This week, dESCO was one of the sponsors of the Fall 2010 Vegas Roundtable. Service Roundtable put on the event at Planet Hollywood, located on the iconic Las Vegas Strip.

Top Left: afterhours party; top center: dESCO's prize table; top right: discussion panel; bottom: group workshop

dESCO gave out prizes to a few of the participants. There were three winners in the drawings. Joe Gerolami of Border Mechanical Services, Ltd (a dESCO customer) and Ryan Snow of Western Heating & AC, both won 2 one-hour training sessions with one of dESCO’s technical specialists. Mindy Krueger of Krueger Mechanical Services, LLC won a 300-piece poker set.



The theme of this year’s Vegas Roundtable was “building your business for stellar growth.” The website promoting the event had a great overview of who was going to be there and what it was all about:

Grow or die. Move or stagnate. Business is tough! But we provide the path to success through an amazing line up of speakers, personal time with top industry consultants, members sharing with members, and a great opening reception.

A few highlights…

Olympic Gold Medalist Lanny Basham – his story is inspirational, thought-provoking, and provides lessons in success for all us in business.

Add a new line to your company portfolio. Jim Hinshaw tells us about the exciting opportunities in Solar available for all Service Roundtable members.

Two years ago a Service Roundtable member lost $200,000+ in employee fraud. (But that will never happen to YOU, right?) Don’t be fooled! Michael Bohinc gives simple, easy to implement tools for preventing fraud.

How different would your business be if all the coworkers thought like owners? Greg McAfee shows us a fun, innovative way to engage coworkers.

Back by popular demand: Ken Goodrich’s story of stellar growth is so compelling, inspirational, and PACKED with amazing information that we asked him for an afterhours reprise. If you missed it before, don’t miss it again!

Double Down with Charlie Greer. Always a wild card, Charlie Greer takes your questions in a no limits Q&A.

But there’s more: Joe Cunningham, Drew Cameron, Matt Michel, Contributors of the Year, Consultant of the Year, Gene Burch, Frank Besednjak, the Idea Roulette. And a special announcement from Service Roundtable!

(via 2010 Vegas Round Table)

Sponsors for the event, along with dESCO, were Service Net, Jackson Systems, Goodman, and Visible Defects.

We are pleased to announce the official release of ESC Mobile Web for the iPhone/iPad and Android based phones. We have customized both applications to make full use of the device’s touch screens and feature the following abilities:

• View complete dispatch information
• Change dispatch status
• Track time spent on jobs
• Add dispatch notes
• Create new customer records
• Create new dispatches
• Send text messages to the office

The applications work with the ESC desktop software through a link to the Connections Server in your office, so you will need a connection to the Internet to use the software. The link is in real-time, so any changes you make, either from the office or from in the field on the phone, are instantly visible on the other. This gives you unlimited flexibility in scheduling.

Both apps include a connection to a demo database. This means that you can download the app today and see exactly how it will work for you in the field without any setup or commitment. Once you are ready to buy this add-on, just give us a call at 800-226-7529 and we’ll help you get everything working perfectly with your database for just a small monthly fee per user.

You can download the iPhone app directly from iTunes for free by searching for ESC Mobile or viewing this link. Please note this app looks fantastic on the iPad as well.

You can download the Android app for free directly from doubleTwist, the Android store, by clicking this link. You can also download the app by scanning the following QR code with a bar code scanner application on your phone.

We come across articles and blog posts every day that help service companies better operate, market, and grow. There’s simply too much out there to keep up with. That’s why we periodically will publish a collection of useful links like the ones below.

Mobile Payments As Marketing Strategy – John Jantsch lays out the argument for using and accepting mobile payments as a marketing strategy, as a way to set your company apart from the competition. He poses this question: “The question marketers of all kinds need to start asking is if their customers are mobile, how mobile does the business need to be?”

Golden Opportunity – Garry Upton and Robert Wilkos write in Contracting Business Magazine about how to get the most out of your existing customers by expanding your service agreement offerings.

Top 10 Tips on How to Sell a HVAC Maintenance Contract – Following on the idea of growing you service business with service contracts, we have a post from The Service Coach about how to sell maintenance contracts more effectively.

Forming a Board of Directors is Crucial for HVACR Businesses – Greg McAfee has a post on his blog about the importance of getting outside advice from trusted advisors, or a board, for long term HVAC success.

HVAC Marketing Terms – Ron Smith published a post on his blog says there are terms HVAC contractors and other service contractors use to describe their business that are less than idea to share with customers. He suggests 14 improvements to your marketing vocabulary.

If you come across a great link you want to share with your service company colleagues, email it to jonathanf [at] desco-soft [dot] com

SocialTract, a blogging/social media service specifically designed for HVACR contractors, has published an e-book called “How to Create and Grow Your HVACR Business through Blogging.”

The e-book is free on their website. You can get it here.

Joe Pulizzi, CEO of SocialTract, shared what HVACR contractors will learn from the e-book:

In this eBook, you’ll learn:

• What a blog is and what it can do for your business.
• The three reasons why HVACR contractors need to consider blogging as part of the marketing mix.
• 30 ways blogging can pay off for your business.
• 30 ways to market your blog effectively.

Joe says that HVACR Contractors should consider blogging for their service companies so they can :

Find and sell more customers on annual service and maintenance agreements….Retain current maintenance customers with compelling and consistent content… [and] position your company as the local home comfort leader.

You can find out more about SocialTract and their contractor social media platform on their website www.socialtract.com.

It seems today everyone has a cell phone (or even two). A device that was once the plaything of the rich is now a part of everyday life, both personal and professional.

The question then is should there be a line between how cell phones are used for business and personal matters? It makes sense to carry one device, to receive calls from your spouse and your boss on the same phone, but is it a good idea to rely on your technicians to use their own cell phones to receive dispatches and business information or is it better to have your technicians carry company phones to do use to do business.

One obvious question is information security. It might be wise to have your technicians use company phones if they’re downloading price books or customer details that you would want returned and secured if they are fired or quit. If that information is on the tech’s own phone it may be difficult to secure that information. However, if they’re using a work phone, that would get turned in along with their truck and keys at the end of their tenure.

On the other hand, if the work related information is not downloaded to their phone, but simply accessed through the internet, it doesn’t seem to make as much of a difference if they use their own phone or a work phone. In this scenario, it’s not the device that holds the information but the login credentials that grant access to the information. Under these circumstances, if the tech is no longer working for you, you change their login codes so they can no longer access your company information. This way it doesn’t matter that they used their personal phone to access your business information or if you issued them a company phone.

Many technicians might want to use their personal phone for business if only to avoid having to carry more than one phone with them at a time. Also, keeping contacts’ phone numbers synced across two devices might be more trouble than it’s worth. Others may want to have a better separation of their work and personal phone numbers, making it easier to switch off on the weekends and after quitting time.

Do your techs use personal phones for business or do they get company phones, and why?

The following is a guest post from Darren Slaughter, a contractor marketing consultant who works with contractors large and small to sell more, advertise better, and market to buyers.

Online communities offer formal and informal networking opportunities to help you expand your contacting business now more than ever. More formal methods involve webinars and online training as well as online networking events.

Informal networking and brand building can be and is done just about everywhere online. Forums, twitter, Facebook, and so on. Sometimes the opportunity to network happens quite coincidentally, but you should always remember to have your game face on when participating online.

If you’re just starting your contracting business or you are a large home improvement contractor with 200 employees who is just dipping the company toe in the water of online marketing, plan on spending some quality time online answering questions for people who have general home improvement issues. This helps build your overall brand, but it might just make you your next client as well.

Social media is network marketing on a shoestring

Think about it, 20 years ago you would be standing around some nondescript hotel conference room networking with some other person who didn’t want to be there just as much as you, while you both stare at your watches wondering when it’s all going to be over.

Enter Social Media for Contractors

Social media has given you the opportunity to be in your office or sitting at home in your pajamas and make new friends. I think I read somewhere that the average number of jobs the average contractor does a year is 50, which leaves you a lot of time to market your business online.

The key to social media is to become an active member in the community whether it nets you clients or not because over time you gain the ability to become an expert in your field through the knowledge you pass on to others.

Here are some tips to help you get started with social media as a contractor:

1. Join home improvement forums and participate in the conversation
2. Stop waiting for something to happen — go make it happen
3. Concentrate on listening more than talking
4. Make time to network on sites like twitter and Facebook
5. Don’t think spending time on social media sites takes you away from the office, over time it expands your reach dramatically
6. Try not to mix business with too much pleasure
7. Don’t be a pushy salesperson through social media marketing

And that’s it. These ideas should help get you started opening up dialogue and starting to have conversations online. Do this long enough and I guarantee you will build a base of people who consider you the go to person in your market. Have you already made social media work for you? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

For more from Darren Slaughter, visit his blog where he writes daily about marketing for contracting businesses.

Plumbing service software is an essential tool for owners and managers of plumbing companies to grow their businesses.

You wouldn’t dispatch a plumber to do work at a customer’s house or building without proper tools. Your plumbers have to be properly equipped with the right tools to handle the installations and repairs they encounter each day.

However, plumbing companies also need the right tools in the office. They need to be able to handle everything from their service agreements, to their dispatching system, to their service scheduling, to their invoicing.

Dispatchers and office managers need to be able to efficiently recall service history when customers call. Accounts receivables managers need to know what customers are up to date with their balances and who needs a reminder.

The right plumbing software for your office personnel is like the right sized wrench for your plumbers. Sure, they may still be able to get the job done without all the right parts and tools, but it will take longer and will be more expensive.

ESC Plumbing software allows for easy integration with QuickBooks and Peachtree making sure that the operations and financial sides of your business are always on the same page.

Growing plumbing service companies know that they need the right tools for all aspects of their business. With plumbing software to manage your business, your whole company can have the right tools to increase profits.

To learn how the right plumbing software can benefit your business, register and try the free, 30-day trial of ESC. You can experiment with all the features and functions to determine for yourself the benefits.

ESC is powerful plumbing software. It is perfect for plumbers and plumbing contractors to use in managing their businesses. It is a service management solution that is powerful yet easy to use.

With it you can increase the number of customers your plumbers can service in a day, while ensuring they know everything the customer wanted done which will reduce the need to return visits.

ESC will also eliminate missed revenue due to misplaced dispatches or invoices. It also allows your technicians to bill and collect payment in the field, reducing the messy and expensive collections process.

If you are looking for plumbing software to better manage your company, try ESC today.