Restoration Rewind - October

Xactware Industry Trends Bulletin Key Pricing Trends As a reporter of market-specific pricing information for repairing or rebuilding structures and replacing personal property, Xactware conducts hundreds of thousands of industry surveys, and reviews more than 100 million data points per year submitted through field estimates written by contractors and adjusters as well as electronic data feeds provided by retail merchants. This extensive library of research enables Xactware to provide a comprehensive report of important industry trends.

Š Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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© Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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Tim Goeler in the Riverside/Moreno Valley area, CA recently joined the Delta Disaster Services brand. Tim has been a Chem-Dry franchisee for many years. He started out as a Chem-Dry technician before purchasing his own Chem-Dry franchise. He has years of mitigation and restoration experience as well and we are excited to have him as a Delta franchisee

Doug and Deb Eidem in Jefferson City, MO also recently joined Delta. They have years of Chem-Dry experience as well. Doug was a regional rep for Sherwin Williams for many years before starting a Chem-Dry franchise. His wife Deb was recently promoted in her career too. After attending a Discovery Day in Denver and after learning more about the Delta operation they decided to go for it. We are thrilled to have them as great owners and our first franchisees in Missouri.

Mike and Tamara Tanuvasa in Portland, OR are bringing Delta Disaster Services to the Oregon area. Mike and his previous partner did some water damage and mitigation under the Chem-Dry brand. Mike's operation manager, Anthony, will help to run the Delta Disaster division.

With their customer service and team of employees we welcome them to the Delta side.

Marc and Teri Baldwin, N SLC/ Bountiful area, UT are moving from Loveland, CO to the North SLC Š Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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area to start Delta. Marc and Teri have been seasoned Chem-Dry franchisee as well. They have a great deal of optimism and positive attitudes that have carried their Chem-Dry franchise. Their son, Kevin, will also be helping them out as a Delta technician. We are grateful for their "can-do" attitudes and we are excited for this new adventure for them.

Derek and Kristin Acker & Chad and Jill Harris, Provo/Orem/Sandy, UT will also be heading to Utah. They are based in CO now and they will be partnering and covering two areas in Utah. Derek and Chad have been in the Chem-Dry for many years. Both started as Chem-Dry technicians and then ventured into their own franchises.

Derek has experience with water damage and mitigation. They also own Chem-Dry franchises in Denver, CO, Wichita, KS, and Grand Junction, CO.

Š Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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Promoting your Delta online comes with need for quality and quantity of online reviews. Today if folks can’t get a referral or don’t care to ask them to use online reviews to help them qualify for almost any service or product. Below is a great article outlining the change in the way people are using reviews to make decisions and how best to use them. Negative reviews can be just as important as positive. Enjoy! Jason Kaber

How to Turn Negative Online Reviews into Marketing Wins It's tempting to fall into a funk when your business receives a negative review. Here's how to turn things around and benefit from critical customer feedback.

Reading a negative review about your company can feel like a punch to the gut. But once you get over the initial impact, there are lessons to be learned and a silver lining or two.

Let’s look at all the ways you can turn a negative review into a positive thing for your business.

First, let’s look at why bad ratings and reviews aren’t as problematic as you may think.

A 2017 study of more than 1.3 million local reviews by RevenueJump found that the number of reviews influences business performance on Google local search results, with the highest-ranked listings boasting an average of 38 reviews and the lowest-ranked listings having an average of only 14.3 reviews. So, negative reviews are good things to have in that they add to the total quantity, and having more reviews is correlated with higher rankings.

© Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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Additionally, negative reviews offer you the opportunity to respond to the reviewer’s concerns and turn around their impression of your business (which will hopefully be followed by a revision of the review). Even if you can’t change their minds, 77 percent of consumers discount reviews that are more than three months old, whether they are positive or negative, a 2017 study by BrightLocal found.

The same study indicates that negative reviews aren’t the turnoff you might think they would be. Just 40 percent of respondents said they’d stay away from a business after reading negative reviews, down from 68 percent in 2016. Having the full range of reviewers’ sentiments about a business, from the good to the bad, helps customers make more informed decisions.

Negative reviews can: •

Alert you to problems you weren’t aware of, so you can fix them.

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Give you an opportunity to improve brand sentiment by how you respond.

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Provide a search engine optimization (SEO) bump, since they add legitimacy to your business.

Next time you get a negative review, use these tactics to transform it into a marketing win.

Show customers you care Customer service is everything to consumers today. NewVoiceMedia’s 2018 “Serial Switchers” report found poor customer service costs businesses more than $75 billion a year, which is an increase of $13 billion since 2016. When a customer complains about your business in an online review, you can choose to ignore them, or you can use your response to provide amazing customer service. Customers who have their issue solved in their first interaction with a business are twice as likely to purchase from that business again, BrightLocal reports.

Acknowledge and show gratitude for every review you get. Reviewers are helping your SEO, and they’re providing powerful feedback that you didn’t have to spend money on a survey to gather. Courteously tell the reviewer you have investigated the problem and explain the steps you’re taking to correct it. You may want to offer an invitation for a free service to make up for the mistake or provide a coupon for the reviewer’s next purchase. © Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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A humble and contrite response to an angry reviewer may be enough to make them change or update their review, or at least give your business another chance.

Use complaints for content marketing Stuck trying to think up new content ideas? Look at customer complaints. The things your customers are talking negatively about in reviews can inspire new content.

Let’s say your company runs a freelancer marketplace. Companies post their freelance design jobs on your site and designers apply to win the work. In the last three months, you’ve received a few negative reviews from freelancers saying they apply for jobs but never win them. They call your site a waste of time.

Upon investigation, you learn that the freelancers who are complaining haven’t optimized their profiles with you. They’re likely not winning the work because they aren’t showcasing themselves in the best light.

The fix: create content that shows users how to optimize their profiles. Provide step-bystep instructions and screen shots that demonstrate how they can best position themselves to get awarded assignments.

Offer help Similarly, to using negative reviews for content ideas, mine reviews for ways to amplify the level of customer service you provide. Use customer complaints to create a frequently asked questions section on your website, eliminating the confusion your negative reviewers have been experiencing.

You can also use negative reviews in staff training. Alert your team to the reasons people express discontent about your business and train your employees so that they go above and beyond in those areas.

Use review feedback for social media content and digital customer service, too. Share content that can help mitigate bad reviews, whether it’s offering a helpful tip or sharing a web page that includes all the details of a product or service.

© Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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Run paid ads for a specific product or service If a specific product or service you offer has been particularly hit hard in reviews, use online advertising to expose more people to it, but wow them with the service they receive so that more positive reviews come through for it. As more people try the product or service you’ve promoted, you can get newer, more positive reviews that outshine any negative ones.

You can use Facebook Ads or Google Ads to direct leads to a landing page offering a coupon for the service. Or, if you’re in the B2C space, try a deals site like Groupon. With any campaign you run, make sure your staff is prepared to offer exceptional service.

Welcome all types of reviews — even negative ones Reviews are essential tools businesses can use to improve their products and services. Get more customer reviews by including links to review sites your business is listed on, like Yelp and Google My Business, throughout your website and social media presences. If you’re using email marketing for new customers, include a call to action to leave a review (be careful on Yelp, though — it’s a violation of their terms of service to request a review).

When a customer leaves a review, you can build a positive relationship, even if the initial review is negative.

You can also get more positive reviews by featuring the ones you have in marketing materials like social media pages or email campaigns. Customers who are featured feel special, and your new customers might make their reviews more positive, too, in hopes that they will be featured.

Next time you do get a negative review, take a deep breath and relax. It’s simply a chance for your business to get a new marketing win.

© Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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Job Costing Some of you continue to struggle with some of your job costing. Remember the Rule of Thumb – Would you have had the costs if you did not have the job? This will always answer the question of whether or not something is job costed. Some examples: Program Jobs and the referral fees. These are always a direct cost to the job. You would not have had the job without the referral fee. Charge the referral fee to “5599 Referral Fees Outside Referral”. This is in your subcontractor list.

The most common items job costed: Go to the Chart of Accounts. The “5000” numbers are your Cost of Goods Sold. Cost of Goods Sold are your Direct Costs for a job. Unfortunately, QuickBooks use “Cost of Goods Sold” which is more of a manufacturing term. But we can easily adapt to our thinking. Just think of it as what it actually took to produce the work.

• • •

5100 (and all related numbers) will be the items you purchase in house that are job costed.

5200 is the Labor and associated labor costs.

5500 is your Sub Contractors or the things you “out source”.

You can find an even more detailed list in the Item Lists. Open the Item list and look at the “Job Related Costs.” If you use any of these Items, they will automatically push through to the correct account in the Chart of Accounts.

If you have items in the Chart of Accounts or on the Item List you do not use, you can make them “inactive” by right clicking and then click on “Make Inactive”. DO NOT DELETE. If there is something that is currently Inactive and you now want to use it, you can reactivate.

I do not recommend deleting anything in QuickBooks. Unfortunately, QuickBooks will let you do it, but it is never a good idea!

Supervisors should always be job costed. If you are not job costing the supervisor., you will need to remember your margin is approximately 5% less than what the automatically generated margin is in QuickBooks. This 5% can make or break your job!

If you have questions about any of this, please call and let’s discuss. It is very important that you understand the concept as well as the steps to do it correctly. © Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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Business Planning for 2019 begins NOW! At Delta in Denver, our operating company begins planning goals and objectives for the coming year about three months prior. October is the initial planning stage and all individual Delta Teams are involved.

That being Construction, Emergency Services and Finance / Administration.

We not only address revenue goals but also Team as well as individual training and growth goals. Additionally, we look at overall capital expeditioners and expense them into our business plan. If in the second quarter we plan to hire another Construction Supervisor, we’ll need to plan to purchase another company vehicle for this individual. We may also need to plan on another laptop with a docking station and monitors. Just depends what we may have in inventory or we can repurpose.

Our Delta Development Team is here to assist you in your planning!

The life of the Entrepreneur, as taken from Inc. Magazine, 27% say, a Work-Life Balance is a “Nice Fantasy” How do high level Entrepreneurs handle stress?

Alcohol Exercise Massage Prayer Family Time Meditation © Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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Fishing Hypnosis How many hours of sleep do you get per night?

8 plus hours – 8% 7 hours – 36% 6 hours – 38% 5 hours – 9% Less than 5 Hours – 9% How many vacation days did you take in the past year?

NONE – 9% 1 to 10 Days – 38% 11 to 15 days – 26% 16 to 20 days – 10% 21 plus days – 17%

© Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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Learning as a Way of Life By: Jake Tegtman Last year Tyler Milyard (owner of the Delta Franchise in Western Colorado) introduced the idea to his management team of starting a book club. The idea was that they would read a book together, share what they learned, and discuss how the Western Colorado office could implement those positive changes into their day-to-day work flow.

The Western team recently increased their reading and takes regular time for book discussion time during weekly meetings. The management teams’ conversations have ranged from psychology (after reading “Man’s Search for Meaning”) to time management (“Eat that Frog”), to leadership (“Turn the Ship Around”). They have also covered people skills, communication, and even philosophy. A range of topics both in and outside business.

The goal of the office is not just to be the best restoration company in their area, but to help their employees live the best lives possible.

Delta Disaster Services of Western Colorado’s management team has seen considerable growth in each of its members. Many of the new ideas they’re implementing at the location have stemmed from what they learned while reading. The Team has had fun, bonding over common interests. And perhaps most importantly, their reading habits are now beginning to extend to the rest of the team.

It’s good when the management team of a company grows, but far better when every member of the team grows too. To facilitate this effect, the Western team aims to give the people at ground level the ability to set about accomplishing a goal – to lead their leaders.

Managers of a restoration company can lead mitigation technicians, for example, by giving them goals and direction. Technicians can lead from the ground level by telling their managers how they intend to fulfill those outcomes.

Shifting more responsibility to the technicians requires that they are given more education opportunities. Leaders of any kind need to make the best decisions possible.

Reading can help with that. And a secondary effect to reading and learning as a way of life, as Tyler and the Western Management Team can attest, is that peoples’ lives improve. © Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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© Delta Development Group | www.trydelta.com | 303.933.4888 5535 W. 56th St., Unit 104, Arvada, CO 80002

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