WhAt thE tECh?
“Te direct costs of each job need to make a certain percentage for the rest of the budget to work. We try to keep our labor costs at 30%,” Re- inblatt explained. Now, the data shows the true picture. During performance reviews, Reinblatt can look at actual production, identify areas needing improvement, and determine when raises are warranted. Employees can see the basis for these decisions.
Life is good How has Reinblatt’s work life changed since moving his operations to the cloud? “I focus a lot more on sales and marketing. I’m able to be pro- active with clients now - before I only had time to react because of the volume,” he said.
It also has given him more freedom to take time off and even have dinner with his family ev- ery night. Plus, he’s enjoying the fact that he now has more tools to maximize his return.
What does he like most about this new system? “Using technology to get our job done,” he said. Te data entered by his employees goes into the CLIP soſtware where he can use it many ways:
• Te soſtware provides a list of customers to send thank-you cards; he sends out 4-5 hand-written cards every day. “No one gets a hand-written note anymore - it’s a lost art. It’s amazing what a positive response we get to simple thank-you cards,” he said.
• Te client sees a quicker response time.
• Te data helps with job costing and high- lights inefficiencies in routes.
• He has the ability to really look at jobs - what they’re doing well, where they need to improve.
• It also tracks equipment usage, needed oil changes, and other equipment needing ser- vice.
Challenges When they started the transition, there were a lot of infrastructure needs they had to address: their computers were not networked to each oth- er, there was duplication from off-site computers, and their accountant had to get in sync.
Tey tried to do too much too fast, making the transition all happen at once. In retrospect, they should have phased it in.
Tey did all the work themselves. “Getting everything to work together took a little time and effort. Setting every- thing up required only basic computer skills, but integrat- ing everything was tricky,” he said.
At first it was kind of cumbersome because of the learning curve. Not a steep curve, but as with any new operation, it took some time to adapt. “Initially there were some issues with guys in the field downloading information incorrectly. We used paper backup at first and continued that until the bugs were worked out,” he said.
Cost Te overall cost of the phones, contracts, and soſtware was approximately $5,000, which Reinblatt considers relatively inexpensive. He expects a return on that investment within nine months.
“Every now and then it throws me a curve ball that I have to figure out, but I wouldn’t go back.”
Scott Reinblatt Big Blue Sky Landscaping E:
bigblueskylandscaping@gmail.com
How is technology improving your business?
If you are using technology in a way that makes a difference to you, your employ- ees, or your customers, we’d like to hear about it.
Email:
kathy@urbanagcouncil.com 19
UAC MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2011
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