Hire Software

19 Feb

Hire and Rental Software with integrated web content management

Hire and Rental companies are increasingly finding that the web is a primary source of new sales inquiries.

In fact over 55% of new hire and rental leads now come from the web

Major Business Issue

The business issue though is ensuring that the virtual (web presence) and the physical (actual shop or store) are aligned! Such that whether a customer “walks in” or “clicks in” that get the same up to date accurate information.

This may sound simple but as most rental and hire companies know it is not!

Why!

Because the data for each item (description, category, images etc) is maintained both in the rental or hire business management system and separately in the web database.

Cost

This imposes a real cost on Rental and Hire companies.

As each time they update their inventory, either adding a new item, or new images, or even new descriptions – they have to pay a web developer to make the changes.

One client stated that this cost was running in to thousands of dollars per annum

A cost imposition just to simply update basic information!

Eliminate the Cost and Take Control

Eliminate this cost, make the change once and have it update the web automatically with one click!

You can with HireEzy 2.1!

Go Beyond!

Why not also update your specials, your promotions etc – in fact why not take control of your web content yourself.

Hire and Rental companies can now manage their web content, including hire items, images, pricing and promotions through the one single application. Even update your own terms and conditions with one click.

On-line Requests Let customers browse, select and place an order request on line – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year!!!!!

You can with HireEzy 2.1 and our web option.

We make the web an integral part of your business as it should be in this day and age.

Read more about the benefits of the integrated SMS and how it can reduce booking cancellations or no shows by 25%. Link to article

HireEzy 2.1 also includes an inbuilt range of web 2.0 productivity tools, Social Media integration and digital marketing tools (such as mass email, SMS, high graphic catalogues etc). All easy to use by YOU!

No wonder HireEzy is the world’s most innovative Hire Software and Rental Software .

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

12 Feb

Event Hire and Rental statistics and opportunities

| 2 comments

(Source Reuters) News reports in the USA have pointed to a savage downturn in the $175 billion corporate meetings market.

Driven by companies slashing their conference, event and major meetings budget. Such budgets incur not only event equipment rental and event hire costs, but also travel, accommodation/venue costs.

Surveys indicate that over 60% of all companies intend to reduce their spending on meetings next year. Industry professionals such as Kevin Maguire, President of National Business Travel says ” I have been in this business for over 40 years and I have neer seen anything like this before”
The issue at hand is not that there is a downturn, that just has to be accepted, but rather what to do about it.

The hire and rental sectors most impacted would be event hire, event rental, av hire and av rental, with some flow over in to the party hire or party rental markets. There are some potential solutions.

Event Solution versus Event Product provider.

If you are a provider of products to the events, ie you react to orders from marketing departments or venue organisers, you may be in a difficult position. Because you are effectively removed from the Corporate decision makers who make decisions on whether to hold events or not. Often the first thing you know about it is in your sales figures as the orders dont come in.

However if you offer event planning as a service to support the hire or rental of your products then you will be better placed. The reason why you will be better placed, is that your engagement with the Corporate decision makers will enable you to understand what their company is doing and more importantly why.

Why is important to know? Whilst some companies will be adamant that the cuts will be made, others will be less rigid. The corporate person you normally deal with will generally be keen to see events re-instated, as often it is an important part of their role. If you can help them by assisting them to sell the business value of holding events then not only will it aid you in potential sales it will most definitely aid you in gaining a long term relationship.

Selling the Business Value of Events

So if one of your market segments is the corporate event marketing then ask yourself the question can you sell the business value to them of maintaining or even increasing their event budgets?

If you can not, then do you know management consultants, meeting facilitators etc who also target the same market. Remember many of these consultants are also impacted by the downturn. They are often key participants, organisers etc of such corporate events. Such consultants are specialised in selling business value.

Meeting with them can assist you in understanding the key issues and focus. Consider the information you gain from the meeting, is there an opportunity for you to partner with them. Ie is there a mutual value for both of you to be gained from such a relationship?

Finally a downturn is an opportunity for some a threat to others, it depends upon your attitude.

HireEzy is committed to helping our clients turn the downturn in to a business opportunity.

About Us

12 Feb

Hire Software and Rental Management Software Just Gets Better

HireEzy is taking the world by storm, finally a hire software and rental software solution that meets the needs of smallest to the largest companies.

Not just in managing bookings, but in marketing, sales it even has on inbuilt online store!

HireEzy made by Making Life Ezy is World’s most innovative leader!

As one client in recently put it, “we have been looking for twelve months to replace our old system, your software is years ahead of anything else on the market”

So why is HireEzy so far ahead of the rest!
Companies now have three domains that the need to manage the:

sites- albeit sales staff operating off site or people working from home or remote offices.

HireEzy provides one fully integrated solution to enable this to happen!

This is the reason why we are growing so fast globally. Businesses want a fully flexible solution that meets there real business needs. HireEzy does that! It is not just about the flexibility but the true cost saving, by eliminating mulitple systems and replacing it with one.

Many customers cite savings in excess of 30% of related operating costs. Plus because of the inbuilt digital marketing and sales tools, many claim to have substantially increased sales.

So even if you are on older platforms, dont worry we regularly migrate customers off older systems to ours so that their historical records are transferred across in to your new HireEzy system.

Here is a short overview of some of the functionality included in HireEzy.

Marketing- Customer relationship management
- Customer transaction history, including damages
- Customer contact records
- SMS marketing and reminders
- High Graphic brochure production
- Integrated web content management option
- Integrated online catalogue option
- Product Marketing brochure production
- Product Combination brochure production
- Inbuilt email for brochures
- Lead Source identification and analysis
- Management Marketing Reports

Sales and Bookings- Equipment Sales
- Equipment Hire
- Equipment Availability
- Calendar view of equipment bookings
- Sales lead management
- Process credit card payments
- POS integrates to most hardware
- Professional high quality quotes
- Licence Scanning to customer record
- Quote to Invoice conversion
- Deposits and Bond management
- Damages and waivers processing
- Long term hire and Cross hire
- Hire Item Packages suggests and manages sub component hire items
- Existing Customer discounts
- Management Sales Reports
Inventory- Bookings generate warehouse pick slips
- Stock purchasing
- Service and Maintenance scheduling
- Service and Maintenance history
- Inventory levels by product
- Bill of Materials for combination hire items
- Management Stock Reports

Delivery and Collections- Bookings generate delivery requests where delivery requested
- Delivery schedule planning
- Complete integration with Google Maps for delivery planning
- Integrated collections planning with delivery
- On-site servicing or inspections requirements can be integrated in to route planning
- Deposits and Bond management
- Damages and waivers processing

Finance and Accounting- Bookings create accounting transaction records
- Payroll option
- General Ledger
- Profit and Loss Statements
- Long term hire monthly/ period payment processing
- Links to Ezidebit for 3rd party collection of period payments
- Financial Management Reports

Technical- Operating systems Windows XP, Vista and Mac
- Minimum requirements Pentium III 500Mhz
- Network up to 250 users

About Us

HireEzy is the innovation leader for the global rental and hire industry!

12 Feb

Advertising – media type considerations

| 2 comments

There is structural change going on in the world of advertising, in part it is being accelerated by the global downturn.

The structural changes relate to the decline of traditional advertising stalwarts, the yellow pages, print media and television advertising.

Firstly the Print Media

The print media has long been the main source of news, and hence advertising. However, good journalism, even bad comes at a price. The print media’s classified and advertising revenues have long funded their journalists and distribution costs. But that is no longer the case.

NEWSPAPER REVENUES FALL 29%

Internet news is cutting deep in to the traditional print media. Many companies have tried to build business models that are Internet friendly? Albeit that they are extensions of the old business models, such as subscription services. Such models have generally failed, for a variety of reasons, but one in particular dominates all. There is a perception amongst Internet users that information on the net is free or should be free. With so many other sources of information to choose from, browsers simply err away from subscription services to other free sources of information.

Journalists are having debates over the fact if you want good information you need to pay for it. That may be true, but at this stage of the Internets maturity, people appear to be less discerning in the quality of information they receive.

The Canadian Company Dialect has published a list of newspapers around the world that have been closed down,

Secondly Television Advertising

I read recently, unfortunately I can not remember the source, that over half the world’s television advertising spend is in the USA. Audience fragmentation is a main issue, people have choice now in their visual home entertainment, from free to air television, cable tv, Internet programs, even video games and dvd’s etc. This choice range acts to fragment the audience, and even the audience with in a household. Consider the old images from the 1950′s and 60′s probably even the 70′s of families all sitting around one TV watching the hit shows of the day. Now days, it is more likely that mom is watching on one TV, Dad on another, the kids in their rooms either on MSN messenger or playing video games.

Here are some statistics, in the UK there forecasts indicate that advertising revenue is expected to fall by nearly $0.7 Bn US in three years. The USA television bureau is forecasting another 7% decline in advertising across the sector.

Finally Yellow Pages

Increasing research in the US and Australia has found that the use of the traditional yellow pages is declining.

People are increasingly turning to the Internet to find information, even local information. Some figures suggest that this the use of on-line search can be as high as 80% of all information searches.

Even Wall Street acknowledges that the days of printed directories like Yellow pages are numbered. The Wall Street Journal reported that advertising in US print directories is expected to fall 39% over the next four years. In there words as people migrate en masse to the web.

Dr Lynella Grant is the author of Yellow Page Smarts, she makes the point that relying on just yellow pages is now longer safe. She makes the points that over half of all customers now go to the internet first to find information even for local products. This is not too say you should not have Yellow Pages advertising, rather you should not be singularly reliant on it.

As an example, speaking to one of our customers recently, he said. When Dad run the business we use to spend up to $15-$20k a year on yellow pages advertising, we now spend $2k. The reason is that our leads for our small print business are increasingly coming from both business and private customers finding us on the web – even the locals!

So what is going up

Well not surprising internet advertising is growing at around 10% per annum. Again this is not surprising either when you go back to fundamentals. The media companies whether TV or print provide information and entertainment. But so does the internet!

The yellow pages provided information that was traditional inaccessible – a list of all service providers in a category. But again so does the Internet, but it does so with the user being able to source information of their choice.

So what to do

Firstly, your advertising mix still needs to contain elements of each of the media services. Obviously depending on your target market and budget. Most companies are well versed and educated in advertising in these traditional forms, so there is not much point discussing them further.

Although it is worth mentioning that for small business it may be worth looking at TV advertising as the costs may be more palatable now, relative to the results.

What we would contend is that companies need to have a well considered marketing mix. The element needed though is to create a digital marketing foundation. An subject discussed in the next blog post.

About Us

05 Feb

USA Independent report validates need for one integrated software managment system for hire and rental companies

HireEzy has long advocated that hire and rental companies can only achieve operational cost savings by having one integrated business management system that provides a single version of the truth.

An independent report from a USA consulting company has now valdiated that statement.

Extract From Constuction Hire: AN INDEPENDENT research report by Tech-Clarity has found that hire equipment owners and dealers need to have centralised, efficient software systems if they are to be competitive in the market.

Tech-Clarity’s report shows businesses that integrate service requirements into their managing software are more effective than those that don’t. read more go click here

About Us

04 Feb

Business Need will Drive Creativity in 2010 – Hire Rental Industry

| 1 comment

: 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

Aligning Social Media to the Buying Process

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

Benefits of Supplier Relationship Management for Rental and Hire Companies

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

Safety Instructions Using Social Media

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

Use Social Media To Expand Your Business (lazerpromotions.com)
Social Media Infecting Every Aspect of Business (ducttapemarketing.com)

03 Feb

Next Generation Hire Software & Rental Software for Construction Rental & Fencing Rental Hire Companies

| 2 comments

The next generation of natural business flow software for Temporary Fencing and Construction Rental and Hire businesses has been released. It now also enables you to control your own website content and catalogue.

Construction hire and rental companies, particularly temporary fencing have some unique hire and rental requirements specific to their business sector. Previously many such companies have had to rely on multiple systems to manage their businesses.
Not so any more!

HireEzy v2.1 has been released with all the specific needs of Construction hire and Rental companies, particularly temporary fencing. Such companies need specific functional in addition to normal hire and rental functional requirements.

HireEzy 2.1 includes all standard hire and rental functionality PLUS
1. Estimation tools to support quotes
2. Management of services to support rental or hire solutions
3. The need for staff and contractor management
4. Issuing and tracking of safety data to meet safety requirements
5. Flexible payments and recurrent billing options.

HireEzy is a complete business solution for temporary roofing, scaffolding and fencing hire/ rental companies.

Natural Business Flow

HireEzy is a natural business flow software, part of the next generation of software solutions that are easy to use but also fully integrate with the internet. Natural business flow software follows the natural way businesses operate.

The natural flow in general terms construction rental and hire companies, specifically scaffolding, fencing and roofing rental and hire follows these broad business processes.

1. Market to create leads
2. Quotes supported by simple estimation tools and booking availability.
3. Convert quotes to invoices and confirmed bookings.
4. Manage and allocate materials and labor resources – (either internal or contractor).
5. Delivery, Assemble, Inspect, Dis-Assemble and Collect.
6. Account for the money.
7. Manage existing clients to generate new business.

HireEzy assists you to manage each of these processes with not only the tools you need, but some you may not even have thought of. Each of the processes will now be briefly discussed.

Marketing

The primary purpose of marketing is to create sales leads. HireEzy provides a full range of in-built marketing tools to enable you to produce your own high quality brochures, catalogue, e-mailers and newsletters. Most importantly it enables you to control your own marketing from one location.

Marketing – Integrated Web Option

The internet is now increasing the primary source of lead generation for most businesses. However for it to work for you it must have a high search engine ranking. That is if “scaffolding hire Melbourne” is typed by a prospect, your company web site must appear at a minimum on the first page of listings. It is worth noting, research has shown that prospects will click on a search result (organic result) over a paid ad appearing on the same page.

HireEzy’s web integration option can significantly help here. By integrating your hire or rental catalogue to the web site, any changes you make in the catalogue are published to the web site. Such changes ensure more frequent web site changes. This in turn means a higher search engine ranking, increasing the chances you will appear on the first page.

HireEzy is the only known system in the world to offer this fully integrated functionality – a critical business tool.

Quoting

HireEzy has some simple inbuilt tools to support your quotation process, such as:
1. An inbuilt length estimator,
2. Contractor resource availability,
3. Inventory availability for a given date range, and
4. Discount rate for approved clients

Such tools simplify the quotation process, meaning all information is at your finger tips. Once a quote has been produced, a simple high quality quotation with graphic images can be produced, and emailed to the client or printed and handed to them.

Invoicing

Quotes are turned to invoices with one click. Or allow quotes to be adjusted to reflect any changes in the original quote. Industry payment terms and conditions are included, such as recurring billing for long term rental or hire, part de-hiring of long term rental or hire items, even allows for adjustment of payments for stand down days.

Manage and Allocate Resources

There are primarily two resources you need to manage, your inventory and your staff/ contractors. With HireEzy you can effectively manage both of these key assets.

The inbuilt inventory management tools enable you to manage your inventory purchasing, receipt, maintenance and dispatch to a job. Accurately providing you with real time information on your stock on hand. If you have depots, no problems, HireEzy can manage your inventory at each site.

Your staff and contractors are essential to your service delivery. HireEzy provides the tools to improve your management of your most valuable asset – people.

Like an item, the availability of staff and contractors is managed in HireEzy. Both can advise of leave periods, other jobs etc and these can be added to the system to provide accurate forecasts of availability. Got a new job and want to confirm a contractor availability then just click SMS, and an SMS is sent straight to the contractor with the job details and dates.

Delivery, Assemble, Inspect, Dis-Assemble and Collect

HireEzy comes with the inbuilt transport planning tools to enable you to schedule deliveries and collections, including assigning tasks to drivers and co-drivers such as:

• Assembly/ disassembly tasks,
• Payment collection,
• On-site period inspections, and
• Collections.

It even includes full integration with Google Street maps to provide directions. On site conditions, limitations including access times etc are also included.

Accounting

Most accounting packages rely on data being transferred from business operations. HireEzy accounting package is driven by your hire transactions, saving enormously on double handling of data and the associated risk of errors. For example, creating an invoice in HireEzy immediately creates an Account Receivable record. If you still have other accounting packages then we could provide data export to those systems. HireEzy accounting module has a full range of financial reports needed to run your business. HireEzy accounting module is included with your purchase.

Manage Your Clients

The old adage is that it is 15 times harder to win a new client than to retain an existing client. HireEzy’s inbuilt management tools, such as contact management, newsletter productions and customer discounts etc, ensure that you have the tools at hand to support your on-going client retention.

HireEzy is the ideal solution for temporary roofing, scaffolding and fencing hire/ rental companies who want to grow their business whether in the USA, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom or New Zealand.
If you are interested in more information or an online demonstration then please contact us or book a demo on line at www.makinglifeezy.com.au

About Us

Making Life Ezy developers of HireEzy and AgencyEzy.

How to Use Social Media Tools

Marketing Problem

Hire Rental Advertising Considerations
Why Traditional Marketing Fails
Yellow Pages Versus SEO

Agt-Home

30 Jan

Series Two on SEO for Rental and Hire Companies

In the first article in this series we looked at the basics of SEO.

Now we will move on to getting started.

Step One: Analyse your current site.

Why? Because firstly it will give you a list of things you need to do to improve your SEO and secondly it will enable you to track your improvement overtime.

There are a number of great sites which help you do this, but we love Web SEO Analytics tools.

WebSEOAnalytics has excellent SEO analysis tools, best of all they are free. The first one to use is the Web SEO Analysis Tool, it will give you a comprehensive report on your current site.

Step Two: Get the SEO Tool Bar

Download the SEO tool bar for Firefox, it you have IE or another browser, you may wish to consider installing Firefox.

This tool bar gives you excellent analysis tools for every site you visit. The information it has is really useful as you go forward in undertaking the SEO yourself.

You could also consider using the Alexa toolbar as well, it has some useful tools in it as well. Alexa can help your search rankings as explained in a previous article

Step Three: Start Fixing the Issues

The Analysis Report you received from Web SEO Analytics may include some issues or errors you may not understand. Don’t stress, either go back to Web SEO Analytics web site or get this really good free ebook that can help.

27 Jan

Become a HireEzy Channel Partner

HireEzy is the global market innovation leader in the Third Generation of Rental and Hire Software.

Fully functional business management software for Hire and Rental businesses PLUS full integration to the Web and Social Media Marketing.

Given the increasing global interest in HireEzy. Making Life Ezy, the developers of HireEzy are now seeking expressions of interest from companies interested in becoming the Sales and Marketing agent within their country or province/state.

The partner program adopted by HireEzy ensures that partners are well rewarded and supported for their efforts. The partner model emphasizes collaboration and openess of communication to achieve the best results for both HireEzy, the partner and the customer.

To find out more please contact sales@makinglifeezy.com.au

25 Jan

Complete Hire and Rental Software solution for Party Rental, Party Hire, Event Rental and Event Hire Companies!

| 1 comment

The latest version of HireEzy for Party Rental and Party Hire Companies has been released.

Reduce Operating Costs by 30% – we have clients who have reduced operating costs and in some
cases doubled revenue by using HireEzy.

Option for a Fully Integrated Web Site – in which you can update and control the web content from
HireEzy with two simple clicks.

Protect your Cash by renting HireEzy – a small installation fee is charged to install HireEzy on your
premises.

The SMALLEST to LARGEST companies use HireEzy because of its affordability and scalability.
WHY CAN WE DELIVER SUCH PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS!

Natural Business Flow that cuts costs: HireEzy is a complete hire business management solution, designed to follow the natural flow of your business.

The natural flow starts with creating and managing market leads and ends with banking the cash. This is an extremely important difference and one that makes us the emerging market leader. Why have separate un-related systems and processes for marketing, for your web site and for brochure production, for hire operations, for servicing, for delivery and for accounting, when HireEzy provides one complete solution. Even the simple things save time and dollars like one click conversion of quotes to invoices that also updates the accounts with a new Account Receivable transaction.

Marketing- Lead Generation

Differentiate yourself as a leading professional company with the most incredible in-built Entertainment
Agents and/ Entertainment Manager marketing tools. Full range of in-built easy to use digital marketing tools.

Control your web content yourself, updating news, events etc (option)
Inbuilt SMS functions
Promotion Cataloguing system for products
Produce High Quality Marketing Documents
Produce your own full color Product Catalogues and full color marketing PDF’s
Produce your own Fliers and E-mailers

Full Agent Marketing Relationship Management System

A specially adapted customer relationship management system for the Hire and Rental
Companies.

Contact Details, Contact history,
Standing Pricing Agreements/ Discounts/ Financial and Contract history

Event or Project Planning

Plan and manage events for your clients with the inbuilt event and project planning tools.

: Image by jurvetson via Flickr

Project manage events professionally.
Reduce project risk.
Full visual graphic reporting.
Even includes sub-contractor management.

Bookings/ Inquiries and Availability

Manage Bookings professionally with the World’s most powerful booking management system. Respond quickly and easily to sales inquiries with accurate and timely information:

Email or print off quickly tailored high graphic quality product information and pricing specific to their inquiry.
Check availabilities, reserve bookings by status and confirm bookings.
Track Bookings with Daily, Monthly, Weekly views. Bookings are color coded depending on their status.
One click conversion of quotes to invoices.
Send reminder SMS to clients, a method shown to reduce no shows by as much as 25%.

Inventory and Logistics Management

Manage your inventory and logistics with a completely integrated business solution.

Schedule and record stock maintenance.
Improve inventory utilization.
Produce pick lists for warehouse staff.
Produce detailed delivery and collection schedules with route planning and directions through Google Maps; or tasking instructions such as set up, on-site inspections or disassembly.

Accounting and Contracts

A fully integrated accounting package that is driven by your bookings.
For example creating an invoice automatically generates an Account Receivable transaction, it also includes:

General Ledger and Profit & Loss,
Cash book accounting,
Central Contracts store,
Easily manage and calculate complex financial payments/ splits/ commissions

Collaboration and Workflow

Clients have stated that they have been able to cut as much as 30% of their operating time and costs by the use of through the in-built workflow tools. A major fallacy is that your whole system must be web based in order to collaborate with partners. Not only is this not true it is in fact a major business risk to you. As a number of recent clients have stated when the internet went down, we could not trade, we could not access our own information – we were completely at a loss.

MLE eliminates this business risk, but also provides you with the tools to collaborate effectively with your partners.

Other

All you data is stored on your site, we do offer back up data services.
Eliminate the business risk of not being able to trade or conduct business when the internet is down.
Set staff access level s to data or functions by role or by person.
Comprehensive range of management reports

Have a problem, then click live help and we can help you!

Works on Apple Macintosh or Windows based systems

Interested? Then book an obligation free on-line demonstration, go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au

25 Jan

SEO for hire and rental companies

Research has shown that over 50% of new hire and rental leads are now coming through web leads.

That is why we now offer our clients a full integration between either our online store or even a plug in catalogue to your own web site.

Complimenting this functionality is the need for good SEO ( search engine optimization) to increase the probability of appearing on the first page of search results against your key words.

As part of our service to clients we provide information how to improve their business including things like SEO. Our You Tube site includes a wealth of great educational short videos.

When we find good video’s such as this one below produced by a company specializing in this area we like to share them.

Top 20 SEO Tools

so here is a great video from you tube on how to improve your Search Engine Rankings.

If you want access to other great videos go to our YouTube site:

17 Jan

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.

15 Jan

Party Hire and Rental Where to Target Your Marketing in the downturn

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Whether 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.

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13 Jan

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?

11 Jan

Reducing Operating Costs – Fencing Rental or Hire

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: Image via Wikipedia

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. Book a demo on line at www.makinglifeezy.com.au

It could be the best decision you make!

10 Jan

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

10 Jan

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

02 Jan

Why Rental and Hire Companies need Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)

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Many 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.

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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.

02 Jan

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!

Builders can be sued up to 10 years after a project has been completed for a construction-defect issue, and often, no matter what the defect, the lawsuit involves every subcontractor involved from the landscaper to the company that provided temporary fencing,

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

31 Dec

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.

11 Dec

Is Branding worth the effort for Small Companies?

How much effort should small businesses put it to branding?

Many small businesses talk about branding! But what do they really mean by branding?

Brand

A brand is a collection of your symbols, images and even customer experiences. Consider the MacDonalds bill board advertisements:

A simple billboard with the Mac Donalds logo and the words “Loving It”

The advertising says nothing about price, products or locations, rather as a billboard advertisement in it own right it is really serving as a prompt to your memory.

Why Brand and is it Worth It?

Major Corporations have invested heavily in branding over many decades, for a number of reasons such as ability to charge a higher price, that it will carry them through tough times or that it makes customers more loyal. But is this true?

Brand Translates to a Price Premium?

Brand marketing has really been the foray of the major corporations. In some ways brand marketing was meant to translate to customers being prepared to pay a price premium. But consider this:

Would you pay a 20 to 30% price premium to buy a known brand plasma TV from a reputable well known branded store? Or would you buy an unknown brand from another store who offered roughly the same specifications and warranty, for 20-30%?

Despite what most people say face to face, the reality is most people will buy the second one.

The real truth is that the power of brands has been declining for some time as has the ability to charge a price premium without significantly losing sales or market share. For more inforomation one good book to read is The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki.

Brands as Insurance in Tough Times?

Previously Corporations traditionally invested heavily in their brands, as a form of insurance to carry them through when tough times, what the Nokia CEO Jorma Ollila, called mis-steps. [1] However as Nokia also found out, it is insurance than no longer guarantees results. Nokia estimated brand value in 2002, was $30bn, next year (2003) failed to produced want customers wanted and so Nokia lost $6bn in brand equity. [2]

Brands Build Customer Loyalty

Building brands meant focusing on building customer loyalty. However Jean-Noel Kapferer, Professor of Marketing at HEC Paris, Graduate School of Management makes the point that marketers have sort the holy grail of customer loyalty by restricting their choices [3]. The problem is customers are no longer loyal.

customers .. more fickle than ever, established brands are vulnerable and new ones have a real chance of succeeding….. Consumers are continually looking for a better deal, opening the doors for companies to introduce a raft of new products.

Brand as an Asset

Yes if you were bigger, then the power of your brand can add to the intangible asset value of your company. That is the premium a company is prepare to pay above you actual earning multiple. However intangible asset values have received some short to medium term collateral damage from the Global Economic Crisis. The effect of this collateral damage will be to contribute to a further short to medium term erosion of the power of brands.

So Where to Focus your Brand Marketing Efforts

There is one discrete little phrase in the opening definition of a brand used in this post “customer experiences”. For small businesses this is the real key – for this is where sales leads come from through satisfied customers word of mouth. Sales leads are the life blood of small business and primary purpose of small business marketing.

Keeping Your Promise

I have heard it said (not sure by who) that “your brand is your promise kept”.

For Small business I think this is the best way to look at a brand. For example if your differentiation in the market is your service, rather than the products you offer, then your promise (brand) is going to built around your service offering. You want your customers to experience that service positively and then have them share through word of mouth their endorsement or validation of your promise.

Such positive word of mouth in small communities or within industry sectors spreads. Especially so these days with Social Media. The converse holds true as well, dont keep you promise and you can guarantee the word will spread.

So therefore in terms of brand marketing, the real expenditure should be on your systems, processes and people to make sure that they all assist in ensuring that they deliver the brand promise that you have made. Hence the question becomes only one that you can answer – should your priority of expenditure be in to high end brand logo’s, brand advertising or in to your people, processes and systems needed tosupport your promise? Only you and your resource capacity can answer that question.

Consider Social Media as Your Major Marketing Channel

Social Media has been said to be the great brand leveller. Why because traditional media advertising effectiveness was directly related to how big your marketing budget. Social media is not the case, marketing effectiveness on Social media is dependent not on your budget (well not to a great degree) but more on how well you engage with your customers/ prospects.

Brands have a disadvantage on Social Media of their own creation. Brands have put their brand value on balance sheets – its an asset. Brands perceive Social Media as a risk, they are cautious – have a need to “control” the marketing. The problem is social media is not controllable by the brands it is controlled by the consumer.

There is only one way to control your brand on Social Media

Consistently deliver your promise – each and everytime.

Where to Focus Your Brand Marketing

It is simple deliver what you say you are going to do! To this make sure that your people, your business processes and systems enable you to deliver the promise. If you are an equipment rental or hire company then our business software certainly will help.

If you do this then people will spread the word as they have always done. Given the growth of Social Media “the word” can now be spread faster and wider than ever before – both good and bad!

References

[1]Surowiecki, J. The Decline of Brands, published in www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/brands_pr.html

James Surowiecki is the author of “The Wisdom of Crowds”

[2]Surowiecki, J. The Decline of Brands, published in www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/brands_pr.html

James Surowiecki is the author of “The Wisdom of Crowds”

[3]Kapferer, J-N. The roots of brand loyalty decline: an international comparison. Ivey Business Journal, March / April 2005

04 Dec

Benefit from Economic Stimulus Packages

The impact of the Stimulus packages announced earlier this year should now begin to benefit the Hire and Rental industry.

Many projects announced in the Stimulus packages had lead times for tendering, design and planning stages, especially the larger projects.

The Hire and Rental industry is critical to the efficient delivery of these projects, as explained in previous post.

In essence the industry is critical because it can efficiently deliver equipment, resources and solutions to the companies delivering the projects with out the need for such delivery companies to use critical cash reserves to purchase equipment.

Stimulus Packages Size and Investment

During the earlier part of 2009, Governments in the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada announced significant local stimulus packages. A major portion of this investment has been directed towards Infra-Structure projects designed to kick start the construction sector.

The numbers are staggering!!!

Specific details on the USA package

Whilst some major projects in each country will have lag times as the tendering, design and planning stages are processed. However many of the government initiatives have been directed towards accelerating numerous small projects.

These projects will be small, numerous and dispersed creating a demand on tools and equipment. Construction, Tool, Scaffolding and Temporary Fencing Rental and Hire companies may well be able to benefit from this demand. In order to meet the requirements of numerous competing projects, many construction companies may not be able to efficiently allocate and re-locate in-house tools and equipment.

Hence increasing demand for more construction hire equipment.

A second related issue is that in some countries, banks are forcing property developers to expedite projects or lose their line of credit. This has had a flow on effect to Town Planning departments, where many are under heavy workloads to meet expedite approvals.

Small Projects Flow On

Some Western Governments have handed our tax incentives or cash hand outs to stimulate demand. This could contribute to a growth in the home repair and maintenance market. Three factors may potentially contribute to the growth in this segment:

Reduced equity in the home due to the fall in house prices will mitigate against many people borrowing against their house value to undertake major projects.
Increased disposable cash from tax cuts and interest rate cuts may assist in home owners undertaking minor projects and repairs.
The prospect of a greater focus on activities with friends and families, which includes home repair activities, again discussed in the previous post.

If you are considering improving your marketing to these segments Construction, Tool and Temporary Fencing then using HireEzy’s ( hire software, hire management software) inbuilt marketing tools will aid you substantially. For more information go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au

02 Dec

Rental and Hire Company Web Lead Statistics

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HireEzy Web Integration Brochure- PDF download

A survey of HireEzy clients and prospects revealed some interesting insights into the major sales lead sources for rental and hire companies.

Whilst there was a range of results, those that clearly lead in their rental or hire market segments all showed similar statistics.

The clearest result was that the leading hire and rental companies in Australia, UK and the USA now generate over 50% of all new sales inquiries from their web site. This can be a combination of direct web submitted inquiries or customers who have checked out their web site prior to calling.

Secondly that most now find Yellow Pages or Yellow Pages on Line a rapidly declining source of new business. One customer with a long established business, cited that his father use to spend $25 000 a year on Yellow Pages, they now spend less than $2000. The reason is that yellow pages is no longer the major source of new business for them, rather it is business from the web.

Compare yourself to the best performers from the survey!

Benchmark Yourself

Your Answer

Survey Results – Industry Leaders

What percentage of your new business sales inquiries come

from the Web?

55%

What percentage of converted new business sales come from

inquiries that started from the Web?

35%

If you are below these benchmarks, then here is what they were doing.

The websites of those that were successful in achieving more than 50% lead generation, demonstrated some common characteristics:

· Frequent changes to the content;

· Ability of customers to view their hire and rental catalogue;and

· Ability of customers to place orders.

Cost of website development to achieve this frequency of change and maintain catalogue updates was however cited as an issue.

Now this is where HireEzy comes in to its own, HireEzy enables you to make changes in your back end catalogue and have those posted straight to your web site. The Website provided by HireEzy also enables customers to create booking requests, these booking requests then appear as sales leads in your HireEzy system.

The attached brochure provides more information.

This solution is perfect for:

· Party Rental and Party Hire;

· Fencing Rental or Temporary Fencing Hire Companies

· Tool Rental and Tool Hire

· Equipment Rental and Equipment Hire

· AV rental and AV Hire

In fact most companies who hire or rent products or services!

No wonder HireEzy is the innovation leader in the global hire and rental market.

For more information go to www.makinglifeezy.com.au or download our brochure at the top of this post!

20 Sep

Rental cars Competitiveness to Increase

This post discusses if there are opportunities for the smaller vehicle hire or smaller mixed hire and rental business, that has a small vehicle fleet?

Current Situation

One of the many flow on effects of the downturn is that major Rental Car companies are holding on to their vehicle stock longer. Car rental companies have previously relied on the credit provided by the Automotive Car giants. Such credit lines are no longer available or at least until such time as funds are provided from Government resources.

Compounding the problem is a decline in car rentals, particularly in the corporate and tourism markets.
Corporates are not only cutting back staff but also on travel. This cut back has flow on effects accross the hire and rental industry. As Corporates cut back – not only the Car rental, but also the taxi and limousine markets feel the effects. All three are related suppliers of transport services to the corporate sector. As the market shrinks, all three will begin to discount fares or hire charges to maintain cash flow. Car rental companies with older stock may have greater room to move on discounting rental fees. But such discounts may need to keep pace with the discount rates being given by the alternatives – taxi’s and limousines. Limousines drivers are slashing their charges, in some cases being only marginally more than the cost of a taxi for the same trip.

The tourism sector is also declining. This will further reduce car rentals. Whilst domestic tourism may increase it is unlikely to provide a significant boost to the car rental market.

So where is the opportunity for the smaller vehicle rental operator and/or mixed rental hire business?

Those rental businesses with a good local clientele may be best positioned to survive the downturn. Whilst longer term rentals may decline, the demand for short term rentals of specialist vehicles (trucks, utilities etc) may increase. See post on growth in home repair market – Construction, Tool etc. Specialist vehicle rental companies such as wedding limousines etc may also suffer increased competition.

Pro-active marketing to your clientele with not only specials but examples of use would be effective. For example – Time to clear up the garden? Then make it easier to take the waste to the disposal site with our weekend gardeners special – a 1 tonne truck or ute for $x per weekend.

With HireEzy creating marketing material such as this is easy. And it is even easy to email it to your clients. HireEzy has all your vehicle hire needs in one software package. Go even further and use HireEzy to manage your on -line vehicle bookings all from the one package.

HireEzy is a product of Making Life Ezy, a company committed to positive ideas for our clients no matter what the economic conditions.

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Hire Software

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Why!

Cost

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Necessity is the mother of all invention!

Great Point But Where To Start To Look For Innovation?

So What Are Some Ideas for Innovation?

First - Increase Revenue

Second - Cutting Costs

Reducing Risk

Still Unsure?

What do we get out of it?

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Quoting

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Delivery, Assemble, Inspect, Dis-Assemble and Collect

Accounting

Manage Your Clients

About Us

How to Use Social Media Tools

Marketing Problem

Creating a Digital Marketing Platform

Marketing via Twitter

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Step One: Analyse your current site.

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Marketing- Lead Generation

Full Agent Marketing Relationship Management System

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Bookings/ Inquiries and Availability

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Well here are five good reasons why companies should hire from you.

Whether 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.

Vulnerability to Unemployment Risks

Interest Rates

Trend Towards Home Based Entertainment

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Marketing Problem

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Marketing via Twitter

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Margins in the Fencing rental – Fencing hire sector have been under pressure as sales have declined in recent months with the downturn.

The key question for many is how to reduce operating costs

How much time do you spend on marketing?

How long does it take your sales staff to gather the information to prepare a client quote?

Contractor and Service Staff managing their availabilties, jobs and tasking

How much time is spent by Accounts double entering Sales Orders, Returns etc

First Generation Hire Software and Rental Management Software

Second Generation Hire Software and Rental Management Software

Third Generation Hire Software and Rental Management Software

Many Rental and Hire companies perceive relationships as just being about customers. The fact is this is a very limited view.

So what is a critical supplier?

———————————————-

Managing Critical Suppliers

Information

Some days the task list of things to do is overwhelming,

How to use the map.

How much effort should small businesses put it to branding?

Brand

Why Brand and is it Worth It?

Brand Translates to a Price Premium?

Brands as Insurance in Tough Times?