Business Tools
Rental or Hire Equipment Safety Instructions
1
It goes with out saying these days that ensuring your customers operate the equipment they rent or hire from your company is a business critical issue.
Not just because it is morally and ethically the right thing to do, but also to ensure you are not subject to legal actions.
Customer safety is now a business critical issue
Hire and Rental companies regularly provide a range of equipment that requires some form of safety instruction.
There are a number of issues that hire and rental companies need to consider in their approach to OHS, not only to their customers but also their off site staff.
Such issues include:
Ensuring that safety instructions accompany each hire or rental and have an audit trail to demonstrate it;
Increasing the means by which customers can access hire or rental equipment safety data;
Ensuring off site staff, such as delivery drivers, assemblers, collectors and even inspectors have client site safety data briefs; and
Even the adhoc or routine scheduling of client site safety or maintenance inspections.
Addressing these issues is good business practise, part of mitigating your business risks. Such business practise is a combination of good staff training and awareness, good processes and a good hire or rental software system.
Safety Instructions issued to Clients.
HireEzy enables safety instructions to become an automated part of the picking and delivery process. Adding in a client signature for issued items, including the safety instructions aids in providing a demonstrable proof that such instructions were issued and received. A copy of the signed receipt that can then be attached to the client booking and hence client record, to maintain an historical record.
Increasing Means of Access.
Not all clients like reading safety instructions, particularly complex ones. Have you considered using demonstration videos? If so what about uploading such a video to YouTube or your own web site. If that sounds hard or you want to link such a process to your hire or rental management, then simply consider using HireEzy.
Off Site Safety Instructions.
Many client sites require some form of on-site safety compliance, particularly construction sites. To simplify the process of managing off site safety, simply link the client safety instructions to the booking and hence to the contractors or staff that are going to site. This requires in-built document management and workflow, which HireEzy has.
Client Site Safety or Maintenance Checks.
Such visits not only need to be scheduled they need to be set in the task list. Because HireEzy includes a task management system, these checks can be scheduled, often months in advance. This means that when planning for the week ahead, you can see not only your hire or rental related activities, you can also see any client site checks that need to be undertaken.
HireEzy certainly makes a big difference in improving your Hire and Rental Safety OHS management. However it must be supported by good staff training and staff compliance to processes.
About Us
HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@ezysoft.com.au
Related articles by Zemanta
- Work Based Learning & Health and Safety Act 1974 (slideshare.net)
- Families told doormats are health and safety risk (telegraph.co.uk)
- Father told he needs £350 insurance for son to do work experience at home (telegraph.co.uk)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1636d9f1-d656-4aa1-9fd2-72387083db9c)
How Hire and Rental Companies Can Use You Tube
You tube is a greatly under utilized resource for hire and rental companies.
You Tube can be used for a variety of purposes such as:
Risk Reduction:
Reduce OHS and Public Liability Risk:
Upload safety instruction video’s for clientsand Contractors/ Staff on how to safely use hire equipment. With HireEzy you can include the link to the safety instruction video with the client booking documentation.
Reduce Product Damages:
Assembly and Installation instructional video’s can be uploaded. Often your supplier will have these, so it is simply a case of uploading the video. Incredibly simple with HireEzy, as the instructional video for each specific item can be uploaded to you tube with one click.
Reduce Customer Dissatisfaction:
If a client can not assemble something, then generally they will blame you, before they blame themselves. You need to make it easier to show customers how to erect or use things. Showing through a video is far better than handing them a set of written instructions, it is just a fact of human nature.
Increase Revenue:
Youtube can be a very effective lead generation tool or sales reference site.
Examples
We have created a site on you tube which shows examples of how different companies are using You Tube to address each of these business requirements. Click Here to Go to Our YouTube Channel
Remember HireEzy provides you with a powerful tool to integrate Web2.0 productivity tools like You Tube in to your hire and rental business processes.
About Us
HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au
Related articles by Zemanta
- McKinsey and Web 2.0 (arnoldit.com)
- UShow.com – Share Videos Using Tags (killerstartups.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=ae623d09-376a-4d1f-8a61-cd1786991e30)
Improving Cash flow for Hire Rental Management Companies
Cash flow is crucial to the success of every business, especially to hire businesses and rental management companies.
Delayed customer payments can tighten your company’s access to working capital, thereby restricting your capacity for growth. This is the most common discussion topic amongst our customers – payment deferrals by major accounts and long term hires.
We use Ezidebit to manage our cash flow and payments, it has worked brilliantly for us. (please note we have no financial relationship nor related business ownership with Ezidebit.)
Ezidebit provides you with tailored payment solutions to minimise these cash flow concerns and enable your business to grow and prosper into the future. Ezidebit offers a fully automatic collection solution, suitable for regular recurring fees, variable invoiced payments or payment plans.
We have found that with Ezidebit’s direct debit payment system we have gained not only gain greater control but a real reduction in outstanding payments. More importantly we no longer have the emotional and time drain spent in chasing payments.
Ezidebit can have your business set up and signing up customers within a day.
Their contact information is www.ezidebit.com.au , phone 1300 763 256 or email info@ezidebit.com.au
About Us
HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=bc81175c-2537-479c-92d8-c36f35c464e0)
Sample Rental Agreement Contract
If you are, then it pays to look at other rental agreement contracts to see if you have all the necessary clauses and conditions etc.
One place to search for such examples is Docstoc , a great website with professional templates and documents. For example here is one sample rental agreement contract we found.
About Us
HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au
Where will Business Growth Come From??
Dr Tom McKaskill has just published a short article on where the business growth will come from?
Ok, I am an unashamed Dr Tom McKaskill fan!
He is one of those unique academic entreprenuers who not only knows the theory but one who was an extremely effective businessman first.
Tom McKaskill’s Business Article Latest Article
His latest article looks at where the growth will come from?
He makes a really good point, that in a tight market such as now – companies are going to have to look at trying several initiatives to find the one that is sustainable.
Ok That’s Great But What Are Some Ideas For Business Initiatives?
One such initiative (s) should be to look at the opportunities offered by Social Media in the following business areas:
- Increasing Revenue;
- Cutting costs; and or
- Reducing Business Risk
A http://www.hireezy.com/index.php/1791/business-need-will-drive-creativity-in-2010-hire-rental-industry/recently published article looks at how each of these can be applied to businesses.
You can read more articles from Tom here or view some of short videos presentations on our EzySoft YouTube Channel.
About Us
HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=dc7ae258-0aaa-4fd2-979f-8d3bd72cd0f9)
Starting and Surviving in Business
- Image by Alex Osterwalder via Flickr
Starting your own business, whether home based or otherwise, is a big step. Any new company, large or small, is going to take time to get off the ground and start generating any kind of substantial profits. Saying that is one thing, but if you’re one of the people embarking on the task, the obvious question is, “How do I survive while waiting to start making money?”
The fact is that unless you have a hefty amount of personal savings, which you are prepared to diminish, you are probably going to need some kind of alternative income source during this period. After all, any money you do make during the initial start up period may well need to be channelled straight back into the business in order to help it grow. The good news is that with some good advice and solid forward planning, surviving those first few months may end up being slightly less intimidating than first thought.
The first thing to do is take a good hard look at your current personal finances and be brutally honest with yourself about your needs over the first few months of your new business. Take account of everything, from rent or mortgage payments, food and other routine household expenses. Once you have had a good look at your personal spending needs, you will know how much money you require, on average, for the first year or so of your new endeavour. You have to be honest with yourself and not be unrealistic, either about how much money you will need to survive or the level of income you expect to take during those first few months.
The way to go about preparing a realistic estimate of your business profit prospects on start up is to assess the expected sales levels and how much you expect to be paying out in costs and expenses. Take a look at the difference between the two figures; if the expenses are greater than the sales figures, which they are most likely to be during the start up phase of your enterprise, you will have a good idea of how much money you will need to find from alternative sources. This will probably mean taking out loans or selling some personal assets.
Another way of surviving financially might be to continue working for your current employer until your new business takes off. Many new business proprietors take out bank loans to get them through those first few months, but before you take on such a debt you need to be certain of all the details. Find out what would happen if you failed to make the necessary repayments and found yourself with a hefty overdraft.
Other options might be to simply find ways of reducing your business or personal costs, such as using public transport instead of your car or finding the lowest possible prices for goods that you buy. Running your new business from home if possible, rather than having to rent commercial premises would be a highly effective way of saving a considerable amount of money.
Starting up a new business can be relatively simple providing you plan ahead.
Naz Daud – CityLocal Directory
Copyright information: This article is free for reproduction but must be reproduced in its entirety, including live links to the following websites:
http://www.citylocal.co.uk/
http://www.citylocal.co.uk/businessfranchise/
http://www.citylocal.ie/
& this copyright statement must also be included.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=b7d671fe-4e30-4038-ab98-c520ac660ae6)
Business Need will Drive Creativity in 2010 – Hire Rental Industry
1
- Image by Saurabh Goswami via Flickr
Necessity is the mother of all invention!
A mantra my father drove in to my head when I was a growing up, not once but repeatedly.
Recently I was reminded of this little childhood memory when reading a recent article by Michael Roth (writes great articles) on Rental Industry Makes Positive Efforts in Midst of Recession .
Michael made the point that companies will be forced to innovate, given the slow recovery. Innovate because they have to.
Great Point But Where To Start To Look For Innovation?
Keeping things basic, there are only three simple things you can ever do in a business:
- Increase revenue
- Cut Costs or
- Reduce Risks
So What Are Some Ideas for Innovation?
Well look towards Social Media and Digital Marketing as a prospective source. There is massive opportunity to be had for creative hire and rental companies in adopting Social Media and related digital marketing.
Why, because overall the industry has been incredibly slow to adopt it.
That’s great for innovators as it means there is massive untapped opportunities out there!
First - Increase Revenue
Social media marketing has been shown to be a great way of increasing sales leads if done properly. A well planned and executed social media strategy ( it’s not hard at all) can really be effective in driving more traffic to your web site, hence your offer.
Articles
Why Social Media is a Natural Channel for Hire and Rental Companies
Second - Cutting Costs
Social media can be used to cut hire and rental operating costs. For example cutting website development fees by having self web content management embedded in your rental software or hire software. Not only does this cut operating costs it also can improve search engine rankings, through more frequent changes.
Articles
Options for Reducing Costs
Reducing Risk
Reducing business risks can be in part by considering the use of Social Media, for example using YouTube to show clients how to maintain, set up or dis-assemble equipment.
Articles:
How Hire and Rental Companies Can Use YouTube
Still Unsure?
We are offering Hire and Rental Companies a free advisory service to discuss how to use Social Media in their business. No obligation etc. Why? Because we dont sell Social Media services – we simple offer our globally recognised skills in Social Media back to the industry. See our press release for more details, click here.
What do we get out of it?
Well we believe that if you begin to use social media and digital marketing effectively, then you will appreciate the value of the integrated social media and digital marketing tools in our hire software and rental software.
For more information Email Us
Related articles by Zemanta
- Use Social Media To Expand Your Business (lazerpromotions.com)
- Social Media Infecting Every Aspect of Business (ducttapemarketing.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=60a08366-b5c5-4c50-92ae-4b68272daf4e)
7 Steps to Off Page SEO Techniques
ArticleCoop | 7 Steps to Off Page SEO Techniques
7 Steps to Off Page SEO Techniques
By: Bill Wynne
Off page SEO Techniques are very important for any website, blog or otherwise that wants to harness the power of organic traffic from the big search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process that includes a number of elements to insure a more favorable position for your website in search engine result pages like those of Google, Yahoo and Bing. The success of your online marketing is greatly enhanced when you can increase the ratio of your organic traffic to 80%. This traffic is free and very valuable.
There are two kinds of SEO, on page and off page SEO techniques. We will only discus off page SEO techniques in this article. Off page SEO are the things you need to do to get a higher page rank (PR) and a good position in the search engines like Google for your website after you launch the website.
What are the off page SEO techniques? Off page SEO techniques are always connected to building your link popularity. Link popularity represents the number of back links or links back to your website from other websites that your website has. To check you website’s current link popularity, go to Link Popularity and use the free tool to check your website’s link popularity. The greater link popularity that your website possesses the higher your page rank (PR) will be. To build your link popularity you need to increase the number of websites that link back to your website.
There are a number of off page SEO techniques
1. Email site webmasters that are responsible for websites similar to yours in content and ask them for a link that you will reciprocate on. There are sites that have a page full of links and the links are not relevant to each other as far as content is concerned. Link Farms can damage the reputation of your website with Google instead of helping it. It is not advisable that you take the easy route and join in any link farms. Link schemes are not approved by Google and before you take what may appear to be an easy route for getting back links you should read information on Google’s site about illegitimate linking methods, this will assure you of more success with Google. One strategy used is to launch a lot of fraudulent sites to create lots of links to one site or more. Google has ways to track this and the sites involved could likely be blacklisted by Google.
2. Content – The best way to conduct your off page SEO techniques then is to insure that you have unique, highly informative content. When you have great content other webmasters will want to link to your site. If they just copy and paste your content on their website that is a violation of intellectual property copyright laws. Make people want to link to your website. This is the best of all off page SEO techniques to increase the number of websites linking to yours.
3. Article marketing – There are hundreds if not thousands of article directories on the Internet. You can submit articles to these sites and for every submission, you will be allotted a resource box in which you can introduce yourself and share a link to your website. Some of these article directories have high page ranks. If your articles are accepted, they will be included in their pages. Having a website with high PR linking to yours would go a long way in increasing your own page rank. Additionally, if you will submit just one article to a thousand directories, you’d have a thousand pages linking to your website! Sounds like a daunting task? There are services detailed on my blog that you can use for monthly fees or software that is automated.
4. Forum marketing – There are online communities that are dedicated to the subject of your website. Find those forums, join them and become part of the community. You want to leave relevant valuable comments showing you are part of the community and not just spamming. You will be seen as a spammer just there to post a link and you could be banned from that forum. In the forum you will be able to have a signature box that will accompany every post or comment that you make in the forum. Your resource box allows you to have one or two links to your website. For every post you make, you will have a link to your website.
5. Craigslist – Craigslist is a well-known classifieds website with a PR7. A PR7 score is very high! Having a link on a website with a PR7 will give a boost to your website. To have a link on Craigslist go to the site, choose the category that is relevant to your website, post your advertisement with your link of course and see what happens. It doesn’t matter if anyone reads your ad. The object was to have a link to your website on Craigslist. Your ad will expire so you should have a way to remind yourself to post there when your ad expires to maintain a constant link there.
6. Look for partners who are willing to include your list in their pages. The easiest way to do this is to use the free tool at Webconfs
7. Triangular linking – Google does not like reciprocal linking but triangular linking is one way of getting around this limitation. Look for webmasters who will work with you on this one of the off page SEO techniques. Webmaster A posts a link to Webmaster B’s website. Webmaster B posts a link to Webmaster C’s website. Webmaster C posts a link to Webmaster A’s website. It is the same principle as reciprocal linking, but the search engine spiders are not programmed to determine this type of linking.
Author Resource: Find more related information on Article Marketing on Bill’s Blog. Since 99′ Bill Wynne has successfully used the Internet to effectively convey information for profit and not-for-profit. Recently, Bill created a blog to share his experiences in Internet Marketing. His blog offers free tools and articles like Off Page SEO Techniques
Article From ArticleCoop
Thumbs Up – Techo Twitter Posts week ending 15 Nov
Welcome to the Thumbs Up Edition of my review of the week in tech.
Each week I’m picking out the things that I liked the most that I submitted via Twitter for you all to read. If you haven’t already seen my Twitter feed of tech tips add me @aholesgrove or have a look at http://twitter.com/aholesgrove and subscribe to the RSS feed of my tweets.
This week in Thumbs Up is all about handy Windows apps, plus some interesting statistics about social media in the enterprise:
-
Hey cool! This will be handy – New App Links SkyDrive to Windows Explorer http://bit.ly/ncuiT
If you haven’t heard of Windows SkyDrive, it’s basically a free online storage solution provided by Microsoft which gives you 25gb to store whatever you want on the internet so that you can access from anyway. It’s not really pushed at the moment which is why not many people know about it, but that will certainly change once Office 2010 is released, as it is heavily focused on extending the Office experience beyond the desktop allowing people to create and save MS Office documents online using online browsing versions and store them in their SkyDrive using the Office Live plugin. Personally, I’ve found it really handy and I use it alot. What this application does (which was NOT created by Microsoft, by the way) is install your SkyDrive as another hard drive on your computer in the Explorer shell, so that you can simply copy and paste to it like any other hard drive – the online difference of course is that you are storing your stuff on Microsoft’s servers. This is really great for backing up all of your critical information so that if your machine breaks down or is stolen, you can simply replace it and remap your SkyDrive to the machine using this application and voila – you have all your information back. Highly recommended.
-
Very interesting – Palo Alto Networks: Twitter Usage Soars in the Enterprise http://bit.ly/TBJt1
There is another article of similar theme that I tweeted as well this week, which you can read here – http://bit.ly/1P8llM – which also touches on how social networking usage is exploding in the business and enterprise workplaces. The reason why? It is a far more effective way of engaging your audience and getting your message across. I am willing to bet my left kidney that Google will shell out somewhere in the vacinity of $2 billion to buy out Twitter and position it as it’s newest advertising medium, considering that many businesses are telling the same story as we are – Google Adwords is a WASTE OF MONEY. Our company stopped using it earlier in the year and we now exclusively advertise our products and services through Twitter (and Facebook to a lesser extent) and the result has been a 700% increase in sales leads. True story. We are so happy with the results that we will never use Google Adwords ever again – which by the way supplies Google with 97% of their $16 billion a year in revenue. You do the math – Google will have to radically adjust their business model or risk becoming irrelevant and having their revenue dry up big time.
-
Good article – Stop Paying for Windows Security; Microsoft’s Security Tools Are Good Enough [Opinion] http://bit.ly/19flzZ
I’ve blogged about Microsoft Security Essentials before – if you haven’t yet heard of this program, it’s Microsoft’s version of a free anti-virus program – and since it’s release I have been surprised about the amount of articles likes these that are getting published which are complementary to Microsoft for this being a great release. What I would add to the fact that it is a good enough security program is the fact that it DOESN”T ANNOY YOU. I’ve been running it myself ever since it was released and not once ever has the program prompted me to interact with it in any way. At first I was a little worried that perhaps the virus definitions weren’t up to date so on the odd occasion I opened it up to check – I was wrong, the program is updating itself almost daily and it isn’t doing anything annoying on the screen to indicate that it’s working in the background. In my opinion, that is the ultimate security program, as I often forget that it is there. I have been going through the process of uninstalling AVG and other virus programs on the computers that I come across and have been installing this instead, it truly is a nice, solid release and I’d recommend it to anybody. If you’d like to try it yourself, you can download it for free at http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials.
-
Awesome app – Paint.NET Releases Big Update, Still a Killer Photoshop Alternative [Downloads] http://bit.ly/2Ok9bW
Photoshopping has pretty much become a verb now, on par with Googling a search of Tweeting a message and yet Photoshop is an extremely expensive piece of software that only business professionals can afford. This application – Paint.NET – which has been around for a while, is a FREE program that gives you all the basics of image editing and some advanced options too. I’ve been recommending this to people who are uploading graphics to their website and want to do some basic image manipulation themselves and this program will do it all for them for the nice price of nothing. I’d recommend this to anybody – it’s a Windows only release, but let’s face it, the majority of Mac users probably have Windows installed as well, or will need to install it soon. Grab this and enjoy (and check out the article for more tips on how to use the program).
-
Wow – Firefox Tops Vulnerability List (internetnews.com) http://bit.ly/3lqzXF
It surprises a fair few people that I talk to when I tell them that I’m a dedicated Internet Explorer user, but truth be told, Firefox is a great browser but still has a ways to go. Do you ever wonder why Google invested a whole pile of money into building their own browser even though they pony up the majority of the funds that Mozilla uses to operate whilst building free products like Firefox? It’s because sometimes in situations like these where the browser is such an important tool, it’s beneficial that it is being designed and built by people who spend all day working in computer security for a wide range of software products, not just one. This article goes on to detail how Firefox is the most vulnerable browser to hack attempts and general exploits, even above Internet Explorer. Something else that most people don’t know about Firefox is that it is a memory hog. I’ve often looked at people’s computers who have Firefox open and 3 or four tabs open and Firefox is using around 180 – 200mb of RAM from the machine just to do that. It’s pretty ridiculous. My general advice is to stick with the browser that comes with the computer – IE on Windows or Safari on a Mac, as they are both acutely fine tuned for their respective environments. What about Google Chrome you might say? Well, you can always use that browser if you don’t mind the fact that it is butt ugly.
Related articles by Zemanta
- After 5 years, Firefox faces new challenges (news.cnet.com)
- Web browser Round-up : From ‘Most Popular’ to ‘Most Innovative’ (techpluto.com)
- Browser-based Office shows its face (news.cnet.com)
- Will You Use Microsoft Office Web Apps? (lockergnome.com)
- Office Web Apps coming to Windows Live (liveside.net)
About Us
HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration. For more information email us sales@makinglifeezy.com.au
The Cost of Information for Hire and Rental Companies
- Image by DeaPeaJay via Flickr
Poor Information management costs hire and rental companies money!
Given the current financial conditions, it is a cost that can be avoided.
Take a typical day
Here are some common sample questions faced in the daily operations of Hire and Rental Companies.
Does anyone know where we are up to with XYZ lead, have we sent them a quote?
• Did we email it or print it and give to them?
• Can you remember how much it was for, do you know where we saved it too?
I have a customer here who says that they won’t pay for damages because they never received the installation instructions:
• Did we send the instructions to them or did we give it to them when they collected the items?
Customer says they called us and spoke to someone here and claims they were offered an extra gas bottle at no charge:
• Does anyone know who took the call, and what was said?
I have a customer on the phone - says they submitted a web inquiry, does anyone know:
• Who got it and what we did with it?
Causes
The above examples are indicative of some of the common information management problems facing most hire and rental companies. The key causes are:
• No single point of Document Storage; and
• No workflow tracking.
How Many Places Does Your Business Store Data?
- Accounting system;
- Customer Management system (CRM);
- Mulitple spreadsheets
- Email – yours and others;
- Post It Notes;Hard copy files;
- Soft copy files – stored in various system hard drives;
- etc
How do you search to find some information if it is spread accross mulitple locations? How long does it take to find, and is it the right copy and version when you find it?
Workflow
When you allocate a task to someone, how do you do it, via email, verbal or written note. Do you rely on memory to recall who was tasked and if they had completed it?
With HireEzy the task management or workflow is inbuilt. You can find out who was allocated the task and the progress of the task.
So what are the benefits?
Well the clearest benefit is that your customer service improves, because accurate information and tracking of issues is a great way to provide customers with a consistent service level.
Secondly, a substantial reduction in wasted time, lost sales and financial transactions related to sales and returns because you have the information at hand.
Finally
There is a Latin quote, that translated means Knowledge promotes strength!
Information is a critical element of knowledge, if you have the information then you have the strength to respond confidently to customer related problems. No longer are you on the defensive with “you said” “they said”
Furthermore you are in a position to ensure that your staff are keeping on top of allocated tasks.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4354cebd-2ed8-4399-adfd-c4cec7288ff1)
Why tough times should benefit the hire and rental industry
During the tough economic periods it is worth revisting your business value as a hire or rental company, no matter what sector you service. The business value of hire and rental companies is actually at its highest during tough times, particularly those servicing the business to business sector.
So what is the business value of the hire and rental industry?
Well here are five good reasons why companies should hire from you.
Cash flow saving
Companies who elect to hire or rent equipment from you are able protect cash reserves. Rather than spending valuable cash on buying items up front, your clients can effectively defer cash outlays through period payments for the hire or rental items. If timed correctly by your client, their receipts from their customer payments from the project can help fund the on-going rental or hire payment (obviously for medium to long term hires). For those of you who have Corporate clients, hiring or renting is often perfect. Many corporate clients have capital budget constraints during a downturn. Therefore hiring or renting can be an ideal way for some corporate clients to get what they need, as hiring or renting is considered to be an operating budget expenditure. Operating budget expenditures are often delegated substantially down the corporate ladder.
True costing
For many clients hiring or renting actually aids their project costing, in turn aiding them in improving their profitability. Hiring or renting is a known cost. Whereas often supplying the equipment from their own internal assets does not enable them to determine the actual cost of the item. Many don’t know the actual depreciation (replacement) value to be assigned, the actual cost of servicing and storing the item. It may sound trite, but for many companies true costing is a major issue.
Risk reduction
Buying items also increases risk. How long is the item they buy going to be used for? Will it be needed again? Should we buy something that may last for the project duration or something that we can be used again? What happens if the item breaksdown? How long before the manufacturer can get a replacement, this can impact the project and hence cash flow. Hiring and renting eliminates these concerns.
Servicing costs and compliance
Related to the risk element above is the need to ensure that the item is correctly serviced and maintained. Many hire and rental companies, especially in the construction hire and rental, eliminate this concern by providing on-site servicing and service histories. If your hire system doesn’t do this then you really need our HireEzy product.
Minimizing Assets
Assets require maintenance as described above both when in use and when stored. This costs money, in fact in Logistics the average assigned value to store, maintain, insure and account for an item is usually 35% of its cost, depending on the equipment. Furthermore, many listed companies and larger companies use Return on Assets as a performance measure. The more they hold in asset value the greater the revenue they need to generate in order to meet this performance figure. Hence hiring or renting can actually aid them in achieving there performance targets as the hired or rented item is not considered an asset.
For many people these statements above will be blinding statements of the obvious. But are they so blindingly obvious to your customers? Renewing and reminding them of your value proposition is often a good activity in these times. Especially when many of your clients are going to look at the costs they spend with you on hiring and renting. Many of your clients will just see the dollar figure and not reflect on the benefits you provide.
If you are a party rental or party hire company the following article provides more specific how to information on this subject.
Making Life Ezy are the makers of HireEzy the world’s most innovative hire software and rental management software. We are committed to helping our clients grow through the provision of business value, such as the information provided in this blog.
Absolute must google marketing tools for hire and rental companies
1
- Image via Wikipedia
Google’s Place Pages are a MUST for every Small to Medium Hire and Rental Company.
The Place Pages provide Small to Medium hire and rental companies with an excellent free marketing resource to add to their on line marketing.
WHY?
The target market for most SME hire and rental companies is their local city, region or county.
Big hire and rental companies with big marketing budgets can often dominate even local area searches through either their ad-words or large dollar spends on SEO.
For example even though you may be the nearest party rental company, major party rental companies can still appear highly ranked in the search results and as well as in the paid advertising links on the page. Previously discussed in a previous article.
Your advantage often can be your proximity to the person. You therefore need to emphasize this fact.
Google Local Business Center
Google has a local business center with excellent resources to help you in this marketing objective. They are free and easy to use.
To access the tools, simply create a google account and then claim your web page etc.
Then with in the local business center you can add your business to the Google Maps search. As shown below with ourselves.
You can also enhance this feature by clicking on the Pages icon in the local business center to add even more detail to your page.
So that when they click on the map pin, they can see more information about your business, including images and text etc, even promotions. For example if you are in the USA you can even use the coupon feature to add to your map pin.
For example “10% off all Marquee hires in Mar”
Easy to follow steps and easy to use. However be aware that Google needs to verify your change and this can take a few weeks. But it is worth it.
Link to Social Media Marketing
If you link your Google Local Business Center marketing actions with a social media campaign, then you have an extremely effective marketing combination that can substantially counter any major competitors marketing budget.
Don’t Know How
If you don’t know how or want further information, then please contact us. We provide this as a service to our Hirezy hire software and rental software clients. But we are always happy to talk with other hire and rental companies.
By the way, HireEzy not only is the best hire and rental management software it also comes with all the embedded digital and social media marketing tools you need to conduct really cost effective marketing.
EMAIL Us – we are only too happy to help
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=2f5ff8de-c6bc-4199-a3ef-afd560c46068)
Hiring strategies shift toward social media – Mass High Tech Business News
- Image by deanmeyersnet via Flickr
Hire and Rental companies have been in the main relatively slow to adopt to social media as a marketing tool.
This is despite the sector probably being one that could benefit most from using Social Media as a marketing tool.
Those Hire and Rental Companies who have adopted social media as a marketing tool have realized the benefits, particularly in lead generation.
The benefit of social media marketing is now becoming apparent to most business sectors, as evidenced in the article link below.
Hiring strategies shift toward social media – Mass High Tech Business News
Posted using ShareThis
HireEzy 2.1, business management software for hire and rental companies, makes social marketing easy for you – with its inbuilt and easy to use tools
Related articles by Zemanta
- Social Media Marketing Findings (biztipsblog.com)
- Why Kodak Thinks You Should Use Social Media (kylelacy.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7dcfbe88-9744-44e7-a266-ea00516925ff)
Party Hire and Rental Where to Target Your Marketing in the downturn
4Whether you operate your party hire and rental business in country is Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK or USA, there is one marketing segment that could provide some growth opportunity.
The target segment to consider focusing your attention on is families in the mortgage belt or suburbs. There are three key factors that drive this analysis:
Vulnerability to Unemployment Risks
The OECD has forecast that the most vulnerable labour groups are the oldest, youngest and unskilled. As a generalisation the mortage belt is generally made up of middle aged couples with either technical, trade or professional skills. Hence based on the most recent OECD forecasts, these are the least likely to face unemployment risks.
Interest Rates
Interest rates for mortgages across the board have fallen sharply over the last year. Some estimates show that this has meant that mortgage belt families have been able to free up a few hundred dollars per month. This saving to them is also being complimented by tax cuts in a number of countries.
Trend Towards Home Based Entertainment
There is a societal trend towards home based entertaining, rather than off premise entertainment. This trend has been accelerated by the recent global financial crisis.The home entertainment market is a target segment for party hire and rental companies. Another factor influencing the trend towards home entertainment. Whilst interest rates are coming down, so are house prices. So the overall sense of perceived wealth is declining, therefore home entertainment is seen as a low cost alternative to socialising.
A final point consideration in the potential growth of the home entertainment market is time. During the boom years, perceived wealth amongst home owners increased rapidly but at the cost of perceived time to spend with family and friends. Despite the increasing prosperity people seemed to work longer hours, unable to “find” the time to spend with family and friends. As we move into new economic conditions, how people make and spend their time will be worth watching. It may well create a new market opportunity for hire and rental companies.
Taking advantage of this segment is discussed in more detail in an earlier post Party Hire and Rental Companies could benefit from downturn.
About Us
HireEzy is the complete business management solution for hire and rental companies. Not only does it include digital marketing, web integration it also includes social media marketing tool integration.
How to Use Social Media Tools
 |
Marketing Problem
Hire Rental Advertising Considerations
Why Traditional Marketing Fails
Yellow Pages Versus SEO
Creating a Digital Marketing Platform
Creating a Digital Marketing Foundation
Hire Rental Web Lead Statistics
Marketing via Twitter
How Rental Hire Company can use Twitter
Business Reason to Use Twitter
Marketing via Facebook
Using Facebook for Business
They worried about Social Media in the 1930′s
Marketing via YouTube
How Rental and Hire Companies can use YouTube
Big List on How to Use Social Media
Marketing via WordPress
Why Blogs are Effective for Small Business
Why Small Businesses Should blog
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=7390d4fd-333b-4c24-9b70-d6e28c7df1bf)
AMA latest market survey shows growth in Social Media
The American Marketing Association has just released its August 2009 market survey highlights.
The survey is conducted by the AMA and Duke University, it surveys over 3000 of the top US marketers.
The shows the definite rise of Social Media marketing within overall marketing plans.
Related articles by Zemanta
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=16602788-9373-4715-94d9-90c7458c6c8e)
Trends of interest in the ConstructionHire and Rental Industry
1Recently there has been some press regarding some broader trends in the Construction industry. Two of particular interest caught our attention.
USA Manufacturers Looking to Bring Manufacturing Back from China?
A report published in the Industry News Weekly cites research by Archstone Consulting that over 90% of USA manufacturing companies surveyed are considering bringing back manufacturing from China. The full report, found by clicking either Industry News Weekly or Archstone above is worth reading.
The study revealed that in the last three years, manufacturers have seen a significant increase in costs related to off-shoring manufacturing for export purposes rather than in country demand, which include:
Ocean freight costs have increased 135%,
Chinese manufacturing wages have risen by 44%.
Assuming this trend also applies to Australian, Canadian, New Zealand and United Kingdom manufacturing companies, then it would be reasonable to assume that all countries could benefit from a slight rise in construction activity. Construction activity would be driven by the need to build new factories, adjust or modify existing ones. This is turn will aid the construction hire and rental sectors.
Change in Construction Union Industry Sector Co-operation
Another article recently caught our attention, and it relates in part to the previous section. The USA Iron workers have created a new model called IMPACT. Amongst the many aspects of the model, is the apparent fundamental shift in attitude, that Unions and their members should be the best pushing the bar for increased ironworker performance, productivity, quality and safety.
This change is important not just in the context of the prospects of increased construction activity due to manufacturing returning but also the construction work pipeline arising from the construction sector stimuli packages in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK and USA. A more co-operative construction sector benefits everyone, companies, contractors and unions alike.
Any lift in the construction sector will benefit the construction hire and construction rental industry – our clients. News such as both of those cited above are welcomed and are hopefully indicators of a brighter future for all. HireEzy the construction rental and construction hire software of choice.
Recession proofing your business – the IT perspective
Information Technology costs are always a concern for small to medium hire and rental businesses.
Here is a very good article looking at how you can look to reduce your IT costs.
We are all well aware of the faltering economy and it is no secret that a lot of businesses are looking to rationalise their expenditure on staff or equipment. Reports from media sources, such as the Australian Financial Review, estimate that the full brunt of the ‘recession’ is not expected to hit until the second or third quarters of 2009 [AFRPg. 55 Jan 23-26, 2009].
But tell-tale signs in the market as early as mid 2008 indicated that IT managers in many SME’s were told to scale back or, at least, review telecommunications and IT expenditure with a fine-tooth comb.
This time consuming and frustrating exercise can often bare little fruit when so many small-to-mediums are still ‘cap ex-ing’ computer hardware and software. With the little money spent on already thinly spread IT resources, where does one look to improve the IT department’s bottom line?
Reducing Operating Costs – Fencing Rental or Hire
1
Margins in the Fencing rental – Fencing hire sector have been under pressure as sales have declined in recent months with the downturn.
But there are positive prospects on the horizon with construction projects being the major intent of stimulus packages in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
The key question for many is how to reduce operating costs
One area often neglected is to look at doing things more efficiently. That is cutting out waste from the business operation. Consider your business, reflect on each area starting with marketing.
How much time do you spend on marketing?
- Things such as preparing brochures,
- Paying for the outside printing costs,
- Updating the web site,
- Paying for the web site to be updated etc.
- Even how much your adwords costs
How long does it take your sales staff to gather the information to prepare a client quote?
- Checking product or solution set availabilities?
- Gathering product information?
- Preparing quotes?
- Enhancing quote appearance?
- Managing sales lead information?
- Converting quotes to sales?
- Providing sales reports on the pipeline and opportunities?
Contractor and Service Staff managing their availabilties, jobs and tasking
- How much clerical and management time is spent managing service staff and contractors?
- How many errors are made when contractors do not confirm jobs?
- How much time is spent contacting contractors about jobs and their availability?
How much time is spent by Accounts double entering Sales Orders, Returns etc
- If your scaffolding hire and rental operations system is not linked to your accounts how much time do you spend double entering data?
- How much time does the finance department spend trying to get sales forecasts as a guide to cashflow?
If answering these questions has provoked your thoughts, then consider this. HireEzy has been shown to eliminate about 30 % of these costs. Whilst giving you significant marketing advantages as well.
Want proof or more information, then arrange for an online demonstration of HireEzy, it could save you from making the harder choice of regarding redundancies.
It could be the best decision you make!
Powered by Fast Secure Contact FormFill in the details below to contact us or request a Demonstration Version of HireEzy.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=e433acb6-d4ee-4654-a03f-25b5fd8424fc)
Improve Your Sales per Rental or Hire Customer updated
One of the most common feedback points we get from all new customers, is how can we increase our sales per customer. Terminology differs depending on your interpretation, but most commonly they are referring to our how can we Up Sell or Cross Sell more.
Let’s take a simple example of a Party Rental or Hire Company.
A customer has come in to hire a Spit Roast for the weekend, value say $75.00
Items that may also be of use to the same client, could be serving platters, carving knives, a condiment holders, an electric meat warming tray etc.
The spit roast hire price, with gas may be have been $75 for the weekend. But offering the related items may increase the hire price well over $100, an increase of 33%, which would be nice if it could be achieved across all orders. The 33% figure is taken from anecdotal evidence received from our customers.
So here are some suggestions on how to do it!
Start from the Customers Perspective:
Customers when they are looking to hire or rent something from you have an idea for an event, party or task that they going to have or do. The vast majority of sales staff merely respond to the customers specific item requests.
Good practise is to aks the client what are they planning to do?
Engage them in a conversation find out what they want to do, it is just a conversation it doesnt hurt. Once the you or your sales staff have determined what the customers event, idea or task is, then you can begin to suggest other items.
Approached in a conversational tone the customer doesnt feel threatened by a hard sell. For example:
Sales Rep: Oh so your having a Spit Roast for your son’s graduation at you place on the weekend. That is great, how many people are you expecting.
Client: About 30 people
Sales Rep: Wow that is a lot, have you got tables and chairs, cutlery and plates etc?
Client: Not sure
Sales Rep: We have a lot of clients who have Spit Roasts parties like you are having, so we put together this Spit Roast package based. It includes all the common items people were renting from us but we have bundled it in to a specially priced package.
This approach to offer a promotional package, is actually about turning the vast range of choices a customer has into a product offer. Whilst people talk about liking choice in truth most don’t. Giving them a “product” that suits there needs eliminates the need for them to think and the risk to them.
In relation to risk, consider the pyschology of a client. In the above example if the father comes in to hire a spit roast for the Son’s 21st. His selection of what is needed is based on his planning, so if he gets it wrong they chances of being “stirred up” by his friends and family are quite high. However if he selects your “productised offer”, then he has in reduced the risk of him being a source of jokes at the event or task. In effect you are doing him a favour!
Creating a Promotional Package
So how to create a promotional “product”.
HireEzy (the world’s most innovative hire software and rental software) provides both the analysis tools and in-built marketing tools to both determine what should go in a package and the production of a high graphic brochure (digital or print).
Creating these packages is incredibly easy, but the value they can provide to your business can be exceptional.
Generate Leads
If you do produce a promotional pack, then why not send it out to your previous clients. Use the inbuilt customer data base to send out emails with the brochure attached to your clients. Make sure you include an opt out option for them on the email. These tools for in-built in HireEzy are exceptionally easy to use and the results some clients have obtained have been impressive.
Web Crossing Selling
Research shows that over 50 % of new leads come from the web. But most hire and rental companies have very limited sales presence on line. Even fewer have an ability to cross sell or up sell to on-line customers.
HireEzy includes a fully integrated on-line site that allows customers to place booking requests directly into your system. Not only does this substantially reduce your costs it also includes in-built workflow solutions that enable you to up-sell or cross sell more to such customers.
Summary
The aim of cross selling or up selling is to increase the revenue per client. As discussed achieving 33% increases in revenue per sale are common.
Achieving this increase requires a combination of good staff training and a supporting hire software or rental software system, such as HireEzy. The key point is that Sales Staff up selling or cross selling can be assisted by the use of HireEzy. The result is that you can achieve substantial improvements in sales per customer. For more information for to www.makinglifeezy.com.au
What is the Next Generation of Business Software for Hire and Rental
In answering the question, it is worth reflecting back on the History.
First Generation Hire Software and Rental Management Software
The First Generation of Rental and Hire Software really began depending on who you believe in the 1980′s. Certainly there may have been earlier versions written for mainframes, but the packaged software started with the development of the affordable desktop. The packaged software market, first generation, emerged from the development of point solutions for specific early adopting customers.
These early versions focused on the basic process of managing bookings. Providing no more than a simple process of managing inventory, bookings and client records. However their effectiveness in bring business value should not be under-estimated.
Second Generation Hire Software and Rental Management Software
The Second Generation of Rental and Hire Software could be argued to have emerged with the growth of Windows, inparticular Win 95. This generation of rental and hire software built upon the popularity of Windows. Utilizing the look and feel of Windows, these systems began to emerge in the mid to late 90′s.
This second generation of hire software and rental software systems expanded the affordability and popularity amongst hire and rental companies.
These second generation systems grew to expand connection to useful business devices such as Point of Sales (POS), License Scanners, Bar Code Scanners and Cash Drawers etc. Second generation companies stress connectivity to these devices as their main selling point. Whereas as you will read Third Generation systems include such connectivity to devices as standard functionality.
However a major limitation of these older second generation systems was their reliance on interfacing to other critical business systems, in particular Accounting Packages and Customer Relationship Management Systems. Not having fully integrated Accounting and Marketing meant that hire and rental company managers were unable to truly and quickly analyse the true performance of their business.
The final death knell for the second generation hire and rental software systems was the maturity of the web. The web has grown from a novelty in the 1990′s and a ridiculous new financial business paradigm shift in the early 2000′s (dot.com boom) to a maturing business tool as we approach the end of the decade.
The web is now the primary source of leads for the best performing rental and hire companies.(most cite the web as providing over 50% of new business leads). In effect the web has created a second shop front, a virtual store that operates 24 by 7. This virtual store is as much a part of a hire and rental business as is the physical store.
Furthermore the web is also a primary source of incredibly useful business tools, such as Google Maps, On-line Bank reconciliation, Colloborative Event Planning, Contractor Management, Document Storage and Access, as well as communication tools like Email etc.
The old second generation hire and rental software systems were aimed at providing a solution for the physical store . Most such systems because of their under-pinning technical architecture and technology were in the main incapable of being stretched any further to enable the web to become an instrinsic part of a Hire and Rental business.
This led to the rise of the Third Generation Hire and Rental Systems.
Third Generation Hire Software and Rental Management Software
The third generation systems are Hire and Rental software products that instinsically include the web store and access to web business tools within the software package. This generation of software enables hire and rental businesses to trade in a physical store and a virtual store all with in the one package.
Furthermore they enable the use of high value business efficiency tools such as Google Maps, outlook email integration to with client records and on-line collaboration etc.
Finally they are an all inclusive business software system that includes critical business functionality such as Accounting, CRM and Digital Marketing. This inclusion ensures that hire and rental businesses can finally analyse in detail their businesses. Such things as profitability by customer or by product, forward cashflow forecasts based on actual bookings etc in near real time.
Third Generation systems reflect the business need of hire and rental companies. Affordable, easy to use and complete business functionality, the third generation systems are growing rapidly. One key driver of this growth is the Global Recession, as hire and rental companies seek solutions that both contribute to sales growth whilst reducing operating costs.
Second Generation systems are still available on the market and will be for some time. However these systems are increasingly being replaced by Third Generation systems. As this trend continues to gain pace, many hire and rental companies on older second generation systems could be left exposed, not only to business risk but the potential for declining market share.
HireEzy is the Global Leader in the Third Generation Hire and Rental Software Market. As one recent client who converted from a Second Generation system said
its like going from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age – it is incredible!!!!!
Want more information or an on-line demonstration, then contact us at sales@makinglifeezy.com.au
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=cdf3a6e6-cdfb-48c8-864c-1a1b1fc103a6)
A simple business guide to Social Bookmarking
2
- Image by Ivan Walsh via Flickr
Social Bookmarking is one one element of a Small to Medium businesses Social Media Marketing plan.
Social Bookmarking can be really good at helping bring more traffic to your site or to add credibility to your articles.
Basic Understanding of Social Bookmarking
When you find a site or on-line article of interest you can bookmark the site in your browser for later reference. But there are limitations with this:
Organizing and Searching
Being forever on the net doing market research, I am always finding sites or web articles that I think I would like to look at later. The problem is that in reality I end up with so many bookmarked pages and a really bad structure for filing them – that I can never find them again.
Some pages I book marked, could well have been filed under market research, hire industry data or even say social media statistics. Trying to remember where I put it became a real brain ache.
Sharing
The next limitation is sharing the articles with other people. Aside from not wanting to download every site or article and waste bandwidth, I want to be easily able to share articles with others. This is achievable using the browser bookmark system but it is cumbersome.
Others Opinions
If I do share an article I would like to track their opinions and how valuable they think the article is. Also how they would categorize the article, ie what keywords would they file it under?
Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking solves these limitations. It enables you to:
- Book mark a site or article of interest;
- Save the link;
- Organise your links by using multiple tags;
- Search by for your links by tags;
- Include other people publicly saved articles who have used the same tags, hence enriching your search; and
- Assess the value of an article based on others people opinions and ratings.
Why you should do it!
It is this last point that offers the real value to a small business.
If you create an article, lets say through your blog, you can submit it to a Social Bookmarking site.
More Readers. The first reason you would submit the article is that it potentially offers the opportunity to attract more readers. The social bookmarking site creates a new link from their site back to your blog, good for in-bound links.
Credibility. Others can read the article and rate it as well as make comments. The credibility of the article is increased the more others rate it well or comment accordingly. Yes there is a risk of the reverse happening as well.
Keywords. Other reading a good article may often tag that article with their own keywords. These tags along with yours are then indexed by search engines. This can be great for the search engine ranking of your article which in turn can flow through to more traffic to your site.
A well done article can be incredibly powerful in increasing traffic to your site!
Managing the Risks
Social bookmarking technology is generally free and easy to use. However whilst the technology is easy to understand the social groups that use may not be.
If you ever changed school can you remember the first day? The way they talked, the terms they used and what they talked about?
If you were smart you just listened for a while until you got use to them and their cultural norms. Hey why risk being labeled a “dork” better to just hang back for a while.
Social Bookmarking groups are exactly the same. Each social bookmarking service, and there are a number of them, seems have its own distinctive culture or informal rules and interests.
Social Bookmarking Services
There are numerous social bookmarking services. But as discussed above it pays to select the right one for you. This article gives a brief summary of each of the top ten and their focus.
Finally
The benefits of social bookmarking for small to medium businesses can be excellent.
But remember it is social by nature, so spend time getting to know the community of followers for your selected social bookmarking service. Watch the types of articles that are most popular and unpopular. Take the time to comment and rate others community members posts. Invest time in becoming known as a good community member and they will reciprocate.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=bcac724c-89cc-41c9-bfd0-44fb197bfa54)
Social Media – for Business
There are a number of videos out their touting Social Media understanding for business. But this one is particularly good, it uses terms lay business people understand and can relate too.
Renewing old hire and rental leads
If business is slowing down, then consider some form of lead generation.
One of the quickest and most effective is to go back through your previous leads.
Leads are previous sales inquiries that have not converted to a sale or booking.
Don’t be concerned that the inquiry may have been for a specific event that has past.
The key point is that they are prospects who have contacted you, therefore they have shown a propensity to consider hire or rental.
Secondly, unless otherwise stated by them, you have the opportunity to make contact with them again. Even if it is to seek permission to send information to them.
HOWEVER please check your local spam laws first.
The most cost effective way to do that is via email, or if you have the time try telephone or letters.
However email is probably the best way, it is quick and low cost.
More importantly you can track the contact through your leads section in HireEzy.
Here is an example:
Email Subject: Follow up from your previous inquiry
Dear Jane,
Previously you contacted Making Life Ezy about hiring (renting) some items for a function you were planning. If you are still planning the function or considering another function then we would love to be of assistance to you.
For your information here, I have attached a brochure of a special theme night packages we are offering.If you are interested in further information on these or would like to talk to us about other ideas, then please contact me.
Kind regards
RonUn -subscribe statement
Ensure you include an unsubscribe email link, so that the prospect can elect not to receive ay further information from you.
A note can be made in HireEzy against that lead, that they do not wish to be contacted again. Increasing leads generation especially in the current economic climate is an ongoing challenge, however the inbuilt tools of hireezy can make it easier for you.
HireEzy more information www.makinglifeezy.com.au
Read more about using free Google Marketing Tools as well.
Increase your local lead generation for nothing
You can increase your web leads without a website by using tools like Google local search. The local Google search engine results. These local searches are increasingly effective and pose a serious threat to more traditional directories such as Yellow pages ( see earlier post on is Yellow Pages Advertising still effective).
It costs nothing but can be quite effective, and is certainly worth the effort. Googles marketing description for the service is below:
Reach new customers on Google Maps and Google.com
Local customers are already searching for the products and services you offer. Why not make it easy for them to find you on Google search and on Google Maps? The Local Business Centre is the place to start.
To register your business click on the your country to open the relevant Google site.
Registering your business on tools like this is worth the effort.
How to proceed next and other Google tools are explained in the Google Must Tools article.
Remember HireEzy is the hire software and rental software for the digital age.
Why Rental and Hire Companies need Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
1Many Rental and Hire companies perceive relationships as just being about customers. The fact is this is a very limited view.
Successful Hire and Rental companies also recognize the importance of other vital relationships such as critical suppliers.
So what is a critical supplier?
A critical supplier is one whose loss to your business or change in business arrangements would have a significant detrimental impact on your service delivery or profitability!
Critical Suppliers can be contractors, service providers, equipment providers or even finance providers.
———————————————-
Managing Critical Suppliers
If you have such critical suppliers, then the next question is how do you manage these relationships now? And more importantly how do you manage the Supplier Performance?
Like any great relationship communication is the key – but good communication it must be founded in facts (accurate information)
Information
To effectively manage any business relationship and its related performance, you need information. What information do you need. Well imagine you were sitting opposite a major critical supplier trying to save the relationship or negotiate a new deal.
You would want to have at your finger tips:
Basic Contact Information: Including the names and roles, contact details for all relevant people within that supplier? That is you would want to know who you are dealing with in the company.
Previous Communication: You would want to be able to have reviewed all previous communication between your company and the supplier. Why, because you want to avoid the “you said” ” he said” discussions. Being able to show actual records of conversations/ meetings, email exchanges even SMS between your staff and theirs, puts you in control of the discussions.
Relationship Value: Finally you would want to have proof of all financial transactions between the company by period. Even down to which bookings, when and too whom the supplier services were used, including any feedback from customers. Demonstrating actual performance to any contractual performance agreements is essential in ensuring that the discussions remain objective and hence fruitful.
If you agree that this is the esential information you need, then the next question is – do you have ready access to such information now? Or do you need to go and find all contracts, ask staff for any emails or notes they have on converstaions with the supplier etc.
If your answers to the above questions gave you cause for concern, then consider installing HireEzy.
HireEzy comes with an inbuilt Supplier Relationship Management system, that:
- Captures all related bookings and financial transactions for that Supplier (Automatically);
- Automatically records all emails or SMS sent to the supplier from your staff;
- Allows notes from meetings, conversations etc to be entered and date time stamped;
- Enables all contracts and agreements to be store, Agreed discount terms;
- Even only allows you to capture all contact information, inc multiple contacts; and
- Even referrals made by Partners, then result in leads are captured.
HireEzy provides you with one place to capture, store, analyze and review all information you need to manage your supplier relationships.
So if you have critical supplier relationships and you dont have a rental software or hire software solution that assists you, then it may be time to consider HireEzy. The world’s most innovative rental and hire management solution.
To find out more or too book a demo, go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au
HireEzy is available in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Reducing Rental or Hire Business Risks
- Image via Wikipedia
A construction site fence toppled onto pedestrians after the security guard opened the gate to let a truck leave the site. A family was injured by the collapsed fence.
On behalf of the Hartwig Family, Berman & Riedel, LLP, brought suit against the responsible defendants claiming negligent erection, maintenance, and handling of the construction site perimeter fencing. (click on the quoted text to go to the full article)
Given the way the fence toppled and that it was a construction site, it indicates that the construction site had erected temporary fencing.
Litigation news like this is always worrying not only to Construction companies and but also to fencing rental and hire companies who supply such fencing.
Mitigating such risks requires good process. BUT from a Director’s perspective of Scaffolding Rental or Fencing Hire companies, such good corporate governance requires that you can show such processes were followed. This is where HireEzy is unique and can assist in risk Mitigation.
Imagine you were in court, can you provide documentation to your Lawyers on the following:
1. What Advise was given to and received from the customer during the sales process.
2. What was the actual version of any Safety data documentation provided to the customer at the time? Do you have a auditable trace history of the scaffolding safety eg (load limits, work methods) or fence erection documentation and work methods.
3. Was such relevant Safety Data documentation sent with the Quote or Invoice?
4. Was the documentation provided to your erection staff or contractor staff?
5. Can you prove the last time that either your staff or contractors were trained on safety requirements and were they tested?
6. Did you schedule an on-site inspection, by a suitably qualified person, to assess the erected structure?
Note such information needs to be stored for years!
If you can not answer these questions or are concerned that some of the information is missing, then you really need HireEzy!
HireEzy has the solution for not only efficient management of scaffolding and fencing hire or rental companies, but also the good corporate governance solutions to assist you in mitigating risk. Remember in some jurisdictions, Directors can face criminal negligence charges for injury caused.
HireEzy will not stop human error or accidents occurring but it can help prove that you took all reasonable steps.
To book an online demo of HireEzy go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au
Audit proof that assembly instructions were documented, and issued is required. That contractors used were provided with the correct assembly documentation
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=b1426b1f-e1c8-438a-812a-06ecd4b5997b)
The Case for Social Media Marketing
The case for social media marketing. Great presentation, one that all hire and rental companies should view.
The case for social media marketing. Great presentation, one that all hire and rental companies should view.Related articles by Zemanta
- Social Media Marketing versus Social Influence Marketing (socialmediatoday.com)
- Brand under attack (ecairn.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=9410dec7-819b-4146-9cb9-8655f10f10ef)
A simple mind map of how to manage your hire or rental business
Some days the task list of things to do is overwhelming,
where to start, what to next, who should do it etc etc. For most small to medium business owners of hire or rental companies this is the daily reality. Stressful enough to think about as you drive to work, without the background radio comments of from dire predictions of economists and commentators.
Everyone will suggest to keep things simple, easy to say harder to do. But one very helpful way is to have a simple mental image of your hire or rental business. Here is one simple mind map.
How to use the map.
In simple terms, the reasons you undertake marketing is to create leads. Once you have a lead, you focus is on converting that lead to a sale or booking, as quickly and efficiently as practical. Managing your stock effectively is a broad term, but encompasses all things to do with your inventory, servicing, delivery and collection costs. Having the right stock, ready to hire at the right time in the right condition. Financials is an interesting one, what you do and how well you do it drives your cashflow and accounting transaction. You are in business to make money, what you do is how you make money, the two are intrinsically linked.
The final stage, manage your existing customers is often forgotten. Estimates on winning new customers range from 5 to 15 times the cost of maintaining an existing customer.
So as you drive to work, you break the broad problems you have down in to the simple stages.
Marketing to Create Leads: If your sales are declining, consider what you are doing to market to generate new leads? Thinking about it this way, enables you to quickly think about your current marketing approach. Are we web marketing effectively, or newspaper advertising etc. Where is the problem? With HireEzy you can quickly analyse your lead sources to identify problem areas. You can also read other posts on this site that suggest or discuss different marketing ideas.
Manage leads to bookings or sales: If you are getting the leads, are you getting the sales or bookings conversion, or are the dollar size of the hires relatively too low or are the taking too long. Again analysing sales using HireEzy can assist in determining where the problem lies.
Effectively manage your product assets: Such a broad area, with so many potential problems. So lets take an example problem – sales being lost because of insufficent stock. What is the cause, is there a sufficient inventory relative to current and forecast bookings, has there been a change in product demand, is too much of the current inventory not available for hire, due to servicing, cleaning or repair requirements, Where is the problem? Again use the analysis reports in HireEzy to identify the cause.
Financials driven by your bookings: What you do should drive your accounts. Not sure what your cashflow forecast is, then it is probably because your booking forecasts are not visible in your accounts. This is the most common problem facing companies who have an accounting package either separate from or being used to manage their business. Ideal for the accountants terrible for operating the business. This problem is solved with HireEzy as the accounting package is integrated into the solution. A confirmed booking creates an immediate accounting transaction entry.
Manage your existing clients: Back to feeding your market leads, are you getting word or mouth referrals or repeat business from existing customers? No, then look at some of the tools in HireEzy and the business improvement suggestions made in this blog, such as renewing old leads. Remember your customers can be your best marketers.
This mind map tool is just a way of helping to simplify you business, to make sense out of the myriad of issues and problems you face daily. Try using it and see if it helps you.
Making Life Ezy is the name of our company and the objective of our products like HireEzy, for more information go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au Available through out USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, UK and Singapore.
Twitter
Facebook
You Tube
Technorati
RSS