Win free books!
Where should you put your focus during the off-season? Because of the lack of busyness (and business!) at this time of the year, many companies have unique opportunity to spend time on things that might not be possible at other times of the year.
We want to know how you are spending your off-season to improve yourself and/or your business. Tell us how, and you could win free books!
Winter Ideas Contest How to Participate: Simply add a comment on this blog post telling us how you are using this off-season to improve yourself and/or your business. (i.e. I am going to take X class, plan X marketing strategy, focus on building X.)
The Winner: A winner will be randomly selected (like drawing a name out of a hat) from the participants and will be notified by email of their prize.
The Prize: Because we believe continuing education is a wise investment all the time but especially during your off-season time, the winner will be awarded his/her choice of two (2) of our favorite books:
Go ahead, post a comment!
This winter I am focusing on systems. I owned a business for about 7 years (1996-2003) and didn’t make much money for all of my hard work. I took a few years off and started back up in 2007. After being a technician again for 3 years I am now ready to be a business owner. My goal is to have all my personell systems in place this year so 2-3 great people can get all the work done in my business while I sell work and manage the bottom line!!!
Mark
Blade Runners, LLC
“Building a Legacy”
First of all, we are fortunate enough to not have an off season in Austin, TX. We mailed statements today for January. There were over 500, down only about 15% from our peak seasons.
Our main project is to improve our web requests for quotes. Last year we added $73,000 in annual sales from our web. Our next closest advertising source was our large white trailers with our logo and phone number on it. They brought in $52,000 in sales. Next, was our magazine advertisements that brought in $41,000 in sales. We have a lawn client who is also a web geru who is working on our web revisions, I read a book two weeks ago that I highly recommend: “Million Dollar Website” by Lori Culwell. Her web is http://www.getcreativeinc.com. Easy, down-to-earth writing that is full of helpful ideas and sources. From work we have done, our web site is listed 3 or 4 times on the first page of Google when prospects search Austin Lawn Care or Lawn Service.
Another excellent book we read last year is “Go-Giver”. Every employee who works with the public should read it. The basic theme is that you give, share, help, and benefit others all you can, and amazingly, you receive more than you give.
Another thing we have done is to sign on to the E-myth Blog on the http://www.E-myth.com web. It is filled with good ideas for us.
We are completing a new security system for our shop this week. We have added several motion sensor floodlights, several security cameras, and huge signs that say this property is protected. We will be able to dial up the shop’s security system from our homes or I-phones and see what is going on. Our goal has been to make our facility the least desirable place to try and rob. There are about 10 other lawn companies close by that are dark and unprotected.
Two of us went to Wichita Falls to evaluate a chemical application company. We are planning on opening a new division this spring that can “kill”. Up to now, we can only fertilize and make things grow.
We have also analyzed our lost clients for 2009. We lost 23 for finances, 24 who sold their homes, 13 who will do it themselves. Over half of our lost business was due to the economy. However, we gained more new customers than we lost, growing 10% in sales last year.
As you can see from the above, one of the main things we do in January is to analyze what we did the previous year. We try to elimenate the bad things and improve on the good things. We are targeting 20% growth in 2010.
C.B. from Arizona emailed in her comment:
“As a mom-and-pop business, we’ve developed our policies and procedures on the fly. Over time they’ve evolved and in some cases, become dysfunctional. Luckily for us, an acquaintance of ours found himself “between jobs” in the construction industry and we’ve been able to retain him as a consultant to help us refine our systems to better match how “the big boys” do it. We trust this will better position us for growth as the economy rebounds – a process we hope to expedite because these new efficiencies are also freeing up our key personnel to engage in more business development and marketing activities.”
Thanks for the comment C.B.!
Weekly meeting with staff set up task and devoploping system tohelp with work flow in the buisy season
@Mark McIntire
sounds like you have read the e-myth Mark. Systems are really the way to go. Keep us updated on how it goes!
@Jerry Tindel
Great ideas Jerry! Thanks for sharing with us. Go-giver is a great one as well. I highly recommend it. I also subscribe to the e-myth blog. They do have some great ideas.
I think that any companies who have an understanding of web advertising will have a significant advantage over the competition in our industry. You guys are certainly ahead of most of the industry in that regard.
@Victor
What kind of system is this to handle the work flow better Victor?
We spend the winter months analyzing losses and gains. We use hystorical information and compare it to projected numbers in order to learn to better estimate also. We do lots and lots of number crunching!!!
@Jennifer
Thanks for the comment Jennifer! Analyzing numbers can be very beneficial.