Soap Warehouse Blog

This is for everyone that says "they do not have the time" to put into Social Media to have it work for them. Now granted this 10 minutes is only after you have done the initial set up work and yes that does take a little time, but you can spend 10-15 minutes once a day for a first week or two to be set up to follow all these short steps. I will give you the list then show you where to go to set each one up.

2 minutes: Check Twitter to listen about your company and products.
1.5 minutes: Scan Google Alerts for your company name, products or executives names.
1 minutes: Check Facebook stats at your Companies Page
3 minutes: Look for questions and answer at least one a day
2.5 minutes: Use Google Reeder to check other sites like Flicker, Digg and others.

Total 10 minutes a day.

Now the longer you spend at some, like with Q&A's, that will be to your advantage. You may have days where you find more than one or two questions that would be good for you to answer so realistically you may spend 20-30 minutes on these five items on some days. Or you may only do 4 for the 5 like I do most of the time.

1. Checking Twitter. Well first you have to have a Twitter account. And that is easy and free by going to www.twitter.com. Once you are set up you can then use one of two tools; TweetDeck or Twitter Search.

For TweetDeck you must go to their web site www.tweekdeck.com and sign up, it's free and then set up your scan board. I like this because once it is turned on at the beginning of the day every time a new item is posted to any of the categories you have it set to show, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc. the posts will flash up in the top right corner of your screen and ping you. If you are at your computer you can glance up to see if it is a post you would like to comment on. Remember sites like Facebook are about relationships not selling so just making comments keeps you relevant to your FB friends.

Now Twitter Search is much easier and you can use it as much or as little as you want each day. Just go to the Home Page and up in the search bar put in your companies name. Be sure to place quotation marks around it or you will get posts that contain all the words themselves not just in the order of your business name. For example Joe's Pressure Washing will return "Joe's" "pressure" "washing" and "pressure washing" instead of the "Joe's Pressure Washing" that you want. Or you can go to the advanced search and enter it there before saving. You might also want to chose some that are close, that your customers might enter instead and incorrectly, like "Joe's Power Washing" "Joe's Power Wash" and remember capitalization does not matter. You can also list product names if your business has them, like ours does. After each search you can click at the top on the "Save this Search" button if you where happy with the results. Once it is saved when you come back each day. Look just above the posts and click on the "Searches" tab. A scrolled down menu will appear with all the searches you have saved.  Click on which ever one you want to check at that time. You can also keep up to date with temporary items and delete them once they are over.

2. Scan Google Alerts. This is very similar to the Twitter searches we just discussed.  You go to www.google.com/alerts to set them up. You list what you want to know about that is coming out on the web and then set it as to how often to send the results to your email account. I have it set for as it happens but I have over 10 alerts, and I might check it a few times during the day. You may only have a few you will need to set for, so once a day or even once a week may be fine. But remember the longer you wait the longer your response time will be to react to anything negative. You will need to have your business name as well as your own name. For those I would set it for all results. But for topics you might want to set it for Only the best results like I do for "restaurant fire", "power washing", "pressure washing", "graffiti removal" and again do not forget the quote marks. You can also set it for whole phrases as well like "fleet truck washing". You can also use a special email account just for these alerts so you do not clutter up your regular account or have your email filters set so that any email coming from Google Alerts goes into a separate folder so it is easy to open and scan them. This is what I do. I also have alerts set for topic phrases to gather information for my blogs.

3. Check Facebook Stats. Go to your company page on Facebook. On the top right hand under the bar, click on the Edit page button, when this comes up on the left side there is a list and near the bottom of the list is a bar graph called Insights. This will give you a lot of valuable information about who is coming and using your site. It can tell you how many daily, weekly and monthly users are using your site. It also shows what posts got interactions. Enabling you to go back to the post and continue the conversation.

4. Search for questions to answer. You need to put your self out there as an authority in your business or just to interact. For this you can use sites like Ask.com at http://www.ask.com/answers/ and click on the Ask People tab, at Facebook Questions http://www.facebook.com/questions/ see what your friends are asking and answer or ask your own question with poll options. With Yahoo answers you can get out into the www audience not just the people you know and this can bring even more people to you. This is the one I use the most. Go to http://answers.yahoo.com/ and set your account up. and then to browse categories. Most of you will find questions to answer in the Home and Garden section. Found one asking about paint colors, if bleach hurts vinyl siding, what size pressure washer to buy to start up in the business and how much should an average pressure washing job cost. All these and more would have been great for many of you to answer. You make your comments and then you are able to link to web pages to back up your answers. You can link to your own website but do not use it all the time or as the sole link. Anyone can click on your avatar with the answer and find your information that you set up when you joined and this is where you need to list your web site and company information. Also if you have good answers, the person that asked the questions chooses the best answer, then you get a better ranking and more people will listen to what you have to say. You can also create a network and gain fans.

5. Google Reader found at https://www.google.com/reader/ this is good if you already have a Google e-mail account or want to get one just to have your Google alerts sent to it and to use the reader. You can link your web site , your competitors sites, Youtube, Flicker any site you want to visit to check on what is new.

GATS as is it more affectionately known, has come and gone for another year. This past week in Dallas TX, truckers and trucking enthusiasts came to see what was new in the industry, look at cool decked out trucks, and listen to country music singer and song writer Jamey Johnson perform.

GATS East is one of the three top trucking shows held every year in the US. And although Soap Warehouse was not an exhibitor this time, we have been in the past and we continued our 4 year run participating in Big Rig Network's Sweepstakes, with drawings held daily at their booth.

Soap Warehouse gave one lucky winner per day a 5 gallon tight drum of concentrated truck wash. Winners could chose between five different washes: Brown Derby, Big Rig Brite, Blue Lightning, White Lightning or Truck-N-Tuff.

This years winners for the first time were both from TX; Roger Horton of Grandury and Jack Currie of Kennard.

We congratulate them on being our winners and look forward to them using one of our great truck wash chemicals to clean their rigs.

Our next event to exhibit will be in October in Nashville at the Power Washers of North America Convention. But our next Truck Show will not be until next Spring we we will once again be back at the Mid America Trucking Show in Louisville, KY. We will look forward to seeing you there.

This time of year, is what we often call the “dog days” of summer, many parts of the country have been sweltering under conditions of oppressive heat and high humidity. But suffering from extreme heat can be preventable.

Summer heat is also an added hazard to your job. Water is the largest component of the human body, making up 50 to 70% of the body’s weight and as the temperatures climb so does your bodies need to replenish that water. 

6-8 eight ounce glasses of water a day is what the normal person needs for their body to function properly, but you need even more when you have added factors like heat and exertion that are causing you to loose extra water, through perspiration. 

You should always drink an extra glass of water before starting any physical activity, in side or out. This will help keep your heart rate and body temperature lower. Water should be continued to be consumed at a higher than normal rate if your physical activity continues for more than 30 minutes, especially in high temperatures and humidity. 

Two main functions of water in the body are temperature regulation and the removal of waste products. If you are not needing to urinate more often, even though you think you are drink enough water, then you probably are not, and may risk becoming over heated and experience heat stroke or heat exhaustion. List to recognize the difference will be given a little later on.

First; following these guidelines can help you maintain proper hydration during work and exercise in hot weather:

1. Weigh your self without clothes before and after a normal days work, especially during hot weather. For each pound of body weight lost you should drink two cups of fluid. This should give you an idea of what you have been missing, so you can make changes to your routine.

2. Drink a rehydration beverage containing sodium to quickly replenish lost body fluids. The beverage should also contain 6-8 percent glucose of sucrose (carbohydrate). But do not replace all normal water consumption with these. Do not drink sodas or coffee as beverages with lots of sugar or caffeine dehydrate you.

3. Drink 2.5 cups of water 2 hours before out side work or exercise.

4. Drink 1.5 cups of water 15 minutes just prior to working or working out.

5. Drink at least one cup of fluid (water or drink beverage) every 15 to 20 minutes during working or physical activity.

6. Weigh your self every night to see how you are doing and replenish, with water, the amount you need to get back in balance. See #1.

As the weather gets hotter your body loses more water. You should drink additional amounts per hour as the temperatures rise to compensate for this loss.

Drink water even if you do not feel thirsty; by the time you do feel thirsty your body could loss between 2 to 5 cups of water, even more when out doors. When you are dehydrated your attention and concentration can decrease by 13% and short term memory by 7%. Dehydration can increases accidents!

How to tell the difference between Heat Stroke and Heat Exhaustion:

While heat exhaustion is a overheating of the body, heat stroke is a severe condition that can result in bodily harm.

It is heat exhaustion if a person shows a marked improvement after drinking small amounts of plain water and being placed in the shade, heat stroke victims may not.

Heat stroke comes on faster than heat exhaustion with symptoms such as dry mouth, gaunt or pasty appearance, vomiting or lapse into unconsciousness.

Although heat exhaustion can exhibit a rise in body temperatures a temp over 103° is at heat stroke level.

A person with heat exhaustion may be perspiring while a heat stroke victim might be dry because their bodies ability to sweat has broken down and is not functioning properly.

A person with heat stroke may also be having mild hallucinations or show signs of mental incapacity prior to unconsciousness, such as not being able to follow simple directions or answer easy questions.

A person on low sodium diets or if they have lost large amounts of fluids containing salt, such as sweating, or are on certain medications are more likely to experience heat stroke vs. heat exhaustion and then giving these victims fluids containing electrolytes and sodium such as a sport drink will be of a higher benefit than that of just water.

How to help someone with heat exhaustion or heat stroke:

• First move victim to a cool or shaded area and administer water.

• Loosen any constricting clothing or extra layers of clothing.

• Check victims temperature if possible, note if they are sweaty or dry.

• You can place cool towels or wet clothes on the head, chest, midsection, and arms to reduce body temp, but do not use ice.

• Ask the person simple questions and to follow simple commands, such as what day it is, their children's name, to touch their finger to their nose, or count back from ten.

• If you suspect heat stroke call for help immediately, lie the person down with legs slightly raised, if conscious allow them to sit up to drink fluids, ideally a sport drink, every 5 - 10 minutes until help arrives.

Keep your self safe when working in the heat and hope for a break in the temperatures.

Just wanted to let everyone know what a great time we had down in Tampa at the end of July. Normally you do not find large industry events going on during the summer months because it is the "Busy Time" for most pressure washing buisnesses. But some times it is great to take a few days off during the rat race of the season to step back, take a breather, and enjoy meeting and learning with fellow pressure washers.

This was held at the MainSail Suites and Conference Center, a stones throw away from the Tampa International Airport and just a bridge away from the beaches of St. Petersburg and Clearwater. The main days were Friday and Saturday, but for some things started on Thursday for intense learning with a Roof Cleaning Certification Class. More Certification classes continued thru the weekend for Wood Restoration, Seal n Lock paver sealer, Waste Water Control, UMACC's Safety Certifcation with a second Roof Cleaning Certification to finish things off.

In the Main Ball room, there was a General Admission program that included speakers with topics that covered direct mail marketing, illegal discrimination, DOT hazmat regulations, roof cleaning safety as well as a few motivational speakers. On Saturday morning there were multiple hands on product and equipment demonstrations that were put on by the many exhibitors that had tables and booths set up in the front entrance halls. During the two days there were also other pay to learn classes that covered things like Graffiti Removal, Commercial Kitchen Cleaning, Pressure Washing Basics, Equipment Maintenance and Fleetwashilng.

But it was not all work, Friday night the NCE had a dunking booth to kick off raising money for their chosen charity of the event, Hillsborough County's "Make-A-Wish" Foundation. During the weekend they raised just over $4,000 for this charity. Most attendees went out Friday night to the Causeway to "Whiskey Joe's" restaurant and bar for food and fun, and some stayed on after the end of the event on Saturday to take in a day over at the local beaches.

Soap Warehouse is proud to be able to help sponsor, exhibit and attend events such as this throughout the year. Our next show will be the PWNA (Power Washers of North America) Convention in October held in Nashville, TN. Hope to see you there.

Many times when I am speaking with customers on the phone I ask them if they will be attending a conference, roundtable or convention that is coming up in the industry. And more often then not I get the response “No”. When I ask why they will say things like; “It would cost me too much”, “I can’t take the time away from my business, or I work by my self”, “I have never been to a convention”, “If I was not here my crews wouldn’t do the jobs right.”

So when is the last time to you spent the time and money to improve the way you do business? Took a refresher course or class to learn a new skill set? Networked with peers? These types of activities should not be considered a luxury for your business; they should be a necessity, just like your equipment and labor.

Here are some major selling points on why you should attend these types of events.

• ·Learn first hand from industry experts that have successfully implemented business solutions in your industry
• ·Keep up to date on new and emerging products and methods
• ·Create or increase your professional network
• ·Learn talking points to communicate more effectively with customers
• ·Get immediate ideas, answers and solutions to issues within your industry and business
• ·Learn new and profitable marketing techniques
• ·Meet new vendors that can decrease expense and increase revenue 
• ·Hear new product announcements
• ·Visit multiple vendors in one location
• ·Get answers directly from vendors about products  
• ·See demonstrations of equipment or products in action
• ·Do comparison shopping
• ·Talk with others who are using a product or service you are researching

Conference events offer opportunities to expand your knowledge base, improve your skills and network with others in your field.  You can find out what your peers are doing, what the new trends in the industry are, and where there’s room for improvement. Learn what involvement role you can be in to help your industry as a whole.

At these events, you can participate in special sessions specifically designed to stimulate your personal and professional growth.  These can help you increase your ability to do a job, learn how to influence others through communication and marketing skills plus help you develop a personal brand that is distinctly your own while vastly improving your chances for success.    

You’ll have the opportunity to meet some top-dogs in your field.  You’ll get to ask them what keeps them motivated and rejuvenated on the job.  Through them, you can glean valuable insight on their journey to the top.  Conference’s and Convention’s are your golden opportunity to cultivate relationships with these industry superstars – what could be more profitable than that? 

Attending an event is one of the most exciting, accessible opportunities for breathing new life into a job that’s feeling dull and mundane or for a business that is floundering or just stagnant. When I came to work for Soap Warehouse over three years ago, I was determined to help our customers improve their business that in turn would improve ours. I am always amazed at the level of energy attendees achieve by meeting with their peers; the contractor’s passion for their field is palpable.  Everyone has so much fun throughout these events and they take that enthusiasm with them when they go back to their workplace. 

So let us get back to the main reason people do not attend events, the costs. Travel costs, hotel rooms, learning sessions, meals and camaraderie with peers. Sound familiar? Sure those expenditures are on the Con side of the argument but what about the Pro side, and how what you can learn can add up to future cost savings and increased revenue in the long run?

Take the plunge and attend an event. Create a spreadsheet and list all your expenses on one side. Once you are back home those costs will not change. Then list each thing you learned and as you implement them note what monetary improvements you gained from them. Ex: a new marketing technique gains you 5 more clients a month vs. your old way. How much extra income is that generating? Ex: Using a different soap decreases your cleaning time, As the weeks and months go by you will be able to see and track how valuable those upfront expenses have been to you. Granted some event costs may take longer to be recouped then others, but I have yet to regret attending any event as an attendee or exhibitor in the long run. I think after you give it a real try you will agree with me.

Word-of-mouth is the best advertising. 

Although this is a familiar saying, most contractors do not use the very people who create the best word-of-mouth advertising - satisfied customers. It's important that once you have satisfied your customer that you then learn how to use this satisfaction for a referral and/or reference programs. You can literally turn their enthusiasm and their contacts into new jobs and profits for your business.

There are two distinctly different types of programs - a Referral program and a Reference program. Both can help you capitalize on your customers' satisfaction. 

Referral Programs

In a referral program, you ask your satisfied customers to share your business information with neighbors, family and friends who might need services from you. In exchange for these referrals, you give your customers a reward. In most instances, monetary awards will work the best, but future free or reduced service costs can also be an incentive. These monetary rewards do not have to be large rewards to be useful, even a reward as small as a $20 or $25 gift card can work. Plus these do not have to be given up front but only as incentive for a positive outcome. If you do not see the referrals and the jobs you do not pay anything out. And of course with free added job service in the future you have no immediate cash outlay at all.

While referral programs can be effective, they do have one major drawback. Some people feel very uncomfortable about giving out information or approaching friends and family. Because of this, you must be careful and watch your customers’ reactions when you first ask if they'd like to be a part of your referral program. If they have a negative reaction to your request, do not try to overcome their objections. Tell them that you understand their feelings, and then change the subject.

Still, there are some good reasons to start a referral program. Some customers will be happy to participate. Plus, referral programs are very easy and inexpensive to initiate and administer.

There is another advantage to asking your customers for their referrals. It's a good way to find out if your customers are truly satisfied with the work your company has done. If you discover that none of your customers are willing to act as referrals, you should re-examine your work. Are you making promises you can't keep? Did you create expectations that you couldn't - or didn’t - meet? Did your technicians do a good job? Did they clean up after themselves when the job was completed? Before you ask your customers to participate in your referral program, or give you a refference you have to decide which kind of program would be best for your business. There are two types of referral programs you should consider.

In one type of program, you ask your customers to give you the names, phone numbers or e-mails of the people they know who might be interested in using your services. Once you have the list, you contact the referred names and try to set up your free evaluation appointments. Using your customer's name in the introductory process of your phone call, it could go like this:

 “Hello, Mrs. Green? My name is Jim Sample from ABC Sample House Washing. We just finished work for your friend Mrs. Winter and suggested I call you. She said you might be interested in hearing about having your house and roof washed. I’d like to make an appointment with you - at your convenience for a free evaluation. What day would work best for you?"

An e-mail might be just as short but could also include links to your site or to a pre set landing page.

“Dear Mrs. Green,

I am Jim Sample from ABC Sample House Washing and your friend Mrs. Winter gave me your e-mail address and suggested I contact you. She thought you might be interested in having your house and/or roof washed like she just did. I’d like to direct you to our web site where you can learn more about my company and our services. We offer a free, no obligation home evaluation and I would like to set up a time at your convenience to stop by. The web site is www.ABCSampleHouseWash.com, and my phone number is 1-800-555-1234.”

The second method is to ask the customer to recommend or reference your company to their friends and family, by leaving them business cards or tri-fold brochures. When these friends and family members call you, they mention your customer's name. If the referral purchases services from you, your customer receives the reward. Many find this less intrusive than the first and this type of system is used much more effectively than the first.

But in both instances immediate action after the service is performed is critical. A satisfied customer is most likely to make a referral for you with in the first 48 hours following the service than is any other time. So try to include time urgency to your referral offer. Like a higher monetary gift amount or larger free next service if the new customer responds in the allotted time frame, say next 72 hours or three days.

How To Start A Referral Program

1. When you finish a job ask your customer if they would be willing to act as a referral for you. If they are interested, explain how your referral program works.

2. Leave a form for the customer to fill out - with a stamped, self-addressed envelope for the customer to give you the requested information. Make a note in your calendar to call the customer in seven to ten days if you have not received his referral list. You could instead offer the customer a web landing page to fill out this information thus saving printing and mailing costs and receive a possible higher and faster return than old the hand written method.

3. If your customer does not wish to fill out a form for the first type of program, explain that he can recommend, or give out your company and services as reference, directly to his friends and family by using the provided cards or pamphlets. Make sure they understand that if they want to receive the reward, the referrals must mention their name when they call you to make their appointment and they must receive a service for the referral reward to be paid. Contact alone is not enough, purchase must be the result.

4. Always fulfill your customers reward promptly for their referrals, with a thank-you card when the referral turns into a customer. The past customer will be more likely to continue once they know the promise of reward will be properly acted on.

At the Very Least, Ask for Testimonials

You may find you have a very satisfied customer that states they have no friends or family locally or do not want to participate in either program. In this case ask for them to give you an oral or written statement about your work. You can give them a satisfaction survey card to fill out and give back or mail to you with a fill in the blank portion where these customers can write their comments that you can then use as testimonial statements. You can also do this in a follow up e-mail to them, with in the 48 hours discussed earilier, asking for their feed back on your service.

Pictures speak louder than words,

is also a very well known saying, but still very true. Even if you never got the first taker for a referral program, you can still use your satisfied customer’s property and the job you performed to get you future work by taking pictures.

Before and After photos shows potential customers what you can do for them without words. They can see for themselves the results you have produced for others. Never miss the opportunity to take high quality photos of every job you do. You can take long views that include your equipment in the picture, include your uniformed technicians performing the work, and close ups of the dirty vs. clean surfaces. Always make sure it can be recognized as being the same area or location and if possible in the same light, even if you have to drive back by a few days later. You want no doubt that the photos are the same property. Videos are also becoming more of the norm and taking the time to invest in creating some and posting them on your site and even on Youtube will be worth it.

Besides verbal testimonies, visual testimonies are the most influential single element for potential new customers.

One of my Facebook group members asked a question that made me think that the answer should be a blog post.

He wanted to know if most pressure washing professionals are using QuickBooks (QB) for their book keeping. Well QB is the #1 seller for a reason. But we use QB for so much more and since I have friends that work with Intuit in QB design and debugging, I have learned how QB can also help small business owners with their marketing.

And since June is National Entrepreneur Do-it-Yourself Marketing Month this would be a great time to show everyone some tricks and hand out tips.

First if you are not using QB you should really consider it. And if you are not fully using the report features, you are missing out on a major portion of what QB can do for you.

Did you know you can use features in QB to segment your customers in to specific groups to use later for marketing?

Go to your QB and pull up the Customer Center. Once there click on any customer you want. There you will see just under the Customer name a field called “Customer Type” This was designed to be used to indicate almost anything about your customer taht you want, but it can be used for marketing by creating reports. It has been reported in surveys to QB that over 60% of QB users do not use the "customer type" function which is a terrible waste. To get to this field click on the “Edit Customer” button, top right. Once there click on the “Additional Information” tab. Now you can access the drop down menu and use the “Add New” feature. I would suggest using this to segment your customers buy type of work you do. For example if you do only a limited type of work like only house or window washing you might want to list the types but Square foot size ranges or type of house or building. Ex: Under 1000, 1500-2000, Two story, split level, ranch, strip mall etc.
 
But most of you have a range of work you perform like house wash, roof wash, and flat work (such as driveways or side walks). Then your list could look like this: House wash <1000sq, House wash/gutters, Gutter clean only, deck wash only, deck wash/strip & stain, etc. I have not found a limit to the number that you can use and no # is given in QB help.

Some might want to use the “Job Type” under the “Job” tab in this way instead which would also be fine, but if you have already been using QB for a while and have never used the Job function it is not possible to go back and convert past invoices so this may not be where you want to segment. But you can use it moving forward as a great tool to separate invoices for the different jobs you do for customers. But you must be consistent in naming your types of jobs to make reporting easier later. But with the “Customer Type” area you can go back and modify all or as many customer records as you would like.

Once you are using the “Type” area you can create reports that give you details to make e-mail or direct mail campaigns work.

You can also use Custom fields to help you even further. For instance you could set one of these fields to be called “last date of service” then every time you have finished invoicing a customer you go here and enter in the date the job was completed. Later when you need to find customers to fill your schedule in a specific location or area you could create a custom report asking it to give you all house wash only, house/gutter and house wash/roof cleaning customers that you have not serviced yet this year to be listed. This list could further be sorted by adding other criteria like city or zip code and then be exported to an excel file where an e-mail list is made to send out a targeted e-mail offer, for example saying that you will be in that area next week and that you have three slots open and if they call and book an appointment by Friday they will get a free gutter cleaning (Or any other added service benefit you may want to offer)

Using the date of service you can also make your lists for thank you cards for the past month, find customers that have missed their normal yearly cleaning time or even for sending out customer Birthday cards if you have made a field for that.

Other things to look for when researching customer files: Review their invoices. Are they a once a year house washing customer that you have been washing for the last 5 years? You could send out a customer appreciation or referral offer. Is there a pattern of when they call or schedule their service with you? If you are slow in June you could possibly pre sell past July customers early with a phone call or an offer. Have you ever done any extra side work during one of these visits but not every time or have you ever noted there was other work available at this home that you have not done or that some one else is doing? Send them an offer like; “With any house wash every 100 square feet of flat work cleaned, you get 10 feet free.” to help get work you have not had in the past but know is available.

Make use of the notes section! Take notes on the job in a note book or on the quote form and transfer these notes into QB for a future gold mine of marketing information. Like “Customer just put in a pool, add quote for pool deck next year.”

In the newest QB version 11 they have a great new feature that allows you to attach additional documents to the file as a whole or to each invoice, estimate or sales order. You can use this feature to attach photos of the job, either at the time of the job quote, or B & A photos of the job after you are done. Then next time you can pull up what the property looked like to remind you of certain things you may have forgot to include in your costs or to notice changes when you visit that have been made since that last job that might change the price. Such as added planter boxes to the deck railings. You can also use this to attach copies of supply lists or invoices so you can remember how many cans of stain, the exact color and price you paid last time. This way you can find out the current pricing for these items ahead of time and adjust your billing or estimate accordingly. You can go back and attach new documents to old invoices with out a problem so even if you have supply lists, invoices and photos 10 years old you can still add them now to your current customer records. Once you have made and attached the copies, you may be able to get rid of the old paper work altogether. Clutter saving alert!

If you have different crews or employees doing work for you be sure to use the “Rep” drop down menu for this. This can help you track who did the quote? How many hours some one worked or the number of jobs done when paying your employees or if a customer has a praise or complaint you can easily tell who was last at that job. Or if a customer asks for the same tech you will know who to schedule. Even if changed to a new Rep at the next job visit or quote, the older invoice will still retain the past information. Great feature to use.

Now one feature I wish they would change is in the wording of the drop down menu in the “Job Info” tab. Right now it lists: None, Pending, Awarded, In Progress, Closed, and Not Awarded. I would like this to also allow you to add to these ones like: Quoted, Scheduled, Do Not Accept Job, etc.

But even leaving it this way you could still do a search for all pending sales orders to find customers that you quoted for a job (pending) that never called you back, to allow you to make a call or mailing list for follow up contact. You can also get pretty long with your job description with about 100 characters. The “Job Type” names must be shorter, at about 20 characters and this is where you can segment your customers by the work done, if you did not want to use the first location I discussed earlier "Customer Type".

Another really cool new feature in QB 11 is the map and directions feature. Not sure if a booked customer lives near one that is calling to schedule? Just click on the word “map” in blue under the customers address and the location will come up in Google Maps. It can also give you directions between addresses. It also gives you a space to enter notes if you have to remember things like “Gate will be locked, combo is 5-23-16 and must close gate behind or dogs will get out.” But this only works for the main address for the customer, so if you have a commercial customer with one mailing address and multiple locations knowing where their post office box or corporate office is may not be as helpful.

There are so many ways you can use the custom fields for marketing there is no way to list them all and I am sure you might think of ways I have not heard of yet. Only realize that in the older versions there are only 7 slots that can be used for custom field entry and once they have been made and used they can not be changed unless you make one inactive. Once you make it inactive it will not be searchable. The newer QB11 and maybe even QB10 will let you have more than 7. This has allowed us to add things like Facebook Friend and Newsletter subscriber as custom fields to our current customer accounts.

Well I hope this has helped you QB users and any that may be trying to decide if QB is a smart investment. But no matter what computer book keeping system you use, be sure to continuously make back up copies. We back up our QB files to readable/writable disks each week and once a month run a complete drive copy of our data to alternating portable hard drives. This way we can never lose more than a single week of QB data or a whole month of most of our other data to fire or theft. Another way is to pay for off site down loading, which is becoming very convenient and more affordable than ever before.

When you are thinking about adding or replacing a wood deck to your home you need to do the math.

First is the actual cost of the materials. Pressure treated lumber is the most affordable decking material running at about $15 per square foot installed as a national average. A little bit more if you want additional decorative features. Cedar can run twice as much at around $30 per square foot but should last longer with proper maintenance, with Teak wood setting you back the most between $40-60 per square foot, but it can stand the most weathering with the least amount of maintenance. You can also consider composite decking which will not require repeated staining or sealing but that will run between $25 to $50 per square foot installed, almost as much as Teak, for your initial investment.

Once you have decided on the size of your deck and the material you can not forget the maintenance costs. This is the major contributing factor of how long your deck will last. Most decks will cost over their life time any where from $300 - $1,200 dollars a year to maintain. This will vary not only because of the size and material of your deck but with the amount of cleaning, type of staining and sealing that is required and if you do the work yourself or hire it out to a professional. Even with a professional the costs will vary due to the quality of the contractor and the materials they are using. It will not pay in the long run to hire some one cheap that uses inferior products that will cause you to rehire some one the very next year vs. a competent contractor using superior products that will last 3-5 years before the work needs to be repeated.

The way to tell if your deck needs treatment is to throw a bucket of water at it or look at it right after a hard rain. If the water beads up, then your sealant is working. If the water is absorbed by the decking, then it's time to reseal. A deck that isn't sealed properly is vulnerable to the elements and could experience rotting, warping and splitting. Routine maintenance is far cheaper than replacing the deck so make sure you keep your decking in tip-top shape. Stain is not weather proofing, only a color enhancer, you need a sealer for that.

Even woods that do not requiring routine staining and sealing need to be cleaned and cleaned correctly so not to destroy the wood and its own natural properties. Be sure the contractor you hire is experienced with your type of decking. Even composites need cleaning, especially for mold and mildew and they can be damaged if cleaned with improper chemicals.

Knowing the costs beforehand can help you make the right decisions when it comes to choosing materials and who to hire to do the job. Keeping your deck in top shape will increase its life and there by reduce the yearly cost by spreading them over a longer period of time.

To find a professional contractor to clean or stain and seal your deck check out one of these links:
www.uamcc.org/
www.pressurenet.net/
http://www.bbb.org/search under “deck cleaning and waterproofing” or “pressure washing” in your area

You can also get products to use for your self at www.shopsoapwarehouse.com.

I will give you a short lesson on how to use your Google Analytics. First is if you haven’t already go to https://www.google.com/analytics and sign up to get your code and embed it on your web site so Google can track you. If you had someone else create your site they should have already done this so hopefully you have plenty of data to look at. But you can even start with as little as one month or one week of data.

Above you will see our data from the last week.

Here we will focus on just the top 10 key word searches to find long tails. 

We will ignore the #1 'soap warehouse', #3 'soapwarehouse' and #6 'the soap warehouse' because they had to know about us already to use these. #2 is a good one to start with 'best degreaser for Chinese'. Even though it did not get us great results it lets us know what people that are searching, are interested in, so we now have the opportunity to give it to them and improve our results and possible conversions into sales. Same thing with 'how to remove extra heavy grease from kitchen equipment' which is an extremely long 'long tail' yet there were 4 searchers that used that exact term just this week, although it could have been the same person using the same search to find us again. Since these two long tails fall in the same kitchen hood cleaning category it tells me I should look to use these terms in our permanent product description on our web site or to create a blog post or article about this subject. Or since this long tail did find us it is possible we have already done one of these things right. The way to tell? Copy the phrase into Google and see what comes up!

So when checking the first one 'best degreaser for Chinese' we do not show up on the first page but are #1 on Page 2 of about 469,000 results, so 11 out of 469,000 is not bad but we want improvement. This link goes directly to our Kitchen cleaning product page which is right where we would like some one to land vs. a home page where they would then have to click into the site to find what they would want. But here is where some detective work comes in. Go back and pull up each of the first three listings to see why they ranked higher for that long tail.

The first one brings me to a company that resells cleaning products. Not even one on the first page talks about how it will clean Chinese grease, but it might be in there some where. So nothing I can use from this site. On to the next. Which is an article entitled 'Home remedies to Remove Sticky Grease from Stoves and Kitchen Appliances'. This shows the power of a blog post and it didn't even mention the word 'Chinese' at all. Just because it used the words grease, degreaser and best so much Google gave it high relevance points that pushed it up in the ranking. Now to #3, this is one to focus on, first it is a site for a competing product 'Bonzi' hood cleaner. Pay close attention to the wording that Google found to rank it this high. We would need to improve on theirs to be able to get better results. DO NOT do what some people do and just copy ranking text so you will be right under them on the page. Remember you want to be first, not just one of others. They only mention 'Chinese grease' two times on this page, so we would need to increase on that number or match the words 'degreaser for Chinese' exactly like the searcher did for Google to rank our page higher. If we go and make these changes and then give it a week we should see our page rank improve if not pass Bonzi. But we don't just want one spot on page 1, we want more, we should also write a blog on this subject using these exact words plus ones found on our site and the Bonzi site to rank higher than the Bonzi site alone.

Let us now move to the other very long, long tail, 'how to remove extra heavy grease from kitchen equipment'. This gives us some hope, we are now seen on page one in spot #7. The article 'Home Remedies’; has moved up to #1 and Bonzi is no where to be seen even to page 5 but there are lots of other competiters around. Again shows how blog posts work especially when it uses so many of the key words multiple times. #2 links to a site called Thrifyfun. It is a Q&A site, one of many that can really add to your ranking. When you find these connected to your key words you should really think about joining them and adding your voice to the conversation. Same with forums, the more you show that you are willing to help and educate the public or with other contracors the higher your creditability climbs.

#3 is the eHow web site. Again this is a great one to join and where to post how too information. This does not mean teach a potential customer how to do your job but educate them in how to choose a contractor, how to increase their homes value - with your type of service, how to spot a problem that a professional contractor like you should be called to fix for them, etc. eHow has some good and not so good articles and videos, do a search on their site for key words that pertain to you and see what you might be able to improve upon or to comment on to clear up any incorrect information.

#4-#6 are competitors and like before when you find these, read what they say and try to improve upon it on your own site to move up your ranking.

I hope this demo helped and that you have a better idea of how to find and move up to #1 for your key word phrases.

The term ‘long tail’ was first used by marketer Chris Anderson to describe the strategy of finding less-competitive niche market buyers vs. broader markets, that single or two word, short key words will generate. Key words are a corner stone of inbound marketing.

Here at Soap Warehouse we had some very difficult key word problems. First our major market, truck wash chemicals, can be a very large and hard market to find the type of customer we need. For example just searching the word ‘truck wash’ can yield over 400,000 results and will first mainly show only physical Truck Wash locations or businesses. So we needed to add other words.

Here is where you have to start thinking like the person that you hope is out there looking for you, your product or service.

You must choose additional words to add to the others. I tried adding the word ‘chemicals’ but that generates over 700,000 results. Seems like we were moving in the wrong direction, but with this search we can be found, as of this writing, on page 4 and have at times been on page 2 because of key word phrasing. With usually 10 web sites shown per page, being in the top 20-40 of over 700,000 results is not bad. But we did not start there. When I first started here over three years ago this same search would not find us in the first 50 pages! But you need to always strive to make at least the first page if not one of the top three of any search you can. So we started using the key phrases we wanted to be found for in our product descriptions, in our blog posts, printed articles and even in Facebook posts and Twitter tweets. The more times the phrase you want to use is connected with you and back to you the better.

For instance the words ‘best truck wash soap’ was a phrase used back in ’09 that we found was used to find our web site. We learned this from checking our Google analytics for all the key words and phrase that where recorded as bringing someone to our site. When I first checked that phrase in Google we did not show up at all on the first 5 pages so I stopped looking and I did not have any idea how that first person got to us but that was fine. They used a phrase I was sure others where probably using or would use in the future and I wanted to improve our ranking. So I wrote a blog post and an article using that phrase. We shot up to page one almost over night. Since then we have used that phrase in forum posts, and other ways to keep us on the first page. At this writing we are #2 and #5 plus have two other mentions on page one using a combination of these words even though they are not in that exact order. And these posts are not saying we have the best truck wash soaps, which can be seen as boasting or as blowing smoke at a potential buyer, but instead they are telling a potential customer what they should be looking for to find the ‘best truck wash soap’, which hopefully will bring them to check out our web site and try one of our products.

You must first give potential new customers information they want or would like to have before you try to sell them. Most people are turned off by a strong, in your face, use me attitude. Most people want to gather information, learn for themselves and make informed decisions to choose you, your service or product on their own with out feeling pushed into it.

Now what about specific products? Here we also had an issue. Over 17 years ago long before the internet our most popular truck wash was named ‘Brown Derby’ due to its color I guess, I have no idea I was not there, nor would I have chosen that for a name if it was bring introduced today. #1 because the most famous ‘Brown Derby’ was a restaurant in Los Angeles, CA and now is a restaurant in Disney World and other less known locations across the country. So when I first came here if you put in the words ‘Brown Derby’ in Google you came up with pages and pages of listings for articles about the old ‘Brown Derby’ restaurant, their famous ‘Cobb’ salad, ‘Brown Derby’ deserts, Disney World reviews and just about anything else including head wear, but not our ‘Brown Derby’ truck wash. In fact the first mention of ‘Brown Derby’ at all was a link I found to a forum post from back in ’05 that had copied a product description of another product that was mentioned as like ‘Brown Derby’ in it. Not what we wanted.

So when we first changed our web site we included additional words to the ‘Brown Derby’ to help distinguish and target those trying to find our product. Words like ‘brown truck wash’,’ brown soap’, brown derby truck wash etc. This pushed us up into the first page. And even though we are as of this printing sitting at the top spot on page one for ‘brown truck soap’ we are not there for that exact phrase, that is actually held by another companies product in spot #3. We are in #1 out of 9,620,000 results because of our combination of these words, how many times they are used and the relevance that Google placed on our sites listing because of how they were used. Much to the dismay of the company sitting at spot #3 I am sure. See the actual page view:

brown truck soap search

This illustrates that the complete content of your site is important not just the exact key phrase. And believe it our not the #2 spot is being held be a company selling a truck shaped bar of hand soap. This is why you have to constantly be adding new content and tweaking your existing content as new long tail key word phrases are found. Even reposting a blog or tweet can place you back up on top of a search that you may have slipped down the page on.

Here are some great articles that expalins more on long tails and has some great resources; http://www.brickmarketing.com/define-long-tail-keywords.htm, http://www.searchengineguide.com/matt-bailey/keyword-strategies-the-long-tail.php, http://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-should-long-tail-keywords-be-targeted-first/28002/, and wordstream has a great tool you can use http://www.wordstream.com/long-tail-keywords

So start researching your long tails and use them to get your self found. I will show you how in our next post.