DOWNLOAD: Contracting Business Simple Hourly Flat Rate Calculator
By Julie Crisara
Use this sheet to calculate your flat rate billable hour amount. This is an excel spreadsheet with two pages. One page is for you to review your overhead calculations by going through your financial profit and loss statement and entering the numbers in to make sure that you have covered any expenses that may have been missed and the first sheet is the actual calculator for you to project an hourly flat rate billable hour price. . . .
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E-BOOK: The LOST Service Contractor
E-BOOK: Look around...Most contractors, techs and sales people are freakin' suffering out there! If not suffering, they're certainly not very happy with the way things are. How do I come to this conclusion? You and I see it every day in the contracting industry. It manifests itself in the massive amount of lost sales, wasted marketing and employee turnover. Eventually the debt starts to pile up and... well you know the rest. . . .
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ARTICLE: 7 Signs of a Dysfunctional Company
By Steve Tobak
I was just reading about how Barack Obama and George W. Bush are the most polarizing presidents of the past 50 years, meaning they had the largest gap in approval ratings between democrats and republicans. Some think there's a chicken and egg aspect to the question of which came first, our divisive leaders or our divided nation, but I think it's entirely a function of leadership. If Obama and Bush were effective leaders, the nation wouldn't be so divided. . . .
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VIDEO: Selling the Brand Of YOU with Drew Cameron
For many years contractors have been brainwashed into thinking that selling and promoting a particular brand name of equipment is the key to success. How can you say you have had enough of promoting your vendors brand and start building your brand? Drew offers some very interesting insight on how to do just that. Watch this video to become an icon in your market. Learn how to differentiate and sell the brand of YOU! . . .
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AUDIO: TELESEMINAR with Drew Cameron - Hiring, Training and Compensating Sales People
Joe Crisara & Drew Cameron
Would you invest 60 minutes to create over $1 million dollars in high end profit equipment sales this year? I hope the answer is YES... because now you will get the opportunity to hear Drew answer your SINGLE most important question about how to set up your sales team to reach their full potential. Joe Crisara, CEO of ContractorSelling.Com invited Drew Cameron . . .
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4 Keys to Changing Problems Into Opportunities
By Dinyah Rein
What's the difference between a problem and an opportunity? Isn't it obvious? If your response to that question is that obviously, it's the circumstances -- think again. Have you ever heard of or seen two people achieving different outcomes, even though they began with the same circumstances? . . .
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AUDIO: OFFICE WORKS 1 - CSR-DISPATCH SYSTEM OVERVIEW
Julie Crisara
This is an audio replay of our first CSR & Dispatch radio show called Office Works. This show had over 1200 listeners as we announced the show only to our list. Now as a valued member you have exlusive access to the audio replay. This is a great way to train a new CSR or Dispatcher on your vision of success . . .
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DOWNLOAD: EZ Profit Price Calculator
The EZ Profit Price Calculator is a unique tool that not only helps you to price large and small jobs but also takes into account the probability of the job making the profit you have targeted. This exclusive feature can help you price jobs so that ALL your work is profitable. Try it out and see how easy it truly is to arrive at a profitable price. . . .
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DOWNLOAD: Contracting Business Analysis - Organizational Snapshot
Use this detailed but powerful checklist question format to reveal to you as a contracting business owner what are the key areas in your company that hold you back form becoming a "world class" organization. Also take the time to look at the current status and learn from some of the questions that are asked in the second part of this questionnaire as well. This helps you learn about your company and yourself. . . .
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VIDEO: Total Immersion Contractor Alumni Club
This video features a conference that Joe held with the alumni contractors who have invested in sending their people and themselves to a Total Immersion Summit. The subject of the meeting is to discuss ways that they can coach and manage the system to make sure they can sustain their success. . . .
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ARTICLE: Turnover Tonic
By Chason Hecht
In many industries, employee turnover is at a record high. And turnover costs more than you think. Replacing an employee involves all of the direct costs of hiring, including advertising and recruiting costs, as well as hours of management time spent reviewing resumes, interviewing and checking references. There are also orientation and training costs for the new employee. . . .
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DOWNLOAD: Time Off Request Form
By Joe Crisara
The Timt Off Request Form is intrumental in controlling the amount of days that employees may take off. The form features several policies that you can modify embedded into the form so that you are communicating your key information to employees before they request a vacation or days off. At the bottom is an approval area that shows whether the time off has been denied or approved. This will help stop any conflicts over communication in this area. . . .
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Small Business Tax Deduction - Write-Off Bad Debts
By Richard A. Chapo
Practically every small business has receivables that it cannot obtain from clients. If your small business doesn't have any such receivables, consider yourself lucky. For those small businesses that suffer from uncollected receivables, solace can be taken from the fact you can claim a tax deduction. Small businesses can write-off bad debt losses if it meets nominal requirements. . . .
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E-BOOK: Art Of War - The Changing Manager Changes Results
By Sun Tzu adapted by Joe Crisara
In this adaptation of the famous book The Art of War written by the ancient general Sun Tzu, we learn the leson of how managers and owners can hesitate in their ability to make tough decisions that stand in the way of the results that will make them successful. Should you let the human cost get in the way of your success? read the stunning ancient lesson here. . . .
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DOWNLOAD e-Book: How To Manage Unprofitable Customers
An Office Works Special Report
This e-book special report is a summary of our Office Works video segment on how you can identify and attempt to manage unprofitable customers in a service business. Customers who consume company resources without contributing to the profit can infringe on the goodwill and ability of your company to serve your customers who are profitable. Watch and learn to evaluate the profitability of your customers . . .
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DOWNLOAD: Your Losses Demand Additional Sales
By ContractorSelling.Com Member Julie Crisara
Lost profit occurs daily when jobs are not calculated correctly, materials are damaged or stolen, or un-applied labor is allowed to go unchecked. Look at the chart and note how much harder it is for a low profit company to absorb a loss than a profitable one. How much in additional sales do you need to make up . . .
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ARTICLE: Surviving A Recession As a Service Contractor
By Mike Morosi
On every list serve I subscribe to there has been talk and even panic about the current economic conditions&& I know that most of the country is still doing just fine. But there are some cities and towns that are now in real trouble. Here are some tips for service contractors based on my experience in having helped many clients survive much worse over the past 30 years. As we look at the steps . . .
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DOWNLOAD: The Charitable Corporate Citizen
By Julie Crisara
This special report is a result of our Office Works TV national office meeting held on January 9th, 2008. The meeting was titled, "Becoming An Icon In Your Community." We decided that the information we discussed that day was so life changing and powerful that it merited further documentation. After much hard work and research on the subject this special report became the result. We hope you use this information to connect to the greater mission of corporate social responsibility and leaving your own legacy. We know that it has left us considering our own place in this world and the footprint we would like to leave behind. . . .
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DOWNLOAD: Life Balance Planning Worksheet
By Joe & Julie Crisara
The life balance worksheet can be used to plan both long term and short term goals. The worksheet is broken down into three different distinct areas, Business and professional which helps you think about future goals, opportunities and relationships. In the personal planning area it cover fitness, self planning and relationships for the personal part of your life, In the middle section the utility are help to take care of the assets both personal and professional. . . .
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VIDEO: FLAT RATE BOOK TUTORIAL - HOW TO USE THE PRICING GUIDE
By Joe Crisara
This is a short tutorial on how to use the "Best Ever" flat rate book. The video shows the relationship between the pricing pages and calulations to the repair pages. We go over what the codes mean in the pricing are and also how to calulate flate rate prices and then we show you how the repair pages correlate to the price pages. Remember that you must have MS Publisher to be able to edit the repairs and pricing in this system . . .
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DOWNLOAD: What Merchant Processors Don't Want You To Know About Credit Card Fees
By Joe Crisara & Bob Becker
This report is transcribed from our teleseminar called Merchant Processing 101 - "What Merchant Processors don't want Contractors to know about credit card fees." What is very important is that you are set up with a fair merchant program and not be paying rates or fees that are taking too much away from your hard earned bottom line. Enjoy the report. . . .
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Footbridge Media Website & Marketing Package
FootBridge Media brings you a complete website marketing program designed specifically for contractors. With our Complete Marketing System for Contractors, we take care of everything you need to get a powerful web presence and referral tools for your business. . . .
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ARTICLE: The Mistake of Multi-Tasking
By Tom Richard
After running a high-end business for over a year, I had things running exactly the way I wanted, with a high sales volume to prove that things were as they should be. Yet this unhealthy sense of control couldn't last forever. Eventually, I was required to leave my store for two whole days to attend a company-mandated training session in St. Louis. Being the first time in over six months . . .
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E-BOOK: Retaining Customers By Handling Concerns
Sometimes in our busy day to day struggles to run a contracting company we lose sight of the importance of keeping customers happy to the degree that they will return. This leads us to the question of how important is it to know how to handle disgruntled or dissatisfied clients. Well. We can start with the premise that customers are the primary reason for us being in business to begin with. . . .
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ARTICLE: 3 Tips To Uncover What Motivates Employees
By Joanna Brandi
Want To Motivate Employees? Here are 3 tips for uncovering what really turns them on according to workplace happiness and customer care expert JoAnna Brandi, one of the top challenges in any business is helping frontline employees to get and stay motivated as they build customer relationships, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. She offers managers three tips . . .
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ARTICLE: 7 Steps to Organizing Your Office
By Julie Crisara
Whether you already have an office, are moving into a new one, or are just moving into an office for the first time after working out of your home, the thought of setting up or organizing your office can be a daunting task. We usually find ourselves swearing to "get things organized around here for the last time." Let's face it. It can be very difficult to find something that we need . . .
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Now Hold Your Sales or Service Meeting Via Teleconference!
By Joe Crisara
Have you ever thought of holding a company sales, service or internal staff meeting via phone in tele-conference? If not, think of the cost savings that this tool could be to supplement or replace your live meetings. Imagine you holding a CSR & Dispatch meeting with the entire staff WITHOUT them having to actually be present. The same with salespeople or techs! Here is the new tele-seminar service and the features that you will love . . .
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ARTICLE: Why Are My Employees Acting This Way?
By Joe Crisara
Everybody is eventually faced with personal crisis in their lives. For some, these emotional turning points can manifest itself in bad behavior at work. Sometimes stress, as a result of catastrophic changes in the personal or professional lives of your people, can show up in different ways. To you the owner, this looks like Trucks trashed with garbage every night . . .
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Home Dwelling Damage Concern Report
By Joe Crisara
This form is to be used whenever you are investigating any damage that someone from your company has doen in a customers home. Note that it focuses on both the investigation stage, the costs to resolve the concern and also a waiver on the solution and eventual outcome. This form may just give you some ideas on what to do when face with this difficult situation. Use your choice of MS Word or Adobe PDF format . . .
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DOWNLOAD: Approved Vendors Recurring Issues Sheet
By Joe Crisara
What do you do when disaster or even a small problem strikes and the owner of the business is not there? Most employees make a decision that could be a wrong and costly one. Fortunately, you can use this sheet to "pre-select" various vendors for your employees so that they can feel truly empowered to make the same decision that you would make in situations that are near crisis. Just fill in your preferred vendor for these situations. Use the blank sheet . . .
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DOWNLOAD: Contracting Business Confidential HVAC/PE Employee Job Satisfaction Survey
You want the truth? If you are like many contractors, you can't handle the truth. Why is it that we have such a hard time attracting new employees to work for us yet it never seems to occur to us to ask the very people that could shed light on the problem. Many contractors just suffer in stoic silence as they lose potentially great, profitable employees. Use this confidential survey to find out what is really going on. . . .
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Are Your Employees a Paid Audience?
By Joe Crisara
I have done a lot of management and sales coaching with service contractors over the past few years. This has provided me with many great insights on the challenges of running a profitable service business. One of the biggest problems I can see that contractors have is their staff being a paid audience when it comes to handling the day-to-day . . .
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DOWNLOAD: Weekly Profit/Loss Analysis Trend
By Joe Crisara
This is a very simple but effective MS Excel spreadsheet that will help you gauge if you are making or losing money from week to week. Simply fill in the four yellow boxes each week and you will know whether you have earned a profit or sustained a loss. The week to week component is particulary powerful to notice emerging trends and then act on them. Keeping track of how profitable is an act of self discipline that top performing companies always do. . . .
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AUDIO: NEW! LIVE Total Immersion Coaching Sessions
This is a "Juke Box" of live audios that have been recorded during coaching sessions with the participants of the Total Immersion Summit sales training. You will hear real techs and sales people tell their stories of how they have struggled and also succeeded using the Total Immersion System. Understand that this is unedited so it may be a little rough. . . .
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Service Contractor's Weekly Management Report Checklist
By Julie Crisara
The weekly management report checklist is a great way to assign responsibilities to certain individuals in your company to generate reports each week. In this day and age your business needs to have an accurate score of how some of the key indicators are performing both in the field and in the office. Use this report checklist and add or subtract other key indicators as you need them and also to hold your staff accountable to generate and review these numbers as well. . . .
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DOWNLOAD: Service Contracting Business Key Indicator Dashboard
Julie Crisara
The Key indicator Dashboard is a useful management tools in that it can track all the key numbers of your frontline techs & sales people on a monthly basis. Many different factors are scored here so be sure to read the instructions very carefully. Try to understand how one page links to the other. At the end you will see pie charts that evaluate the effectiveness . . .
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AUDIO: The Dirty Little Secrets Of The Worker's Comp Industry
By Joe Crisara
Everything they don't want you to know about saving money on worker's comp premiums and audits. This will be an exciting evening on strategies to cut your workmans' comp premiums, avoid overcharges, stop audit bombshells and policy comparisons. Although it may seem impossible, this evening will make worker's comp enjoyable for all contractors. Worker's comp insider Ed Priz, author of the book "The Ultimate Guide To Worker's Compensation Insurance-Secrets of Reducing Work Comp Costs" . . .
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Balancing The Personal and Professional You
By Tom Richards
Keeping your personal and professional lives balanced can be tricky when you are in sales or running your own business. While every person has a different definition of what living a balanced life means, every definition includes some variation of having enough time for family, community, and, of course, work. It has been said many times that if your life is in balance, your checkbook will not be. The people who feel this way are often the ones . . .
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The Customer Acquisition Letter
By Joe Crisara
I have personally been through an acquisition of a company. (Mine was acquired by another) As with any company acquisition, both the buyer and seller want the transition to go as smoothly as possible, and the least amount of change, the better. It is in the buyer's best interest to let the clients know before any service agreement calls are made etc. Remember, people do not like change, so make this the primary consideration duringthe changeover. . . .
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VIDEO: Do You Still Take Cash?
By Joe Crisara
This is a funny video showing a "Starbucks like" experience where everyone, customers and employees are operating on auto-pilot. This is an excellent example two laws of persuasion in use. First is the law of social validation where everyone copies what the others do in a subconcious state. And the other is the law of expectation which is illustrated by what is the "norm" in this environment. God forbid you go "old school" and actually use cash! Yikes! . . .
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VIDEO: The Michael Jordan "Failure Story" - A Clue To Your Success
By Joe Crisara
This video is a paradigm shifting way to look at failure. If you know how others or yourself have failed, then all you have to do is the opposite of what failed and it will usually lead to success. Of course the definition of madness as we know it is to do the same thing that is failing over and over and expecting a different result. Watch this video on the "failure" of Michael Jordan . . .
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Dealing With Callbacks In The High Performance Environment
By Julie Crisara
I frequently get asked by many of our clients about how I suggest dealing with callbacks covered by another tech in terms of an incentive plan. Now that their techs are hot on the trail of a bonus in this high performance contractng world, they are complaining about covering other tech's callbacks - Oh my, every solution seems to create another problem. The obvious answer would be to send the same tech on his own callback, but we all know this doesn't exist in the real world of HVAC/P. So I have two other suggestions . . .
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AUDIO: Teleseminar With Anthony & Larry Gemma of Gem Plumbing, HVAC, Electrical & Handyman
By Joe Crisara
Gems services has been featured in virtually every trade magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in the country. In the past few years Joe Crisara has seen this organization from the inside as an on-staff consultant. Owners Anthony and Larry Gemma have a frank conversation with Joe in this tele-seminar discussing the challenges that face all contractors now and in the future. . . .
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AP ON TAP: 597 Sales & Business Letters
This program contains over 597 different letters and forms for business which you can view, save and edit. The titles of all these documents are displayed in a scrollable list seen in the Letter Library menu. You can also Search for a specific type of letter or form by entering a keyword describing the document into the search box. After you enter a keyword, press search to start the search. . . .
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