Using Virtual Office Staff: WORTH IT?

Hey, everyone, this is Lonnie at the command center. Today I am actually interviewing our first full service location at the Mount Verdon location. This is Tim Andes. He's our general manager there. And I'm just gonna give you a little bit of background information, and then we're just gonna go right into it with Tim to get his honest feedback. So at the command center, we offer two levels of service. Basic service, which is answering incoming calls and setting up your estimates and then sending those over to your client. And then full service is a little bit higher level types of, like, business decisions. So we're scheduling, we're routing, we're dealing with customer complaints, we're doing your payroll, things like that. So, Tim, as our first person on full service, where was your business before the switch? So you were on basic service for a couple months before?

Yeah, so we were in basic service, and so I was still doing, like, the scheduling. I would send out the email to the person once we receive that accepted estimate. I was sending out estimates sometimes. Yes, field estimates and things like that. And I was doing a lot more behind the scenes before having to deal with the customers and stuff like that. And moving to full service, it's been a lot better for me. I'm able to do more and work more out in the field and not be having to do that, follow up with customer emails, phone calls, other things that they do.

Do you know, off the top of your head, like maybe like May or June is when we did the switch. Right, right. Do you know about your monthly revenue about that time? Like early summer? Not quite off the top.

It went up. Not off the top of my head, how much it was, but it definitely went up. As far as being able to manage things, it made it easier me be able to do more jobs, do more things, get more estimates, even sell jobs to customers. We already had. So, yeah, before it was just me, basically, in order to ride around when we went to full service, that I got an employee and we were working together. So obviously the revenue went up also because we had added an employee.

Yeah. So was that the. What initiated you in terms of like, kind of ramping up into full service? I know we offered that to you as part of the pilot project, but what draw you into moving to full service?

Well, it's good for full service. It helps me be able to manage my team more. So, like, as far as growing your team more, having two, three employees, hopefully next year, but this year it just makes it easier to be able to do everything that I need to do. As far as keeping the systems and like doing what I'm doing in the field and being able to do that more efficiently I guess and then making clients happy, like constantly getting feedback from clients like so happy that they got an email from command center reminding them about a job that was coming up or things like that that I don't have to worry about. So yeah, it's definitely made the flow of things a lot better. Communication is a lot easier. We can communicate together on scheduling even. Maybe we'll talk about that.

Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about your work hours when you were just on basic service?

So like when I would work on basic service I would have to come home and probably spend about a good 30 minutes or so because by the end of the day you go through your email and what got accepted that day and now you have to send that person when you're going to be able to do it and put it on the schedule all myself. So that took about 30 minutes to an hour depending on how many accepted estimates we would get that day. And then as follow ups I had to do my own follow ups at the beginning so I was having to do the calls, I was having to make sure everything is getting automations are being done correctly for everything. So it took me Yeah, I say 30 minutes to an hour. Luckily I had a long drive. It's not ideal but I was spending time on my way home trying to do those things so. But it does, it does take a lot extra time when you're not. When you're on the basic service.

And would you say that we have eliminated all of that from your plate? Like when you're done for the day are you actually done for the day or do you still feel like you have to go in and kind of make sure things are once in a.

While there's things like today there was a couple that were put on the schedule actually for today and I just wanted to go over and check what I had coming forward. So I went in to schedule like I still dispatch my own jobs, right. So I just wanted to make sure they're on the day that's gonna work with our schedule and most of the time they are and it's all good. That's just the kind of person I am. I just like to make sure everything is lined up correctly so there's like once in a while you gotta change a schedule or change a day. There's too many hours for me now that I'm working a little bit more by myself just trying to bounce Things around, but for the most part, yeah, it's definitely maybe five minutes or so that I, on my way home, I just check or make sure that things are lined up.

Yeah. So we don't have to get into the nitty gritty on the numbers. But could you give us an estimate about how much do you think we've been able to grow from that transition from like May or June when we used to?

Yeah. So probably like 7 to 10,000amonth, I'd say roughly. And then we went down to one employee, like five grand or so. So.

I don't know how much numbers you want to talk, but it cost me about two grand, 15 to two grand to have the full service. And for me, when I look at me making 7,8000 and this is only one or two people like working. Right. This isn't like in the future, two, three, four people. I think I can still manage that well.

So, yeah, for me as far as right now, I feel like it's really good and it's really helped the growth of the company.

Can you talk to me about when you first kind of saw that first full service bill?

I know, yeah, the first one was scary. I was like, what in the world am I spending money on? Like, yeah, I think it was like 25 or 2600. And you're like, what? And anyways, so then I looked at that and I was like. But then I got the. Me and Mike always meet about the last month and how it went. So then it was like, oh, wow. It was actually like one of our best months, was one of the first months right in there. We started. We had a big jump and leap in revenue. So I was like, okay, let's see how this goes. And so it's really. That's kind of. It's gone really well as far as seeing it stay up high.

The incomes coming in, the revenue coming in. But also.

You'Re paying people and it's not having to be a full time person is what I think personally is great about full service. You're not having to have someone sit in an office full time for you and you're paying that a lot less than if you had someone full time. Right. So yeah, two grand, 1500. I think it's worth it. Yeah.

And kind of going into the winter, you're not necessarily worrying about having to make that decision whether to lay someone off for the winter or anything like that. You can just go on about your day.

Exactly, yeah.

And then when you're ready for spring, we're right There with you, Right?

Exactly. Full board.

Could you tell me any of your major challenges with the transition from, like, basic to full service?

I mean, for me, I guess the communication a little bit is like, you gotta get used to them asking you, like, when's it gonna work for your schedule and things? And you just tell them. And so that's worked really well. At first it was just with Lonnie, with one person, and now it's just moved recently to where I contact the office, and any of the girls kind of can handle it. So that's worked great. Doing it that way, I find has been more efficient and getting things done quicker because one person can't really take on everything. So having that way to contact the one place has been pretty great. And everyone's available, right?

Yeah.

Right.

So I really want to make sure that we get an honest feedback here. We're not trying to, like, sell everyone on just full service. I know that it's not necessarily a good fit for everyone. Would you say that you would recommend doing full service right away or as, like, starting out small? Would you want to only do basic service up until you know about the time that you made that transition? Would you have delayed it? Sure.

So everyone is different. Yeah. So, like, if I know there's several people in Augusta Nation that are having maybe a husband, wife, and I think it's great if the wife is on board and able to help and stuff like that. For people like me, where I have a family and I'm the only one and I'm trying to grow a team, the full service is really great as far as saving me time and not having, I guess, leave work at work, you know, and not have to bring it home for an hour. Managing at home on a computer, and my kids are young, and seeing me on a computer for an hour plus is not ideal. So that's what I value, I guess. So that's on top of what I'm paying and getting. It's also valued in my family time. So I know there's a couple other single guys that are doing Augusta, and they are interested in maybe doing full service. And I would say it's great to have full service, but definitely I think it's good for a person to start off with basic to be able to learn the process of how to do everything so they actually realize what it takes to set up the estimate, do it from the very beginning to sending it to them or getting it into the person's hands. It's a lot of work. It's a Lot extra time. And so it just makes you value that a lot more, in my opinion.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Could you foresee yourself growing to like so big that you would want to hire your full time office manager?

Well, I thought about that and in my opinion it might be me being more of that office person in the long run and being able to do more of a manager and doing it that way, like where I would manage the schedule, have three or four guys, maybe down the road, we'll see. But I do like working right. And so a lot of. There's a lot of owners out there that just can't give that up. Being in the field is awesome, in my opinion. It's great. But if, if I were to move maybe part time and more doing just estimates, I could see myself doing maybe more of the full service stuff.

And yeah, at any time that is one thing that's good about full service is you can kind of pick and choose what works for you. So, like right now I know that I'm doing your payroll and your scheduling, but like you said, if you decided that you were going to do part time estimating and part time, maybe more of the managerial side of things, you can be like, you know, I'm going to take over the accepted jobs. You can do my invoicing and payroll from now on. And then, you know, we would adjust that accordingly. So that's pretty cool.

And just that just reminded me invoicing is a lot of time, especially as you grow. The first couple months I was doing all my mess. Well, Mike was showing me how to do it and then it was like, oh, my goodness, it took me forever to figure out. And then you're sending, sending, sending, and I was like, oh my goodness, two, three hours on a Saturday. So that was great. When Lonnie took over, that, that part is really awesome at the end of the month. And then when you get all the complaints or someone's asking why they got charged something, then they're the ones that answer those questions. Or I can answer it too, tell them how to respond. So, yeah, it's great.

Where do you see your Mount Vernon location? Like, what's the goal for 2021 for you?

So for me, it's to about double what we made this year. So this year we're projected to make about 150 or so, 160. So my goal is that next year we make about 300 and then we'll see where we go from there. But I don't think we'll get as big as Whatcom. County Augusta.

They're pretty big.

They're pretty big. Lots of truck. We have a nice little shop, really great deal at Mike got. And I think I can see two or three, four guys working really great. Can find hard working guys. And the great thing about Augusta is that they pay well. And if you can find the right guys, mentor them, then they can kind of have their own mindset of like an owner like myself or a general manager and manage themselves and do a great job. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to next year.

Well, awesome. Thank you so much for coming in. We actually haven't really ever had a conversation before, which is kind of amazing, honestly. We worked so closely together for like six or seven months, and we can do it remotely and be super connected and work well together to run a business. And that is incredible.

It's a team effort and it's just.

Coming, like, reflecting on it now that you've actually met. So I thank you all for tuning in and I hope you guys have a great day. See ya.

See you later.