39:48
build that system first and then we start really putting putting the gas in
the marketing this is the weirdest
39:53
industry in the world because I’ve coached companies from all the kinds of
different Industries this is one of the few places in lawn care and Lawn
Care
40:00
Services where the major issue isn’t lead volume it’s not not an issue but
40:06
it’s like most companies like man if we can figure out how to sell stuff
and here it’s like man we have plenty of
40:11
business opportunity if I just pick up the phone right the guy who’s like
man my voicemail box fills up so step four
40:20
is once we do have the system and it’s ready to roll now we can start to
really answer all of those phone calls then we
40:26
can start really connecting with all of those clients but we need a great
acquisition model that’s the four step
40:32
five it’s simply that now we scale up now we put start putting into place
the
40:37
other healthy systems that a business has we start putting in place are a
great hiring model we start adjusting
40:44
pricing on a nice Rhythm we start just pruning and caring for the business
that
40:49
we’ve now built and and Aaron you’re still working on systems you’re still
working on simplifying you’re doing it
40:56
the other day you’re making a simple form for your for your staff yeah you
you know step five is kind of just that
41:02
healthy stage right we just want to keep you know it’s like Steps one
through four are kind of the big weight loss and
41:08
then you’ve lost all the weight now you keep it off how do you you know and
that’s that’s staying healthy and and and healthy
41:17
businesses scale um I think too like we talk about steps
41:22
one and two are things we need to fix and we kind of they’re one-time fixes
probably step three we kind of go back
41:29
to step three a good bit we’re always refining step three and maybe you
know maybe you grow one of your you know your
41:36
services up to a million and a half dollars a year and you’re like you know
what we’re ready to take on X and so
41:42
we’re gonna add a service and we’re gonna you know we’re gonna hire the
manager for that and so and by the way like the the healthy step five right
is
41:49
you’re really revisiting all of these steps you’re constantly improving the
amount of time that you’re spending on
41:55
the business you’re constantly improving your understanding of the finance
your financial situation and your your debt
42:01
position all that you’re constantly refining the quality of your business
and then finally you’re constantly refining and improving your your ability
42:07
to go acquire customers so stage five is really like the keep it off stage
where
42:13
you’re saying how do we how do we get better the truth is if you do stages
one through four correctly you’re you’re
42:19
going to have all the tools you need to get to be at that million dollar
company and more importantly we want you not
42:25
just to be a million dollar company because I’ve met plenty of Million
Dollar business owners who are miserable because they’re buried they may
have a
42:32
lot of money but they’re very short on time and so we want you not just to
be a million dollar business owner we want to
42:38
have you to have a simple Million Dollar business and that simple Million
Dollar business means that you it allows you to
42:45
have not only a bunch of money but it also means you have time to spend it
time to use it uh in your life and so
42:52
Aaron I know this is like showing like a big diamond ring where that
doesn’t make anybody feel good about themselves when
42:58
someone has a big diamond ring but um but how much how much time do you
spend in your business you you know
43:05
million plus Dollar business um it depends on the week but I mean on
average I would think uh eight hours or
43:12
less um a week you know um that that is what we want we want to
43:17
get to a point where you have a really really successful business and you
haven’t just been storing money
43:23
but through building a simple business you’ve also been storing time and as
you
43:28
start to store time in your bank account in your in your calendar account I
don’t know what we call it but you start
43:34
storing time all of a sudden now I have a lot of time and a lot of money
and that’s where real Freedom comes comes in
43:40
where you get to do what you love you get to do it with who you love and
that’s what a true like that’s the dream
43:46
of at least most of the entrepreneurs I meet is I want the dream of not
only having the money but the time to use it
43:52
yeah and and Dan I mean I think as somebody who’s built a very simple
business and and uh it it is it I get to
44:00
spend time where I like it you know like that’s the important thing like
there were times where I really didn’t like my
44:06
business over the last 27 years um and and I think you know now
44:12
there’s things that we do that I don’t want to have to do in fairness um
and I don’t I I you know those those
44:19
responsibilities do fall to someone else they get taken care of we don’t
ignore anything but I get to spend my time in
44:25
the areas one where I’m where I’m the strongest um and I think in a lot of
ways
44:31
um my time spent in the business today is probably better than maybe when I
was full-time for the for the business right
44:38
the people that that work with me and that we work with um probably get
better time for me at
44:44
this point even though it’s less technically less time my time is better
spent and it and it’s for me it’s on
44:51
things that I like doing doing I love doing and I’m strong at doing um so
that’s the beauty that’s the dream
44:57
that’s the dream that we want to that we want to share here on the simple
growth business podcast
45:02
um because we want to help as many people as we possibly can genuinely like
Aaron and I are both in a position where
45:09
we don’t have to do this like our families are taken care of we we have
businesses that are that are successful
45:15
uh but the reason we do it is because we actually legitimately feel bad for
those
45:21
of you who are out there just grinding away in businesses that are complex
and convoluted whose heads are just above
45:26
water we and it’s not that we pity you you’re just fine you’ll be all right
but we do want to help if we can and so
45:34
that’s why we are doing this that’s why we and as you can tell we’re not
Pros we
45:39
kind of suck at it a little bit but we’re gonna try we’re gonna try to do
it in a way that will be really helpful and
45:45
because we want to see more and more of these companies thousands and
thousands of these companies get out of that day-to-day Rat Race in the
business get
45:52
out of business debt where it feels like your time and money are already
all spent before you even get them and give you the freedom that you were
45:59
looking for when you started the business in the first place that’s our
goal and so stick with us we’re going to keep recording we’re going to keep
46:05
talking whether or not anyone’s listening to be honest and uh but we hope
that it’s helpful uh so thank you
46:10
for being with us on this simple growth business podcast thanks sir thanks

Transcript:
0:00
Callahan’s Corner where you ask
0:02
the questions we answer them
0:03
live right here on Facebook.
0:04
Got a doozy this morning.
0:06
Wanted to jump right in,
0:07
submitted here via Facebook
0:09
Messenger here. I’m going to
0:11
read out parts of the question
0:12
and actually dive in and answer
0:14
this question live but kind of
0:16
some background on this is well
0:19
actually I’ll dive right into
0:20
the question. Um Mike, we’re in
0:22
the middle of doing our audits
0:23
on the job like you were
0:24
talking about on a recent video
0:27
and looked at this client’s
0:28
account over the last 90 days.
0:30
Once again, remember, I’m
0:32
going to open up the screen and
0:33
show you kind of what we’re
0:34
talking about here but when we
0:35
go in, we do not want to
0:37
continue to service jobs that
0:38
aren’t profitable. So, congrats
0:40
to this contractor. They’re
0:42
going out and executing some of
0:43
the the tangibles we’re
0:45
throwing out here on Callahan’s
0:46
Corner. So, they’re doing a
0:47
90-day audit on every
0:48
maintenance account among some
0:50
other accounts I’m sure but
0:52
particularly in a maintenance
0:53
account here over the last 90
0:54
days. So, they’ve done this, I
0:56
believe they’re down in the
0:57
south, possibly Florida and The
1:00
long and short of it is he he
1:02
wants no non-selective
1:04
herbicides played applied to
1:06
his landscape beds so they’re
1:08
having to actually go out and
1:10
manually weed it. So I believe
1:11
if I’m reading through this
1:12
that they haven’t been able to
1:15
keep pace because it is the
1:16
rainy season starting down
1:17
there with the heat the heat
1:18
and humidity. Um and they’re
1:20
weeding 95 95 percent of the
1:22
property manually. But
1:24
traditionally it’s a
1:25
non-selective herbicide sludge
1:26
is round up where they’re
1:28
actually spraying it and be
1:29
able to maintain that with a
1:31
significantly less effect. Uh
1:32
but time. So, it doesn’t look
1:36
like they’ve actually raised
1:37
the price in this property but
1:38
to accommodate his needs from
1:40
what they normally do of doing
1:42
a spraying or spot spraying,
1:44
they’re actually manually
1:45
weeding the property to get as
1:47
close as they can near the
1:49
allotted time. Um they are at
1:52
about $33 an hour on this
1:55
account and it’s actually
1:56
costing them $45 break even.
1:58
So, they’re actually losing the
2:00
difference between the 33 and
2:01
the $45 an hour. Um profit or
2:04
basically their revenue goal
2:06
per man hour is actually fifty.
2:08
So, they’re about 20 or $17
2:14
off. They’re they’re goal. So,
2:16
they’re actually losing money
2:17
on this account. Um they’re
2:19
getting thirty-three. They want
2:20
fifty but it’s costing them
2:22
forty-five. So, it’s about a
2:23
$17 per man hour gap here. So,
2:25
their question is the
2:27
individual is demanding an
2:30
on-site visit with a
2:31
supervisor. Um they also have a
2:33
very large backlog of landscape
2:37
installation jobs well over a
2:38
month by the looks of it and
2:40
their revenue per hour on their
2:42
landscape maintenance or the
2:43
landscape installs is obviously
2:45
significantly higher and more
2:47
profitable their question is
2:49
should they cut them loose we
2:51
should bill billing him 185 to
2:53
200 a month to break even small
2:56
profit and they’re currently
2:59
billing 1 30 so they’re at one
3:00
thirty they’re saying they
3:02
should be somewhere between a
3:04
hundred and eightyfive and two
3:04
hundred a month so let me dive
3:05
in and kind of put some concept
3:06
or context to how we kind of
3:08
should track this I’m going to
3:10
answer these questions directly
3:11
and I’ve got a couple different
3:12
options here because we have
3:13
been through this in my
3:14
company, the same exact issue
3:16
here. So, basically, your
3:19
client has demanded the
3:23
contractor to go out and kind
3:24
of go out outside of the normal
3:25
standard rating operating
3:27
procedure for landscape
3:29
maintenance. They do not want
3:30
pesticides or non-selective
3:32
herbicide. So, we’ve gone and
3:33
done some manual weeding. So,
3:34
with all the changes, in New
3:36
York State, this is something
3:37
we have actually encountered so
3:39
I’ll tell you how we tackle it
3:41
or a couple different ways
3:41
we’ve actually tried to tackle
3:43
it here. So I’m going to open
3:43
up the screen here and just put
3:45
some context to how did this
3:47
contractor go out and look at
3:49
how what they should be making
3:52
versus what they’re actually
3:53
making to make that decision
3:54
and if they have any questions,
3:56
they should clarify that and
3:57
then I’ll I’ll actually jump in
3:59
and talk about how do we
4:01
address this frustrated
4:02
customer that has basically
4:05
been able to get some services
4:06
to make them more happy but
4:07
it’s been outside standardized
4:09
operating procedure or scope.
4:11
Um so no judgement here. Trust
4:12
me. I have done this myself. Um
4:15
So, the first thing we’re
4:16
looking at is a contractor is a
4:19
simple growth client. He’s been
4:20
watching these videos and
4:23
they’re going in and doing the
4:23
right thing. So, that is huge
4:25
step number one. Now, if you
4:27
haven’t seen the video that
4:28
they’re talking about, I
4:29
want to show you this. So, what
4:30
we should be doing up here up
4:32
top, we’ve got crew number one.
4:34
Let’s imagine this is our
4:35
maintenance crew. So, we should
4:38
have budgeted times including
4:39
drive time for all the jobs.
4:40
So, this crew here fictitiously
4:42
is budgeted for 20 hours and We
4:46
started at 7 AM, went to 5 PM,
4:48
that’s a 10-hour day. I’m
4:49
assuming they’d be running four
4:51
tens based in this scenario and
4:52
we got a half-hour lunch for
4:53
two individuals on that crew.
4:55
So, we got 20 hours an hour
4:58
subtracted for lunch, non-paid.
4:59
So, our payroll liability is 19
5:02
hours and we budgeted 20 here.
5:03
So, they’re actually one hour
5:05
under budget. So, if this
5:07
contractor is fully
5:08
implementing this, these are
5:09
the things that would go on the
5:11
shop wall and then we’re
5:11
actually going to dial into
5:12
that specific job where
5:15
thirty-3 an hour but they
5:16
really need to be at about
5:18
forty-five. Um but this is the
5:19
first thing that usually will
5:21
raise a red flag if this
5:23
property’s in here and hurting
5:25
us so much even on a daily
5:26
basis throughout the week. So
5:28
we’ve got 1 0and5 percent. So
5:30
that is how we’re putting that
5:31
on the shop wall or shop TV. 0
5:34
and 5%. Anything from 100
5:35
andabove is really good.
5:37
They’re they’re beating their
5:38
budgeted times. You can tell
5:39
the the crew. Hey you gave 105%
5:42
today with a quality standard.
5:42
You did a great job Conversely,
5:46
if I went in and said, hey,
5:47
we’re going to give these guys
5:49
19 hours and they did it
5:50
nineteen. That’s 100% once this
5:52
update. So, they’d understand
5:53
that with the quality standard
5:54
and then, finally, what we
5:57
would want to do is say, okay,
5:58
if we gave them 17 hours and it
6:01
took them nineteen, this could
6:02
be the direct effect. Now, this
6:05
is a probably a smaller
6:06
residential property but if you
6:07
had a large large HOA and
6:09
you’re only doing one or two a
6:10
day, this could actually pop up
6:13
and be a red flag. There’s a
6:14
massive issue on this day
6:15
because we’re going outside of
6:17
scope. We’re not spraying the
6:18
non-selective herbicide. We’re
6:20
in Emmanuel leading at the
6:22
customer’s request with no
6:22
additional increase in price.
6:25
So, you could go to the crew
6:26
and say, hey, you gave 89%
6:27
today with a quality standard.
6:29
So, this is a public
6:30
accountability piece that we
6:32
should be doing daily and
6:34
reviewing weekly over here with
6:36
the company as a whole
6:37
throughout all our crews. Now,
6:40
going to the question at hand,
6:41
they’re losing money on one
6:42
specific account but before we
6:43
go in and do that audit, we
6:46
should be tracking on a daily
6:47
and weekly basis every crew as
6:48
a whole. Now, the question at
6:50
hand is they’ve got lawn mowing
6:54
and landscape maintenance being
6:56
the Southern States most lawn
6:57
care companies will do the bed
6:59
maintenance, some of the
7:00
pruning, and the mowing all at
7:01
the same time in one visit. Uh
7:03
if you’re in the north or mid
7:05
west, it’s a little bit
7:06
different. Uh we work with
7:08
hundreds and hundreds of
7:09
companies across the US. This
7:10
is very normal in the southern
7:12
state that this contractors at.
7:14
So, let’s let’s assume that
7:16
this is just the bed
7:16
maintenance portion and what
7:17
we’re looking at is based on
7:21
the start and top times in a
7:22
mobile, this fictitious
7:25
example, not the exact example
7:26
it was submitted, but
7:28
basically, they’re generating
7:29
$57 and 30 cents. So, in this
7:33
example, if we had bumped this
7:35
up to about sixty-seven,
7:37
actually about sixty-nine
7:37
bucks, that’s the difference.
7:39
They’re desiring, say $69 an
7:41
hour, they’re only getting 57
7:44
and maybe it’s costing them $60
7:46
and operate before there’s a
7:47
profit. So, we’re losing money
7:50
on this. So, we need to go in
7:51
and figure out, okay, based on
7:53
that, what should we actually
7:55
be charging? So, the current
7:56
price is fifty-four but based
7:58
on the revenue goal and the
8:01
historical data of the last 90
8:03
days in the question, they
8:05
should be going out
8:06
fictitiously. In this example,
8:07
charging the one sixty-five.
8:09
So, I believe in the question,
8:12
they came up with a billing
8:13
rate of somewhere on average to
8:15
185 and 200. So, you want to
8:17
take the average of those. I’m
8:18
guess that’s going to come out
8:20
to about one one ninety1 95 is
8:22
what they should be charging.
8:24
So, to answer the question
8:26
directly, there’s there’s
8:27
there’s a couple pieces to
8:28
this. Um first is the the
8:30
customer’s upset because we’ve
8:32
kind of basically gone out of
8:33
scope to satisfy them but we
8:35
haven’t been able to actually
8:36
maintain the property in the
8:37
same way we would with a with a
8:39
a round up or a non-selective
8:41
herbicide. So, what I would say
8:42
is we need to just have a
8:44
communication with them. Um via
8:46
the phone with the manager. If
8:47
we decide to the client and
8:49
even if we don’t decide to keep
8:50
the client, let’s have that
8:51
conversation with them. I don’t
8:52
know if it necessarily requires
8:54
an on-site visit because if
8:57
they’re not going to pay the
8:58
higher amount, why waste the
9:00
revenue pulling a manager off
9:01
your hardscape division when
9:03
they’re generating some
9:04
revenue, making sure that
9:04
profit center’s going. So,
9:06
first thing is, I would call,
9:08
have a conversation, explain,
9:08
hey, we made the exception of
9:10
doing manual weeding. If you
9:12
want to continue the manual
9:14
weeding with no non-selective
9:16
herbicide, it’s going to be at
9:17
that 195 or 200. I would take
9:18
the high end of that at 200
9:20
because the expectation
9:21
especially in the season is
9:23
going to be pretty tough. So,
9:23
we want to make sure recovered.
9:25
We got some extra time. The
9:26
crew could do a good job. So,
9:27
they’re happy. Um the second
9:30
option there is if you
9:32
continually want to do it, we
9:34
charge them hourly. Now, this
9:36
would probably be the way to
9:38
tackle this in my opinion
9:39
because we’re going to take the
9:40
risk out of it for us and then
9:42
that gentleman who owns the
9:43
house can set a threshold to
9:44
how much he wants to pay. So,
9:46
we we basically alleviated a
9:49
billing situation there because
9:52
you know, if it’s hourly and it
9:54
takes three hours, one week,
9:56
and two hours the next week, we
9:57
want to make sure we’re
9:58
covered. So, either we raise
9:59
the price to that 195 or 200 a
10:04
week. We build them hourly with
10:05
a set cap of desired amount
10:08
that we can go up to each month
10:10
and those two options, we would
10:11
require a credit card on file
10:13
and a signed electronic
10:15
contract. So, we are covered
10:16
and we’re not going to get a
10:17
charge back because a lot of
10:19
times, you’ll see that instance
10:20
in the spring cleanup with a
10:21
contractor do the work. It’s an
10:23
hourly set amount and then it
10:24
gets disputed and who’s left to
10:26
hang the dry, the contractor.
10:27
So, you want to make sure we’re
10:28
covered there. Now, the third
10:29
option
10:32
is basically have a have a
10:34
candid conversation and say,
10:36
hey, listen, you know, we’re
10:38
sorry that you’re upset. Let’s
10:39
count them maybe a visit so we
10:40
don’t get a bad review on
10:41
Google for the inconvenience
10:43
but wash our hands but let’s
10:44
walk away. Let’s be honest.
10:45
Say, hey, we made the
10:46
exception. You’re a great
10:47
client. We’re going to manually
10:48
read this prop. We tried to
10:49
manually weed your property but
10:51
really what we do is we spray
10:53
non-selective herbicides,
10:55
Roundup and in order to get the
10:56
best quality and predictability
10:57
like we do on our other
10:59
hundreds of accounts, this is
11:00
our process we deviated the
11:02
process, try to make you happy,
11:03
and continue to have you as a
11:05
customer but unfortunately, if
11:06
you want to have these beds
11:07
maintained, it needs to be a
11:09
non-selective herbicide such as
11:11
a roundup. At this point, the
11:12
gentleman has the ability to
11:14
stay with you with the
11:15
standardized operating service
11:17
or leave you and that would
11:19
probably be my my top advice
11:23
because the problem is is when
11:24
we start to deviate our
11:26
services that are standard
11:27
across the whole entire company
11:29
for one or two individuals, It
11:30
creates inconsistency and what
11:33
people want really is only 80%.
11:35
Now, not that we shouldn’t give
11:37
them 100% but if you can give
11:38
’em 80% solid in its
11:41
predictable each and every week
11:42
and it’s a predictable process
11:44
and it’s a predictable quality,
11:46
they’re going to be happy. When
11:48
we go out, especially myself in
11:50
the early days, we go out and
11:51
try to be everything to
11:52
everybody. That’s where we get
11:53
into trouble. So, we want to
11:54
make sure that we kind of put
11:57
it back in the consumer’s hands
11:58
and say, hey, listen, we we try
11:58
to make the exception.
12:01
Unfortunately, we we can’t
12:02
continue this exception because
12:04
it’s not meeting your needs and
12:06
it’s out of scope of what we
12:06
normally do and do well that
12:08
you love. So, either you go
12:10
with an unselected herbicide
12:12
for the weed control in the
12:12
beds or we kind of part ways
12:15
and we copy maybe a mowing for
12:16
free and send some goodwill. If
12:18
we are going to keep the
12:20
customer, the two options here
12:21
is an hourly charge with the
12:24
consumer sending a cap of how
12:26
many hours, credit card on file
12:28
with signed capture or the
12:30
third option which I like the
12:31
least especially around bed
12:32
maintenance and weeding as we
12:34
that price that 195 to 200 that
12:37
we’ve seen here that we need
12:39
based on your numbers and we
12:41
move forward and continue it.
12:42
The thing you need to be
12:43
careful is job notes and
12:45
probably before and after
12:46
pictures through your mobile
12:47
app to document the process but
12:50
you are getting yourself, I
12:50
think in my opinion and I’ve
12:52
done this before is when we get
12:54
out of the scope of what we do
12:55
well and what we can train and
12:58
standardize when we get out of
12:58
that, that’s where we get into
13:00
trouble. We start losing money
13:01
and we start upsetting clients
13:02
and the quality is as good
13:04
because we’re not training to
13:06
that exact process procedure
13:07
across all say five or 600
13:10
accounts you’re servicing. So,
13:12
that is my take on it. Great
13:14
question. Um but I I gotta give
13:17
this contractor credit. If
13:18
you’re not tracking your daily
13:19
and weekly budget versus actual
13:21
hours and running that audit on
13:23
those clients in the middle of
13:25
July and November, December in
13:27
most areas and be able to raise
13:30
your dollar per man hour
13:31
revenue to the penny and make
13:33
those services apply to it. Um
13:34
you’re kind of flying lines.
13:36
So, this contractor, huge
13:39
kudos. Way to follow the
13:40
system. I would say have the
13:41
candid conversation, either
13:43
have them accept the
13:44
standardized service or they
13:45
don’t and we compliment maybe a
13:47
mowing to make sure they’re at
13:49
least kind of satisfied and
13:51
they’re not going out on social
13:51
to kill you but if you are
13:52
going to do it, do an hourly
13:54
with a minimum, signed
13:55
contract, card on file, we bill
13:56
it right afterwards, before and
13:58
after pictures in your mobile,
14:00
or the least favorite is raised
14:02
it’s the one95 to 300 or 195 to
14:04
200a visit. Same thing, have
14:07
them sign off, credit card on
14:08
file before and after pictures
14:09
and protect yourself.
14:11
Callahan’s Corner, you ask the
14:12
questions, we answer them live
14:13
right here on Facebook. We’ll
14:14
see you again later this week.

Transcript:

Corner where you ask the
0:02
questions we answer them live
0:03
right here on Facebook. Got a
0:05
doozy submitted in one of the
0:07
private Facebook groups. Um so
0:08
I thought I’d answer this
0:10
question here via video. Um
0:11
says an HOA snow ice client,
0:13
snow removal, almost four
0:15
months is seeing our four
0:16
months afterwards is seeing our
0:18
plows damaged their speed bombs
0:19
and we need to pay the repairs
0:21
estimated between five and
0:23
6thousand dollars. Our winter
0:24
contract does not say anything
0:26
about not being liable for the
0:28
curbs and the speed bump The
0:31
HOL HOA also let this
0:34
contractor go sometime in March
0:36
because they felt that
0:38
potentially their prices are
0:38
too expensive. They did in fact
0:41
pay the invoices in full for
0:42
the contractor which is a win.
0:44
What would you do about the
0:46
speed bumps? Uh several
0:47
comments in here. Uh they have
0:49
no proof and if they are no
0:51
longer a client, shouldn’t
0:52
Roane damage be covered by the
0:54
city. In fact, most HOA roads,
0:56
if you’re plowing them, you
0:57
know, are private roads and
0:58
owned and maintain by the HOA.
1:02
Reason being you have to have a
1:02
contractor Um go in there and
1:05
some other people commented
1:06
that they are worried about a
1:08
lawsuit. Um it could leave
1:10
damaging reviews. So, after
1:12
about twenty-six, 27 years in
1:14
snow and ice removal in Upstate
1:15
New York, Rochester, New York
1:17
to be particularly the third
1:18
largest snowfall market in the
1:20
whole United States averaging
1:21
about a hundred and 30 to about
1:23
125 inches of snow. Lakeside,
1:26
this is near and dear to my
1:27
heart. So, the contractor
1:30
unknowingly probably should
1:31
have reached out to a legal
1:34
entity such as a lawyer to
1:36
actually have some hold
1:37
harmless information in there.
1:39
So, my take on this is you’ve
1:41
got a bit of a gray area.
1:42
Technically, you are liable for
1:44
the damages caused to road, the
1:46
speed bumps, and potentially
1:48
the curves if it’s not in your
1:49
contract. Now, the contract is
1:53
ended. They’ve paid you in
1:54
full. So, I would suggest
1:56
sitting down and actually
1:57
having a conversation with the
1:58
HOA if reasonable to see if you
2:01
can actually meet somewhere in
2:01
the middle. You are correct.
2:03
Yes, damaging reviews from not
2:05
only just the HOA but all the
2:06
people in the HOA so you can
2:08
have multiple Facebook, Google,
2:09
Yelp reviews. It could spiral
2:11
into a really downward, ugly
2:13
situation for you. Now,
2:15
hopefully, we do have an
2:17
insurance coverage and that
2:19
will be covered. So, maybe a
2:22
payment four to 500 or a
2:24
thousand as a deductible. We’ll
2:25
cover you. That’s probably the
2:27
road I would go through and let
2:29
your insurance company handle
2:29
it after at least having a
2:31
conversation. Don’t emit any
2:33
fault or guilt because you
2:34
could get yourself trouble
2:35
right off the bat. Um but
2:37
technically my my opinion on
2:39
this one and we’ve been there
2:41
is that you are probably on the
2:42
hook. That’s why we have
2:43
insurance. But the lesson to be
2:45
learned here is we really need
2:46
to go out and protect ourselves
2:49
as contractors. And be upfront
2:51
with our bidding process. So
2:53
I’m going to show an example of
2:53
a residential contract that we
2:56
use in our company. Some of the
2:58
verbiage was pretty much
2:59
identical for commercial snow
3:01
removal. It was actually a
3:01
little more lengthy. I
3:02
literally just read this and
3:03
I’ve gotta hop on, believe it
3:04
or not my lawyer in five or 6
3:06
minutes to update some
3:07
contracts. So, I was like, let
3:08
me answer this in the next five
3:09
or 6 minutes but if you can’t
3:11
see this here, the area that I
3:13
highlighted is, well, actually,
3:15
I’m going to read through all
3:16
of it ‘cuz it actually, you
3:17
need to go in whether it’s
3:19
residential or commercial. Like
3:20
I said, the commercial contract
3:20
is a little more lengthy and
3:22
more detailed but these are the
3:23
main things you need in any
3:25
snow removal contract in my
3:26
opinion. The driveway will be
3:28
plowed. When the snow falls and
3:29
accumulates from the sky on the
3:31
driveway with a total
3:32
accumulation of three inches in
3:35
non-obstructed areas. Sounds
3:36
obvious to us but we are not
3:38
plowing under cars. We are not
3:40
coming back after the cars are
3:41
moved. Unobstructed areas. Now,
3:43
in a commercial situation, we
3:44
need to define, are we coming
3:46
back to plow the parking lots
3:47
that have cars in them? What is
3:49
the time span that we’re
3:50
actually doing this in and what
3:52
is the length of time we’re
3:53
willing to wait? If any, to
3:55
hurt people to move their cars
3:57
because you could have a 15 to
3:58
20-minute cleanup run for some
4:00
parking spots in an HOA or
4:01
general parking area that could
4:02
turn into a to five-hour
4:04
ordeal. Complete with honking
4:06
and people running into your
4:07
truck or each other. So, those
4:09
are things I would recommend in
4:10
the commercial end that we add
4:11
into that. In addition,
4:14
highlighted area, the company,
4:16
Callahan’s Lawn Care is not
4:17
responsible and will be held
4:19
harmless for any previous
4:21
driveway damage and or any that
4:23
may occur since all driveways
4:26
or pavement conditions are not
4:27
the same. And we also included
4:30
inside that contract in the
4:31
commercial end that to the fact
4:33
that we couldn’t see the
4:35
conditions on a nightly basis
4:36
or daily basis underneath the
4:38
snow. We were not able to
4:39
actually monitor some of the
4:41
conditions throughout the snow
4:43
event. So if damage happened,
4:43
we were not taking
4:47
responsibility that. Callahan’s
4:49
will also be held harmless for
4:50
any slip and fall on your
4:51
property or damages to siding
4:54
or fences directly next to the
4:57
plow area. All equipment is new
4:59
and properly maintained to
5:00
avoid damage. So we’ve held
5:01
ourselves harmless. So, we if
5:03
we went and got sued, this
5:06
alleviated is from slip and
5:07
fall liabilities, any damage to
5:08
the property. Now, the big
5:09
thing you’re going to see with
5:10
property management companies
5:11
is they’re going to try to
5:12
force you to sign their
5:14
contract which eliminates any
5:15
of the rights you may have. I’m
5:17
going to highly recommend it.
5:19
All costs and you do not sign
5:21
it and if you do have to sign
5:23
it, have your lawyer review it
5:24
and add amendments to it that
5:26
are attached and signed to it
5:27
to get you off the hook for
5:29
some of these things. Uh we got
5:30
sued for an HOA where gentleman
5:32
from a garbage this company
5:35
slipped and fell on the
5:36
driveway of one of the homes in
5:37
the HOA are only responsible
5:40
for salting the main roadways.
5:42
So, we add an addendment to
5:44
that particular contract that
5:45
we were not responsible to any
5:49
of the non-salted areas for
5:50
slip and fall liabilities such
5:51
as the sidewalks and driveways
5:53
that we did not maintain. In
5:55
addition to actually still
5:57
being held harmless for the
5:58
main driveways. We will not
5:59
guarantee an exact time the
6:01
driveways plowed you the way
6:02
the snow may accumulate. You
6:03
may be locked into some really
6:05
stringent timelines but if it
6:06
starts snowing at three, four
6:07
in the morning, Um it doesn’t
6:09
hit the trigger till six and
6:10
everybody rolls out at 6thirty.
6:12
You can’t be there on that
6:14
timeline. Just impossible. So
6:15
set the cadence and
6:17
expectations upfront. Also not
6:19
responsible for snow drifts.
6:20
Snow plowed by the town part
6:23
trucks on sidewalk or apron if
6:25
snow prevents entrance into the
6:26
driveway or maybe damaging the
6:28
vehicle. It may be plowed out
6:29
at your request which we charge
6:30
an additional fee. In addition,
6:33
down here at the bottom, I
6:34
want to bring kind of to this
6:36
because this is going to happen
6:38
snow market eventually if it
6:39
hasn’t. So, in 2014, Upstate
6:42
New York, Buffalo. Buffalo had
6:43
snow, no joke, literally up to
6:45
the gutters of the first-story
6:46
homes. Uh City went into a
6:47
state of emergency for probably
6:50
about a week but we wanted to
6:52
put a contingency in there. In
6:53
the event of a snow emergency
6:55
where a one-ton truck cannot
6:56
plow the driveway, load of
6:58
services available at an
7:00
additional charge at market
7:02
rate, several feet of snow in a
7:04
24-hour period similar to the
7:05
2014 snow storm in Buffalo, New
7:06
York that was absolutely
7:09
paramount and it did save us
7:11
because we did have a couple
7:12
massive storms where it at
7:14
least bought us some more time.
7:16
We didn’t need to bring the
7:17
loader but if we did, we were
7:18
able to charge for it legally.
7:20
So, my suggestion here is talk
7:23
to the HOA, see if they’re
7:25
reasonable, don’t necessarily
7:27
commit to anything. If you can
7:28
have a somewhere in the middle
7:30
agreement that’s amicable, that
7:31
saves you some insurance,
7:33
great. If not, have your
7:33
insurance come in, pay for it
7:35
but by all means add these
7:37
things into your contract, talk
7:38
to a lawyer each year, put them
7:40
on a retainer for a couple
7:41
hundred dollars, a 000 a year,
7:43
and have them review this as
7:44
the laws change. So, those are
7:47
the things, unfortunately, I
7:48
think you probably are on the
7:49
hook for this, you know, but
7:51
that’s why we have insurance
7:52
but do your due diligence and
7:54
make sure that we’ve got these
7:55
and if you are forced to sign
7:56
the HOA contract, have your
7:57
lawyer review it and add some
7:59
amendments that are attached to
8:00
it. So, hopefully, protect you
8:01
as the contractor and
8:03
potentially protect your client
8:04
as well from different slip and
8:06
fall liabilities because if
8:08
somebody goes down in that HOA,
8:09
they’re not only suing the
8:11
contractor but they’re suing
8:12
the HOA and probably whoever
8:14
owns the unit if they go down
8:15
to that unit. So, by doing
8:16
this, you can protect yourself,
8:17
the HOA, and the management
8:19
group because they’re going to
8:20
get wrapped up into that
8:21
lawsuit as well. So, Callahan’s
8:23
Corner s, you ask the
8:24
questions, we answer them live
8:25
right here on Facebook.

Transcript:
0:02
Corner. Were you asked a
0:02
question? We had some live
0:03
right here on Facebook. Had
0:04
another great messenger
0:06
question submitted last week.
0:08
Um I’ll paraphrase it here but
0:10
basically, a gentleman is
0:11
saying that Mike, I hardly ever
0:13
get time to have one-on-one
0:14
meetings with my office staff,
0:15
my crew leaders, and some of my
0:17
managers and what I do have
0:19
these meetings, I’m not really
0:21
sure what to talk about and
0:23
they seem to, if I’m
0:24
paraphrasing here, be all over
0:26
the place with no organization
0:27
and if I’m reading between the
0:29
lines here, probably don’t have
0:29
a of value in the managers, the
0:33
crew leaders, and the office
0:34
staff really don’t enjoy them
0:36
and there’s really no need to
0:38
have these unless they’re
0:38
organized. So, this is
0:40
something actually we’ve been
0:41
working with and going to be
0:42
instituting in the Simba Girl
0:44
Scout Group where we have
0:45
one-to-one coaching with
0:48
business owners under a million
0:50
dollars in our over a million
0:51
dollar basically consulting
0:53
group is our masterminds group
0:55
but I’m going to open up the
0:56
screen here. So, if somebody
0:57
owns a service business, this
0:58
is pretty much what we in my
1:01
service business as well. Um
1:02
and feel free to take a look at
1:04
it and you know institute this
1:06
in your own business here. So,
1:07
let me flip the screen over
1:08
here and pop this open. So,
1:10
this is something if you’re in
1:11
the scout group with Simple
1:12
Growth with the one-on-one
1:14
consulting two and a half hours
1:15
with our seven-figure business
1:16
experts. Uh you’re going to be
1:18
seeing here shortly but this is
1:19
something we used in my
1:21
business here and this is what
1:22
we’ve been looking at on a
1:24
weekly basis. So, on the far
1:26
left here, we’re going to be
1:27
walking through and this is a
1:28
10 to 15-minute exercise with
1:30
some things off to the right
1:32
that need to be prepared before
1:33
the meeting. Uh top of mind,
1:34
things we should talk about.
1:35
So, you’re actually engaging
1:37
this and the employee, not the
1:40
managers filling this out to
1:41
have ownership. Uh priority
1:43
since we last met, what have
1:44
you been working on? Uh
1:45
priorities until we meet again.
1:47
Top things you’re going to be
1:49
focusing on from now until the
1:50
next time we meet. Positive
1:52
things that went well this
1:53
week. Recent wins and positive
1:54
news. We’re going to frame it
1:56
with positivity and see what’s
1:57
going on. Uh next thing is our
1:59
Challenges. Roadblocks and
2:01
concerns that we can work we
2:02
can work out. And last thing is
2:05
feedback, recognition, and
2:07
suggestions for improvement. So
2:09
whether it’s a crew leader for
2:09
a landscape maintenance
2:11
company, a cleaning tech with a
2:13
multi-person crew, a manager,
2:15
or the office. This all
2:17
basically on the left hand side
2:18
fits in perfectly. Now, what
2:21
we’re looking at here on the
2:21
far right is probably going to
2:23
be more for a manager or
2:25
business owner. But this is the
2:26
things that we should be doing
2:27
on a weekly basis. The things
2:29
on the left here even as the
2:30
business owner, I have a
2:32
personal coach that I meet with
2:33
every Friday for an hour, not
2:34
cheap but we have these types
2:36
of accountability. So, these
2:37
are some of the things that I
2:39
actually do in my current
2:39
business as well as the lawn
2:40
care business. So, on the left
2:43
here, or in the middle, we’re
2:45
looking at employment
2:47
recruitment in virtual bench.
2:48
If you ever heard me talk about
2:49
stacking the virtual bench, we
2:50
should always be interviewing
2:52
at least twice a week.
2:53
Traditionally, Monday,
2:54
Wednesday, and sometimes
2:55
Friday. We’re stacking the
2:56
virtual bench. So, when we meet
2:57
an employee and we we don’t
3:00
have a basically a virtual
3:02
bench set almost like a farm
3:04
team for a sports club. It’s
3:05
too late. So, we need to have
3:07
those people already readily
3:08
available on screen before we
3:10
go out and hire. So, what I’m
3:11
going to recommend is go out
3:12
and interview two to three
3:13
times a week and we should be
3:15
tracking this for our cadence
3:16
to see where these interview
3:17
people coming from or
3:19
applicants are coming from. So,
3:20
this Thursday for the scale
3:21
group, we’ve got a whole hour
3:22
about going out and doing paid
3:25
advertisements for in in a in a
3:28
recruiting process to go out
3:30
and get employees when you need
3:31
them but also to stack that
3:33
virtual bench. So, we’re
3:34
going to put the date of the
3:35
week in here. How many
3:36
interviews were booked? How
3:38
many showed? How many were
3:39
hired? And then how many were
3:40
qualified to go on that virtual
3:42
event? So, what we’re doing is
3:43
creating a cadence of
3:43
accountability throughout each
3:46
week tracking your employment
3:48
process. I’ll tell you folks,
3:50
including myself in the early
3:51
days, we did not do this and
3:53
man, when we we stopped doing
3:55
this, we got in trouble. So,
3:56
really need to go out right in
3:58
my opinion, several times a
3:59
week and go out and recruit
4:00
even if we don’t need anybody
4:01
because you’re going to find
4:03
these applicants that you may
4:05
be able to use. So, the
4:06
gentleman who ran my company, I
4:07
found him about a year and a
4:08
half, two years earlier than I
4:09
needed him but it was a perfect
4:11
applicant. So, we moved some
4:11
money around and made it happen
4:13
but like I said, when you’re
4:14
going out to find that person
4:15
when you need them right in
4:16
that time and then, BDC, you’re
4:18
not going to find it. So, we
4:19
need to go out and recruit
4:19
beforehand. So, I’m suggesting
4:21
that our weekly meeting summary
4:23
from the following week for the
4:25
previous week, we go in
4:25
interviews interview showed,
4:27
hired, added to the virtual
4:29
bench. And then the final thing
4:30
based on the position, this
4:32
would be great for crew leaders
4:34
as well. Uh, in the field and
4:36
managers is the week of the
4:38
total budgeted hours for either
4:40
that crew that they’re in
4:42
charge of or the whole entire
4:43
division or company if they’re
4:45
managing that whole entire
4:46
company depending on the size
4:47
of it. But we want to know the
4:48
total budgeted hours, total man
4:49
hours work, and over and under
4:51
man hours. Now I would also
4:53
suggest here in the space
4:54
below, we have something about
4:56
quality because production that
4:58
is not aligned with quality
4:59
work is not going to be a
5:01
benefit. So, I would go in and
5:02
probably put some kind of
5:04
internal ranking like we did.
5:06
We did internal QC test and
5:08
then, we also had a portion
5:10
that based on the clients
5:11
calling in compliments or
5:13
complaints. So, those are the
5:14
things I I’d suggest you be
5:16
looking at but a quick summary
5:17
here, top of mind, things we
5:18
should talk about here.
5:20
Priority since we last met,
5:21
what have we been working on?
5:22
Priorities until we meet again.
5:24
Top things you’re focusing on
5:24
from until the next time we
5:27
meet, things that went well
5:28
this week, recent winds and
5:29
positive news and then we’re
5:31
looking at our challenges,
5:32
roadblocks, concerns, and ways
5:33
we can work them out and then
5:35
feedback, recognition, and
5:38
things for improvement. So,
5:39
these are the things that I
5:40
would suggest on your weekly
5:41
meetings with crew leaders,
5:43
managers, and office personnel,
5:46
a version of this is going to
5:47
be in, and then whoever’s
5:48
responsible for your
5:49
recruiting, right here, weekly,
5:52
how many interviews you were
5:52
booked, how many showed up, how
5:53
many hired, how many stuck
5:54
filtered to bench that were
5:56
qualified and then production
5:58
wise, budget, total hours work
6:01
over and under budget and I
6:01
would have a quality thing in
6:03
here and the final thing that
6:05
I’d be looking at off to the to
6:06
right here that is not on here
6:08
yet is I’d be also looking at
6:09
total client count, total
6:12
cancelled clients, new clients,
6:14
and net new and those are
6:16
going to be metrics across a
6:18
service business. I’m going to
6:19
recommend you look at on a
6:21
summarized weekly basis. So, if
6:22
you’re wondering how to go out
6:23
and tackle weekly one-on-one
6:28
meetings, this is what we do.
6:29
Every every week at Simple
6:31
Growth, every Tuesday, the
6:32
second half of the day, I’m
6:32
doing one-on-one meetings,
6:34
creates clarity, and we can go
6:35
in and better support the team
6:36
members and in a turn, better
6:38
support our customers. So,
6:40
comments, questions, drop
6:41
below. Callahan’s Corner. You
6:43
ask the questions. We answer
6:44
them

Transcript:
0:00 Make a quick video. I had a
0:02
question submitted right now
0:04
with the crazy gas prices and
0:07
needing to cover drive time.
0:08
How do we actually go out for
0:09
best practice and institute
0:11
this into a software program to
0:13
make sure that each and every
0:15
job moving forward that is
0:17
estimated includes travel time
0:19
and approximate cost to cover
0:22
the labor, overhead, and the
0:24
gas. As well as if you’re doing
0:27
design, build, or landscape
0:28
maintenance far as like mulch
0:29
installation shrub pruning,
0:31
things like that. How do we
0:33
account for the travel time and
0:34
the gas cost that’s passed on
0:37
to the client but it’s not
0:38
shown upfront as an extra line
0:40
item itself. So, what I’m
0:42
going to do is open up a
0:43
software that we work with,
0:44
Service Autopilot and show you
0:45
how this is done. Uh the final
0:47
product that I’m going to
0:48
reverse engineer it over the
0:49
next 10 to 15 minutes but this
0:50
is going to be applicable to
0:52
any software that you’re using.
0:53
If you’re not using a software,
0:54
this is a great option to go
0:57
out and build this into your
0:57
system. This is something we’ve
0:58
done in my company since about
1:00
two thousand8 when gas prices
1:04
skyrocketed and we hit a
1:05
recession. So, this is tried
1:06
and tested and we’ve done this
1:08
for hundreds and hundreds of
1:09
companies over the years. I’m
1:10
going to show you actually how
1:11
to build this out yourself
1:12
here. So, comment your
1:13
questions, drop em below but
1:15
that’s how we’re going to do
1:16
it. So, right now, I’m going to
1:17
go in and this is the workflow
1:18
of how it’s going to happen in
1:19
your office and I’ll actually
1:20
show you how to set this up.
1:22
So, first thing I want to do is
1:23
go in. Uh this product here
1:25
service autopilot. This can be
1:26
done. Um even with an excel
1:28
sheet but if you’re not doing
1:29
you should be doing this in a
1:31
software. If not, at least a
1:32
Google sheeter sells sheet. So,
1:34
what I’m going to do is put in
1:34
the first blame and last name
1:37
of our lead. So, they’re
1:38
calling your office imagine and
1:40
we’re going in now and just
1:41
having a conversation asking
1:44
them where their property is.
1:46
Now, this could be commercial
1:47
or residential, really doesn’t
1:49
matter. and we put in the
1:54
postal code and then the system
1:55
if it’s in question is going to
1:56
ask us what city and state that
1:58
is. Now, we’ve got information.
2:00
You notice the service address
2:01
is automatically going into the
2:02
billing address and we’re
2:03
going to want to put in an
2:04
Email address so we can
2:06
actually send them out a
2:08
estimate with the gas prices
2:11
and overhead included in it and
2:13
we would put their cellphone
2:14
number in there so we could
2:15
follow up with an automated
2:16
system to text them and make
2:17
sure they got this estimate.
2:19
Final couple things I recommend
2:21
that you’re doing before we get
2:21
to this. Uh things you should
2:23
be tracking is the account type
2:24
commercial and residential and
2:26
finally the sales. Uh how’d you
2:28
how’d you hear about it? So, I
2:28
heard about you from your nine
2:29
around direct mailing. Or the
2:32
every direct door. EDM, every
2:34
direct door mailing with the
2:35
long copy of the picture. So
2:37
we’ve got them into the
2:37
software. We’re going to pull
2:40
him up. Now, we’re working this
2:41
lead over the phone and this is
2:42
where we actually kind of are
2:43
tackling the question at hand.
2:45
How do we go out and build for
2:46
these things and not raise a
2:49
red flag with the future
2:50
client? So, what we’re going to
2:51
do is go into the more tab and
2:53
I’m going to go into property
2:54
measurement and actually
2:55
measure out this property. Now,
2:56
I’m going to show you here
2:57
shortly how we actually have
2:58
the math going in here but I
2:59
want to draw some context to
3:01
this. So, right inside the
3:02
software, we’re going to go in
3:04
and measure that area. and got
3:09
a little busy with the clicking
3:10
here but let me go in and
3:11
measure this out. So, I’m just
3:13
grabbing the turf area. So,
3:14
this could be for lawn mowing,
3:16
could be fertilization, could
3:18
be any service. Right now, I’m
3:19
going to do a lawn mowing
3:20
example just for real basic
3:23
travel time and gas
3:24
recuperation. So, we’ve got the
3:26
area here. I’m going to
3:27
recommend if especially if
3:28
you’re using service autopilot,
3:29
you want to go in and color
3:31
code these. and name it. So,
3:33
every time we come up to the
3:35
client record, we know the
3:36
areas we’re servicing, what
3:36
we’re on the hook for. This is
3:38
a test account. It’s got a ton
3:40
of these custom fields but what
3:41
I’ve done is embedded a couple
3:43
emojis here. So, that will make
3:45
your sorting a little bit
3:47
easier. So, that’s a little pro
3:48
tip here if you are using
3:49
service autopilot. So, we’re
3:50
going to hit save and we’ve
3:51
gone in and adjusted this. So,
3:55
once we save that custom field,
3:57
we’re going to go in and add an
3:59
estimate. So, I’m going to do a
4:00
lawn mowing estimate. I’m also
4:01
going to do one for mulch
4:03
installation as well. So, we
4:04
actually can see how to add
4:07
material pickup as well as the
4:09
drive time based on location.
4:11
So, like I said, we’re going to
4:13
open this up and show you how
4:14
to actually build this but this
4:15
is the actual idea. So, I’m
4:16
going to go and grab my
4:17
template and all my services
4:20
are going to load here in a
4:21
second and what we’ve done is
4:23
at 8400 square feet is now that
4:25
I measured on the map
4:26
automatically comes in. On all
4:28
this is fictitious, you need to
4:29
make your own pricing but based
4:31
on the model that we set up
4:32
here, it’s charging $30 for the
4:34
on-site only mowing, weed wa
4:37
blowing, and edging. Uh we said
4:39
that’s going to take point four
4:40
man hours and based on the
4:41
hourly cost in his test
4:43
account. It’s costing us $14
4:44
and 76 cents before we make a
4:47
profit. So that comes out to be
4:48
about a 50% net profit bottom
4:50
line in your bank account. Now
4:52
you ask how do we account for
4:53
the drive times? Like I said,
4:55
this is actually from my
4:56
company, Callahan’s Lawn Care.
4:58
We’ve recreated this in this
4:59
test account. Uh but we’ve got
5:00
several areas. So if you’re in
5:02
Upstate New York, over in
5:04
Rochester, New York, these are
5:04
going to actually look
5:06
familiar. These are postal
5:08
codes. So, one, four, five,
5:08
three, four, one, four, four,
5:10
five, oh, some members on our
5:12
development team actually live
5:12
out there in Fairport. One,
5:14
four, five, two, six. In Greece
5:16
and Irondequoit, we’re right
5:17
near our shop. So, what we
5:18
would do is the admin in the
5:20
office would simply go by the
5:20
zip code and go in and
5:23
literally click in here. So, if
5:25
you’re going to this first zip
5:26
code, we just type the one in
5:27
there because we’re going there
5:28
once and it calculates its. 16
5:31
man hour. So, it multiplies it
5:32
by your hourly rate and
5:33
calculated $8 and nine cents.
5:35
Now, conversely, if we were
5:37
right by our shop and we did it
5:38
here in this Greece area, it’s
5:39
only $three dollarsand twenty3
5:41
cents and point oh six. So, it
5:43
allows you to basically be more
5:47
competitive, price wise, closer
5:50
to your shop but what we’ve
5:51
done is taking the map and the
5:54
routes of all our jobs and all
5:57
the jobs that are in the one,
5:59
four, five, three, four, postal
6:01
code. We’ve averaged them in.
6:03
So, if there’s five different
6:04
days we’re out there, we took
6:05
those five days on average
6:07
through the mapping program and
6:09
from the shop all the way
6:10
through those jobs and back was
6:11
the total time. Um not
6:15
basically drive-time
6:15
allocation. So, if there was 1
6:18
hour of drive time in those 30
6:19
stops, that would be 2 minutes
6:21
of average drive time per
6:23
visit. So, that’s how the math
6:25
has worked in here. Now, based
6:27
on this in a break it out here
6:30
in an Excel sheet a little bit
6:31
in a minute. How did we figure
6:32
out the drive time caustic
6:33
fence and actually add that
6:34
into that charge? I’m going to
6:36
get to that but this is what it
6:36
looks like in the software and
6:39
now, all the clients going to
6:39
see is lawn mowing here for
6:41
thirty-eight oh 9. 56 man hours
6:45
and a cost of twenty-six
6:47
seventy-four. So, we’ve got
6:48
about a 45% net profit margin
6:51
long as the guys and girls on
6:52
the crew hit their budgeted
6:54
time with equality. So, we’re
6:55
going to go to drafted quote.
6:57
Now, this is a live estimate we
6:58
built in the on-site time
7:00
specific to the machines we’re
7:01
using so you could break it out
7:03
to a sixty, a fifty-two, a
7:04
forty-eight, a push mower. Um
7:06
all those different things.
7:07
Backyard and front yard with or
7:09
without a gate, a smaller
7:10
mower. All these variables can
7:11
be built in here with that
7:13
drive time and overhead cost
7:14
effect. Now, in addition, if we
7:15
scroll down here I didn’t fill
7:19
out the on-site estimate form
7:19
but what would happen is you’ve
7:21
got one, two, or three inches
7:23
depths of bed. So, I’m going to
7:25
say we’re going out to this
7:25
residential property and it’s a
7:27
little more the top dress but
7:28
it’s two-inch addition, two
7:29
inches of additional depth. So,
7:31
we would plug in say 600 square
7:32
feet and what that’s going to
7:34
do is calculate $330 for the
7:38
three yards of mulch, three
7:39
hours to get it done, and 198
7:42
labor materials. That’s a 40%
7:43
profit margin. So, now, what we
7:45
can do is we figure on average
7:47
is how long is this going to
7:49
take to actually either fill up
7:51
the dump truck or the dump
7:55
trailer on site or drive to a
7:57
nursing unit filled and get to
7:58
that property on average in our
8:00
service area. So, based on
8:02
this, let’s say
8:06
this is 1, 200 square feet and
8:08
that’s six yards of malt. So,
8:10
maybe our dump trailer or dump
8:11
truck can only handle four,
8:13
five yards of mulch. That’s
8:13
actually going to make us go to
8:14
the shop twice and actually
8:17
wore the nursery and fill up
8:18
twice for the wholesaler. So,
8:19
what I could do is put in two
8:21
units here and it would be an
8:23
extra $42 dollars and 90 cents
8:24
and point 66 man hour. So,
8:26
we’ve covered the drive time
8:28
and the drive time gas effect
8:31
for that individual to go and
8:32
refill that dump truck twice.
8:34
So, these are the keys to
8:36
success that I usually see when
8:37
we set these up. We’ve done
8:39
this for my company. Uh
8:40
multi-seven-figure business as
8:42
well as hundreds of other
8:43
businesses anywhere from a half
8:44
a million to all all the way up
8:46
to 19 to 20 million in annual
8:48
revenue and it works on scale
8:49
but we need to do is build this
8:51
in here and be able to hit save
8:52
and have a system that a very
8:56
can measure this or enter data
8:58
in or someone in the field
8:59
through their mobile device and
9:00
be able to create these
9:02
estimates in a systematic way
9:03
that covers that drive time,
9:04
gas effect, and budgeted time.
9:06
It projects profit. So, once we
9:09
have this, we can go in
9:10
literally and hit Email and
9:13
what it’s going to do is pull
9:15
up a an Email here and here it
9:18
is right here and we’ve got a
9:20
pretemplated Email button. You
9:22
can click if you’re on your
9:23
mobile in the five major
9:24
reasons why our business is
9:26
different than other
9:26
businesses. So, this right here
9:28
is basically incorporation of a
9:30
lead letter and it
9:31
differentiates yourself and
9:32
you’ve built it enough value
9:33
into this before they get the
9:34
estimates. So, price is not the
9:36
issue. So, what I’m going to do
9:37
is hit send real quick and on
9:38
my other screen, I’m going to
9:40
pull up my Email real quick so
9:40
you can see what the consumer
9:42
is getting and how we built
9:43
that in and then in the next
9:44
five to 8 minutes, I’m going to
9:46
actually go in and show you how
9:47
to build this out inside your
9:50
software system here. So, this
9:54
is going to be, in my opinion,
9:56
instrumental right now with
9:58
everything that’s going on in
10:01
the industry right now. So,
10:02
what we’ve got here is inside
10:03
my Email inbox. The ability to
10:04
go and see the Email that was
10:06
already pretemplated. Nobody’s
10:08
writing an Email. It’s said it
10:09
and forget it. We’ve got some
10:10
testimonials in here. Um and
10:12
what we’re going to do is the
10:13
customer now is going to click
10:14
view my proposal and as this
10:16
opens up, we’ve got it right
10:18
here. Step one, select the
10:20
services. Step 2, accept and
10:21
sign. Now, what I’m going to
10:23
recommend for best practice,
10:24
don’t have all this verbiage in
10:25
here but in this test account,
10:27
we’ve got all the verbiage to
10:28
say, hey, you can put as much
10:29
details you want in here or you
10:31
have a couple things spilling
10:33
the exact service and
10:34
underneath in in the contract
10:36
or the estimate terms you have,
10:37
the finer details but once
10:38
again, it’s got that
10:39
thirty-nine oh nine in there
10:40
per cut includes the drive time
10:42
and budgeted time. Consumer can
10:44
click it and another key to
10:45
success is we can go in and
10:48
have a video embedded live
10:50
inside the estimate that
10:52
actually talks about what’s
10:53
included, not included in the
10:54
service, and we can create more
10:56
perceived value. So, this video
10:57
myself in here was our our
10:59
automated salesperson,
11:00
literally twenty-four seven.
11:02
Now, the mulch insulation
11:03
obviously, we could’ve updated
11:05
the details but we built this
11:07
out as a test account but you
11:08
got $702 and 90 cents. That
11:10
actually include the mulch
11:13
installed, I believe it was six
11:14
yards and it includes the drive
11:16
time for two different visits
11:17
with the dump trucker dump
11:19
trailer. So, that’s the idea
11:20
here. Now, obviously, we can go
11:21
in and update that and another
11:24
pro tip here. So, if we went
11:25
in, you can go in on the fly
11:29
and update this one off.
11:31
Traditionally, you want that
11:32
all loaded in but what you
11:33
could do is includes mulch,
11:43
flavor or mulch, installation
11:47
of double round,
11:56
and you can put that in there.
11:58
So, you can obviously put some
11:59
more details and everything.
12:00
You could customize it on the
12:01
fly, hit save. Cool thing here
12:03
is when I go to view my
12:05
proposal and I actually refresh
12:07
this. Uh system hasn’t caught
12:11
up but that would actually
12:12
update this system here. So, we
12:14
go and see if I can get this to
12:15
actually update for us just so
12:16
I can show you the live update.
12:18
This is a cool trick. You can
12:20
also do this for change
12:22
requests as well. And actually
12:24
get that to come out.
12:28
and
12:29
we’ll give it one more try.
12:31
Alright, so right there, it
12:32
automatically updates that. So,
12:34
that’s another pro tip. You can
12:35
update those until some excepts
12:36
or doesn’t accept it which
12:37
means you can also update the
12:38
price. So, that’s what it’s
12:40
going to look like finish.
12:41
You’re going to measure it
12:42
through the mapping program.
12:43
Probably have an on-site
12:44
estimate form to plug in the
12:46
square footage of the mulch
12:46
better measured online. We’ve
12:48
included the additional drive
12:50
time in there for the mulch and
12:53
we’ve included it for the lawn
12:54
mowing based on postal code.
12:56
here. So, As we’re going in,
12:58
this is how we actually fill
13:00
this out. So, if our dollar per
13:03
hour goal is say, let’s say $65
13:05
and we’ve gone through a
13:07
financial overhead recovery
13:09
model. So, we know it’s costing
13:11
us $42 per man hour break even.
13:13
That’s including your average
13:15
fuel cost. Now, at the higher
13:17
rate, that’s going to be built
13:18
in. So, what we do is say,
13:19
okay, what’s our base price?
13:20
The lowest we would charge to
13:21
go in. So, I’m going to say at
13:22
4-5 bucks and based on that
13:25
equals 4-five divided by 6five
13:27
bucks an hour. The longest
13:29
amount of time I can take is
13:30
point six nine man hours right
13:32
here. Now, a lot of people are
13:33
going to be like, what is point
13:34
69 man hour mean? Well, that
13:36
means if one person was mow
13:38
blowing stick edging that
13:38
property, they’d have 41. 4
13:40
minutes to get that done.
13:41
That’s the most amount of time.
13:42
So, we’ve got that in there and
13:44
I’m going to say between one
13:45
and 5000 square feet is my base
13:48
price of forty-five and if I go
13:50
in and add some simple math
13:51
here, that budgeted time, time
13:53
is a break, even a 42 hour.
13:55
Coverage drive and gas here. Uh
13:58
that’s twenty-nine oh eight.
13:59
So, you’re charging 4five. It’s
14:01
cost you twenty-nine oh eight.
14:03
You got about a thirty-five
14:04
percent profit margin of
14:05
fifteen ninety-two. In this
14:07
example, now, what I’m going to
14:08
say is a very basic model.
14:09
Every thousand square feet over
14:10
the first 5000 is let’s say our
14:13
production rate is 6 minutes
14:16
per thousand. That’s
14:17
significantly higher than it
14:19
probably would be but we’ll go
14:20
with it just for this example.
14:21
So, it’s point 10 or. 1 man
14:24
hour. So, if I would go in and
14:26
that multiply by my hour rate
14:28
of sixty-five, I would need to
14:30
charge $6 and 50 cents per
14:31
thousand and it would be
14:32
costing me $4 and 20 cents. So,
14:35
that’s the on-site labor and
14:37
how we create a system where
14:38
you measure it and that’s what
14:39
the math does in the back end
14:40
of the software. Now, for drive
14:43
time, I’m going to just put DT
14:45
one four six one two. That’s
14:47
the the postal code, okay? And
14:49
I would say from one to one
14:52
trips to that area, let’s just
14:53
say, on average, each stop the
14:54
drive from the shop, to the
14:57
first stop, all the way through
14:58
25 stops and back to the shop
14:59
again. Let’s say that takes
15:01
about 8 minutes drive time. So,
15:03
eight divided by 60 is point
15:06
one three. So, my price would
15:09
be the. point13 man hours times
15:11
6-5 bucks. It would make that
15:12
would ensure that I would have
15:14
to charge $8 and 67 cents per
15:18
stop to cover that non-billable
15:19
drive time and the additional
15:20
gas expenses built in to now
15:23
the forty-two an hour from the
15:25
38 and every one visit over the
15:28
first visit is an additional
15:29
eight seventy-six point one
15:30
three man hours and its cost is
15:32
560. So, that’s how we build in
15:34
the onsite versus the drive
15:35
time and that’s exactly what we
15:37
had inside service autopilot.
15:39
That’s what was going on behind
15:41
the scenes. Now, same idea as
15:43
the drive time here, pickup,
15:46
and delivery of materials, 65.
15:49
I’m going to move that 30 up to
15:50
$42 an hour break even based on
15:51
new gas prices and inflation
15:53
and once again, it’s a
15:54
one-to-one ratio. So, each
15:56
visit, if it took me forty
15:58
minutes to do at. 75 man hours,
16:01
I would have to charge at 65
16:05
bucks an hour, forty-eight, 75
16:07
per pickup of materials. So,
16:10
each pickup, it’s an additional
16:12
4eight seventy-five. Each
16:13
additional one is another
16:14
forty-eight seventy-five. What
16:15
we’re going to do then is go
16:17
into service autopilot under
16:20
the gear icon and this is where
16:21
it actually all comes together.
16:22
So, you’re going to build out
16:24
some things called custom
16:25
fields first. These are those
16:26
job variables. So, you’re
16:27
going to go and create
16:34
per square footage and it would
16:38
be built to a number and then
16:40
save a new and then you would
16:42
put in the one four six, one,
16:44
two, that’s the postal code,
16:47
that I had in the example.
16:49
Primetime, number of trips. Hit
16:51
say, next step is we’re
16:53
going to go into
16:57
services and build this out.
16:58
Now, we’re going to use a
16:59
simple growth blueprint here.
17:00
This blueprint, we blueprint it
17:02
before we build it just like we
17:03
build a house off of blueprint.
17:04
Do you not want to go in and do
17:06
this without a blueprint? So,
17:07
we’re going to do is add a
17:08
service and quickly, I’m
17:10
going to show you how to build
17:11
this out. So, you would have
17:12
your lawn mowing.
17:17
and
17:18
you would need to go in the
17:19
per unit, invoice description,
17:21
income account is going to be
17:23
maintenance services and
17:25
estimates what the subscription
17:27
is on the, on the estimate, and
17:29
then rate matrix, we go to
17:30
quantity rate times visits, we
17:32
would go in and pull up your
17:35
turf square footage, and the
17:37
one to 5000 square feet that
17:40
was on the blueprint here,
17:42
taking the top five lines and
17:44
bottom five lines and literally
17:45
put him in there and that’s as
17:47
easy it is. Now, you’ve built
17:48
in your overhead recovery and
17:49
job costing for your service
17:52
business. Now, this could be
17:53
lawn care, home cleaning, pest
17:54
control, pool services, holiday
17:56
lights. List goes on and on.
17:58
We’ve done this in multiple
17:59
industries. Uh asphalt
18:01
maintenance, you name it. So,
18:02
what we’re doing is just
18:04
literally taking these top five
18:05
lines and I’m driving it right
18:07
here. So, one to 5000 square
18:08
feet is forty-five bucks. And
18:12
We’ve got point 69 man hours.
18:18
and it is costing us 2908
18:22
before profit. So, you kind of
18:24
get the idea. We’re just
18:25
rebuilding that blueprint now.
18:26
The top five lines and the
18:27
bottom five lines. Each one of
18:29
these services and now they’re
18:31
connected in the back end of
18:32
the template. You measure it,
18:33
it pulls the math in. We know
18:35
the math is right because we
18:36
tested it in the blueprint and
18:37
now we have a way to create
18:39
systematic, repeatable
18:40
estimates can be delegated to
18:41
anybody in your business.
18:43
Callahan’s Corners, you ask the
18:44
question, we answer them live
18:45
right here on Facebook. Leave
18:46
your comments, questions below
18:47
but that’s how I recommend
18:49
tackling the drive time per
18:51
postal code or zone in your
18:52
business and up and delivery or
18:55
disposal of debris for your
18:57
landscape maintenance services
18:58
or your hardscaping services
19:00
and how you’d update that based
19:02
on the higher gas prices and
19:03
have that job-costing and
19:05
additional prices hidden in the
19:08
back end of the software that
19:08
you’re using. So, comment your
19:09
questions, drop below.
19:11
Callahan’s Corner US