The live webinar, Why 2011 is the Year to Profit from Flat Rate Pricing, took place on March 23, but for those of you who missed the live showing last week, wanted to watch it again, or wanted share with co-workers, you can access the recording by clicking here or on the link below.

Why 2011 is the Year to Profit from Flat Rate Pricing

The webinar, hosted by our partners at Callahan Roach, shows you how to use the power of flat rate pricing to propel your business forward through 2011 and beyond. Watch it and you will learn what flat rate pricing is, why you should consider the switch, what’s in it for you, what’s in it for your customers, the bottom line impact, and different ways to implement and incorporate it into your business.

We also have the slides used in the webinar available for download here.

The recording lasts under an hour. The first 40 minutes is the presentation by Mike Hajduk (president of Callahan Roach) and Jeremy Lowe (Database Administrator of Callahan Roach). Following their presentation is a Q&A session between the listeners of the live webinar, Jeremy and Mike of Callahan Roach as well as, Jonathan Frei and Dean Schreiner of dESCO.

If you have any questions about Callahan Roach’s flat rate pricing solutions, call 800-528-0212 or visit Callahan-Roach.com. If you have any questions about using flat rate pricing with ESC, call 800-226-7529 or visit our flat rate pricing page. We are very happy to answer any questions you have.

dESCO also has many more free webinars you can view at your leisure. Our webinars cover variety of topics for using ESC effectively. We cover everything from effective quoting, dispatching to marketing and inventory control, and much more. Check out our webinar page for more.

If you have an idea for a future ESC webinar, please send it to jonathanf [@] desco-soft [dot] com.

As part of our continued effort to provide our customers with quality information about running their business, we are hosting a webinar with our partner Callahan Roach to show why this is the year to introduce flat rate pricing to your business.

Join us for a free 45-minute webinar that shows how to use the power of flat rate pricing to propel your business forward through 2011 and beyond. Attend and you will learn what flat rate pricing is, why you should consider the switch, what’s in it for you, what’s in it for your customers, the bottom line impact, and different ways to implement and incorporate it into your business.

Wednesday March 23, 2011 @ 8 am PST / 10 am CST / 11 am EST

Sign up today to save your seat, and we will have it ready for you for next week.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Space is limited, so reserve your Webinar seat now at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/175258598

System Requirements:
PC-based attendees need Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees need Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

Participants at the March 9 broadcast, “Technicians Don’t Have to Write Anymore” got a live look at ESC Mobile in action. However, for those of you that missed the live broadcast on HVACChannel.TV last week, you can still see recording of the show.

HVACChannel.tv’s Channel Manager, Ruth King, talked with Mike Haley and Jonathan Frei about how ESC Mobile can help contractors increase their efficiency and accuracy in the field by eliminating written paperwork and going paperless.

Click here to watch the recording of the show.

Reading tech’s handwriting on service tickets and invoice is difficult, and can cause mistakes and lost profits. However, by using ESC Mobile on the Android phone, techs are able to dictate their notes right into ESC from the field.

The app, ESC Mobile, is a simple and affordable way to outfit service technicians with real-time dispatch information and time tracking in the field. It lets technicians receive dispatches in the field, get directions to customers homes, view the customer’s service history, track their travel and working time, create quotes and invoices, dictate dispatch notes, process credit card payment, capture customer’s signatures, attach photos of work they’ve completed, and much more.

ESC Mobile is available for download from the iTunes app store, from the Android Marketplace, or from the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace.

For more information about ESC Mobile, call us at 800-226-7529.

Local search is an incredibly important part growing your service business.

It used to be that the biggest ad on the page in the Yellow Pages got most of the calls, but as more consumers and homeowners are turning to the web to find local service companies, businesses have to find new and innovative ways to stand out.

Millions of searchers are turning to Google search and map results on their computers and increasingly from their mobile phone to find local service companies. Since Google is the leader in search, both national and local, it is important to keep abreast of the local tools and services Google creates.

I talked about Google Places in an earlier blog post and covered more of the basics about what it is and how to get the most out of the free stuff Google offers. You can check out this video on Google LatLong Blog that explains how local search works and how the companies are ranked – Local Search Ranking.

This post will cover using Tags and Boost to highlight a Google Places listing. Tags and Boost are not free, but they are important services to be aware of and consider to make your company stand out. These services do not make your Places page appear higher in the search index, but they do make your listing stand out.

Google Tags

With Google Tags, you can highlight your company’s listing in the Google search results and the results in Google Maps with a yellow tag that draws attention to information on your Google Places listing such as coupons, videos, photos, or custom messaging. Adding tags to your listing helps searchers notice the information you most want your potential customers to see.

Getting the tags on your listing costs $25/month, but does not carry any contracts or long-term commitments.

Google Boost

This Google Places feature lets you create a search ad based on your Places page. Google Boost lets you easily create an online search ad for your company’s local search page. The Boost ad shows up in the sponsored results in Google search and marks your listing on the map with a blue pin (the only blue pin in the results) instead of the generic red one.

Google has a page in their help section that gives details on all the information that will show in a Boost ad and where it will appear.

Boost ads are pricier, but you only pay for when someone clicks on your ad, rather than just for having the ad active. There is a minimum of $50/month to participate in Google Boost. With a Google Places page, you are able to get reports of the performance of your page and the performance of your ads in the Places dashboard.