DoorPack for QuickBooks – Newsletter

DoorPack Software is seamlessly integrated with your Quick Books Software to save you time and money

Check us out at the IDA expo in booth 3094 next to Genie.

The Paperwork Black hole!!!

We have all been there before, the paperwork black hole. Everything is right there in the file cabinet, good luck finding it. For example, we need to repair a door.

We have all that information we need at our fingertips. First we need to go to the file cabinet, or to QuickBooks, drag out all of the old invoices, and identify the equipment. Than we need find warranty dates. Finally, we need to sort through the invoices to pull together repair history. The secretary needs to retype it all again on the work-order because we can’t run a report.

Let’s not forget the typical flow from sales to installation. The secretary takes a call from a customer, asking for a quote and leaves a sticky note on the salespersons desk. With luck the salesperson finds the note, calls the prospect, and sets up a measurement visit. He or she goes to the site, makes lots of notes, and gives the customer a quote. The salesperson than goes back to the office and throws the quote and notes on his desk.

When the customer calls to accept the quote, panic sets in. Where is the quote, where are our notes from the site visit. We finally pull all of the information together, and try to schedule an install. We give our vendors a purchase order. It falls into the same paperwork black hole. With luck, the warehouse guy realizes the doors that just came in must go somewhere. Otherwise, they get stored in the warehouse until the customer calls to complain, followed by another wild search.

DoorPack is designed to eliminate the paperwork black hole. Installed equipment is automatically recorded, with warranty information. Measurement work-orders and notes are processed to the quote, and then to the installation work-order automatically. All of this can be printed with the work-order.

Sales calls and opportunities are tracked from the initial call, through the quote, to the installation work-order, and purchase orders are tracked. All purchases are tied directly to the installation work-order. Nothing falls through the cracks.

Check out our website at: http://www.DoorPack.com

And visit us at booth 3094 next to Genie at the IDA Expo.

Beat the Big Box Companies

I’m a football fan. I was listening to one of the receivers on the post game show, Wes Welker. He had just caught a record number of passes. He didn’t have a lot to say, but his achievements spoke volumes. Unlike the other receivers, he worked close-in, against the big guys. His specialty was close passes, and he was willing to take the hit, from guys who outweigh him by 100 pounds. When asked his secret, his explanation was simple. Wes works the seam; the area in-between their strengths.

Many overhead door dealers face competition from the big box companies. Like a 350 pound linebacker, they seem unstoppable. But, they have a seam. Most people are uncomfortable with their expertise, and their ability to support the product. We have all asked for help from a clerk in a big box store. In most circumstances, their help doesn’t inspire confidence.

This is your seam. You know the product and how to install it. All of the communications that you have with potential customers should include a bullet on your expertise. Your web-site and yellow pages ads and quotes should focus on experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Come Check out our website at www.doorpack.com

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Building a Sales Machine

Step 1: Get everyone involved with the sales process:

Everyone in the business should be focused on the sales process, from the person who answers the phone, to the technician, and of course the salesperson. In DoorPack the sales process is integrated into the operating software through our sales machine.

Office Staff: The person who answers the phone can make or break the sales process. No matter how busy they get, it’s critical that sales opportunities are transferred to a live salesperson, never to voice-mail. Prospects left in voice mail tend to go right back to the phone and call your competitor.

Technicians: Think about it, your best salesperson is the technician. He or she is on-site, and has the customer’s attention. What better time to mention the spring that is starting to wear, or the un-insulated door that is costing the customer a fortune in heat loss.

Of course, the tech needs to be motivated. Read the rest of this entry »

Selling in hard times

Frankly, coming up with new ideas for columns is not my strong point. In desperation, I asked our west coast salesperson for ideas. He consistently sells well, even in hard times.

He felt it all boiled down to a few simple things:

1. Sell a good product.

2. Try different things, (and keep track of what works).

3. Work harder when times are tough.

It’s all a numbers game. If you send out a hundred mailings in good times to make a sale, you need to do two or three hundred in hard times to make the same sale.

DoorPack is designed to help you with this process. We track and measure sales activities, by campaign. You know that it has taken 100 calls to produce a sale in good times. When you need to ramp things up, you have a baseline and history to start from.

You can also set-up goals for your sales-people, based on the activities needed to reach the sales volume you need. It’s all a numbers game. You need information to make it manageable. Read the rest of this entry »

Elimitate duplicate entry, integrate your applications:

Everyone talks about eliminating duplication and double entry in their business. But many businesses still find themselves entering the same information two or three times creating more paperwork and overhead. The primary issue is the lack of software integration.

Excel, Word, Outlook, and QuickBooks are a standard part of most small to mid-sized business systems. Unfortunately, they don’t communicate well with each other often resulting in duplicate entry. A salesperson creates a quote in Excel. It is tracked on someone’s computer. It may be re-typed in Word for the customer. When the order is sold, someone else has to re-enter the quote in QuickBooks for billing. The installation is scheduled on a white board or in a calendar software like Microsoft Outlook. They need to enter the customers address in their Outlook Contact file for directions, so they wind up with three customer files, the contact file in Outlook, and the QuickBooks customer file, and Excel for their quotes. Bottom line for a business is costly duplication, inefficiency and frustration. Read the rest of this entry »

Building a Sales Machine:

There are three parts to managing your marketing and sales machine:

1. Monitor Sales Activities.

Think of this process as a big funnel. You design your marketing campaigns and begin to invest a whole lot of advertising dollars to expose your products and services to people called suspects. Some of the suspects are interested in your products and services and call for additional information. These suspects are now prospects, people who have shown an interest in buying from you. Each of these prospects represents an opportunity for your business. When quoted, they reach another level. They have seen your product and the cost, and are considering a purchase. Finally, some of them accept the quote and become customers.

If you want to know where you stand in your marketing and sales process, you need to know how many sales opportunities you have generated, how many quotes are out there and how many new orders have been placed. Follow this for a month or two and you will begin to see trends. When there are a large number of opportunities in the mouth of the funnel, new sales orders will begin to increase. That’s the good part; the bad part is that a lower number of weekly sales opportunities, mean lower sales down the road.

Fireline Software keeps track of your suspects, prospects, sales opportunities, quotes and new orders automatically. You can see where you stand at any time. In fact you can compare your current situation to the past. For instance, you can compare the number of new sales opportunities, quotes, and sales orders in February of last year, to the numbers you have now.

That brings us to the second part of the marketing and sales machine, fixing the problem. It doesn’t do us any good to know that new orders will be going down next month, unless we can do something about it. Read the rest of this entry »

DoorPack software for door, gate, fence and window companies is a product of Fireline Systems, a QuickBooks developer and partner.

Streamline Installations: Automate your door delivery schedule:

One of our customers wanted his staff to handle the day to day activities of the business, and to be more responsive to customer requests. He felt that he could be more effective overseeing critical processes like quotations and installations.

Shipments were scheduled on a weekly basis. This drove his installation schedule, which was constantly changing as the factory modified its production schedules. Deliveries were posted on a board in one of the offices. When a customer called, he or she would be put on hold, while someone ran into that office. Information on the board often differed from the orders given to the door manufacturer, and changes in deliveries didn’t always make it to the board. Read the rest of this entry »

Sharpening your Pencil:

Another year has gone by. For many it has been a financial disappointment. Now it’s time to think about 2010. I’m not talking about diet and exercise goals but about making more money in your business.

My first impulse was to write an article about selling more products. Like most of you, I feel more comfortable dealing with sales and installations. When I brought this up at our Monday morning meeting our QuickBooks consultant came out of his chair. His point was: many business owners really don’t know what it costs them to make a sale. If they are already underbidding their jobs, selling more will only make it worse. I left the meeting with an assignment to write this article.

I know when I’m out of my element. After staring at my computer screen for an hour, I decided to buy Gary lunch, and pump him for information. This turned out to be another example of underestimating your costs, but I got enough information to share this with you. Read the rest of this entry »

Installations:

Are they getting you down?

Coordinating daily installations creates a special set of issues for every door dealer. Since doors are expensive, cash flow in the company must be managed and maintained. This requires each installation to be scheduled as soon as the door hits the loading dock with billings in the mail the same day.

Every door dealer has some type of manual ordering and scheduling method in place. Unfortunately these manual ordering methods for new installations are not automatically linked to their crew installation schedules. Typically someone in the office has to constantly monitor the delivery status of the ordered doors and parts. If the vendor delivery dates change for receipt of an installation item(s) someone needs to update the manual customer installation schedule. This can create a whole new set of items to be addressed in the office resulting on more time, overhead, paperwork and costs. And let’s not forget the cost of errors. Installation cancellations leave a big hole in the team’s schedule. Read the rest of this entry »