ceuwow
Subscribe by Email
Browse by Tag
Posts by Month
And, as an added bonus, we will send you our Newsletter with articles like, "Green Industry Marketing in a Digital World, Do You Need a Web site and 4 Tips to Jumpstart Your Day."
CATCH UP! (helping irrigators with technology)
Smartphones may very well be phones that are smarter than we are. Slim and portable, smartphones are capable of carrying everything important to us wherever we go. Do you NEED one? You can decide, but it could sure make the irrigation contractor's life a whole lot easier. Here's some features that are compatible with most smartphones:
On-the-go Scheduling
Most smartphones, whether Apple or Android based, have calendars and event schedulers already built in. This allows you, while in the middle of an irrigation job, to quickly schedule a meeting or appointment on your phone and get right back to work. You can set the appointment up with a reminder to let you know the appointment is coming up. Most calendar programs allow you to set your own preference on reminders: a day before the event, a week, an hour, whatever you want to help you remember those important dates and times. Most calendar applications also allow you to share the appointment with others, making it super easy to let co-workers know there is something coming up.
Pictures
All smartphones these days come with an on-board camera. Cameras can be extremely helpful when on a job. You can take before and after pictures of the actual irrigation work for your customer files, as proof of what you did on the job, or simply some nice before and after shots for your portfolio. Pictures can be stored and attached to customer files later, or can be attached to your mobile customer files if you have a customer tracking application.
There's an App for that
There truly is an 'app' for just about everything. A search of the Android Market shows applications that are convenient and cost effective for an irrigator to use. Some of the apps listed are: measuring distances, job estimating, time tracking, customer records, job site trackers, etc.
Some applications are pretty robust. They include maintaining irrigation customer files, measuring distances for irrigation on site, preparing quotes that you can e-mail from your phone, and more. Some apps even allow you to connect with vendors so you can check available stock! Talk about convenience!
With today's technology, there is no reason an irrigation contractor has to struggle to do it all by himself. Mobile apps and smartphones make it easy to be a one (or three) man show!
Posted By Doug Saylor 4 Comments »
According to Open by American Express, an information service for small businesses, one of the three smartest investments for greater productivity is getting help with personal productivity
Darby, our hypothetical über-irrigator is bad with paper. The one piece of paper he’s dealing with multiplies to thousands–all clogging up his pipeline of productivity. If he could just handle paper…
Because he’s so bad with paper, he’s learned to be “good” with paper. He knows it’s a weakness, so he’s developed some hard and fast rules and methods that have helped him a lot.
- Hold the paper only once. Deal with it now or file it or trash it. Don’t wait ‘till later.
- Don’t create paper. Use your laptop or iPad to do what paper used to do.
- Stop, drop and de-clutter. Once a week stop and catch up on getting paper dealt with.
- Arrange for easy filing. Your office may be your truck. Fine, treat your truck like it is the command center of the great organization it is!
- Automate everything. Get the electric company to draft for their payment (unless you’re not quite sure you’re going to pay it this month). Darby did that to all his bills. They’re paid on time and he doesn’t have to do it. Darby uses Mint or PageOnce to keep track of his spending spending. (Google Mint and or PageOnce) Note: The bank can’t read who your check is payable to. It only posts check number 1233 for $345.45 posted on August 30th. That’s gets in the way of online services like Mint. Consider using your bank’s BillPay service or use a credit or debit card. Mint can read all these payees–giving you better information.
You can probably think of other areas. The point is to take control.
Want more ideas on promoting your irrigation business? Click the button to get a Free Report on Nurturing Word-of-Mouth.
Posted By Doug Saylor 1 Comment »
As a continuing education provider for Texas irrigation pros, I hear a lot of reasons contractors use to justify having no web site or one that is flat. These are smart people with reasonably successful businesses.
Most of the reasons are just rationalizations for existing behavior. But, there are a few reasons that are actually very good.
I’d like to share 5 really good reasons why an effective, working website may not be relevant for your business.
Note: Just because you fit one or two doesn’t necessarily take you off the hook. But, if you actually fit several (especially 2 and 3), you probably can get by with a flat web site that doesn’t do very much.
- You depend on “word of mouth” advertising: Word of mouth happens because you’re doing a great job. If that’s working for you, keep it up. Your prospects are increasingly looking to the Internet to search for or confirm companies for irrigation services. Word of mouth is the best, but it depends on the right two people to come into contact–and sometimes that just doesn’t happen. If you’re not looking to grow your company significantly, there’s probably no reason to try to nurture word of mouth so the right satisfied customer can talk to prospects she (or you) don’t know about.
- You’re not looking to grow: I used to think web sites needed to be pretty brochures. Now, I realize effective web sites attract new business. If you don’t need to grow, you don’t need an effective web site.
- You don’t have competition: Bless you. If you have the luxury of being the only irrigator in your area, a web site might impress your mom or spouse, but it will probably do you no good.
- You expect to walk away from your company: You’re not looking to sell your business eventually. An effective web site would create an asset the business could use now, which makes it valuable to someone interested in buying your business. You’re making enough money now so you don’t need to go through the mess of selling a profitable business when you get ready to retire. Your payback is the income you make from working.
- The old ways of marketing are working just fine:
- Yellow Pages
- Post cards
- Home shows
- Door hangers
- Radio ads
- TV ads . . .
They’re all working and they don’t cost all that much. That’s called “push” or “interruption” marketing. If your market hasn’t found ways to filter out your ads, you probably don’t need a means of attracting potential customers when they are looking for you. An effective web site is a way to give information prospects want. For instance, if you’re so well known and respected, your prospects aren’t interested in what others say about you, you just don’t need a web site.
Maybe I have left out your reason for not needing a web site. Use the comments section below to tell me your reason and I’ll let everyone know about it in a future post.
Posted By Doug Saylor 2 Comments »