A customer telling you they told your office manager something that you are now contradicting? Forgot what you promised Mrs Smith? Always looking for random sheets of paper in your trucks, office, and who knows elsewhere? Stop wasting time being disorganized with your daily conversations. While yes, it takes time to organize yourself and start you and your office team to use a CRM - it will save you more time down the road. And help you keep more customers! Watch this video to learn what is a CRM and 5 ways to know it's time for your design/build to get this magical CRM!

Have you ever met anyone who was amazing at everything? Someone who could paint like a pro, prepare architectural drawings, cut pavers, install pavers, run a training workshop, design a brochure, photograph the best angles of a project, write hundreds of words on a specific topic, run social media campaigns, manage a calendar, run interviews, prepare taxes...? I think you're getting the point here. You can't be great everything. It's impossible. But yet you might be doing (almost) everything. What would happen if you delegated what you suck at and did more of what you're amazing at? How would that impact your design/build business?

Getting the most out of everything you do requires looking at the entire puzzle - not just each piece. So step back - look at those core foundational elements - customer service, logo, sales process, and everything else that keeps your business running everyday... before you spend a s*** ton of money of marketing.

Home remodelers, landscapers, and every home improvement business that deals with appointments and work in the field will say that the most challenging parts of running their business include employees and customers. In other words: people. Hands down, regardless of if its formal surveys or passing conversations, these are the most common two biggest headaches in our industry.

On the flip side, the biggest money and time investments by these same business owners include machinery, materials, and actual time on labor by business owners.

Most small businesses in the home services industry use Quickbooks to manage their accounting. The software is truly great at what it does, albeit slightly frustrating to use at times. Everything from creating estimates and invoices, finding a customer’s phone number, and finding out which customers to call for overdue payments, Quickbooks becomes the hub for many small businesses. In fact, we’d say second to email, construction business owners spend more time in Quickbooks than any other software application.

You've successfully made it through to this second full chat with your prospect about their home improvement plans - whether its about landscaping, general contracting, a remodel, or anything in between. If you've asked the right questions to help you understand your prospects real needs (a must read before you continue further in this post: 10 Questions to Ask Your Prospect on The First Call) then you know that this next chat, which is most likely in-person, is worth the trip. You've qualified them in terms of budget and service and you know when they'd like it all completed. The second chat isn't your proposal conversation because you haven't yet filled in all of the details in between. So here are the questions you absolutely must get to in this meeting to make sure your proposal is a winner.