Soap Warehouse Blog

Happy Holidays to you all. Hope you all had a profitable year and we look forward to working with you in the New Year. 

Now for many this is the start of your slow time or winter break and you may think you have nothing much to do but sit around and wait for the temps to get warm again next Spring. Well you are sorely mistaken if you want to improve and even build your business through out the Winter months. Here are some steps to make sure your New Year is a good year.

1. Do your budget for the New Year. See what you spent this past year. What was more than you expected? Less? Can you make changes next year that will gain you ROI? Stop doing things that are losing you money. If you can't stop them totally, then change them so they won't be the money pit to your budget they are now. As I mentioned in a previous post, now is the time to shop around for phone service, insurance, equipment for next year. Be sure to include a 5% increase from what you spent this year on every line item in your budget. This way even if the cost of a few things don't go up during the course of the year the ones that do can have funds moved from others without undo stress of looking for that money. It may not be perfect but it will help. 

2. Work on your collateral marketing materials, purchase new clients give-a-way items, update, improve or start a customer referral program. Did the items you handed out last year get you new customers? What worked and what didn't? Don't beat a dead horse and by another 1000 imprinted rulers if you did not earn back their cost. Try something new instead. Got an item like your business card magnets that got to a 600% return on their cost? Double your order for this year and hand out even more!! Good tried and true items for this are: Business card magnets, Note pads, Pens, Clips magnetic or other wise for papers or bags, calendars, and other useful household items like rubber disk lid openers.

 3. Up date your web site. Up load newer B&A photos from this years jobs you haven't had the time to get done. Potential customers may visit your site 3-5 times before deciding to call or fill out your on line form for an estimate. Seeing that you are working, adding new photos and gaining more testimonials may sway that person to go ahead and try you instead of someone else. Adding a blog and keeping content current gets you better SEO. If you do not have a testimonial page or area on your site yet, ADD ONE. nothing convinces a potential customer more than reading statements from satisfied customers. Add video to your site. Action segments do not have to be long and having a professionally produced video will look even better. We use a company called iMotionvideo.com. You can either buy single videos one at a time or like us join their video membership club and have a new video produced each month.

4. Update your customer contact list, e-mails and phone numbers. Check to see if any past customers did not use you this year and try to contact them to find out why. You can send out an email survey to all those contacts to see if they moved, didn't think they needed service this year, went with someone else do to price. Send out a Holiday Greetings E-mail message saying you missed them this year and hope they are doing well. Be sure to send all new customers a Thank you holiday message or New Years savings offer to try and pre book as much work as possible now for Spring. Remember give added value offers not percentage off offers for best results. For example: Book your Spring house cleaning before Feb 1, 2013 and get a free gutter cleaning, or window washing or mail box cleaning. What ever you think is incentive enough for your customers to schedule now instead of waiting until Spring. Make sure you evaluate what worked or did not work last year and possibly increase your enticement. Update or improve on your customer referral package. Send out cards or e-mails offering free services, gift cards, etc for new contact information of friends and family. When these new contacts buy be sure to full fill your referral promises quickly to promote additional referrals coming in.

5. Plan now to network by attending local and National industry events in the coming year. If you go ahead and schedule them into your yearly calendar you can know how much business you will need to book before and after them to still make your monthly budget numbers. Also explore improving or expanding your business with new offerings by learning or becoming certified with new skills. Check out the industry organization web sites, forums, and on line industry magazines to find these opportunities. Many are available during these slower Winter months. If you stop learning you stop growing as a person and a business.

I hope all of you get some much needed family time off this Winter season but also be sure to follow these suggestions and you will have plenty of business to keep you busy all next year.

First I want to wish each and everyone you a Happy Holiday season for what ever holiday you and your family will be celebrating.

Next I must let you know about a general across the board price increase that will go into effect on Jan 2nd, 2013.

As many of you know we try very hard to not make product price changes unless absolutely necessary. And most times it is only for certain items as they are effected by specific ingredient price changes. But once every 3-5 years we do have to make an all over adjustment to counter the everyday, always increasing, small price changes that we as a business face each and every day for office supplies, insurance, postage, packaging, product cost and delivery rates of the inventory items we take in and use.

So because of these we are having to make an average 3% price increase for all products. For small items it will be as little as 50 cents but for a some of our very popular kit items most will see an average $10 increase per ordered item. The complete new price list will be available on our web site very soon but those that would like one now, please e-mail me at info@soapwarehouse.biz Subject Line: Price List and I will send a copy by reply e-mail.

Now for some good news! We have a few items that you can buy and use that will save you money when buying from Soap Warehouse through out the year.

First is a handy Soap Warehouse calendar mouse pad for your desk. Order this from our Zazzle store and you will get $10 off your first order in 2013. A single mouse pad runs $12.50.

Order Mouse Pad 

For even more savings each and every month order our 2013 Product Savings Wall Calendar. With this purchase from our Zazzle store you will get a $20 rebate credit on your account to use during the year, plus you can use the posted savings for products featured for that month in the calendar for the discount mentioned. You can only use the calendar discount for the specific product(s) and not inconjuention with your $20 rebate credit. Order Calendar

The most important part in making sure you can pay your monthly bills is your business's cash flow. It doesn't matter how much money you have billed out and are sitting on your books if it is not in you bank account it won't help you. Making sure you have the money available to pay your obligations in a timely manner can also save you money besides improving your credit and bottom line.

Here are steps you can take to managing your cash flow.

Use dedicated accounting software. It is not just necessary to have a computer but to have and use software designed especially for managing your money. I love QuickBooks and there is a program level for just about any kind of business out there, big to small, basic to advanced. There are plenty of them out there and I am sure you can find something in your price range. Remember using it will save you countless amounts of money and time.

Set up auto bill payments. This is very common these days but makes financial sense as well. If you set your self up a few different checking accounts to manage your resources. You could have one that just handles payroll, taxes and license fees. One that you use for all your fixed monthly bill expenses like your phone, rent, vehicle payments, electricity that don't or seldom vary month to month and then a third general funds account where everything funnels through. You can set up that each week, a few set days a month or just once a month that a set amount will be taken from the general fund to go into the two others to fund them for their automatic payments to be paid from. Try to have a two week or monthly surplus of cash in each. This way you can easily see when you are gaining a surplus of cash flow, that could be set aside in a savings account or when you are having a shortage where funds will be needed to be added from savings or by other means of credit. You will also not have to watch and worry about each separate payment date since they will come out when needed.

Have a Collection Policy. Not having one is like planning to throw money a way and not following one you have in place is like setting a match to it. Many of you do not extend credit to most of your customers. Pressure washing is typically a do the job get paid right then business. But those that do contract cleaning, large company fleet washing, building management work, etc. you are doing a job and then having to wait for the money to come in sometimes 30 to 60 days letter. Letting customers get away with not paying you can sometimes hurt you more than not having the work in the first place so don't let it happen. Make sure your collection policy is a part of every contract and press it's points when needed. As soon as you let some slip, "Oh but they give me so much business.", you will be having to slip your self to your vendors and putting your business credit at risk, not theirs.

Immediate Payment on Accounts Receivables. Have a system in place where customers can pay you as easily as possible. The time for waiting for the check in the mail is disappearing. Money transfers are becoming instantanious so why shouldn't you have that too. Rather than spending time and money chasing down late payments use methods to get your money faster. Find the best deal to accept credit card payments. Yes there are fees involved but figuring in that small percentage to the cost of your doing business will pay off. Most smart phones and iPads can now have point of sale scanners and applications to accept payments, companies like PayPal and Intuit have programs. Your own bank may have web access payment options you could use even with checks by taking photos of them to be automatically placed into your account. Instead of mailing out past due notices you can send e-mails that contain payment buttons in the e-mail. Put in your contracts that they must supply you with credit card information and that your bill will be drafted each month on a certain date, 30 days after work is completed or some other set way. State, add and collect on late fees. Once a company knows you will do what you said and charge more for late payments, you will become one of their vendors they are more apt to pay instead of let side when their money is tight, freeing up your cash flow.

Increase Prices. No one likes to think about having to increase their prices to their customers. But as a small business owner you have to know what it takes to keep your business running while still giving you a fair profit. The added costs for creating a cash flow system, like the computer, software, credit card processing costs, bank fees, web site, e-mail program etc. are all things that add to the basic price that you should include to your customers. But that is not to say that you can't give something back to those customers that help you with your cash flow in the form of discounts or incentives. For instance, say offering customers charge cards services run you 4% of revenue. Then increase all of your services by that same 4% and then give the cash customers 4% off their invoices and those that pay by check 2% off. Or what ever the electronic check transfer cost percentage is. This way you are not penalizing those customers and maybe others that may have thought about using a card will pay in cash instead. Want your contract customers to pay you faster? Then offer them NET 15 3% as an incentive.

Reduce expenses. Things can change rapidly, just look at the price of gasoline for instance. Your operating costs could vary widely month to month with out really changing anything you are doing day to day. For this reason you should be looking at your expenses at least once a quarter if not every 30-60 days to see where you can make improvements. Keep in close touch with your own vendors to be able to take advantage of sales, ask to be on mailing or e-mail sales lists, friend vendors that are on Facebook have twitter or foursquare accounts etc. they may send out announcements you would want to use. These are tough times and many companies are shopping for new customers and are giving sometimes big discounts to get them.

Choose your customers wisely. Especially contract or big time and cost customers. It does not do you any good to have bid and won a fleet wash contract if they are having financial issues of their own, don't have all the equipment at the location when they are suppose to, requiring revisits or extended time frames for your employees. Do your homework on them first by using D&B or other credit reporting companies that we discussed earlier in the first segment of these posts. Have it clearly stated in your contracts that services can and will be skipped or suspended if payment falls behind. There is no reason to keep working if you have little or no hope of seeing payment in the near future. Work like that can not only slow down but block your own cash flow by using up time you could have had for finding or doing other work that would bring in money.

Communicate with your vendors. We all know it is hard to be waiting on Peter to pay Paul, but letting the vendor, that is also waiting for payment, sit in silence is not the answer. And doing so can start to damage or ruin your business credit with them. Sometimes just a quick phone call or e-mail stating that you have not forgot them, that you know your invoice is due and letting them know when you expect your payment in order to make yours is all that is needed to keep a good relationship. As bad as you feel having to call the vendor, they feel just as bad not knowing and having to contact you for collection. Sometimes it is easier to ask for NET 60 with a slight penalty than losing your NET 30 status which will only tighten your cash flow in the future if you must begin to pay that vendor for supplies or services up front.

I apologize that this post got so long, there for I will postpone our Corporate Credit Do's and Don'ts until next time.

On the surface it would seem building good credit would be easy, just pay your bills, treat your customers fairly and you should not have any problems. But sometimes not doing anything can in fact hurt your credit rating. Passive credit building in not always the best way to approach having a good or great rating. Active credit building is a much better method and one you can control.

There are multiple ways to determine and increase a company's credit worthiness:

• Paying obligations on time
• Maintaining a positive and strong balance sheet
• Avoiding legal problems and bad press
• Establishing business credit separate from personal ones
• Gaining and sustaining a strong business identity

Potential lenders or vendors may look at one or more of these factors with different weight measures depending on their needs. A equipment vendor may just care that you have a history of making payments on time where as a bank lender may feel a positive P&L history is more important, and an insurance company care more that you have never had any past litigation or claims filed for a policy rating.

Ways you can actively try to build and improve your business credit and rating.

Open lines of credit. Do this only with the type of businesses you will use in your daily routine. It makes sense to gain NET 30 terms with supply vendors and credit lines or cards with national companies you will buy or use services from, such as Home Depot, Nations Rental, gas companies etc. but at the same time you do not need to open credit just to show you can.  You need to keep your debt to cash ratio under 50% and more in line with 30%. It may seem that it is fine to be a strictly pay in cash as you go but that will not help build your credit. If you already have the cash use credit even if you do not need it right now and use the cash to pay it off.

Pay off card balances and loans faster than scheduled. The easiest way to be able to borrow is to show you really can do without it. So paying down a debt faster indicates you have a good cash flow than just making the minimum by the due date or carrying a loan out to its term. Even making one extra payment every 3-4 months can cut almost a full year off of a 5 year, 60 month loan, saving you interest.

Ask for deserved credit increases. Most companies that you have a long term relationship with are more than willing to revisit and possibly increase your credit limit every 12-24 months. A good time to discuss this is when you first open the account and to ask what that companies policies are in regards to credit increases and if they will be automatic or if they should be asked for. Once you know then be sure you do not let those time lines pass too far before asking for the increases available to you. Be care though because some credit card companies will look unfavorably to customer requests that occur too frequently, thinking that you are asking in need and may become a higher risk.

Not missing payment or discount dates. Besides the normal pay by a certain date each month or by NET 30, many cards or companies have other dates you should look at to see if you can gain savings and credit worthiness. You many have NET 30 terms with a vendor that may also give a discounted prepayment date as well, such as NET 15 3%. Where if you pay in less than two weeks from the purchase you can get additional money off the sale. Or just because your credit card is due the 5th of each month that you always pay off in full you may be still paying interest on charges that were made in the first 9 to 11 days after the last closing date, because that company may start adding interest after 21 days. Every card varies to be sure you know what specific terms each one carries. So sometimes paying your cards off more than once a month using the card companies on line payment system may save you extra interest and looks good as well.

Here is a link to a good article that gives you more tips for personal and business credit.

https://fitsmallbusiness.com/ways-to-build-personal-credit/

Your credit is one of the most important backbones of your business. If you as a business owner, and the business it's self, do not have at least a good credit rating you will face problems and added expenses in your everyday business life.

Reasons you need to check and stay on top of your business credit report and ratings.

1. You need to have a positive credit rating separated from your personal credit.
2. Your business is being rated year by year, whether you realize it or not.
3. Not doing some things can harm your rating more than doing others.
4. Do not assume that your vendors, no matter how small, are not reporting information.

Credit reports are an integral part of modern business and the more and more technologically advanced we become, the easier it will be for unfavorable reporting to effect your business. The key if stopping it before it happens or at least to correct it as fast as possible if it occurs.

Dun & Bradstreet use to be the only player in the business credit reporting world but that has also been changing in the past 5-10 years. They use to report only for the very top Fortune 500 companies but these days they cover down to much smaller businesses as long as it has a physical business address, has a business listing (usually in the yellow pages) and has been around long enough to have vendors and lenders that report to them.

The three formally only person credit reporting companies like Equifax, Transunion and Experian have also moved into the arena; Equifax with their Small Business Enterprise and Experian with their Small Business Reports as well as companies like Credit.net a division of InfoUSAR, Accurint Business and ClientChecker for the mainly freelance professional and contractors.

Your first step is to find out what information they have on your business good or bad, review it and then make the needed steps to improve, correct or even add your business to their listings. Because just like with personal credit sometimes no credit is just as bad as bad credit when it comes time to needing it.

With some of these companies you will not be able to give them new information as to your credit worthiness, only a creditor that reports to them can, but you can find out what info they have and to address any mistakes just like with your personal credit.

Here are the contact links to see what they have for your own business. Just go to each, plug in your business info and see what comes up. If you find you are listed make sure the contact info is correct. But unless you have been denied credit in the past 60 days, unlike personal credit reporting, business reporters do not have to give you a free report once a year. There fore you may have to pay to get a copy of your report if you are listed. If you do not even come up then there is no reason to pay for a report. Most run in the $50 range for the detailed report. Some as low as around $10 for a limited report. Then others like Credit.net offers a free 72 hour trial that will allow you to look at yours and others for free. Accurint is a fee only for output not for the search, they are inexpensive and you only pay for what is actually found. So if you are not there, no charge.

Dun & Bradstreet www.smallbusiness.dnb.com/
Equifax www.equifax.com/small-business/home/en_sb/
Experian www.experian.com/small-business/services.jsp/
Transunion http://www.transunion.com/corporate/business/business.page
Credit.net www.credit.net/
Accurint www.accurintbusiness.com/
ClientChecker www.clientchecker.com

Next post I will discuss "How to build good business credit".

With this month being National Financial Wellness Month I asked a friend of mine Mr. Don Schwerzler for an article that addresses an issue that all small family business owners should hope to face, succession planning. Here is his article:

Succession Planning:
Who needs it? And when do you start?

 BY DON SCHWERZLER

Mercer Dye designs general aviation facilities such as hangars, industrial buildings, and some really good-looking airport terminals. He first began working with his father in the construction business in 1975. An art major in college, Mercer had already tried his hand as an artist for a couple of years before his wife “advised” him to get a real job. Mercer relented, but not so reluctantly, because he genuinely enjoyed working with his father. The two of them landed significant construction contracts with Delta Airlines and Hangar One, among others, and the business grew like crazy. Throughout the 80’s and early 90’s, father and son rode a wave of prosperity in general aviation, and in 1993, Mr. Dye retired and left the business to his son. Mercer changed the name of the business from Dye Construction to Dye Aviation Facilities to reflect his new focus on design and consulting. Today, he’s recognized as one of the best in the field.

If ever there was an example of a smooth and easy succession, the Dye story is it. The father establishes the business, brings his son in early and retires while he’s still active enough to pursue his passions. The son borrows on the father’s corporate relationships and track record to market his new direction – a new emphasis that suits his artistic bent and his personality. There are no other family members involved and the succession from one generation to the next was a walk in the park.

But then there are those other family businesses where the succession story better resembles walking through a minefield. When a business ages, and the number of family members in the business swells, succession issues will mount and threaten the well-being of the company if not addressed early enough. Consider the case of a 50-year-old manufacturing company in the southeastern U.S. The patriarch and founder of the business died when he was 78 and left control to his wife, who at 93 years old has outlived many of her children and even some of the grandchildren. She still has the largest office and the final decision. All around her in the corporate offices and out in the plant are thirty-plus children, grandchildren, cousins, nieces and nephews… all part of the business and all pretty sure that they deserve a piece of the pie. Succession issues in that company are a dominant part of conversation at every gathering – business and family. Lines of leadership are fuzzy and people outside the business – including clients – know there is trouble inside the business. You could easily say that succession planning in that company is long overdue.

Issues that arise around succession can get out of hand even when they are addressed early on, but much more so when they are left to sort themselves out for too long. Every family-owned business is different and succession planning is not a perfect science. There are many different dynamics and complexities to consider and there are no guarantees for making everyone happy. But successful succession planning is not an impossible task, and it doesn’t have to split families apart. There are advisors and counselors who can make sense of mayhem and guide companies through the process, no matter how large the family or how long they have waited to get started. But waiting too long to get started can most definitely exacerbate problems.

So when is the best time in the life of a company to begin the succession planning process? A good argument could be made for beginning on the day the company is incorporated. But that is rarely done, of course. In the early days of a business, owners pay most attention to growing the company and give little thought to succession. It’s just not on their radar screen. Typically, the first thoughts about succession occur when children reach their teens and consider or begin working at the company – or when the owner gives serious consideration to retirement.

Knowing exactly when to begin the succession planning process is perhaps a matter of instinctive timing, something that entrepreneurs are good at in other areas of the business. Timing is what usually makes an entrepreneur successful in the first place… knowing when to enter the market, when to build capacity, when to borrow, etc. Knowing when to seriously pursue development of a succession strategy is something entrepreneurs will intuitively know and feel at some point in the company’s growth.

A good case in point is a very successful cold storage and shipping company in Jacksonville, Florida. Paul and Julie Robbins are a husband-wife team who founded Caribbean Cold Storage in 1993. Both worked in different capacities in the shipping industry before they discovered a niche and began providing a full range of refrigerated shipping and materials handling services. Paul capitalized the business by selling his Harley-Davidson motorcycle for $10,000 and borrowing another $7,000 on a credit card. It was a risk, but the Robbins saw an opportunity and followed their instincts to quick success. Within eight years they were honored twice as Inc. Magazine’s No. 1 fastest-growing inner-city business.

During their first few years of meteoric growth, Paul and Julie were focused on the business without giving a lot of thought to succession. Julie’s sister and brother-in-law have been in the business for years but it wasn’t until Paul’s son by a previous marriage and Julie’s niece entered the business that Paul and Julie “felt a need” to pursue development of a succession strategy. The couple also has a son, Zachary, who is only eight but already considered a part of the long-term plan.

“Ultimately, we would like to set the stage for Zachary to come into the business,” Paul says. “But the younger ones are already coming up. Kelly (niece) and John (son) are both active and want to stay in the business. That’s what got us started thinking about succession. I’m very happy with where the business is today, but we have to plan our next stage of growth and succession planning is a big part of that.”

Both Paul and Julie have passions outside the business. They love to travel and play golf, and they enjoy being together because they are also best friends.

“It won’t be hard to let go at all,” Paul says without hesitation. “The first emotional curve you go through as an entrepreneur is that it is my baby, but you have to realize that you started the business so that eventually it would create wealth, a balanced life, and financial freedom. We have created a culture here but we have also created value. The company is operating at a level that I’m comfortable with. I see bigger and better things for it but I’m not the guy to take it to the next level.”

In other words, Paul Robbins feels the timing is right to begin sewing up a succession strategy. Like his other business instincts, this one seems to have all the ingredients for success. Without realizing it, he is meeting all the criteria that succession planners and counselors recommend. He did not wait until the last moment to develop a plan. He did not assume that the children will take over the business and has made certain they want to be there. He has not been secretive about the company’s future plans. He understands that succession planning is complicated and that the succession process is more important than the succession plan. He has brought in outside expertise to guide the family and the business through the process. And, he and Julie are giving a lot of thought to their retirement years.

It’s never too early to begin succession planning, but in most cases, an owner will know intuitively that it is time to kick it into high gear. It just feels like the right time to get started on that next stage of the company’s life and plan for the passing of the baton. In Paul Robbins’ case, he looks forward to stepping back from the primary operational role in the company and taking a more visionary role. That doesn’t mean he loses his entrepreneurial spirit; in fact, it has already opened the door for new ventures.

“I’m already involved in a start-up technology for our industry that will be as revolutionary as Microsoft was in computers,” Paul says. The technology, actually a gel material installed in the ceilings of refrigerated containers, enables shippers to maintain the temperature of cold or frozen cargo for five or six days without mechanical refrigeration. “We’re in the process of funding it and taking if from a virtual to an operating company. We received the patent on July 6 and we have a 5-year plan that is being circulated to investors.”

So who needs succession planning, and when should you get started? The answer, of course, is that every family business can use it and the sooner the better. Companies that wait until a catastrophic event (death of an owner, for example) forces change in leadership will find themselves operating in a disruptive environment, and that’s never good for business.

In the final analysis, like a lot of other decisions in family owned businesses, starting a succession planning process will probably be an intuitive, gut-level decision. And in most cases, that’s the way it should be.

I thank Don for his words and his cases that he brings to us in this post. This and other valuable information can be found on his web site http://www.family-business-experts.com.

Please check it out to learn more.

I know this week is bringing record cold temperatures, but for many so far this winter has been very mild and is causing some contractors that normally close up shop during the winter months to find their phones ringing off the hook with business.

A Minnesota contractor for example had to call to get an emergency supply of soap to him for a new job. He told me "It is unbelievable that we have zero snow on the ground and we have had only one good snow here that stayed more than 3 days since November." He also stated "I haven't had work in January for years." Minnesota is experienced its third driest autumn on record and possible drought conditions may develop in 2012 due to it, indicated by a NOAA report just released.

This warmer than normal, no large snow fall is also putting a damper on the contractors that switch in winter to other lines of work, like snow plowing, ice dam removal and other cold weather jobs. Most of the West and North East is having record low snow amounts while places not use to so much of the white stuff like Arizona and Texas were getting recording setting high levels. NOAA stated that during November only 4.4% of the country had snow on the ground vs. the normal >10%. The only area to have above normal levels in 2011 was a small area over the intermountain West.

Also that the North East had above normal temperatures with MA, RI and VT having their warmest autumn on record. This caused the normal to above average amount of precipitation to feel like a unending rain storm. A customer in Boston that I spoke with back in end of November said his business was down almost by half since September because they were not having enough clear days to do the work they had scheduled, not due to lack of work.

Let us know by your comments here or on our facebook page as to how the weather effected your final quarter of the year and what you think the Spring of 2012 will bring.

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.

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.

Hopefully you have had a chance to view our newest video for our new graffiti remover Blast Off.

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