What do those of you who are already running a business use for CRM ? I am gonna have a video call in couple of weeks (once I'm back again from my work trip) with the guy, who made an app for epoxy installers. Want him to do a presentation on it. There is a lot of software in the market, everyone is trying to sell their product as " the best in the market", but I've been honestly using just simple tools that are completely free, like zoho mail ( at the time their free account supported a professional e-mail ending ,like [email protected], so I went with it and until now it's been working fine for me ), they do have CRM and other tools, but I don't want to overcomplicate things, because most of these tools are for bigger companies and while some things are convenient to have, it might just not be worth it, all those little subscriptions add up and clutter the workflow. I just want to find something versatile, that I can use to send to a customer for receiving a deposit and sending a quote, where they can accept the offer and make a payment right away. I have been using a lot of e-mail transfers to accept payments, it's relatively easy, but some people just want to use credit cards, whish is a little extra cost ( still marked up to include in total price, but anyway ). How do you guys do it? 🤔

Myself am not a very good marketer, but I know there's a few people in this group who had a pretty successful experiences. Question... Have you ran ads before? if so where ? ( google or Facebook or anything else ) What were the things you noticed that work well and vice versa something that is a complete waste of time and money?

Just recently seen a post on Facebook in a different group that pushed me to write this and see what your thoughts are. The guy was asking if there would be an extra 25-30 leads a month would you be able to handle it? Then I asked him if he's talking about those kind of leads that are asking how much do you charge per sq/f and then you never hear back from. Then he made a remark, mentioning "qualified leads" ...and it stroke me. The jargon that is often used doesn't really represent the actual problem. I'll try to explain. I noticed one thing, that most guys ( including myself ) when staring out in this trade without experience of running a business, they don't know how to sell. We try to put all of our attention into the quality of work, which is the most important part. Attention to detail and proper systems in place make a night and day difference in the final outcome of a finished product. But to scale above the point where you run a business or just work for yourself we need to wear a hat of a salesman , besides all the others and have a reliable team with you that can back you up when you are not on site. A team might be even just one guy who you can trust and don't have to double check the work while you can concentrate on getting more customers. I'll be honest I have no clue how to run ads. One thing I learnt so far is that trying to run an ad campaign for a week or a month and not getting results from it is normal. Having people inquiring about your service without intention of immediate purchase is normal. Sometimes I catch myself on a thought , if I was asked / reminded about purchasing something I probably would have gotten it ( doesn't matter what it is, I'm just being general ) , but life sometimes gets busy and we get sidetracked to other things. Running ads is not about getting a customer immediately , it's a long term game of getting attention and following through with providing information and maintaining relationship. We can get 100 leads ( qualified or not ) and close 5% if we are not good at selling, but someone who is a very good sales person who would sell ice to an Eskimo might do 30 or 40%, maybe even more... that would be the difference between being able to handle the work or not, but most of us who are not "business people" , we see catchy phrase " more work " and we are all over it as if it's a magic pill, but it's not. That being said all of those people who are "helping" to get leads are using the naiveness of others , offering to setup ad campaigns ,which don't get me wrong is a certain skill , but they see it as easy money and marketing agencies are popping up like flowers it seems like.

Hello was wondering for jobs how you went about getting a contract of some kind for not only indicating costs and product/service of choice but also for coverage and liability protection etc

Today I had an experience that I would like to share and see if you agree or maybe you got your own thoughts about that, in that case please hit the comment section👇🏻 It's normal to get asked over the phone how much do you charge per sq/f , because it's something measurable that people can go off of, but here's a thing... Let's say John charges 6$/ per sq foot . For simple math, he takes 1000 square foot garage, that's 6000 $, right ? Nope 🙅🏻‍♂️ At least not for you it's not ( I hope that's not how you do your estimates , but each to their own ) .For the house owner though or whoever asked for the price per sq/f , that's how this math sounds like. Fun fact, I also noticed that a lot of times you get phone calls from competitors asking the same thing, they are just testing the waters...Nothing wrong with that, but say it's a job where you just need to seal the driveway, then it makes sense, there's nothing really that can fluctuate in price that much, but even so...your material markup and labor cost are gonna make a huge difference! For example 1000 sq/f garage, ideal slab, no cracks. We apply MVB ( Moisture vapor barrier ) @ 150 sq/f per gallon ( you can use 100 per G for your math , it's just an example ), that's ~6.7gal + 10-15% waste =7.4-7.7 gal , so we order 8 gal (~30.3 L ) Base coat @ 120 sq/f per gallon, rough math ~ 10 gal (~37.9 L ) Flake broadcast to rejection , let's go a bit over, you will reclaim up to 40 %, but let's say 250 lbs of flake ( that's a bit much , but I'd rather have more than not enough ) Top Coat , Polyaspartic @ 100 sq/f per gallon ( that's a generous amount that I like to stick to for best results ) 10 gal + waste etc, order 12 gal ( ~45.4 L ) Now with just of all of these variables, imagine how much can the total go up or down depending on your application. Do you apply MVB? you maybe don't have to💁🏻‍♂️​ but what if the moisture content in the area will go up if it starts raining excessively or smth, I don't know ...it's just an example . You sometimes don't have to use it and will be fine, but would it ever suck to come back and redo the whole thing on your dime, wouldn't it.