Want to book more jobs?

Small business owners, everywhere, want to keep their work calendar filled with jobs, which means more money. No matter what kind of service you provide, you can save time and improve cash flow with a few simple steps.

For those who offer home services, like a carpenter, house painter, electrician, plumber, lawn services, pool services, house cleaning, dog walker, pet sitter, dog groomer, etc, daytime hours need to be spent providing services to customers. That needs to be top priority, so you can earn a living. Now, the problem is how and when to take care of the tasks required to stay on top of the business side to keep cash coming in.

If you use a paper system or multiple apps to accomplish what you can find in one app, you’re wasting time. You can stop that by getting set up to do it all in one place, while reducing time, stress and frustration. If you use one app to track appointments, another for credit card payments, one more to keep track of clients details, and finally, a fourth to prepare quotes and invoices, you're working way too hard. Stop doing things the hard way, and pull it all together.

If you already have an app to help you, is it working effectively? There are always new digital tools available, if you need to consider making a change, and the cost to use them keeps going down. Good news, right? If what you have only “kind of” works for you, then don’t be afraid to try something new. You could be limiting the time you spend with customers or wasting money on a tool that is not helping you as well as it could.

An effective app is vital and will allow you to respond quickly to customer requests and keep track of appointments, produce proposals and prompt you to follow up. There’s no need for you to do this using multiple apps or by hand. How do you keep track of invoices that are past due? You might be spending more time than you realize, just figuring out which tasks you need to take care of, going from one app to another. At the end of a long day of work, is this how you want to spend your evenings?

Follow these simple steps to save time and bring in more money.

1) If you provide clients with a quote, you will increase your acceptance rate by simply

being responsive and following up on it. In addition, the more responsive you are and

the faster you follow up, the less likely you’ll be to lose out to a competitor who

responded before you got to it. Look for an app that makes it easy for you to prepare

and send out quotes while a potential customer is still excited about their project.

With some apps, you can prepare the quote while you’re still with the client. That

alone gives you a “wow” factor and makes you look very responsive and organized.

Either way, once you’ve sent a quote, it is very important to follow up on it,

to answer questions and “ask for the business.” If you don’t, someone else will. You

need to be in the best position to compete more successfully.

On a side note, if you can already prepare quotes, on the spot, for a client and accept

credit cards, you can skip steps 2-4.

2) Once a client accepts your proposal, they'll need an invoice, so they can pay you.

How long does it take now to prepare one invoice? If it's more than 5 minutes, look

for an app that can to automatically turn a proposal into an invoice for you, once a

client accepts your proposal. Invoices should look professional and you need to get

them out quickly. You'll build trust, give clients the confidence they made the

right choice and get the job going while they are still committed to the project.

3) After the quote and invoicing, the next step is to make it really easy for customers to

pay you. At this point, they are probably very excited to get their project going. If you

can accept credit cards, you’ve just removed a big obstacle and will get paid faster. If

you do not accept credit cards, you may want to revisit that option in your app. Even

so, a good app should be able to prompt you to send out electronic communications

to follow up and help collect payments.

4) Another good tool you’ll want to look for in an app is the ability to print reports

showing outstanding invoices, with the amount due. You should then be able to send

each past due client a personalized request for payment. If that is not effective, you’ll

want to use the report to place calls to collect outstanding balances.

5) Finally, at the heart of any small business is the appointment book. You need an

organized way to book and track client appointments. A coordinated approach to

scheduling that is tied in with your quotes, invoices and payment tasks will keep you

from standing clients up due to forgotten appointments, or for them not

remembering and wasting your time, driving out to meet them. It’s a big time saver

for your scheduler to let you send reminders to clients, while giving you a detailed

list of all the appointments for the day. Look for an app with an organized, user

friendly appointment book and put it to good use. It will always be best for the

scheduler to work inside the same app that enables you to prepare quotes and

invoices, so there’s no need to go in and out of multiple tools to accomplish

everything.

It's pretty simple, once you get going, but there is some work involved up front to be ready to use an app and start simplifying your business. It's important and worth the time you invest up front, automating your business tasks. The payoff comes when you save time, and make more money, without all the struggle.

Improve your responsiveness to clients. Stay on top of collections. Increase the acceptance rate for your quotes. Avoid forgotten appointments and wasted time. Make it easy for clients to request appointments and exchange images with you, all integrated by your app. Make it easier for clients to pay you by accepting credit cards, and other convenient payment options.

In the end, your goal is to project a professional image, build trust and confidence with your customers, spend less time on the necessary business tasks, and start making more money.

Good luck! You can do this.