Phones ringing again!

[DDM]

I'm still working on a backlog thats about depleted and the phone hasnt rang for about 2 weeks i was about to get worried.Today in a 2 hr period i received 6 Calls 1 from the paper
and 5 refferals in 2 hrs. 1 warm day gets people motivated i guess.

 

[sonny]

what the heck you doing on the computter ? get to work!

 

[seanlarkin]

What kind of online advertising do you guys do? Your own website, yellowpages.com, banner ads, etc.? I think a nice, professional website would help a company's image tremendously. What are your experiences with your own websites?
-Sean

 

[Darin]

Sean brings up a good topic. I am going to be adding an area where you can add your URL into a list for free. I also am going to move to a dedicated server and be able to host sites for fairly cheap (have to wait till Pierre-Luc comes home). He is about finished with it.

 

[sgreanbeans]

amen to that, our phone started to come alive again yesterday, well see if it keeps going as we got a lot of snow on the ground

 

[Toddppm]

No backlog yet but people are starting to call again.
I'm almost finished with my website right now, I should have it up in the next day or 2 hopefully.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

maybe I should be working on a page. Work has been scarce lately. Hopefully my main clients will start to get more work going soon.

50's tomorrow....

 

[DDM]

12 Calls in a 24 Hr period thats a record i dont think ive ever received that many in a week before.3 accepted estimates 8 more estimates to do between tommorrow and sunday. Hmmmmmm okay if one was to get a months backlog backlog.What should he attempt in future estimates? Raise prices?
tell the customer after the estimate it will be a month before you get there?Or Tell the customer your backlog up front?

 

[sonny]

I would tell them your back loged. you dont want to lose any you alredy have.Most people will wait.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

Depends on the job. I've scheduled some so that I can do them in the sumer slow down, "I'll come down to $XXX if I can scheduale at my convieniance." Or say that it is a deadwooding of a green ash, "I'd like to do it after the leaves are out so that I can see what is what better. How does the first week of June sound?"

Or if it is a smaller job, maybe a few hours tops, "can I show up at any time to do the work? I'll just slip it in to the rout when I'm in the area."

Is it an easy weekend job that and they want it doen right away? "I'm pretty booked right now, but we could do it on Sunday morning, but I pay they Guys double time for that." Or how ever you can do it without feeling your gouging. "We can run by on our way home some day in the next two weeks for $XXX"

Scheduling and routing will make it ebvery time. Getting those little jobs that round off the day, knocking the edge off of a long drive back. Or a short one for that matter.

The real trick is to not let any leads slip away.

 

[DDM]

Thats will come in handy John the only problem i have living in the bible belt is that 95% of the customers wont even let me Stop by on sunday to give an estimate.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

I can see that, I lived in JAX, NC off and on for a few years while in the USMC. Blue laws can make a Sundays boring for a northern boy.

Okay, save that line for the Yuppies .

 

[treeman82]

In the past week people have been coming to me and I have been goin to them with "ok this needs to be done." I figure the "ok this needs to be dones" will keep me busy for a while.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

but you aint full timing it yet Matt.

 

[treeman82]

True. I'm two timing tree work and school.