CLIP's Tips

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.

Here is what CLIP Lawn Care is using this year for marketing aeration and overseeding.

Feel free to edit it to suit your needs and use it as you wish.

Aeration and Overseeding Marketing Document – CLC.doc

 

As promised in the webinar today, here are the instructions for how to set up everything to track your marketing using Google Maps:

How to Track Your Marketing Using Google Maps

 

Thanks again for everyone’s input today!

If you have any questions feel free to email me.

Watch the webinar.

I have the tendency to let things go on cruise control. “No news is good news” is the attitude I take rather than being actively engaged. One area where I have realized that this “no news is good news” mentality can have a serious negative implication is with customer service.  Just letting your customers be—not actively engaging with them on a regular basis, allows for the competition to come in and win their business without you ever knowing why.

One of the most effective ways that we have found to engage with our customers and to gauge their satisfaction is through simple “Check-In Calls” two or three times per year.

These check-in calls consist of merely calling through your entire active customer list and asking them if they are pleased with the service this season.

Check In Calls

• What to Say:
  

  “Hi, this is Jon with CLIP Lawn Care. I am just calling as a courtesy check in to make sure that you are happy with our service. We really appreciate you as a customer and would love to know if there is anything we can improve for you. If you do have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to call me back at 555-555-5555. Thanks again for being our customer!”

• Benefits:
  
  • Customer feels appreciated.
  • Customer provides candid feedback that might otherwise not call you that helps you to improve your services
  • You have the opportunity to get more work by offering other services.
  • Customer loyalty increases through contact with your company
  • Your confidence increases because you know your customers are satisfied.
• Tips:
  
  • Keep a running tally of customers who are Happy, Neutral, or Unhappy. Add these up at the end to see where you stand.
  • Make a note of every suggestion for improvement given. At the end, assess what you want to change and inform your crews or whoever needs to know.
  • Just DO IT! – The benefits are huge!

Application Action: Just as a test, call twenty random customers from your active customer list and see how it goes. This will take about an hour. Then, once you see the benefits, get the whole list and schedule the calls for yourself or delegate it to someone to do within the next week.

The hot summer months are here.  With the hot days come dry lawns and for us that means two things:

1. - Mowing customers say, “Your crew was not here last week!  I did not see any difference in my lawn.”
2. - Sales are few and far between, especially to new customers.

Therefore, we have implemented a new door-hanger designed to let our customer know when we were there and to up-sell to our current customers.

Here’s a look at our “We were here” door hangers:

Notice the two main features:

1.  The details about our visit (date, crew, and time)

2.  List of services with an opportunity for our crew to recommend a service.

Also, this is a great opportunity for us to receive candid feedback from our customers, so we have included a web address where our customers can leave feedback.

Do you have a leave-behind for each time you do a service?  Why not?

We have found that customers appreciate the notice, that the opportunity to up-sell is foolish to pass up, and that the feedback is vital to improving our service.

FYI:  Cost for printing 3000 of these on cardstock in black ink was $128 including shipping.

Please share any ideas you have for customer leave-behinds in the comments.

I was impressed by a creative marketing idea shared by Marty Grunder, founder of The Grunder Landscaping Company in Ohio.

For customers that were lost during the previous two years Marty sent out a boomerang with the words, “Come Back!” printed on them.  With the boomerang, he attached a letter and a contract.

At CLIP Lawn Care we are in the process of calling customers that we lost in the past two years.  Half-way in and we have three signed up for mowing service again and two estimates for clean up work. For the effort, it is worth it.

It is amazing to me that these customers only needed a two minute phone call to come back to us.  How many of your customers are on the other end of the phone waiting for you to call?

Don’t waste another week.  Get the list and call them…or send them a boomerang!

Need a report of those customers?  Use custom reports in CLIP.

Here is my setup:

If you have more questions or creative marketing ideas, feel free to post them in the comments below.

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