CLIP's Tips

Quick Reminder:  If you haven’t yet participated, you still have a chance to win free books on this post.

photo credit:  Alt1040

In our last post we discussed the importance of thinking ($450,000 ideas). In the next few posts I will describe a few tips and tricks to get the most out of your thoughts.

Personal Note:  If you put into practice the skill than I am about to teach you, your life will never be the same. I learned this skill originally from David Allen’s book Getting Things Done and applied it immediately.  Disciplining myself to develop this skill has paid off in greater reward than I could have imagined. So pay attention.

#1 – Ubiquitous Capture

Ubiquitous simply means being everywhere at one time (and it is a cool sounding word).  So the idea is that anywhere you are doing anything you should be able to capture thoughts that may be important to you.  These thoughts can range from simple to-do’s such as remembering that you need to pick up Gatorade for your kid’s basketball game on Saturday, to to ideas about long-term goals or life-vision such as an inspiration to spend more time with your extended family.

There are two aspects of ubiquitous capture: mindset and tools.

Mindset:

This is the harder of the two. You need to believe two things: First, that your thoughts at random moments have great potential value; Second, if you don’t capture these thoughts in the moment, they may be gone forever.

First, because our lives are so complex and intertwined, you probably will not have your best thoughts about a topic you want to have the most. They will come at times when you’re least expecting them. They will come when you’re at the grocery store buying bread, at your son’s tee ball game, or out to dinner with friends. If you begin to capture these thoughts and review them at a later time, you’ll be amazed to find how much potential value is there.

Second, you will lose these thoughts if you don’t capture them. I know you have had this experience: You’re driving somewhere and a thought pops into your head about something that you need to do. You think that you will remember it later. Within five minutes the thought is gone and all you’re left with is a nagging sense that you just forgot something important. This happens more often than you probably estimate. Therefore, you need to train yourself to capture these thoughts in the moment.

Tools:
In order to to develop the mindset of ubiquitous capture you need to have the right tools in place to help you do it. In fact, if you have the right tools in place, the mindset will be much easier to learn. So here are some of the tools that I have enjoyed using or have seen others use with success.

• Mini notebook – this could take the form of a 3"x2" notebook that you can keep in your back pocket all of the time. You could use this notebook that is a combination of a wallet and a notebook. If you carry a bag or purse you could use one slightly bigger like this Moleskine.  Obviously, bring a pen or pencil too.

 

• Hipster PDA – this little contraption was invented by the productivity fanatic and funnyman Merlin Mann. In response to the overcomplicated gadgets on the market, Merlin took a stack of 3 x 5 index cards and fastened them together with a binder clip thus creating the ever stylish hipster PDA. I used this for quite a while myself. Check out the article here for a laugh.

 

• reQall or Jott – use your cell phone to call a phone number, dictate your message, and have the transcription e-mailed to you for later reference. reQall was featured on this blog here. Jott is a similar service with some cool additional features.

 

•  Electronic note taking – for those of you want everything to be in digital format this could be a good option.  You can simply use the notes feature of your PDA or smartphone or install one of many applications available for this purpose.  If you use the notes function on your device, you can probably synchronize it with Outlook to have your notes on a computer as well. On an iPhone or Windows Mobile phone I recommend the free application Evernote (also available on the Windows mobile phone). Evernote allow you to capture typed text, audio notes, or pictures. One of the neat things about Evernote is that it is all searchable from your phone or computer. Evernote will even recognized text within images.

   

• Voicemail – simply call yourself and leave a voice mail.

What tools do you use to capture thoughts anywhere?  Do practice this habit of ubiquitous capture?  Let us know in the comments!

Thanks for be a great readership!

Companies pay $450,000 and up for Joey Reiman’s big ideas, some of which take him only a month to produce… Joey, erstwhile ad agency owner, heads BrightHouse, “the world’s first ideation corporation.”

Speaking of his headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, Joey tells us what we should expect:

“You won’t find people hustling and bustling around.  They’ll be sitting in their offices with their feet propped on the desk, thinking.”  (From the chapter “Think More, Work Less,” in The Little Red Book of Wisdom)

Photo: pheaber

During this off-season, consider thinking as an option for what you spend your time doing.

The practice of taking time away from the “hustle and bustle” to think intentionally about your life, your business, and your problems is highly under-appreciated.  Your brain has the potential to produce ideas more valuable than you can imagine.  Do not underestimate the power of your thoughts.  I am amazed at the ability of the human brain to collect, process, and produce information.  It is still by far the most powerful computer in the world.

What do you think about the company mentioned above where the employees are sitting with their feet on the desk, thinking?

What kind of culture are you creating within your company: one which merely values hustle and bustle, or one which values thinking and ideas?

How could you give a more important place to thinking in your life?  In your company?

In the next post, I will share a few tips, tricks, and tools for getting the most out of your thoughts.

Let us know in the comments what you think about thinking.

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!

A common complaint in our industry concerns the prevalence of low ballers.  When you have  become the best in town but it doesn’t seem like anyone cares about anything but price, what can you do?

Blogger and marketing guru Seth Godin thinks you should look to Groucho Marx for a tip:

Perhaps the most plaintive complaint I hear from organizations goes something like this, “We worked really hard to get very good at xyz. We’re well regarded, we’re talented and now, all the market cares about is price. How can we get large groups of people to value our craft and buy from us again?”

Apparently, the bulk of your market no longer wants to buy your top of the line furniture, lawn care services, accounting services, tailoring services, consulting… all they want is the cheapest…It’s not because people are selfish (though they are) or shortsighted (though they are). It’s because in this market, right now, they’re not listening. They’ve been seduced into believing that all options are the same, and they’re only seeing price…

Fixing this is almost always a losing battle. Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean the market cares any longer.

The Marx Brothers were great at vaudeville. Live comedy in a theatre. And then the market for vaudeville was killed by the movies. Groucho didn’t complain about this or argue that people should respect the hard work he and his brothers had put in. No, they went into the movies.

Then the market for movies like the Marx Brothers were making dried up. Groucho didn’t start trying to fix the market. Instead, he saw a new medium and went there. His TV work was among his best (and certainly most lucrative).

It’s extremely difficult to repair the market.

It’s a lot easier to find a market that will respect and pay for the work you can do. Technology companies have been running this race for years. Now, all of us must.

If Wal-Mart or some cultural shift has turned what you do into a commodity, don’t argue. Find a new place before the competition does. It’s not easy or fair, but it’s true. You bet your life.

What do you do to market your services to the right group?  Let us know in the comments!

And for those who have never seen Groucho in action, click here.

 

After investing your time in the previous 5 End of Year Projects to create renewal contracts, you certainly want to make the most of your efforts.

Like the rest of us, your customers are very busy, likely ignoring dozens of pieces of mail that come their way every day.  If you expect to maximize (remember, “make the most of”) your contract renewal effort, you cannot simply send a piece of mail, sit back, and wait.  You MUST follow up.

Here are some recommendations for follow up:

- Follow up via telephone about 1-2 weeks after sending out contract renewals.

- Use a script so that you are sure to say everything that you want to.  Consider including the following points in your script.

• Thank them for being your customer the previous year.
• Ask if they received the contract yet.  If not, assure them that you will send another one ASAP (ask if they would like it via email, many do nowadays).  If so, ask if they have any questions about it.
• If you are using an incentive for them to return it, mention that.  For example, at CLIP Lawn Care, we offer a price “lock-in” if customers return their renewal contract before January 1st.
• If the customer infers that they will not be signing up this year or sounds hesitant, be sure to find out the reasons why.  Through this information you may be able to convince them otherwise or you will be able to use this information to help you improve your company.  Either way, keep track of this data for later use.
• Consider any services the customers are not yet taking advantage of , and mention these to them.
• Ask for feedback from the previous year(s).

- Follow up via email if you know some of your customers prefer it.

- Do a second round of contracts and follow up calls.  For example, at CLIP Lawn Care, for any customers who do not sign up in November or December (1st round), we send another set of contracts in early March and follow up on these with calls as well.

- If you are unable to make these calls for any reason, consider using a service such as Dial My Calls to make them for you.

- Lastly, this is not directly a follow up suggestion but certainly important for maximizing contract renewals:  Consider using an auto renew contract.  I have heard nothing but good things from CLIP customers who use this method.  If you would be interested in learning about auto-renewing contracts, say so in the comments or send an email to editor@clipblog.net.

Application Action:  If you are not yet convinced that you need to follow up, just test it.  Make a list of 15 customers to whom you sent renewal contracts but have not followed up with yet.  Follow the suggestions above to create a script.  Take 45 minutes to call through the list.  If after doing this exercise, you still feel like you don’t need to follow up, send me an email so I can convince you otherwise.

Do you have any recommendations for follow up?  Let us know by posting a comment.  Thanks for your recent feedback everyone!

One of the most effective ways for you to improve your company in 2010 is to get direct feedback from your customers so that you can change the things that matter most to them.

Consider the following three ways that you could use a survey to get this feedback:

1.  Written survey mailed to customer – You could mail this separately, with the new contract, or with a greeting card.  To maximize response, include a pre-stamped, self-addressed envelope.

Click here for a sample survey in Microsoft Word format.

2.  Phone survey – Create a call list using CLIP and keep a log of survey answers to analyze later.  There are also services that will do this for you.  I was unable to find one that I liked (most were not very user friendly).  If there is a company that you use, let me know!

3.  Internet survey – If you are a DIYer (Do-It-Yourselfer) check out www.wufoo.com.  At Wufoo, you can very easily create customized forms for surveys or any other purpose.  You can then send the link to your customers or even add the survey to your website.  I just created this form within 15 minutes on wufoo.com:

- Example of what it looks like on wufoo.com:  Click here.

- Example of what it looks like embedded on our website:  Click here.

Very easy! You can create 3 forms for free and keep track of the results.  Additional forms can be created for a minimal charge.

If you are not comfortable creating it yourself, contact your IT support to develop a simple web survey to put on your website.

To notify your customers of the online survey you could include a note with a piece of mail you send to them, use a service such as Dial My Calls, or simply email them.

Application Action: If you haven’t surveyed your customers this year, choose one of the options above and get started!

How do you get feedback from your customers?  Let me know in the comments!

In our last post, we discussed how to create contracts from CLIP using Estimates in Jobs.  I thought it would be helpful to share some of CLIP Lawn Care’s contracts.

Feel free to use the contracts verbatim or to take some inspiration for your own contracts.

2010 – This year, we are focusing on “packages.”  Research has shown that fewer choices mean more sales.  Customers may become indecisive if they have too many options.  Rather than make a choice, they often will opt out of purchasing anything (think about the last time you were trying to choose toilet paper at the grocery store!).  In light of this we simplified our maintenance offerings to three packages:

• Just Mow It
• Make It Green
• Mow It and Make It Green

Instead of overwhelming the customer with the details of an a la carte service menu, we chose to make it simple and to put it in their terms.  The results so far have been positive.

2010 Lawn Maintenance Agreement

2009 – If you are looking for our previous contracts, check out the links below.

2009 Lawn Maintenance Agreement

2009 Lawn Treatments Estimate

After you determine your dollar per hour goal for 2010, create a job costing report, and adjust prices as necessary; it is time to create and send out renewal contracts.

There are various ways to create renewal contracts.  Some people do it manually, typing up each contract.  Another option is to create a mail-merge in Microsoft Word using data from a CLIP report.

The easiest way is to create the contracts directly from CLIP using “Estimates in Jobs”.  This feature will enable you to create customized proposals and automatically add pricing and contract information from CLIP.

The following will serve as an introduction to the steps involved in creating a proposal using Estimates in Jobs.  At the bottom of the post, I will provide some other resources for further instruction.

Application Action: To best learn this process, I suggest that you create a test copy of CLIP and follow these directions step by step in your test copy of CLIP.

1.  In File Maintenance, choose a customer and a job.  From the Job Detail Screen, click on the small button next to the Estimate Code.

2.  Click Add/Edit Templates.

3.  Click Add.

4.  Type in a contract code, description, and file name.  If you want to use an existing file, click the small button next to the description field to choose the file.  Click Save.

Note:  If the file name does not exist, CLIP will ask you if you want to create it.  Go ahead and do so.

5.  Wait while CLIP creates the database necessary for the proposal.  Click OK to close any dialog boxes that open up.

6.  With the blank Microsoft Word document open, type or paste in your contract details.

7.  Next you will need to add the “Merge” fields.  This is the data that is transferred automatically from CLIP (i.e. price or number of visits).  To add a merge field, click on the place in the document where you want to add the field.  Next, click, insert merge field and select the data that you want to insert.  Repeat for each field you want to add.

8.  Preview the contract to make sure everything is correct by clicking the “Preview Results” button.

9.  Save and Close the document.

10.  In CLIP, click return twice to get you back to the Job Detail screen.  Click Create Estimate.

11.  Choose the proposal you just created from the list, then type in a description and click the button to the right of the description.

12.  On the next screen, select the job(s) you want to include in the contract by checking off the “Include?” and/or “Part of Contract” buttons.  Add any notes you want.  Add contract information such as number of months, discounts, etc.

13.  After you have ensured that all of the information is correct, click Continue.

14.  CLIP will ask you if you want to see the spreadsheet created.  Click NO.

15.  You will now have the contract created and saved in CLIP for printing or later viewing.

This contract can now be used for other customers as well.

While the process outlined above only creates a proposal for one customer, you can use Estimates in Jobs to mass produce proposals as well. See the webinar below for details on mass producing proposals with this feature.

Additional features of Estimates in Jobs include:

• Create Estimates for New Customers
• Mass Produce Estimates (File Maintenance > Estimates/Proposals > Estimates in Jobs > Create Mass Estimates/Proposals)
• Create estimates including multiple jobs.
• Include some jobs in contract and leave some as pay per visit.
• Track the status of estimates.

For more information, check out these references:

Manuals:

Estimates in Jobs
Mail Merge Guide for CLIP

Webinars:

Step 1 – Prepare Data
Step 2 – Create a Simple Proposal for 1 Job
Step 3 – Create a Proposal for Multiple Jobs
Step 4 – Mass Mailing Estimates

More questions?  Email me or post a comment.

Stay tuned for parts 5 and 6.

End of Year Projects Overview:

1.  Revise our dollar-per-hour goal to account for any changes in the upcoming year.

Part 1 & Part 2

2.  Use CLIP to create a job costing report for this year.

3.  Analyze profitability of customers.  Adjust prices as necessary.

4.  Create and send renewal contracts.

5.  Survey customers for feedback from this year.

6.  Follow up in order to maximize contract renewals.

Especially at this time of the year, it can be easy to complain about the seasonal nature of our industry.  The challenges of reduced revenues, cash flow management and employee retention are all realities we face due to our seasonal businesses.

At CLIP, we are big fans of the E-Myth book by Michael Gerber and of its systems oriented approach for small businesses.  Recently, the E-Myth blog had two great posts on managing a seasonal business:

Catching the Seasonal Wave Part 1

Catching the Seasonal Wave Part 2

The following are from Part 2 on “Tactics that Alleviate the Pressure.”

To help maximize your skills, time and resources, follow this list of tactics:

1. Budget. Establish a tight budget and stick to it all year long. Avoid the temptation to spend when you’re flush with cash. Money management is always important in any business, but even more so to the seasonal business that must stay on top of an uneven cash flow.
2. Create a cash reserve account for lean months. Save, save, save, and save some more!
3. Create a cash flow forecast. Cash planning helps identify patterns and lets you see what you’ll be facing in the future.
4. Manage your time. Master your time management skills so you can work 80 hours a week in season and 10 hours a week off-season and still be efficient and know your priorities.
5. Market and Promote. Use slow times to devise marketing plans, conduct customer surveys, catch up on maintenance or strengthen client relationships. Send mailers, make calls, set-up meetings.
6. Create the right team. Use only a small core of permanent employees and consider temps and part-time workers when needed. Planning ahead is essential to your staffing needs. Aside from cash flow, the second biggest struggle for a seasonal business is often one’s people strategy, causing management challenges. Constantly having to recruit, hire and train new workers can put an added strain on tight resources. It may pay to hold onto workers. If not, keep in touch. Make working enjoyable. Give them incentives to come back the next season. Organize events when working to build teamwork and community, encourage employee feedback and offer performance based financial incentives.
7. Keep stock levels low. Carrying unneeded inventory ties up cash you may need elsewhere during the slow season.
8. Look for deals. Shop for the best discounts from suppliers; then build strong relationships with them to establish credit so you can extend payments if necessary.
9. Generate revenue. Offer off-season sales or rates, and look for ways to generate revenue during quieter periods.
10. Update your website. Off-season is a great time to enhance your website and jump into social networking and other forms of web marketing.

Application Action: Let us know what you do in the slow season.  Post a comment sharing your best strategies for managing a seasonal business.  Have a question for others?  Feel free to post that too!

In addition to the End of Year projects we are working on, there are a few settings in CLIP which should be reset at the start of a new year.

Built into CLIP is the ability to reset these automatically.  To learn more about these features, please check out our newly updated manual for End of Year Functions.

Manual – End of Year Functions – Revised 12/21/2009

There is also a video tutorial available here.

Application Action: Check out the manual and/or the tutorial to make sure you are setting up CLIP optimally for 2010.

Stay tuned for the rest of the End of Year Projects.