[cutntrim]

I may be accustomed to it, but that doesn't make it easy. My stress level is usually off-the-scale in April & November.

[GLAN]

I know this industry can make one crazy and spring can be awefull.......but this is what we waited for all winter.

I am more inclined to agree with the thinking that perhaps an accountant maybe more of what you need.......You can have an accountant do payroll if you like...Or their are payroll services.

As for all the other things you mention.

I like to do this when I can and when I need to......Take the afternoons for office work

I also will tell my customers.......flat out. You will have to wait. Make your phone calls or at least take the messages.....nothing wrong with calling during the next day from a cell phone.....I do that......cause I can return calls when they are not home.........in essence. I intend to play phone tag for a bit, till I can deal with their issue......This works great for me........They at least know that I got their message and called them back.

As far as route scheduling and have route sheets ready. A new entry is done once...........so if you lose someone........all you do is draw a line across the sheet untill you can remove them from the master list on your comp.

It's a juggling act. It can be done. Just always remmember the utmost priority..........Cash flow.

I had an elder customer of mine that used to stuff and stamp my envelopes for years. I just had to print out invoices and mailing labels.......delivered them to here and within a day or two she would hand the box to the postman. And she would give him a bag of home made cookies for doing so.


I have no doubt though that you can use and would greatly appreciate some help........I would seek out part time people, few hours a day or a couple days a week.

[Stonehenge]

Originally posted by Nebraska

The phone......it's a catch 22! By all means we want it to ring.... but it's almost as if folks have become accustomed to a 24/7 type mentality that other types of businesses have provided them.?

And they need to be broken of that bad habit. I'd get calls after 10pm or before 5:30...or my pager would go off in the middle of the night. And I was the same way - I hated that they called at a ridiculous hour, and hated even more that I felt obligated to return the call. I even had one client track down our home number and called well after 9pm. I had to tell her to never call me again at that number. Made me crazy. So I just put a stop to it.

I check messages 3-4 times daily when out in the field, so clients get pretty quick return calls - but they also get someone who's in a good mood and 100% in the moment for that call. Seems to work out best for everyone.

[Mark Oomkes]

Originally posted by Nebraska
Noel write re: Porter..

That makes complete sense yet is easier to say as an outsider than to implement and do as an insider.

Here's were I am at and what I'm tired of doing:
Mundane phone calls

Phone calls

Phone calls

Scheduling of maintenance (although very automated it's boring)

Accounts Payable

Accounts Receivable

Typing letters

Payroll

Payroll tax reporting

Stamping Monthly Invoices for Maintenance

Folding Monthly Invoices for Maintenance
(these last two have been farmed out to the children who I pay)

Entering new maintenance customers into the system

Answering and solving dailly problems / issues with the crews

Phone calls from 5:30p - 7:45a.... the mere sound of the ringer causes the hair on my neck to stand up...

I am the AR department, HR department, AP department, Purchasing department, Marketing department, Sales department, Customer service department, Operations Manager, Repairman advisor, sheduler, billing manager, Internet Web Site Manager, Payroll department, strategic planner.....

Nebraska, we need to sit down and have several cold ones together. I am in exactly the same situation and am just as sick of it.

Now on to reading the rest of the replies.

[Bill Schwab]

My Nextel gets turned off the minute I hit the door, which happened to be 9:30 last night, and no we did not have a snow storm that I need to go out and salt.

I used to have my cell number in the voice message for the land line phone and I got sick of asking phone sales people where they got the stones to call someone on a cell phone on the speculative basis they might buy something they probably did not need in the first place.

Where people feel that you should call them back on an after hour time slot or weekends is far beyond my simple caveman landscaper mentality. In my vast out of the box research on the most lilely to buy prospects here is what I found.

Unless it is prearranged, people who call on weekends are far less likely to buy our services than those who call and meet during business hours. The reasoning, if a person is serious enough to take time from their day to meet you, they are serious enough to sign the paper to secure the job.

If someone calls at any time and asks if you have time to look at something "TODAY" or immediately, they have fit you in their schedule and your time is expendable. Anytime someone asks that, I always tell them I am busy even if I am not.

Email has been the most effective way of communication for us, as I can answer it in the wee hours, I don't have to stop doing anything to amswer and I can go off on my way.

Back to topic....The question you need to ask yourself, I think, is will having an A/A bring you at least 3 times her salary back to recover the cost of wages, work comp and ridiculously over priced, grossly over rated US governmental rip offs like labor burden? And, will adding a person to tackle the extra stuff open you up enough to make it worth the money.

If the answer is no, then I would just suck it up and keep the money in the coffers.

[Stone Art, Inc.]

Control is a hard thing to give when you've poured your heart, your soul and most importantly your cash into a business. I've yet to give up the bookkeeping portion of the biz simply because if I'm not the one entering and maintaining I fear I will lose touch with the financial end. We can look at job profs all day long, and make a significant amount of profit on each project individually and still lose in the big picture. As an owner, we wear every hat possible to get the job done. Finally, I've been able to give up just the tiniest bit of control and hired someone to audit my books on a monthly basis ensuring that at 3:00 a.m. I've not entered a material cost into an office expense account, reconciling the bank accounts, and reporting/paying my payroll liabilities. That alone (and I've hired my 13 year old sister to file for me) has reduced my stress greatly. Although I forward my office calls to the cell (last months minutes used: 4,897, direct connect minutes used: 563 and no way to track the land line calls) I've forced myself to turn off my cell on Fridays and stay in the office in order to accomplish the necessary evils such as, preparing my insurance renewal audits, performing payroll (still can't let that one go....yet) and to catch up on designs and proposals. This time of year an 85 hour work week is typical and torture. We endure, we continue and must always remember that nothing worth having is ever easy and my business is definately worth having.

[trees]

I know this thread's a little old, but just read a great article in PRO that made me think of it...

landscapepro.cygnus.proteus.com/publication/article.jsp?pubId=1&id=21

[trees]

Oops...

try this one

http://landscapepro.cygnus.proteus.c...?pubId=1&id=21

[Lanelle]

Thanks Jesse, that is a very good article. I hope that it helps some of us to find more sanity.