Saturday, April 23, 2011

Have You See This Yet?

QR Code is here.




If you are not aware of it, it is a way of using your phone to receive information. Try it here. It will lead you to a blog post at a different site.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Good Answer Tom, But Show Your Work!

When I was in school I really liked math. Unlike philosophy, or literature where you had interpretations of the readings, math had one answer. There was not a debate about whether or not 7+6= 13, only the explaining of how we got the answer. I received assignments back regularly with red ink stating "show your work". I thought , "Why?". It either is or it isn't correct. In showing my work, I could learn from errors made and the teacher would be assured that the correct answer was derived from my own thinking. This would allow me the apply this in future, tougher, calculations.


Water related damages and repairIn business I find something very similar happening. I find myself sharing how my work is done, why I is necessary, or how this can be prevented in reoccuring in the future. If a client calls me to fix a situation at their property, I want to go fix it and bill the owners - period! That is clean and efficient. The job is complete, well done, and no wasted time spent.


Long-term this is not best for business. A certain amount of trust must come before a client will be a repeat customer. So I perfer to go overboard with the details, sometimes to the point that the owner may say "Tom we don't need to know all that, just fix it." The details given to the owner or manager can come in countless ways. Photos and video of the problem, hand-drawn explanations, on-site explanations, research is similar problems, and on and on... But the details are important.


If the owner or manger can understand the problem, they are more willing to solve it. They may see a dark spot on the ceiling. "Can't we just prime and paint over it?", is a common answer to such situations. But they need to understand that a slow drain leak caused by undo stress on the pipe that is causing dripping and causing mold in the drywall, and should be addressed. This sort of thing happens all the time. It would be hard to justify charging $800 to make this dark spot go away without all the necessary information. At that point it is up to the owner or manager to decide what to do.

Once that trust is built, now the client will call you. You are trusted and will be the starting point for the repair.

And the best customer is the repeat customer!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Looking For A Local Contractor?

How do you go about finding a contractor in your local area? This doesn't just apply to contractor searches, it can be the dry cleaner, pizza, mechanic, and any other search target. Where do you start? Word-of-mouth is the most trusted - someone who has used this service before recommends them to you.


The internet has made it very convenient to do research from our home, office, and mobile phone. If you are in need of a local service, many start with a Google search. Google will list local search results at the top of the list. A great beginning but do I believe they are the best company for me? Further research may be needed. Sites like Yelp, Yahoo Local, Google Places, can pick up local businesses in your area.

The idea of finding a contractor (or dry cleaner, pizza,etc.) on the internet is becoming more and more common. Finding sources of searching for what we are looking for becomes more and more important. This takes getting use to, we have to try it.

I love to hear from you about how and where you find local services in your area.

Happy searching!
 
Custom Search
AnooX banner here