Business
Planning
by Paul Dutton, Paul's
Pro Window Washing
It
is helpful to reflect on other people's experiences in the
business. Paul describes the major shifts his business has
gone through and what he has learned from them.
I
started my business with my last $15. I had just graduated
from the University of California Santa Barbara, with a degree
in political science and a minor in business. I started to
work as an insurance salesman selling disability insurance
up and down the coast of California. After about three months
of training, I felt my heart was not into that kind of selling.
I dropped out, and having acquired the experience of
at least 30 different jobs while going to school I figured
I could do just about anything from programming computers
to driving forklifts to selling skis.
Three
weeks before Christmas 1981, I had moved backed into my parents'
house and had no money to buy Christmas gifts, which was a
first for me. A foreign exchange student friend visiting from
Italy also had run out of money, so we both decided to try
this idea of cleaning windows at peoples' homes, which w had
tried in high school and had failed miserably.
We
took that last $15 and bought gas station squeegee, some ammonia,
bucket, and set out door to door. W landed our first job that
day and 11 hour later had made $70 between the two of us!
We continued to go door to door right until Christmas and
made enough money for my friend to go home to Italy and for
me to buy Christmas gifts. Thus my big career in window cleaning
was launched. I will never forget how my mother sug gested,
at least once a day, I try a different profession.
In
May of 1982 I set out on my own and started cleaning windows
full-time, continued to go door to door for two year and,
of course, did everything myself. Two years later I hired
my first employee and helped him through college. In the summer
of 1985 I hired the third guy and I had my first four-man
crew for three months during the busy summer month We all
had blue golf shirts and white pants or shorts as our first
uniform.
At
this point, I still didn't have a computer and most of the
guys were only seasonal or part-time. I did all the estimating
myself and all the paperwork, and at night I would call to
confirm the next day's appointments and call my regulars from
lists and lists of papers.
Several
problems began to pile up against me, making my days longer
and longer. As I did more clients, more and more information
accumulated and more and more lists of phone calls and paperwork
accumulated. I needed a computer, and bought one in 1986.
Then I had the arduous task of learning how to use it, because
in 1985 DOS had just come out and Lotus 1 was the only program
you could understand, and it was difficult. Eventually, I
found a program I could use for simple database operations
like mine and began to store all my information. Still, because
I was in the field every day, I had very little time, but
I was eliminating stacks of phone lists by creating a file
folder in the computer on each customer. I also broke down
each customer by the size of the job, when they usually got
the job done, and the city and zip code. Just these four things
made life much simpler.
Several
problems developed, even with all the customers on computer
and with me overseeing every job and giving every estimate.
There are only 24 hours in the day, and 18 of those I worked.
I could not grow any bigger unless I got more help. I was
working all day on the job, would give estimates in the late
afternoon, and then return home to check on new developments,
and have dinner around 8:30 or 9 p.m. Then I would go back
to the office to work on the computer until 11 p.m.
I
didn't have enough time to log my customers into the computer
or enough time for calls. The information aspect and paperwork
of keeping track of all the customers was simply too much,
so the need for a secretary with computer experience became
a necessity. I found Ann, the daughter of one of my mother's
coworkers. As you know, it takes much time to train someone
and two to three months to get them up to speed. Thus our
time constraints became more difficult. I worked in the field
all day, I gave estimates until dark which means I could only
train her from 5-8 p.m. Her normal working hours were from
4-8 in the evenings and 8-1 on Saturdays. This way my calls
were answered and could be returned before 5 p.m., and she
could call me with new estimates to be given when
As
business progressed, I was overseeing every job, doing all
the estimates, taking care of the difficult customers, and
overseeing payroll and weekly reports. You have to learn to
give up control of every aspect and train someone to do those
things. You may even realize that a secretary can do them
better and faster than you can. It took two minutes of Ann's
typing the weekly report and five minutes of instruction to
realize that she could do this in half the time that it took
me to do it. Also, by giving her more responsibility, I empowered
her with new confidence and more motivation to do a better
job. My secretary today is more like an office manager, who
virtually does all the paperwork and oversees all the calls.
I handle new business and important accounts and occasionally
step in to handle scheduling.
In
1986 we were fully computerized and had a secretary, but were
still swamped. The company had a consistent growth rate of
38-45%. We needed a good job manager I could trust. This was
the hardest responsibility to give up. How could anybody possibly
fill my shoes? No one was as fast or hardworking, and no one
cleaned tracks and sills the way I did. Even in my early days
I told customers that quality and professionalism were my
middle names, long before even Iacocca had the idea.
But
I knew if I was to handle the business I would need someone
I could count on in the field. I promoted from within the
company and trained my guys extensively. I still went out
on every job but six months later I began to realize that
my guy could handle the jobs out in the field. This freed
up more time to give estimates and do more new canvassing
and sales to larger accounts.
The
single biggest issue for growth for my company was to get
a good right-hand field manager. By 1989 I had seven guys
in the field, two field managers and a full-time secretary.
Now new needs began to pop up. With so many employees, payroll
was huge and overhead was high. If we didn't have enough business,
the guys would start to complain about their hours. Many times
I would go out in the field with them to help them get started
in the morning and they would finish all the day's work by
2 p.m. I would rush back to the office and start calling more
of the regulars to see if we could line them up for the day.
It seemed, except for Spring and Summer I was constantly juggling
volumes of work to how many men I needed. I made sure that
my volume of work would be constant, so after 8 years of residential
accounts, I set out to obtain more commercial work to create
a steady volume of work.
The
other problem was organization. My biggest complaint was just
never having enough time. I took several management classes
and business seminars on goal-setting and the like, most of
which I had been doing, but not consistently. Finally I bumped
into Paul McAtee who said, "Where's your business plan?" I
said, "What?" Then I took his courses in 1991 and found out
how to control my time and my business. You simply have to
become an analytical monster on every aspect of your business.
You need to analyze where you are before you can go anywhere
or make "goals" or "plans." I formulated a business plan which
maps out my company's goals, the strategy to achieve them,
and the process to graph and follow them. I now have a system
for organizing my time by prioritizing into the ultimate list,
the "To Do" list. Paul and I worked on business planning problems
for window cleaners by using my company and other service
companies for two years. The culmination of our work was a
67-page booklet and a four-hour workshop/seminar at the IWCA
conference in Florida this past February.
Unfortunately,
I could not attend because I became a Daddy two days before
the convention.
The
"to do" list is the single most important thing to help you
with the analysis and usage of your time. Do you accomplish
everything you want to accomplish today in your business?
Probably not. But write down everything you want to do today
and for the next two weeks start prioritizing. What can your
secretary do? What is a short-term goal that may require several
hours of work? What needs to be done today? You absolutely
cannot go home unless this is done. This becomes your "daily
must do" list. Everything else becomes a "should do if I have
time"or a"want to do"list. Do this daily and watch what gets
shoved to the back burner. That is OK because as you finish
your "to do"list for the day and mark them off as you
do them, your "should/want to do" list comes up, and your
short-term goals start to become clear. It works like magic
and has helped me save time and manage my business more effectively.
My list is only one aspect of my business plan, and it has
allowed me to review my time and accomplishments to see if
I am getting close to my goals.
A
business plan is the key to y continued success. I have found
it to valuable tool and I wish I had it when first started
out. No matter what stage you are at, enact your "to do" list
and help with your business plan.
This
article was reprinted with permission from American
Window Cleaner magazine.
