The Void #4 ** Core Episode ** Systems and Processes (1 of 3)

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[Music]

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hey everybody and welcome to the void a

00:06

show dedicated to filling the void

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between being an employee and becoming

00:10

self-employed

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most people refer to starting your own

00:13

company as taking the leap as if they’re

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blindly jumping off a cliff and into the

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unknown

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this show is here to help you understand

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that it doesn’t have to be that way it

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doesn’t have to be a leap at all

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we will share with you the process that

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i used for starting my own company so

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you too can be on the way to starting

00:32

your own service related business we’ll

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look through some common issues that are

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preventing you from starting your

00:38

company and fulfilling your true

00:39

potential

00:41

as always if you like what you’re

00:43

hearing on the show please do us a favor

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and help share the void with someone you

00:48

might know who is also interested in

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starting their own company

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dave and i just saw an opportunity to

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help others understand that

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self-employment is within their reach

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and just as our businesses have grown

01:00

organically and by word of mouth we want

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this show to be the same way and it

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takes two things for that to happen we

01:06

have to put out some great content and

01:09

you have to help us share our valuable

01:11

message with others

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we know that many of you out there are

01:14

on different social media groups for

01:16

your various trades and skills and

01:18

crafts

01:19

these groups are begging for this kind

01:21

of info virtually every day so if you

01:23

see somebody ask a question about

01:25

starting their own service related

01:26

business please do us a favor and drop a

01:29

link to the show

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i’m your host mitch smedley and with me

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as always is david hilton mitch how are

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you doing buddy i’m doing great i’m

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really excited to get into this one the

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last the last one we we did and this one

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are we’re really starting to dive into

01:44

that important stuff yeah and we’re not

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you know i don’t want to say fluff

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because the first few episodes are not

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fluff but um this is the meat and

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potatoes we’re getting straight to the

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home that i like so let’s let’s talk

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about the adversities that we’ve gone

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over in every episode you know we’ve

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talked about what they are um

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preparation steps is three adversities

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number one personal finance prep that’s

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episodes one and two

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if you’re just getting into the show go

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back and start at one and catch up to

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where we are now right okay preparation

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step two business finance prep that’s

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what we just did on the last episode

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right that’s episode three yes that’s

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episode three systems prep episode four

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five and six it’ll be episode four or

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five meats and potatoes we’re at episode

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four this is when we start getting into

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the nitty-gritty okay and those are the

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those are the preparation steps we’ve

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broke those into three so

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after that we’re going to get into the

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beginning steps the beginning

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adversities okay so number four will be

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community involvement work

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five wake up do work repeat six evaluate

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performance make adjustments and improve

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and when we get into those we’ll start

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really breaking down what you know each

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one of those is

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and if you’ve

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listened to the other

02:59

podcasts which you should

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we break those down just a little bit in

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the beginning of each one we’re not

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going to do it now it’s a little more

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repetitive but if you go back you’ll

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know what those are and then we’ll get

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right into them yeah and and the main

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reason we broke them up into preparation

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steps and beginning steps is because you

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need to be working on the preparation

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steps together and you need to be

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working on the beginning steps together

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do not work on the beginning steps while

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you’re working on the preparation steps

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it’s going to hurt you in the long run

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to do that you need to prepare to start

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your business and then you need to start

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your business you don’t want to be kind

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of starting your business while you’re

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still trying to prepare so

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um

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things that we covered in the last

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episode um

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uh

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one of one of the things that we covered

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was was uh talking about business

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finance preparation and how we’re gonna

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fund that business yeah and and one of

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the options that we talked about was

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401k

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um

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you’re talking about

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borrowing against your 401k well we

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didn’t really do we’re cashing out your

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401k right we didn’t really dive into it

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all the way so we didn’t we wanted to

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kind of recap a little bit on that

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section and kind of go over like hit

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that again

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to talk about with you guys

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that there are two avenues to get money

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from your 401k one is you can borrow

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against it and the other is you can cash

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it out yeah what are the differences so

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um

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borrowing against your 401k

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okay

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50 000

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is the max or 50

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whatever’s lower whatever’s lower

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whatever’s lower you can borrow that

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money now when we say borrow

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you are

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taking a loan out on money that is it

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your money of course it’s your money but

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you have to pay that money back

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and interest okay so you need to vet out

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what is my personal max can i get the 50

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000. you know you need to do i need the

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50 yeah are you 100 vested

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you know if you’re only 50 vested

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you might not be able to borrow and

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you’re

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yeah you you think oh i’m gonna i’m

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gonna get 60 i can i can borrow the max

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50. well i’m only 50 vested no a lot of

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times if you’re at 25 you just cut

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yourself in half because you’re not

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vested in that money yeah a lot of times

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if you’re not fully vested you can only

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borrow your input into it you can’t

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borrow at all any of your employees

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exactly and there are different some of

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them are different yeah yeah that’s my

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case exactly so you’ll need to you’ll

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need to either talk to your hr

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department if they have one um your

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personal accountant

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or um or just do

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the research in your state

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right based on what’s happening with

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your personal account and then the other

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one is cashing it out

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um and what was that it’s uh you can

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cash out uh up to a hundred thousand

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or your entire account balance whichever

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one is smaller right yes and let’s talk

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about taxes on that yep so if you do do

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that and penalties yeah you have to pay

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taxes and penalties on that money now

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they let you spread that out over a

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three year period but you are losing a

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substantial amount of money the the

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penalty gets deducted before you take it

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out so it’s yes it’s usually about a ten

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percent penalty so just using round

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numbers if you’re going to withdraw 50

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grand just say it 100 for for easy easy

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math yeah okay so if you’re going to

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draw withdrawal 100 grand you’re only

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going to net 90 right off the get-go and

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then you have to pay taxes on that on on

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the full 100 yes

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yes paying taxes on the full amount

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right so yes plus penalty right that’s a

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lot of money against expensive and

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that’s why we talked about in the other

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episode um

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if you can avoid doing that that’s the

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smart thing to do this is this is kind

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of like a last resort it’s it’s in my

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opinion it’s the last resort however if

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it’s the only resort you have then you

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might not have anything to do to

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entertain it so exactly um i have a

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friend of mine uh he’s not a friend he’s

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more than acquaintance but i still

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follow him on social media because he is

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incredibly uh inspiring

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he

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about 10 or 12 years ago he cashed out

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his 401k

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to start a restaurant and a microbrewery

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and i’m sure he was warned and it would

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be risky and everything else well where

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is he at today he’s got three locations

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he’s soon oh like he’s constructing his

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fourth right now he has an event space

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uh they have their own line of like over

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20 beers that are distributed all over

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the world

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and uh we’re located in the kansas city

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area the kansas city airport is going

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through this big giant revamp

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and he was just blessed with the

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opportunity to plant a uh the the

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company that i’m talking about is martin

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city brewing company

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and he was just blessed with the

07:53

opportunity to plant a martin city

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brewing location in the new airport

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which

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can you imagine how many hundreds and

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hundreds of businesses and restaurants

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were aspiring for that and he earned

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that spot so

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all of that started with him cashing out

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his 401k

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and uh

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he made it work

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so that put a lot of pressure on him to

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perform but he understood his vision he

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understood

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where this thing could go

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and so and he knew the risk of cashing

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out his 401k and so he put all of his

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chips in and and it wasn’t a gamble it

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was a calculated risk and he came out

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the other side very successful yeah so

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and and that can be

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uh

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very risky

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you could lose it all yeah okay

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but

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we you have to have perspective on that

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risk right so when someone says we and

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i’m sure you don’t know the numbers um

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but when someone says hey i cashed out

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my 401k

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that could be 25 000 bucks right that

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could be a hundred thousand dollars you

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know we don’t we don’t know in that

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specific situation so even though it may

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be ex it could be extremely risky or not

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so risky because maybe it’s not that

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much money right maybe you were if

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you’ve got 700 grand in your 401k and

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you’re going to cash out 100

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that’s not that big of a risk to you

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right but the topic of cashing out your

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401k

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seems risky yes however

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it’s not

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it’s not a majority of your retirement

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and sometimes it’s about perspective

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yeah you know

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for one person it may

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seem completely extreme and for the next

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person it’s like oh that is completely

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feasible and i can do that right and to

09:32

him he could do that right and he did it

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and he made it happen well he knew what

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was going to be in his own mind’s eye

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and in his heart he knew it was going to

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be successful his vision his millionaire

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mindset yeah his millionaire mindset of

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i can do it i’m going to do it get the

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hell out of the way

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it worked for him yep

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before we get into

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to today’s topic um i wanted to to

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talk about ethics and honesty for a few

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minutes

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um we might get into it right here yeah

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um there are a lot of people out there

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who want to start their own company for

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the wrong reasons and those reasons

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usually revolve around greed or the love

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of money

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and the sole purpose of them starting

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their business is to get more of it

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money is a great thing

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however

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wanting more of it and solely only

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wanting more of it as a purpose of you

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opening your business is a giant problem

10:26

um if money is the sole purpose of you

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starting your own company

10:31

that that’s that’s not what we’re

10:32

wanting for the intentions of this

10:34

podcast there’s a few misconceptions

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about money though that we do want to

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clear up

10:38

pursuing money directly is wrong on

10:40

nearly every level

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but

10:43

that means you don’t care about your

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customer it means you don’t care about

10:46

your people that work for you it means

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you don’t care about your community

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right

10:50

even the bible states that for the love

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of money is the root of all evil now we

10:55

don’t want to get biblical but this

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we’re talking about writings that were 2

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000 years old so

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this is not a new concept

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ultimately we’re talking about greed and

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selfishness greed is the intense and

11:07

selfish desire for something the key

11:10

word is selfish so

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if you hope to start a business or

11:14

create a company or create wealth uh or

11:16

offer a service to the community and

11:18

greed is your driving force

11:21

please do not subscribe to this show and

11:23

if you already have please unsubscribe

11:25

to this show

11:26

we would hate to hear that the people

11:28

that are listening to this show are

11:30

using our great advice and taking it out

11:32

there and using it for selfish gain

11:35

if you do a little research on virtually

11:37

anybody who built a wildly successful

11:40

company

11:41

you’ll usually

11:42

never see greed in that aspect

11:46

history shows over and over that the

11:48

most successful business owners out

11:51

there are selfless

11:53

they are not selfish now listen when he

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says that um you know a lot of people

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are thinking oh my boss

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is a selfish turd

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you know and i know guys that are

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completely selfish and they have been

12:05

extremely successful we’re not saying

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that every successful person

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in the entire country is not

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again there’s every successful person

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isn’t selfish yeah there are guys like

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there

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out there like that but we want to

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um

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we want to focus on people that are more

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like-minded yeah i guess i should say

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yeah yeah and have a good heart and when

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they

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when they use our advice

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and are successful

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we want them to be

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uh pillars in their community yep not

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just selfish jerks right that’s what we

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mean when we get into that yeah you know

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i’m i’m very aware of my behavior when

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it comes to being selfless or selfish

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and i’ll be damned if anybody has the

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grounds to call me selfish

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i attribute a lot of my success to that

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one simple fact i’m selfless

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simon seneck is is a pretty popular

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mentor and leadership

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mentor

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he’s got some great stuff when it comes

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to being selfish selfish or selfless um

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he says that leadership is putting the

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needs of others before your own and it’s

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not about being in charge but instead

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leadership is about taking care of those

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in your charge

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and think about that for a minute is

13:25

that a quote i like that yeah yeah yeah

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that’s that’s a quote from simon sinek

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okay um

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think about this for a minute this guy

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simon he mentors some of the world’s

13:35

greatest leaders

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and he bases the foundation of his

13:40

teachings on the ideas that leaders put

13:42

the needs of others before their own

13:45

so even though you’re thinking about

13:47

starting a company and you might be the

13:48

only employee you’re still a leader

13:51

you lead your customers every day

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you’re leading others in your community

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every day so if you want to even be the

13:58

slightest bit successful your job is to

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put the needs of others before your own

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if you do that successfully

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the money will come

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but getting in the mindset of success is

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putting the needs of others before my

14:14

own

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is is where you need to be this doesn’t

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mean you’re doing things for free or

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breaking your back every day and not

14:19

being paid fairly it just means that

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when you’re faced with the question

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where there are ethical and unethical

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answers

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that you choose the ethical answer every

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time that is part of the millionaire

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mindset it is

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you know and we always and as we go

14:35

you know through this journey of these

14:37

core episodes

14:38

the millionaire mindset takes on a lot

14:40

of different things

14:41

you know like we’ve talked about go back

14:43

and listen to episode one two and three

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i mean

14:46

we hash it out pretty good yeah this is

14:48

another example of the millionaire

14:50

mindset taking care of others

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and doing the right things in your

14:54

community yeah i can’t stand when people

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who call themselves professionals

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uh lie to customers yeah it drives me

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crazy and they’ll do it because they’re

15:03

gonna make a few extra bucks they’re

15:04

greedy right um they’ll lie to customer

15:07

like let’s say it’s a furnace and

15:09

they’ll lie to a customer that the

15:11

furnace is old and it can’t be repaired

15:13

or they’ll lie about the safety of the

15:15

furnace in order and what they’re hoping

15:17

for is they want to sell them a new

15:19

furnace instead of fixing the old one

15:22

because they make more money selling

15:24

them a new one exactly i

15:26

can’t stand it the right way to handle a

15:29

situation like that where you’re

15:31

presenting like you’re identifying a

15:34

customer’s repair or replacement needs

15:37

and that kind of stuff if your business

15:38

is going to be you know service where

15:40

you’re repairing and fixing things the

15:42

right way to handle that is to offer the

15:44

customer options

15:45

and your professional opinion so you

15:48

offer them a repair option

15:50

and a realistic repair option but then

15:52

you also offer them a replacement option

15:54

repairs typically come with shorter

15:56

warranty periods and cheaper price tags

15:58

replacement options come with better

16:00

warranties and higher price tags right

16:02

it’s your job to offer both of those

16:04

options and then let the customer choose

16:06

what option is best for them

16:09

first of all

16:10

you’d be surprised how many customers go

16:13

ahead and choose the replacement option

16:15

anyway because they’re not dumb and they

16:17

want to make the right choice yeah and

16:18

that and when they do replace that gives

16:21

them peace of mind yeah you know right

16:23

out of the gate and they don’t have to

16:24

worry

16:25

and and you giving them those options

16:28

you know it’s almost like it takes a

16:30

weight off of your personal shoulders

16:33

you know what i mean you know that in

16:35

your heart you gave them

16:37

the two best options

16:39

you gave them your professional opinion

16:41

which is based on 20 years of experience

16:43

and then they got to make their own

16:45

decision yeah no matter the outcome

16:48

right you know you feel better they feel

16:50

better you’ve done the right thing

16:52

and you know i’m not a big

16:55

um yin and yang guy right but you know

16:58

what you put in is what you get out

16:59

right and it’s you know and i don’t you

17:02

know i said yin and yang and i’m not a

17:04

big karma guy either but you know it’s

17:06

amazing how often those things come back

17:08

around yeah yeah everything that you put

17:10

out into the universe is eventually

17:12

going to come back to you so

17:14

when you lie to customers and tell them

17:16

that replacement is the only option

17:19

well they might just ask you to leave

17:20

and they’re going to go get a second

17:21

opinion they’re going to come find

17:22

somebody else right now what happens

17:25

when that somebody else comes in and

17:26

says oh i can fix it and they get them

17:28

back up and running

17:30

right

17:31

well now you’re getting ready to get

17:33

like a bad review on google and you’re

17:34

going to get lit up on social media and

17:36

all kinds of stuff because you are

17:38

dishonest and you’re a scam artist and

17:40

all of this kind of stuff so

17:42

in today’s day and age people

17:45

20 30 years ago people could not

17:50

tell other people about bad businesses

17:53

businesses could scam people to death to

17:56

death and who are you going to tell your

17:57

closest friends right and that was the

17:59

bbb that’s why the bbq got got out and

18:02

rolling but you know but nowadays

18:04

with the the the advantages of social

18:06

media people can go to the masses very

18:08

quickly and talk about people in

18:10

businesses very fast yeah and this works

18:12

both ways they can talk about great

18:14

things but they can also talk about bad

18:15

things so

18:16

um

18:18

the

18:19

the simple way to avoid all of this

18:21

is to provide them options and mix that

18:23

with your professional opinion be honest

18:24

right and ultimately that’s what they’re

18:26

paying down to honesty yeah they’re

18:27

paying for your professional opinion and

18:30

your honesty so give it to them and if

18:32

they choose the cheaper option that’s

18:33

great you owe them the best repair you

18:35

can give them right uh just because the

18:37

repair is done um guess what the

18:39

customer is is is gonna do that night

18:42

they’re gonna talk to their friends and

18:43

say well yeah they they talked about

18:45

fixing it they talked about replacing it

18:46

we couldn’t really afford replacing it

18:48

so they fixed it and they were awesome

18:49

yeah and now they’re bragging to their

18:50

friends about you yeah right even though

18:52

even though you did what you did not

18:54

want to do right right and i shouldn’t

18:56

say that maybe you thought repair was

18:58

the best option but you gave them the

18:59

replacement option also right because

19:01

that’s just being a good steward right

19:03

you know but what happens is when you do

19:05

the right thing now your customers are

19:06

advertising for you now now now your

19:09

customers are cutting down your

19:10

advertising expenses because they’re

19:12

bragging about your business to

19:13

everybody and when we talked about

19:14

earlier in the other episodes about um

19:17

we’re going to teach you how to get word

19:18

of mouth business this is one of those

19:20

points this is exactly one of those this

19:22

is one of those points so um

19:24

when you let i mean everybody’s been

19:27

bragged too about a company right you

19:29

we’ve all had our friends be like oh i

19:30

had this garage door company come over

19:32

and they were freaking awesome and they

19:33

took great care of me and everything

19:35

well guess who i’m gonna call now

19:36

whenever i need a garage door repair

19:38

right yeah so and when when that come

19:40

because that referral from my friend who

19:43

i trust

19:45

that that friend was so excited about

19:47

that company now when that company comes

19:49

in and they make suggestions you trust

19:51

them i immediately trust everything

19:53

they’re saying yeah so because of the

19:55

the power of the referral from the

19:57

friend exactly so

19:58

we bring all this up to make sure you

20:00

guys know early on in this show that we

20:02

are serious about honesty and ethics we

20:04

are serious about reaping rewards that

20:07

come when you are honest and you are the

20:09

best you can’t buy the kind of

20:12

advertising that comes from those heavy

20:14

word-of-mouth referrals

20:16

your business will explode with nearly

20:19

zero advertising expense simply because

20:22

you’re honest and you’re the best at

20:24

what you do

20:26

now that we’ve got your head in the game

20:29

let’s roll into preparing some of the

20:31

systems that you’re gonna operate from

20:33

for the life of your business

20:35

these systems are your roadmap to

20:36

success and without them your business

20:38

will fail and without them you will fail

20:41

ray kroc

20:42

did not just wing it when he decided to

20:44

open the first mcdonald’s he put some

20:46

systems and processes in place that

20:48

would help ensure his success

20:50

there is a process for every step in

20:52

that business and because of this

20:54

mcdonald’s can be found all over the

20:55

world and their systems and processes

20:57

are synonymous in every single business

20:59

every single location

21:02

there’s there’s tons of examples of

21:03

systems and processes right before your

21:05

eyes starbucks chick-fil-a amazon

21:08

whataburger i mean they’re all there you

21:10

can go to three different chick-fil-as

21:13

and you can get the exact same

21:15

experience at all three of them and all

21:17

three of them will tell you it was their

21:19

pleasure love me some chick-fil-a yeah

21:21

had it for lunch today chick-fil-a baby

21:23

yeah

21:25

for some reason i always crave it on

21:26

sundays though i don’t know why because

21:28

you know they’re closed yes i don’t know

21:30

i don’t remember it i’m like yeah crap

21:32

they’re closed yeah it’s subconsciously

21:33

right but you want what you can’t have

21:36

that that’s a that’s actually a really

21:37

good example

21:39

they’re beating the market averages and

21:41

they’re giving every other restaurant

21:43

out there a one day head start because

21:45

they’re only open six days a week have

21:47

them right they’re like yeah you know

21:48

what right so and you know what that’s

21:50

what happens when you operate your

21:52

business in a highly ethical and honest

21:54

way and they’re taking care of their

21:55

employees absolutely you know what i

21:56

mean that that is an employee-first

21:59

environment right for sure right so um

22:02

the thrill of being a business owner

22:04

really kind of comes down to the thrill

22:05

of being prepared to be successful so if

22:07

you’re not success or if you’re not

22:09

prepared for success business ownership

22:11

is not all that thrilling

22:13

can be very stressful and and you’re

22:15

going to come up with a whole bunch of

22:16

excuses on why you ended up not going

22:18

into business and it usually just comes

22:19

down to a lack of prep

22:21

so

22:22

the first

22:24

system that we’re going to talk about

22:26

is your price book

22:29

this is the it’s the most important

22:32

system for your business

22:33

um your price book is your bible when it

22:35

comes to business it holds the answers

22:37

to almost every problem you’re gonna

22:39

encounter in the field with a customer

22:41

i’ve never seen a failed customer with a

22:44

solid price book um a failed customer

22:46

failed business a failed business or a

22:48

failed company you’re welcome thank you

22:49

for correcting me you’re welcome um

22:51

those who invest proper time and energy

22:53

into their price books usually

22:54

understand how important they are nearly

22:56

every single successful business has a

22:58

price book and sure some of them look

23:00

different but they’re all in place a

23:02

fast food restaurant for example their

23:04

price book is their menu right yeah

23:06

that’s you know this much food for this

23:08

much money uh jiffy lube their price

23:10

book is also a menu and it’s hanging on

23:12

a sign above the counter in the lobby a

23:14

good example menu doesn’t have to mean

23:15

food right you know right when i go into

23:18

you price if i go to sports clips and

23:19

get a haircut when you walk in guess

23:21

what they’re labeled up there yeah

23:23

that’s a menu what do i want off of a

23:24

haircut 13 bucks haircut plus shampoo 19

23:27

bucks right that’s their price book yeah

23:29

um so they they provide the company and

23:32

the employees the go-to price for

23:34

everything that they offer

23:37

let’s discuss

23:40

so for the home service business or the

23:42

commercial service business

23:46

one of the common debates is going to be

23:48

like flat rate pricing versus

23:52

time and material pricing

23:55

yes

23:56

let’s let’s

23:58

let’s i don’t like price books okay and

24:01

when i say i don’t like price books i

24:02

don’t like when in the old days it’s not

24:05

like it wasn’t it is now so

24:08

and when i say the old days you know i’m

24:10

talking 15 years ago you know

24:12

literally in the guy’s van there was a

24:14

book and he would flip it open and it

24:16

would say this costs this much money

24:19

and i hated that because i knew in my

24:21

mind when i got to the job and i looked

24:24

at the job

24:25

i knew that’s going to take me this many

24:27

hours that’s going to take me this it’s

24:28

going to cost this much and i knew that

24:32

my

24:33

the price that i had up here

24:35

was better than the price book price yep

24:37

you know what i mean

24:39

and a lot of

24:40

i don’t want to say older people

24:43

you know but handymen

24:45

you know guys that have been around you

24:47

know they don’t like price books right

24:49

and um you know one of the first big

24:52

companies i was at i i shouldn’t say big

24:54

modest size company as i was at was out

24:56

in the sticks just a little bit

24:59

and those customers hated price books

25:01

you know and that was kind of just

25:02

ingrained it was more of a big city

25:05

thing

25:06

at the time and so

25:08

we are gonna and when i say we i’m gonna

25:11

make mitch break down

25:13

why it’s a good thing

25:15

versus time and material

25:18

and then as he goes through that we’re

25:19

going to hash out

25:20

you know um what the big differences are

25:24

and the discrepancies between what i

25:26

thought and what you thought and and why

25:29

it works now

25:31

for a person going out on their own to

25:34

do it right right

25:36

so

25:37

the biggest

25:40

the biggest drawback to time and

25:42

material pricing

25:44

is

25:45

it’s very difficult to win on that

25:48

setting

25:49

um and this is whether you’re really

25:51

good or really bad and this is whether

25:53

you’re a business or a customer even

25:56

and so what i mean by that is

25:58

let’s say you have two employees that

26:00

work for a company and they both make

26:02

twenty dollars an hour

26:04

and those employees are set out to do

26:06

the exact same task

26:08

if one employee if employee a does that

26:11

task in five hours

26:14

the customer gets their problem taken

26:15

care of in five hours the employee made

26:18

one hundred dollars okay they charged

26:21

the customer five hours of labor

26:24

if employee b takes eight hours to do

26:28

that task

26:29

now the customer’s bill went up because

26:32

employee b was slower

26:35

the company charged the customer more

26:38

so now the customer might not like the

26:40

company as much but then also

26:43

employee b

26:44

made more money to do the exact same

26:47

work as employee a so who got rewarded

26:50

for being worse at their job

26:53

employee b right he made 160 bucks for

26:56

doing the same task that this guy made

26:57

and 100 or made made a hundred dollars

26:59

doing so

27:01

the the wrong employee gets rewarded

27:03

there the customer pays a higher bill

27:05

and the company is going to suffer

27:07

because now they’re charging more to the

27:08

customers so

27:10

that’s why in in the home services

27:12

industry that’s why i don’t like time

27:14

and material pricing because it rewards

27:16

the wrong people

27:18

flat rate pricing on the other hand is

27:20

going to be for this repair we charge

27:22

this much and it’s the same price no

27:25

matter how long it takes and you’re

27:26

basically playing a law of averages most

27:29

of the time it takes this sometimes it’s

27:30

going to take longer sometimes it’s

27:31

going to take less but the customers got

27:34

consistent pricing so if they talk to

27:36

the neighbors and they say oh yeah i

27:37

paid this for that oh i paid the same

27:39

thing too just three weeks ago so

27:41

there’s consistency there but then also

27:43

you’re typically going to incentivize

27:45

your guy off of some kind of uh

27:48

incentive for that task to where your

27:50

guys are making very similar money but

27:52

if one guy does it in five hours and one

27:54

guy does it in eight hours well now this

27:56

guy made the same amount of money as

27:57

this guy and this guy’s home three hours

27:58

earlier so he’s actually getting

28:00

rewarded for doing better work

28:03

that’s why i like flat rate pricing over

28:06

time and material pricing and as an

28:08

employee

28:09

you know

28:10

that’s a great benefit yes you know what

28:12

i mean as is a massive benefit

28:14

especially if

28:15

and

28:16

you know it’s sad to say i shouldn’t say

28:18

sad because everyone is different right

28:20

different people do different things but

28:22

it does reward the go-getters yeah that

28:25

are gonna

28:26

probably when we’ve talked about this

28:27

before that are probably gonna leave you

28:29

yeah yeah you know but

28:30

but while they’re there they’re being

28:33

rewarded for what they’re doing yeah

28:35

and and we’re going to dive into this in

28:37

future episodes for sure like we could

28:39

talk for hours oh there’s going to be

28:40

some q a on this for sure yeah hey i’ve

28:43

worked on my price book but i don’t

28:44

think my numbers are right right you

28:46

know so one of the key pieces to

28:48

building your price book is going to be

28:50

working on a spreadsheet on your

28:51

computer and this i’m just going to tell

28:53

you up front this takes a lot of time so

28:56

we’re going to give you a real high or a

28:58

high level overview for how to build

29:00

your price book um but

29:02

the the key thing to remember is this

29:04

takes a bunch of time and it’s worth it

29:06

because it’s going to set you up for

29:08

success later um

29:10

because it’s going to provide context to

29:12

your pricing so

29:14

if you’re not familiar with excel watch

29:16

some youtube videos and learn

29:18

how to work well with excel knowing

29:21

excel

29:22

we’ll just just sidebar here

29:24

if you can take the time

29:26

before you do this stuff to sit down and

29:28

actually learn how to make a good

29:30

spreadsheet

29:31

it will save you time in the long run

29:34

absolutely and once you have that

29:36

information in there you don’t have to

29:38

keep trying to pull that information

29:40

from your brain right you know and it

29:42

sounds stupid that you’re freeing up

29:43

brain space

29:44

but i mean

29:45

once you get so many numbers out there

29:47

and so many jobs and all that different

29:49

stuff going on yeah i mean

29:52

it makes it so much easier and you can

29:53

call up i don’t want to say secretary

29:55

receptionist you can call the reception

29:56

and say hey i need this information my

29:58

laptop went down she can get on the same

30:00

stuff yeah and you know and we’re going

30:02

to talk about that in the crm section

30:03

but yep um and that’s the benefit to

30:06

having a price book is consistency yeah

30:08

and it makes it easy to pull up

30:10

information when you’re using that

30:11

spreadsheet yeah so like the the price

30:14

book that i operate from

30:15

um it’s it’s a bunch of columns and a

30:17

bunch of rows and in one of the columns

30:19

is like our task code that we would use

30:22

for any given task and we have a task

30:25

code for literally everything we do in

30:27

the company um it’s about 400 tasks long

30:32

um what’s a task code so like when you

30:34

say test code explain to everyone what

30:36

you mean by taskcode like a task code

30:38

for for me it’s gonna be different for

30:40

everybody but for me it’s like a

30:41

six-digit

30:43

number that’s got a series of numbers

30:45

and letters that that helps organize all

30:48

of the repairs that we do

30:50

and there’s there’s a lot of theory into

30:52

those numbers and where we put them and

30:54

how we organize them because there’s

30:56

some kind of

30:57

hidden language in those codes so

31:00

my first column is my task code

31:02

my next column is my repair name it

31:05

could be my trip charge for coming out

31:07

it could be

31:08

augering the main sewer line you know

31:10

again i was doing i’m doing a plumbing

31:12

business

31:13

it could be replace the water heater

31:15

it could be anything any service that

31:17

you offer can be there yeah let’s talk

31:19

so if it was a lawn mowing company so in

31:21

task one may be uh

31:23

they’re mow only well yeah it could be

31:26

mowing and then the next line could be

31:28

square footage as a multiplier of the

31:30

yard yeah and then the next line could

31:32

be trimming yeah maybe you know and then

31:34

you’re large broke down into like small

31:36

medium and large or maybe you’ve got you

31:37

know 10 different sizes yeah and then

31:39

you could go off of um you know trimming

31:41

and then a multiplier on trimming right

31:43

like

31:44

um you know they have so much

31:47

landscaping that the multipliers say you

31:48

have a one to five scale right of

31:50

difficulty and you know this

31:53

these people get a got a three and if

31:55

it’s this many linear feet of

31:57

landscaping then it’s yeah edging it’s

32:00

um you know it goes to a multiplier of

32:03

three right just as an example of of

32:05

different things you know we don’t want

32:07

to get stuck uh not everyone listening

32:10

wants to be a plumber right right right

32:11

you know it just just to open your

32:13

mind’s eye of

32:15

of what those different things could be

32:16

i mean haircut yeah you know you could

32:18

have a couple of different levels of

32:19

haircuts yeah women’s haircuts x men’s x

32:23

coloring

32:24

color yeah coloring style she wants two

32:27

colors you know times .02 you know it

32:30

could

32:31

all those different things can go into

32:33

that spreadsheet and that’s why

32:35

we said just a second ago if you can sit

32:37

down and learn how to do that

32:39

spreadsheet and listen don’t feel

32:41

overwhelmed you can go on youtube

32:44

and learn how to use excel to the point

32:46

where you can be really good at it for

32:49

these simple tasks yeah you know you’re

32:51

not running a hospital here yeah we’re

32:52

not talking complex stuff yeah

32:55

um and it doesn’t even have to be excel

32:57

google sheets can is is another great

32:58

spreadsheet to use yeah and we’re not

33:00

telling you to use one or the other but

33:02

whatever you decide to go with spend a

33:04

little time be good at it and it’s going

33:06

to help you in the long run yeah another

33:08

cool thing you can do with those like

33:09

repair codes and

33:11

so like on mine the customer never sees

33:12

the repair code they just see the task

33:15

title right so they see replace water

33:17

yeah they don’t care what the code is

33:18

right

33:18

so i use the codes to help send some

33:21

hidden signals to myself and our guys in

33:24

the field those codes

33:27

they’ll have some extra numbers and

33:29

letters in them to help the guys

33:30

understand how they’re paid for those

33:32

tasks or to help the guys understand how

33:34

much time is included in those tasks so

33:37

for instance like if we’re going to

33:38

repair a drain line

33:40

we might have

33:42

three or four different levels of a

33:43

drain run repair well

33:46

one might have a half hour of time built

33:48

into it one might have three hours of

33:50

time built into it and so we’ll kind of

33:52

throw some numbers in order in those

33:53

codes to let the guys know this one

33:56

includes a half hour and this one

33:57

includes so like a nomenclature yeah so

34:00

like so if the fifth if the fifth

34:02

uh digit or so letter over is a three if

34:05

that’s a three that dictates three hours

34:07

like so my task code for a drain line

34:09

repair is it starts with dr for drain

34:12

repair and then the next four digits are

34:15

is the code for the amount of time

34:17

that’s included in that so it might be

34:19

dr0050

34:22

and that tells the the the technician

34:25

that there is one half hour of time

34:27

built into that

34:28

and so if he thinks it’s going to take

34:30

him about a half hour he would pick that

34:32

one i’ve got another one that’s he

34:34

thinks it’s going to be an hour and a

34:35

half he’s times that by three well or

34:38

yeah he could he could take that one

34:39

times three or we’ve got another one

34:40

that is dr150

34:43

or it’s

34:44

dr0150 so that tells them it is

34:47

a one and a half hour drain line repair

34:50

um and when we scale those up like well

34:53

i’ve got one that’s dr1000

34:55

10 hours for a drain line repair right

34:58

it’s going to take them a long time like

34:59

we’re replacing all the drain lines in

35:01

the house or something yeah you’re

35:02

gutting a basement yeah a set of pipes

35:04

so so we can use those codes to kind of

35:06

give some nomenclature to the guys so

35:07

they understand how they’re better paid

35:09

um we can even add like little spiffs

35:11

and carrots in there so like for

35:12

instance if you’re a salon owner what do

35:14

you mean by spiff a spiff is like a cash

35:17

payout for anybody who performs that

35:19

task outside of their normal wage so

35:22

like a bonus it’s a bonus yeah it’s a

35:24

little bonus it’s a little carrot a

35:25

little thank you um if you’re a salon

35:27

owner and you’re really trying to sell

35:29

get your people to sell shampoo your

35:31

code for that shampoo three dollar spiff

35:33

right it might be your funny code and

35:35

then you have like a decimal point and

35:37

then like one five after it well that

35:40

decimal point would indicate that

35:41

everything after that is a spiff for

35:43

your sales person and of course this is

35:45

all about 7.5 would be 15 15 bucks right

35:48

i got you so

35:49

for color that’s a lot but i i get the

35:51

gist well yeah if you sell a 100 bottle

35:53

of shampoo and you want to pay your

35:55

people 15 bucks first off if my wife

35:57

buys a 100 bottle of shampoo i’m going

35:59

to lose my mind yeah i just don’t ask

36:01

because i would lose my mind you’re just

36:03

in denial at this point so um the other

36:07

cool thing about setting your price book

36:08

up on a spreadsheet is it gives you the

36:10

ability to modify it very quickly so

36:14

uh your flat rate pricing is built kind

36:17

of off of your billable hour price

36:19

um and so if you want to charge 200 a

36:22

billable hour or whatever whatever that

36:25

price may be a hundred dollars a

36:26

billable hour

36:27

all of those cells that are factoring

36:29

your price

36:30

are multiplying you you may have a

36:32

column for how much time is included in

36:34

the task yeah you’re summing that column

36:36

yeah and then you’ve got up in like one

36:38

corner of your spreadsheet or somewhere

36:39

on your spreadsheet you’ve got your

36:41

billable hour so that if you ever change

36:43

your billable hour in the future all of

36:45

those formulas automatically update your

36:47

entire price book and uh yeah and it’s

36:50

handy yeah so literally you don’t have

36:52

to sit there and go column by column i’m

36:54

changing this right and then next

36:55

tuesday you had to do it again no right

36:57

you just go in there and boom

37:00

takes on the whole deal exactly that’s

37:01

why it’s really important if you’re

37:03

gonna use a spreadsheet

37:05

get it learned

37:07

and know what you’re doing before yeah

37:08

before you get too in depth and and so

37:10

we hit on the hourly rates like

37:12

understanding your hourly rate

37:14

go to your market

37:15

for for wherever you’re going to be

37:17

doing work and the services you’re going

37:19

to be doing and start learning about

37:20

what those services cost and you can

37:22

help you can help develop a good hourly

37:25

rate um i hear people all the time talk

37:28

about taking your overhead and you got

37:29

to understand your overhead before

37:30

learning your hourly rate and all that

37:32

and i get that however when you’re new

37:34

in business your overhead is squat

37:35

compared to some of those big companies

37:37

hopefully yeah that does not mean you

37:39

need to charge squat compared to those

37:42

big companies the customer is going to

37:44

pay for the level of service they’re

37:46

receiving and so you may be the smallest

37:48

company in town but if you’re delivering

37:50

the highest quality service and the best

37:53

customer service you need to be charging

37:55

the highest price in town even though

37:57

you’re a one-man shop

37:59

so and again i’m not telling people to

38:01

go like blow their pricing out of the

38:03

way yeah he’s not saying you know

38:05

i’ll just give a personal example so

38:08

i have an hvac background yep for 20

38:10

years when i went out on my own i mean i

38:13

knew what our hourly rate was but i i

38:17

immediately called everyone yeah within

38:20

and i shouldn’t say everyone i maybe

38:21

made 10 calls and i said you know i i

38:24

asked different things hey what’s your

38:26

service call rate yeah what’s your

38:28

hourly rate after that

38:31

um i you know and then i’d call the next

38:33

company and i’d say hey my capacitor

38:35

went out and so do you guys call for

38:36

that some of them won’t give you prices

38:38

over the phone but you’d be amazed how

38:39

many will a lot will yeah a lot will and

38:42

and you’re not i mean you’re not

38:43

cheating them no all you’re doing is

38:45

trying to find out

38:47

what’s the going rate for stuff

38:49

the base of where everything is at yeah

38:52

now and and i’m not gonna say

38:54

like mitch said be the most expensive

38:56

guy i’m not gonna say be the cheapest

38:58

guy

38:59

you need to find out where you need to

39:01

be

39:02

based on all of those different prices

39:04

and you can base some of your price book

39:06

off of that stuff too yeah absolutely

39:07

you know you can you can make enough

39:09

phone calls and ask enough questions to

39:12

get a really good basis of where you’re

39:14

at you know i get that question a lot um

39:17

i i got a buddy that’s an electrician

39:19

and um

39:20

he doesn’t know so where he works he

39:23

doesn’t know what they charge you know

39:25

for different things he just goes out

39:26

and does the work right okay it’s not

39:28

like your plumbing company um

39:31

where where those guys have a really

39:32

good idea of what it costs right so

39:35

uh i’m gonna piss you off here and say

39:38

so when he does side work you know he

39:40

calls me and says hey what did you use

39:41

to you know you know charge for this and

39:44

if i don’t know i say hey man

39:46

call up to

39:48

beep and yeah yeah ask him hey this is

39:50

my problem i had a bid what do you guys

39:53

charge for that yeah the so i mean

39:55

that’s a common thing i see on a lot of

39:56

internet forums and stuff like that is

39:58

oh what do you guys charge for this and

39:59

the guy’s trying to develop his price

40:00

book

40:01

the problem with asking the nation is

40:02

because prices are greatly different

40:04

across oh yeah california

40:06

service line

40:07

run out and where we live is completely

40:10

different yeah yes you know

40:12

you got to be checking your prices in

40:14

your local market and you want to be you

40:16

want to be kind of in the ballpark of

40:17

your local market so

40:18

um

40:20

another part of building your price book

40:22

is the parts lists that go into that

40:24

price so and this again this applies to

40:26

everybody

40:27

um it applies more so in your your

40:30

search like your your trades fields your

40:32

mechanical fields yeah um but you can

40:35

use your you can have a whole nother tab

40:37

in your spreadsheet for all of your

40:38

parts where you can assign every part a

40:40

number and every part a name and then

40:42

every part can have like the pa the

40:45

price that you buy it for from your

40:46

vendor you can even have you can even

40:48

list what vendor you buy it at and then

40:50

you can teach your spreadsheet how to

40:52

mark that material up to develop your

40:55

sales price because you’re always going

40:56

to sell stuff at more than you bought it

40:57

for

40:58

um that’s why you try to buy things at

41:00

wholesale

41:01

right that’s what wholesale is yeah

41:03

people don’t realize that now it’s you

41:05

know it used to be a wholesaler you

41:07

couldn’t go to a wholesaler and buy

41:08

unless you had it unless you had a

41:10

license or yes yeah right unless you had

41:12

an account yes right and now it’s a lot

41:14

easier you know with with amazon and

41:16

home depot yeah

41:17

yeah people go into ferguson and

41:19

ferguson will sell them you know

41:20

whatever you got the handshake deal

41:21

going but you know that and that makes

41:24

it a little tougher but but you can

41:25

develop those prices based off of that

41:27

yeah and and if your price list is or

41:29

your parts list is fairly small you can

41:31

kind of manage that yourself my parts

41:33

list is ginormous and and it is it is

41:35

astronomically large and so what i do i

41:37

don’t manage it myself like i’ve got the

41:39

spreadsheet built but i’ll copy that and

41:41

i’ll email it to my sales person at

41:43

where i buy all my plumbing stuff and

41:44

i’ll tell them please provide me updated

41:46

pricing for all of these yeah and

41:48

they’ll go through line by line on all

41:50

those 500 different parts it’s their job

41:52

and they’ll give me

41:54

all of the new prices

41:55

and then i simply copy that and paste it

41:57

right back into my spreadsheet and it

41:58

marks it up for me and boom i have all

42:01

current pricing and so in this market

42:03

today we’re filming this podcast today

42:05

pricing has has moved around a ton over

42:08

the last year now it’s insane and so

42:10

that’s been really helpful yeah i can

42:12

email it in about a week i get it back

42:14

and boom here comes everything yeah so

42:16

or you could set it up i know a couple

42:18

of guys that do this they will just

42:20

it’s not every week but it’s i think

42:22

twice a month

42:23

they’ll automatically update you know

42:25

he’ll send that salesman will send him

42:27

an email that says hey

42:29

these are the prices on the things that

42:31

we that you

42:32

sent me that you stock in your truck

42:35

you know

42:36

and and they’ll just automatically email

42:38

that to him and he can review it

42:40

you know and if he needs to make

42:41

adjustments you know based on that email

42:43

he can i

42:44

i have a question for you as a

42:46

um i don’t do you know

42:48

side plumbing or anything like that

42:51

say you’re out in the middle of nowhere

42:52

and your price book is based on a

42:54

certain thing you don’t have that and

42:55

you can’t get a wholesale price and you

42:57

have to go to home depot and buy

42:58

something

42:59

do you just eat that yeah most of the

43:01

time you’re just going to eat it because

43:02

that’s that’s again the purpose of flat

43:04

rate pricing is you’re staying

43:05

consistent pricing to the customer and

43:07

so if i make a mistake and it takes me

43:08

longer i have to eat it if i make a

43:10

mistake and i wasn’t prepared and i

43:12

didn’t have that part on my truck i have

43:14

to eat that too so that is like flat

43:16

rate pricing benefits the customer more

43:18

than it benefits anybody else um and

43:21

customers are conditioned to flat rate

43:23

pricing it’s not like they they go to

43:25

the restaurant and they say a steak is

43:27

like anywhere from 27 to 43 it kind of

43:30

depends on who we have back on the line

43:32

because if it’s johnny cooking tonight

43:34

it’s gonna be 43 because that dude is

43:35

slow yeah unless you’re eating seafood

43:37

so let’s so i like a lot of lobster and

43:40

stuff but it’s by the pound and it just

43:41

says on there market price market price

43:43

right okay so

43:45

it’s a little different right um love me

43:47

some lobster i’m i’m kind of an excel

43:50

geek and like i take my price book to

43:52

the next level and i have like all of my

43:54

repairs i have a suggested level of

43:57

pricing into my repairs uh a suggested

44:00

level of parts so to speak into my

44:02

repairs so

44:04

in doing that

44:05

um

44:06

you know i know that this repair is

44:08

going to use one of these parts one of

44:09

these parts one of these parts in one of

44:10

these parts so when i update my material

44:13

pricing it automatically updates my flat

44:15

rate price to adjust that price to

44:18

account for the inflated cost of

44:19

material summing a column right gotta

44:22

learn that excel yeah it’s it’s just

44:24

it’s just making your spreadsheets work

44:26

together so

44:27

your price book’s gonna take some

44:29

serious time to put together i mean i’ve

44:31

got

44:32

hundreds of hours in building mine

44:34

however now that it’s built it’s already

44:37

odd it’s over it’s automatic it’s

44:38

bulletproof i’ll have it forever and i

44:40

can always adjust it and make tweaks

44:42

here and there it’s it i never adjust

44:44

the functionality of it yeah so um

44:47

another thing about price books is yours

44:49

is yours alone do not share it with

44:52

anyone

44:53

i have a copy of mitch’s if anyone wants

44:55

to buy it from me my email is yeah right

44:58

[Laughter]

44:59

once you complete your book you’re gonna

45:01

feel a certain rite of passage so to

45:03

speak because of the amount of time

45:05

you’ve invested into that

45:08

only business owners build a price book

45:11

so this is a big time level of progress

45:14

as you’re putting together your business

45:17

the the more time you spend on it the

45:18

more passion you’re gonna get for for

45:20

success

45:21

once you complete your price book you’re

45:23

gonna realize how proprietary all of

45:25

that information is you’re gonna feel a

45:27

great sense of pride too yeah like oh

45:29

man you know what

45:31

i can do it yeah i’ve got this part done

45:33

i’ve i’ve worked through the first

45:36

you know three

45:37

the first two adversities three episodes

45:39

i’m here i got my price book done now

45:41

right

45:42

i’m i’m getting to the top of the

45:44

mountain and i’m almost on the downhill

45:46

slide right of really getting something

45:48

going here your price book is like an

45:50

nfl team’s playbook right they’re not

45:52

going to share that with other teams

45:54

that’s that’s their

45:56

that’s their gospel that’s their book

45:57

that they run their entire organization

46:00

by

46:01

and it determines their success or

46:02

failure so the better their playbook the

46:04

more likely they are to succeed that’s

46:05

why i’m so i have yours for sale yeah i

46:07

wanted to ask a question on this yeah

46:09

yeah

46:10

like we haven’t let’s i’m just gonna say

46:12

something right now we haven’t brought

46:14

marcus in we’ve been rolling pretty hard

46:16

producer marcus back there uh marcus

46:18

what is your question so

46:20

what about those guys

46:22

who are

46:24

they’re like okay

46:25

i know i do good work

46:27

however i don’t want to charge them or

46:29

afraid to tell them how much

46:31

they wanted are you talking about so um

46:35

they know that you’re just getting out

46:37

on your own and you don’t feel that

46:39

sense of big business yet right and you

46:41

feel like

46:43

i’m ripping them off because i don’t

46:45

have a lot of that overhead and i don’t

46:47

have a lot of that stuff going on

46:50

here so so so how do you how do you

46:53

explain where i’m gonna ask mitch so i’m

46:55

just kind of rehashing the question

46:57

how do you explain that to yourself

47:00

and

47:01

um

47:02

was the question

47:04

just just you’re just trying to explain

47:06

it to yourself really no guys

47:08

guys that are afraid yeah guys that are

47:10

afraid to charge what the market should

47:13

be charging that’s a great question and

47:15

and if you have low overhead guys can be

47:17

a little fearful of that here’s the

47:18

thing

47:19

you’re not charging a customer based off

47:22

of your overhead you’re charging a

47:24

customer based off of the value and the

47:26

level of service they are receiving

47:30

it’s that plain and simple

47:32

businesses choose their overhead so

47:34

you’re saying if you know

47:37

that you’re supplying the same level of

47:39

work

47:40

the same level of

47:43

expertise

47:45

quality of work

47:47

you shouldn’t feel any

47:48

you should not feel at all don’t feel

47:50

ashamed that you’re charging the same

47:53

price as anyone else okay if you’re

47:55

doing the same work it doesn’t matter

47:58

and now listen that’s

48:00

man that was a good question because

48:01

yeah it’s an excellent question so when

48:03

i was on my own i was a one-man shop out

48:06

of my garage

48:07

i charged the same as everybody else

48:10

yeah and i didn’t care right it didn’t

48:12

bother me you know what it did bother me

48:14

a little bit in the beginning you know

48:15

if you you know i was

48:17

you know i just thought

48:19

you know maybe in the back of my mind

48:20

but i knew that if i didn’t charge that

48:23

right i was not i was i was doing myself

48:25

a disservice i was doing my family a

48:27

disservice

48:29

and

48:30

you know sometimes people are paying

48:32

when when you say you’re paying for good

48:34

service and good work

48:36

they’re paying you for your knowledge

48:38

right not necessarily the actual

48:40

physical work that you’re doing

48:42

okay you’ve put that time and all that

48:44

energy and you you have learned all

48:47

those skills yeah they’re paying you

48:50

for that the easiest way to understand

48:53

this is businesses choose their overhead

48:56

businesses choose to go buy the fancy

48:59

building businesses choose to inflate

49:02

their overhead costs and then therefore

49:06

they are choosing to now have to pass

49:08

that cost onto the customer well it’s

49:10

always the thought in the back of your

49:11

head you’re like okay well if i tell

49:12

them this price then they’re probably

49:14

going to run away don’t be ashamed

49:16

you’re you’ve got to be confident in

49:18

your price yeah give give the price

49:20

that’s it and listen know you’re worth

49:22

if

49:23

if they do

49:25

um

49:26

turn you down for a sale or a you know

49:30

whatever don’t take that to heart

49:32

because that happens to big companies

49:33

too yeah okay it doesn’t matter who you

49:35

are you’re gonna get turned down fairly

49:37

often yeah be who you are i love that

49:39

question yeah

49:40

um

49:42

next up on the list of things to talk

49:44

about is our customers where are we are

49:47

we in the crm yep customer relationship

49:50

management system or your crm okay um

49:55

we’re talking about software here yeah

49:56

this is the software that you are going

49:58

to plug all your customers information

50:00

in this is a software that’s going to

50:01

run your schedule this is the software

50:04

that’s going to you’re going to upload

50:05

your price book into and it’s kind of

50:06

your point of sale system it does

50:08

everything surrounding your customer

50:10

relationship management

50:14

research them well

50:16

ask around and find one that works best

50:19

for you some of these software’s are

50:21

incredibly cheap some of these softwares

50:24

are incredibly expensive

50:27

speaking in the terms of the home

50:28

services side of things

50:30

i use a software that costs me about 200

50:34

a month it’s 210 to be exact

50:37

there are software’s out there that will

50:39

do a little bit more than mine does

50:42

but they charge

50:44

six

50:45

to eight hundred dollars a month

50:47

there’s software out there that will

50:49

charge three hundred dollars a month per

50:51

service technician that you have in the

50:54

field and so i have three service

50:56

technicians in the field i’m now paying

50:58

nine hundred dollars a month just for

51:01

access to this software and so that’s

51:04

not realistic one of the things that

51:05

you’re gonna find is the more time and

51:08

the better your time you spend building

51:09

your price book the cheaper your

51:11

software becomes because a lot of those

51:12

companies that are charging a boat load

51:14

for their software are banking on the

51:16

fact that you need their help to build a

51:17

price book

51:18

and and if you if you

51:20

want to pay them that that’s up to you i

51:22

guess but again businesses choose their

51:24

overhead i wanted to choose a lower

51:27

overhead so that i can

51:29

keep my prices reasonable or make a

51:31

little bit more money whereas other i’m

51:33

competing against other companies that

51:35

are using that really expensive you were

51:37

looking for a value yes yeah you weren’t

51:40

worried that

51:42

necessarily what the price was but you

51:43

wanted to stay at a good value number

51:46

yeah and when you’re starting out you

51:48

know this is a little off topic but

51:50

um finding value in things is is really

51:53

a skill yep that you will learn over

51:56

time yeah you know trying to get the

51:58

most bang for your buck is really

52:00

important when you’re first starting

52:02

understanding where it’s smart to spend

52:03

money and where it’s smart to not spend

52:04

it exactly so

52:06

um here’s a list of things that you’re

52:08

gonna want to know like demand that your

52:11

crm will do for you you talking criteria

52:14

yeah okay um make sure that any data you

52:17

put into that crm is is data that you

52:20

own some crms will actually chart like

52:23

if you were to change companies and

52:25

change crms

52:26

they’ll they won’t give you your data

52:28

back they won’t give you your customer

52:29

base they won’t give you your

52:32

any they won’t give you any reports or

52:33

anything right so make sure that you own

52:35

the data that you’re putting into that

52:37

um

52:38

you want your crm to create professional

52:40

looking invoices and estimates

52:42

poor looking estimates are a great way

52:45

to lose those jobs or lose repeat

52:48

business yeah so um you’re going to want

52:51

your your crm to export to your

52:53

accounting software whatever that may be

52:56

for me it’s quickbooks online for you it

52:58

could be peachtree it could be

52:59

quickbooks not online the standard

53:01

quickbooks version it could be anything

53:02

but and they’re almost all going to and

53:04

we’ll talk about this later they’re

53:05

almost all going to the online now yeah

53:07

yeah you have to pay a fee i mean

53:08

there’s there’s pros and cons for that

53:10

it’s 35 bucks a month i mean there’s

53:13

pros and cons yeah i just it drives me

53:15

crazy because i had the old versions

53:17

where you just bought the disc download

53:18

it and now it’s like all of a sudden

53:20

that’s expired and they’re like oh hey

53:21

by the way you got to go online we’re

53:23

getting you for another 35 a month it

53:25

just drives me crazy they need to talk

53:28

to each other yeah the last thing you

53:30

want to deal with is headaches on on

53:32

getting your your crm and your

53:34

accounting software your bookkeeping

53:35

software to communicate to each other um

53:39

you’re gonna want your crm to create a

53:41

really good really clear schedule for

53:42

you

53:44

everybody has to work from a schedule

53:46

and so you’re going to want your your

53:47

schedule view from your crm to be very

53:49

clear for you to understand so do some

53:52

demos check a couple of them out and

53:53

make sure the system works with how your

53:56

brain works yeah and ask other guys in

53:59

your

54:00

you know in your

54:02

field yes you know hey i use this you

54:05

know someone else may use this and and

54:07

not everyone is going to need a crm

54:10

not everyone you know

54:12

i mean

54:14

if you’re a lawn mower like we talked

54:15

about earlier and you don’t have that

54:17

many yards

54:18

you may not need it but when you get big

54:21

and have six or seven guys you know

54:23

running their own trucks yeah you might

54:24

you’re probably gonna need it and and

54:26

like quickbooks kind of functions as a

54:28

small crm a little bit yeah it does so

54:30

so you can kind of use that to get

54:32

started however like i wanted to jump

54:34

right into a crm because i wanted to be

54:36

i wanted to be grabbing all that

54:37

customer data from day one

54:39

so

54:40

um you’re also going to want to want to

54:42

make sure that your crm will import your

54:44

price book

54:45

very quickly and very easily with just a

54:46

few clicks

54:47

this is huge because i keep my price

54:50

book on an excel file i upload that into

54:52

my crm if i need to make a change i

54:54

change my excel file and i upload it to

54:56

my crm and so within a few

54:59

clicks of a mouse

55:00

i’ve updated my pricing and it instantly

55:03

goes out to all the tablets so that the

55:04

guys are using and everything else

55:06

so

55:07

you want that to be seamless yeah that

55:08

stuff needs to be integrated yeah um

55:11

you’re also going to want your crm to be

55:12

able to allow you to run your phone or

55:14

run your business from your phone or a

55:15

tablet or a laptop whichever you choose

55:17

like all of them and especially if

55:20

if you’re new and you’re answering the

55:22

phones every night

55:24

you need to be able that needs to be

55:25

able to work on your phone yeah so like

55:27

our crm allows us to work from a laptop

55:29

or a phone or a tablet and so like if we

55:31

if my wife and i go out to dinner and

55:33

our business phone rings

55:34

we can literally answer the phone

55:37

at the at the i mean we don’t always do

55:39

this but sometimes like let’s say we’re

55:40

in the car waiting for dinner but it

55:41

only takes five minutes you can that’s

55:43

we can answer the phone and we can book

55:45

that call from our phone or our tablet

55:47

like like i can answer the business

55:48

phone and i can pull out my personal

55:50

phone and i can book a job for tomorrow

55:51

yeah so and that’s all because my crm is

55:53

awesome and that’s really important

55:55

because every phone call is potentially

55:57

10 more phone calls right you know and

56:00

when you start not answering the phone

56:02

and not um taking charge of those calls

56:05

right you’re losing business yeah

56:07

um you’re gonna want your crm to be

56:09

cloud-based

56:10

um and the reason why is um servers are

56:13

really expensive

56:15

and so a lot of things are evolving to

56:17

cloud-based and that’s kind of what

56:18

you’re paying for your monthly fee on

56:19

your crm yeah you really need that

56:20

redundancy yeah i mean

56:22

one of your kids you know

56:25

spills a two-liter on you know the

56:27

computer at home yep you need that

56:29

information yep um the the the last

56:32

thing that you’re gonna need to demand

56:34

from your crm is that it can run reports

56:36

for you like sales and marketing reports

56:38

uh those huge because that’s again it’s

56:40

a later step but that’s how we learn

56:42

where we’re performing and where we’re

56:43

not and

56:45

basically i use my crm to find out

56:47

what’s working and then i double down on

56:49

that and i’ll use my crm to find out

56:51

what’s not working and i’ll look at it

56:53

and quickly analyze can i fix that or

56:55

should i just give that up and go back

56:57

to doubling down on what is working

56:59

right so

57:00

um your crm will be able to tell you a

57:02

lot of that kind of stuff

57:04

here’s some things that you can your crm

57:06

can also do that’s kind of fun it

57:08

doesn’t have to do this i don’t i don’t

57:10

i

57:11

when you say it’s kind of fun these

57:13

these next items are just as important

57:16

as the scheduling services and the other

57:19

stuff

57:19

yeah they can be it’s just it just

57:21

depends on how you want your your

57:23

business to operate but for guys that

57:24

are unfamiliar with like what crms do

57:27

here’s some fun things that they do they

57:29

can text your customers

57:31

that you’re heading their way like they

57:32

can literally text the customer a photo

57:34

of the person heading their way in a

57:36

little bio

57:37

and all of that stuff so that way when

57:39

the guy shows up at the house the

57:40

customer’s not feeling like they’re

57:41

dealing with a stranger it makes you

57:42

look so much more professional yeah they

57:45

can send those they can send reminder

57:46

texts like the night before that hey

57:48

just reminding you of your appointment

57:49

tomorrow at four

57:50

um

57:51

they uh they serve as a constant contact

57:53

style marketing system they’re saving

57:55

all your customers email addresses so

57:57

you can export those and you can email

57:59

every customer

58:00

what you got going on yeah and they’re

58:02

on the cloud yep you know you always

58:04

have them i this next one i love the

58:06

track equipment model cereals and ages

58:07

within the home that is

58:09

that is invaluable yeah for those of us

58:11

that used to do it by hand on work

58:14

orders and then have to pull up another

58:16

excel sheet yeah and load all that stuff

58:18

in there so that we knew where it was

58:20

when we needed it or before that

58:23

we used to just keep paper files right

58:24

so we would just you know all that stuff

58:27

went together and then it was in

58:28

alphabetical order in a fire safe right

58:31

and then if you needed to look you had

58:32

to go and look at it and now it’s like

58:34

oh boom it’s right here right i just

58:35

type in their name

58:37

search you can track anything pulls it

58:38

up i know you can track that okay the

58:40

customer’s got a 19 year old furnace so

58:42

we got to be we got to send the guy that

58:44

that’s better at working on 19 year old

58:45

friends exactly

58:46

but it’s not going to be a flame sensor

58:48

today yeah okay you can also track

58:51

you know hey we put in a new unit last

58:52

year and so we got to send a guy that’s

58:54

that’s maybe he’s not as skilled so

58:56

we’re going to send

58:57

you know there’s there’s less likely to

58:59

be problems on a newer unit so uh we can

59:01

major problems

59:03

yeah major problems

59:05

but but i mean you can literally track

59:07

anything you can you can track the the

59:09

customer’s dog’s names scotty and make

59:11

sure you greet them right and that’s

59:13

great customer service that’s actually

59:14

yeah you know and that we what did we

59:16

talk about earlier we were going to tell

59:18

you how to uh do advertising without

59:21

doing advertising right that’s another

59:23

thing right when you go to someone’s

59:24

home if you walk into the door and you

59:26

greet the dog before you greet the

59:28

homeowner you want a customer for life

59:30

yeah every time every stinking time now

59:32

if they have a cat i’d kick the cat

59:34

right

59:35

i’m just kidding so but yeah

59:37

it’s amazing right it’s amazing they can

59:39

also process credit cards and include

59:41

photos of tasks and do a ton of other

59:43

stuff so um i have a lot of experience

59:46

with a lot of different uh platforms but

59:48

i have found uh the one that works best

59:50

for me um you might be wondering what it

59:53

is i’m not gonna tell you because it’s

59:55

not our job to steer you one way or the

59:57

other i found one that works awesome for

59:58

me and we’re not going to find one that

60:00

works awesome we’re trying to give you

60:02

we’ve said it before and we’re going to

60:03

keep saying it we’re trying to give you

60:05

the information

60:06

that best suits

60:08

um

60:09

your situation so that you can make the

60:11

best decision for yourself right

60:15

the last thing we’re going to talk about

60:16

today is about being the most

60:18

professional

60:20

person

60:21

out there and we’ve talked about that

60:23

already yep just just what we were

60:25

talking about crms

60:26

i mean you know the dog that’s

60:29

professionalism right right your

60:31

customers are expecting a professional

60:33

so make sure you give them one

60:36

act as if you’ve been in business for

60:38

years even if it’s your third day in

60:40

business act like

60:43

this is something

60:48

act like you’re it’s something that you

60:50

truly care about yeah it’s

60:53

this is your passion this is what you

60:55

are the best at make sure your customer

60:58

knows that okay

61:00

um

61:02

this this requires like a mental shift

61:04

in order to be the most professional and

61:06

this is not faking it until you make it

61:09

either because the moment you walk away

61:11

from your employer there’s no turning

61:13

back okay you can’t fake it at that

61:16

point so in a sense the moment you walk

61:18

away is the moment you’ve made it

61:21

yeah in your mind

61:23

you’re not successful yet but you’re

61:26

self-employed at that moment and that’s

61:27

a great start so

61:30

um i want to tell you a story and and i

61:32

actually saw this on tiktok the other

61:34

day

61:35

um but it’s a great story you young kids

61:37

and you’re tick tock yeah

61:39

um

61:40

so there was once a kid who was failing

61:42

out of junior high school and cutting

61:43

class all the time

61:45

the kid made a promise to his mom that

61:47

he would take the s.a.t test before

61:49

dropping out of school

61:51

he took the test and he scored a 1480

61:54

out of a possible 1600.

61:56

his mom assumed he cheated and said she

61:58

went to ask him about it and he swore he

62:00

didn’t but something magical happened

62:03

now that he realized he wasn’t a failure

62:06

he started attending class and he quit

62:08

hanging out with the losers that he was

62:09

used to

62:11

he went off to college

62:13

after college he became a successful

62:15

magazine entrepreneur

62:17

12 years later he received a notice from

62:19

the s.a.t testing agency that he was one

62:22

of 13 test scores that year that were

62:24

delivered wrong and his actual score was

62:28

740 out of 1600.

62:31

so now people ask him if he feels like a

62:33

fraud since he wasn’t actually smart

62:36

he said people think my whole life

62:38

changed when i got the 1480. but what

62:40

happened is my whole life changed when i

62:43

started acting like i got the 1480.

62:47

the moral of the story is that you will

62:49

become what you act like so start acting

62:52

like a professional and start acting

62:55

successful

62:57

this is

62:58

this is the millionaire mindset yes all

63:00

over again honestly i wouldn’t even say

63:02

act like

63:04

like you really embody yeah you’re

63:06

living it right you are it yeah so

63:09

you

63:10

this is being very real with yourself

63:12

for how you’re gonna stick through all

63:14

the ups and downs knowing

63:17

that you will indeed one day be

63:19

successful start acting more

63:21

professional in everything you do your

63:23

routine your conversations with

63:25

strangers everything

63:27

speak professionally act professionally

63:30

and be professionally and you you can’t

63:33

you ca

63:34

that doesn’t fool anybody you are speak

63:36

success and you will be successful yes

63:39

yeah this is so that you can’t fake this

63:41

right so um that’s the mindset that you

63:44

need to embody you are already

63:46

successful we talk about the millionaire

63:48

mindset all the time yeah we keep

63:49

bringing it’s just another attribute

63:50

this is another attribute of the

63:52

millionaire mindset that that’s actually

63:54

a good start i’ve never heard i’ve never

63:55

heard that story before did you make

63:58

that story no no i heard it on tick tock

63:59

actually so

64:01

you know

64:01

as we as we’ve said before

64:04

a lot of this

64:05

tick tock a lot of this information that

64:07

we’re giving you we’re just kind of

64:08

regurgitating a lot of information we’ve

64:10

picked up over the years so it’s not

64:13

it’s not we’re not taking credit for it

64:15

no we’re sharing the information that’s

64:17

already out there we’re showing you the

64:19

pertinent information just to start your

64:20

business in just a condensed form and

64:22

that millionaire mindset that story you

64:24

know just you know

64:26

the will to change your own mind about

64:30

what’s gonna happen is huge is

64:32

incredibly powerful yeah and you can

64:34

overcome a lot of things just by doing

64:36

that yeah so that kid had a strong case

64:39

of placebo effect right exactly

64:42

yeah exactly the placebo effects real

64:44

yeah

64:45

so guys uh remember that if you like

64:47

what you’re hearing on this show please

64:49

do us a favor and help share the void

64:50

with somebody who might also be wanting

64:52

to start their own company

64:54

we saw an opportunity to help change a

64:57

lot of people’s lives and and add some

64:59

value to it um and and so we we decided

65:02

to put this podcast together to get this

65:04

information out to as many people as

65:06

possible

65:07

you can help us do that by helping share

65:09

this show so please do that and and we

65:11

will get this information to

65:13

a wider range of audience and and we

65:16

promise that we’re going to keep giving

65:17

you some rock solid content that is

65:20

really going to change your life um

65:23

we really appreciate everything that you

65:25

do to help us share the show and uh

65:27

until we see you guys next time have a

65:28

great week all right love you guys

The Void #4 Core Episode Systems and Processes (1 of 3) – Jan 22, 2021

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The Void #4 ** Core Episode ** Systems and Processes (1 of 3) – Jan 22, 2021

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The Void #4 Core Episode Systems and Processes (1 of 3) – Jan 22, 2021