How powerful is your Schedule?

I guess the real question is, “Do you realize how powerful your scheduling system can be?” Two weeks ago I blogged on “4 Main Elements Profitable Businesses need to Manage.” I shared how these 4 elements can provide you the crystal ball you need. I also told you I would share how Schedule2Win can help you do this.

Your schedule is your heartbeat to your business or it can be. Schedule 2 Win or S2W does this with only a quick glance. Here is where you might want to go back and read October 14th blog if you haven’t yet. Let’s work backwards like I did on the October 14th.

Finance: S2W provides an accurate financial picture very quickly. You simply add the cost of your project as you enter you project into your schedule. How does this help? We almost never mess up materials, equipment or sub contractors in an estimate. It is almost always labor that is messed up and that is our most costly expense. Putting real dollars in each task each day of the week lets you know if you have enough dollars on the schedule to win for the day, week or month. Are you going to meet your budget? I realize as a contractor myself none of us have time to enter more data. Believe me we made this very fast and easy. S2W makes it easy to see if you are on track. If the projected produce revenue doesn’t meet your budget you have two options. Increase sales or reduce expenses. S2W won’t tell you what to do. We still let you call the shots, but your schedule can identify the problems you need to address. If you keep coming back to the same issue, it becomes very clear what you need to work on in your business.

Next week I talk about how S2W makes it easy to manage your production. We make it so easy you might not even need to job cost any more.

If you have any questions, contact me at brad.groff@schedule2win.com

Sorry for the change of plans:

Sorry I know I said this week I would tell you all about how our new “Schedule 2 Win” software will help you manage the four main elements of business (Leads / Sales / Production / Finances). I promise I will hit on it next week. This week I have to tell you about my latest experience with technology. I’m sure most of you have heard of “Go to Meeting” or some of the others out there, but are you taking advantage of this technology? You must. I use it frequently to review design updates with my landscape clients. This makes it easier to meet on their time. This last time I used it with our marketing firm for Schedule 2 Win.

Last week I had a meeting with someone from South Africa, Arizona and Colorado. I was able to have my meeting right on my I Phone. The best part was it all happened in the parking lot of my daughter’s volleyball game. I was able to take care of business and still make almost the entire game.

How are using technology to help quality of life and customer service?

4 Main Elements Profitable Businesses need to Manage

There is something about my make up that makes me get to the core of things. In recent times this has become a necessity to run a profitable business. When we strip business to its core, it’s made up of four main elements. They are Marketing; Sales; Production and Finances. If you control these four elements you can almost predict your future. How sweet would that be?

Let’s look how. These 4 elements are your business time line. Let’s start at the end goal and work backwards. The final goal is to have cash. How do you get cash? First you need to invoice something. In order to invoice something, you need to produce something. In order to produce something, you need to sell something. In order to sell something, you need to have someone interested in your product or service. O.k. that’s obvious enough. So let run it the other way assume we are running all on 4 cylinders. If enough people are interested in my service today and because I have a great sales process/team, I will meet or exceed my sales goal this week. Because I meet or exceed my sales goal this week and I have a great production process/team, I will meet or exceed my production goal next week. If my production goal has been met, I can invoice enough this month to insure the cash will come in. It’s that easy or is it. You still need to have away to manage and benchmark these four main elements. How do you manage these four elements? What is your process? Next week I will discuss how our new schedule 2 win software helps to manage all four. You don’t need our schedule 2 win software, but this is a system we have developed for over ten years. It’s really amazing how something so simple can be so strong.

Have a great week.

Are you scheduled to win?

You may or may not have been wondering where I have been the last month. Here is the update. Over the last year we have been developing a program which is by far our best management tool.  We have been using the tool for years, but recently decided to make it more user friendly.  I believe it will help all businesses operate more effeciently. We are almost there.  I've also been lining up my winter speaking engagements.  I'll be updating them soon.

This tool will help you manage your, projects, staff and profitability at a quick glance. Remember I’m a contract not just at heart, but I have been one for over 20 years and counting. I realize we don’t have time for reports and spreadsheets of data. We don’t have time to generate them and we don’t have time to read and process them. That’s why I’m so excited about this amazing tool. Although it can do some powerful things the heart of it is K.I.S.S. Keep it simple stupid. This one tool has allowed us to drastically reduce the amount of reports we needed to have a pulse on our business.

I hope I got your attention. Look for more information to follow or contact me at brad.groff@schedule2win.com