Quote to The Client in LESS Than Half an Hour! (Live Estimate With Client)

So you can be spending your whole day selling jobs, making personal connections, and really working hard on your business while we're in the back end, you know, closing those sales for you.

We're at a client's house. It's a client we've had for a long time. So I'm actually going to ask him if we could kind of record this conversation.

Just for kind of. So you guys could kind of see how I talk to clients and what we kind of discuss and certain things like that, and then how exactly I type up the estimate afterwards. So I'll go ask him, and then I'll wave you guys up if he says yeah. So I'll be right back.

Okay.

About this patch.

Okay.

All the way.

Across the fence line here to just where the shafts of daisies start. So I want all of this removed.

All right.

And we're gonna put fine. Shred brown mulch down to replace it. So all this stuff out. All right. Keep the heather.

Okay.

Get rid of the daylily.

Okay.

All of this stuff here.

All right.

Actually, I think I've got a peony somewhere.

Yeah. So it's just. It's just too overgrown. Okay. I bought this house a couple years ago, and I'm just now getting around to taking care of all the landscape updates that I want to put in.

Sure. You kind of want to clean up this.

Clean it up. So let's just. All of this gets removed.

Okay.

We're gonna keep this peony. Okay. And once again, just mulch it, because what I'll probably do is put some large pots with potted plants inside as.

A roof because it's just. Right.

Too hard to keep.

Okay.

So all that goes away. This goes away.

Okay. All.

I think those are iris.

Yeah. Iris.

Yeah.

Those gone as well.

That goes away.

Okay. All goes away. Sure.

All right. Keeping the hydrangea. This goes away. This stuff goes away.

Yeah.

And all the stuff around the edge here, all that goes away.

Okay. Are we keeping this?

We're keeping that.

Okay.

Because it's, you know, kind of frames.

It just so I make sure I have this. Right? Yeah. Keeping this. This goes away.

Right.

Keeping the vibrant.

Right.

And then this bush. Iris are going. Peony. We're keeping. Right. This bush is going all this foliage from up to here. And then these two plants are staying as well.

No, this goes. Oh, this goes daylily goes.

Okay. This goes.

This stays. And then these two almost all the way up there.

Okay, sure. And then fine ground mulch.

Fine brown mulch.

Okay. I'll get a Quick video and some notes for my service crew to the office, and then we'll send you an itemized bid by sometime today.

You know, I may change my mind on daylily here because it provides a balance on both sides.

Right.

Keep the larger ones there. So let's say I will keep this.

Okay.

I'll just maintain it a little bit better.

Keep the lily.

This.

Yeah. But, you know, can we get rid of the weeds that are in here somehow?

Get rid of the weeds as well as kind of the deck?

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, sure.

Kind of clean it up, and then.

Clean it up, mulch it.

Awesome. You got it. Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Am I going to be a film star now?

Thank you, guys.

Thank you. All right, y' all get a quick video for the service crew. You know, they've been here a lot.

Of times before mowing, but just make.

Sure to kind of get the house and kind of the original, you know, picture that you see when you tap the estimate. And then I'll kind of show them everything he told me, and then we'll fry and bound mulch over top, so.

So what we see Marcus doing here is actually super important right off the bat. He is showing the access for the property. So when the guys show up with their trucks and trailers, they're not looking for parking. They're not looking for the best place to access with the wheelbarrows and stuff like that. They know right off the bat with the video where the best place is to come and bring the materials and stuff like that. And that saves them a lot of time when they're just showing up at the property, because they don't have to take all that time to assess it and realize where they can get in and out and stuff. So that's a big thing. That's super helpful that our estimators do. That saves the crew a lot of time and efficiency.

Check this video maybe one or two times. Make sure to check your notes exactly for what he wants staying and what he wants going. So keeping this bush. But this euonymus is going, keeping the hydrangea any maybe dead growth. You could just prune up the hydrangea. This iris we're gonna rip out and dig away. And with this, you know, this boxwood, too, is gonna go. So we'll dig all this kind of foliage out as well. This is a peony, so we'll leave that. But same thing. This box was gone. This kind of loose growing peony as well as iris euonymus throughout here. He wants Gone. So all this gone. And then he's gonna. He's gonna keep this kind of grassy, kind of this ornamental grass. Keep this too, as well. And all this foliage kind of inside the fence here.

He wants gone as well. So all this foliage right up to here, kind of the area that we access with mowers once, all this little section from the fence to here dug out, removed. So however you need to do it, just kind of dig out all this foliage. And then we're going to do fine brown mulch over the top in areas that we kind of remove plants and things like that. So you can kind of see weeds growing throughout. Kind of desired plants that we'll just.

Take too, as well.

But maybe we'll just also kind of define an edge along the lawn there. And then like I said, medium ground will through here of all kind of foliage and plants that he wants to take out here just about the property. He said about two years ago he just wants to keep kind of this section maintained. Looks like it's kind of overgrown. So, you know, keeping kind of certain plants taking out kind of more invasive plants as well as iris and then fine brown mulch over the top just in this kind of north section of the house. So.

And we'll type that one up and.

Get that sent out to him as soon as possible.

So at this point in the video, Marcus finishes up with the client doing the estimate. And then we don't give the client any prices or anything on site. What we do is we get. We run everything through the command center, through the office. So even if the customer asks, we say we don't know, we talk to the office. So we get in the car, and usually before we type everything up, we drive like a couple minutes away just so we're not sitting there looking like we just said we didn't know. And then we're just sitting in the driveway typing up a bunch of numbers and stuff. And they're like, oh, so they probably got the number right now. So we just usually get in the car and drive a few minutes away and then type up the estimates. That's what Marcus is doing here. And then. So you'll see, we'll drive. He doesn't talk very much during this part. It's just kind of like him typing. But I put up on the screen exactly what he's doing on his phone, so you can see exactly how he builds out that estimate and then sends it to commander. So there's not too much talking in this next part, but there is a little Bit he says a couple things that can help and kind of what he's doing for his systems and then what he sends out. And you can see it on the screen too. I had him screen record his phone, so hope this helps. And thanks.

Kind of what I like to do too. It's, you know, it's really a good benefit taking a video as well because I could just kind of watch my own video go over it and then I could, you know, pretty much type up my notes as I'm doing it. Right. So I got my ax excess in the beginning. And then kind of the bushes and foliage we're taking out and then medium brown mulch. So it's kind of already systematized in the video, I think.

I think it was fine brown mulch. If I remember. If I remember the client correctly.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Maybe we should. Do you want to hold the camera? I can just be the estimator maybe.

That's really tough access, right. Those stairs. If you're taking five round mulch, that's fine. So.

But there was the lawn next to like the field.

That's true. I mean but you know, wheel rails up that it's even gonna be hard. So mulch installation. We'll see.

Remove.

Do kind of a.

Anonymous.

Dig away.

Here's it's it.

Thanks for talking.

North.

What? That was not his north side of the property, was it? No, that's north.

All right, so.

I'll just say back right side of his property.

Back. Right.

Okay. Number one, dig out euonymous iris, boxwoods and other undesired foliage. And back for a garden bed along concrete up to mower access point inside fence. It's kind of our scope of work. And what plants kind of were exactly taking out?

Try to be as specific as possible. So maybe if they didn't get the video or you know, as straightforward by the time they got there. So dig that things out. I'll say leave certain plants so they know not to take those. Leave hydrangea.

Ornamental grass.

What was that? What was this called?

What's that?

I'm not sure.

Is that the peony?

No, I said the name of it.

The daisies?

No, no. Okay.

Heather.

Heather?

Yeah.

The green stuff.

Yeah.

Leaf, hydrangea, ornamental grass, heather.

And desired plants in garden bed.

Amend above area with half.

Yard fine brown mulch.

Yeah, I'll say one year.

It.

For supplies. No e fee this time of year. Half truck debris and then we'll do one yard fine brown.

Mulch.

It's pretty good for supplies and then hours.

Take about.

Just to dig all that stuff out. Be.

Like two hours.

I'm gonna say four.

Alrighty. Got that. Oh, video recorded for scoopers group.

So you put that right in the notes that there's. There's a video to watch and make sure, just in case the office, like, forgets to send to them or something, they know there's a video of the project that they can ask for.

Exactly. That's just for reference. So sometimes they'll see the notes, not even need a video, you know, to be straightforward by the time they get there. Right. But, you know, just kind of with, you know, certain plants, like Craig was telling me, you know, he wants certain things left, and then he's kind of back and forth between certain things. So just want to make sure to connect with them probably in the morning to watch the video.

And then they kind of know exactly what to leave and what stays. So copy and paste and then.

Send it to Command center. Then I'll send the video to the chat as well.

All right, so we just walked off this property at.

11:59, and it's 12:11. So 12 minutes ago. And the estimates already to Command Center. Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Here goes the video.

Done.

Okay. So for the last part of this video, we head over to Command center and talk to Lonnie, who had already sent out the estimate, actually, before I even got there. But she just talks about what she does when the estimate comes in, about how long it takes, and then shows us the final product, what it looks like when they send it back to him, and about how long that takes. So I'll have that up on the screen for you too, when she talks about it. So you can kind of get a visual for that. And then she just talks about how efficient it is and how she can get it out. So hope you enjoy that and hope you've enjoyed this video.

So this is a great example of kind of the timeline and time frame we work with here at the Command center in terms of when the franchisees are out doing estimates all day, you know, they can pack their schedule. Instead of, you know, four or five estimates, they can do 30 estimates throughout the day. And as soon as they get that information to the command center, we can send those estimates out usually within the hour. So today, Marcus met with Craig Mancuso, great client of ours. He left the property about 10. He typed up his estimate probably in his mobile app and service autopilot. We got the email about 12:11.

He left at 12, right.

He left the property at 12 took about 10 minutes, maybe 5 minutes, I'm not quite sure, you know, to type up the raw estimate, the raw notes that we get, you know, working with in the estimate. And we get the email timestamp is 12:11. We've sent his estimate out before 12:30. So, you know, you know, a 30 minute, you know.

Completion time where the client actually gets that email. He gets all the information, he knows exactly the scope of work, he knows how much it's going to cost. And they can click Accept, you know, immediately online or call the command center later on in the day, you know, answer any questions that he might have or get him on the schedule right away. So that's really typical is that you'll be out, if you're an estimator, you'll be out in the field all day. You get back to the office maybe about five or six, and you'll have already seen estimates accepted from that day, those clients that you've already met. So you can be spending your whole day selling jobs, making personal connections and really working hard on your business while we're in the back end, you know, closing those sales for you. And, and then all you have to do is schedule the jobs. You don't have to do any follow up. You don't have to, you know, make sure that your scope of work is right or the typos are fixed. You don't have to calculate, you know, what it's going to cost in terms of supply or worrying about budgeted hours. It's all done for you. All you have to do is the next step, which is put them on the schedule and let them know.

Sam.