Restoration Rewind

Delta Development Group Monthly Newsletter

July 2016

Delta Disaster Services made a huge presence at this year’s Crawford Contractor Connection Conference in Las Vegas. Nearly all of our offices were in attendance for the conference.

Merril Hoge, a former NFL player was the keynote speaker of the event. He shared stories of the experiences and challenges that he has faced both on and off the football field. He spoke heavily about what it takes to get things done in adverse situations. As business owners it is always great to hear speakers who are not directly in business. A lot of what it takes to be successful in business is also what it takes to be a successful athlete, writer, or really any type of professional.

Other conference speakers included numerous senior claims personnel who discussed what it takes to be a successful restoration contractor in today’s marketplace. Some of those key points were:

Communication

Keeping promises

Productivity

Cycle Time

Quality of Services

All attendees found the time at the conference very valuable. Everyone gained a better understanding on how to work within the CCC program and how to be a better restoration contractor both inside and outside of the TPA umbrella.

Last year, after the convention, many of the offices saw their operations being added to programs under the CCC umbrella just because of the hands they shook. We hope to see the same results from this year’s conference. We would love to hear feedback from everyone that attended. Feel free to send your comments to Mike Mastous.

OBAMA SIGNS MAJOR OVERHAUL OF TOXIC CHEMICALS RULES INTO LAW

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama signed the first major overhaul of toxic

chemicals rules in 40 years into law on Wednesday, calling it proof that Washington can

function despite intense polarization.

In a White House signing ceremony, Obama praised both chemicals industry groups

and environmentalists alike for finding consensus despite their usual differences of

opinion. He was joined by a diverse group of U.S. lawmakers who helped pass the

legislation, including House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California and

Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana.

"If we can get this bill done, it means

somewhere out there on the horizon, we

can make our politics less toxic as well,"

Obama said before putting his pen to the

bill.

In addition to updating rules for tens of

thousands of everyday chemicals, the law

also sets safety standards for dangerous

chemicals like formaldehyde, asbestos and styrene. The law aims to standardize on the

national level a jumble of state rules governing the $800-billion-per-year industry.

Congress spent more than three years working on the bill, which rewrites the 1976

Toxic Substances Control Act and aims to "bring chemical regulation into the 21st

century," according to the American Chemistry Council, which backed the overhaul.

"Folks should have the confidence to know the laundry detergent we buy isn't going to

make us sick, the mattress our babies sleep on isn't going to harm them," Obama said.

Republicans and some Democrats have been

sharply critical of Obama's efforts to strengthen

environmental and climate protections through

the use of regulations they say stifles businesses

and creates unnecessary burdens. In recent

years, many Republicans have worked to pull

funding for the Environmental Protection Agency

or eliminate it entirely.

So it was especially unusual that the toxic chemicals bill passed a Republican-controlled

Congress with broad support despite giving the EPA increased authority to assess the

safety of new and existing chemicals.

Business groups had sought a single federal standard to eliminate the complexity of

dealing with state regulations that don't always line up with each other. Still, some

Republicans opposed the legislation and called it an overzealous Washington takeover

of a matter they said should be left to the states.

CASH IN THE DOOR! Based on June Royalties…

What can we say…Delta Disaster Services of Southern Colorado had another record breaking month with over $400,000 cash in the door! Great job and keep up the great work!

QuickBooks Basics: Items vs. Expenses Let’s talk about Items vs Expenses for this section. Using Items will always give you more detail. In a very simple view from behind the scenes of QuickBooks, this is how Items, Expenses and your Chart of Accounts (COA) works:

For our example, we will use a Delta Box Truck.

Think of the Chart of Accounts as the “Big Picture”. You will use this data when you don’t need a lot of detail, you just need a final total at the end of the year for what the truck costs. This is data that would appear on your COA as “Box Truck”. When you run a P&L for the year you will see the total costs for this truck.

The real advantage of Items is detail they provide and the ability to run reports off that detail very easily. Think of Items as the detail behind the COA.

Your Items for the truck would look like this (this is already set up in your QuickBooks)

• Fuel. All fuel purchased for the Box Truck would be coded to this Item. At the end of the year, you can easily see how much you have spent for fuel.

• Insurance. The insurance costs for the year. • Repairs and Maintenance. This is one of your most important Items. How will

you know when the costs of repairs is exceeding the value of the truck? If you use your Items and break down the costs, you can easily see this.

• Tags, misc. This should be self-explanatory.

You can break your Items into the smallest chunks of costs that you desire. If you want to track several specific things for a year, set up Items and have them funnel into the corresponding account on the COA that you want/need. This will keep your COA “clean” but still have the detail you desire.

To find your list of Items in QuickBooks: Go to the Top Toolbar. Find “Lists”, scroll down to Items. Just like anything else in QuickBooks, you can make Items Active or Inactive. If there are Items in your list that you do not think you will ever use or have not used for several years, make them inactive.

Go to the bottom of your Item list and you can run reports. You can also export the Item List to Excel. This is a great way to look at it in order to clean it up

Confused as to when to use Items? Always (Always, Always) use Items for Payroll, Invoicing, and job costs (including subcontractors). Your overhead costs can be tracked with Items or Expenses depending on the amount of detail you want.

You MUST use Items in order to sync QuickBooks and DMS. If you have Items that need to be “cleaned up” or new ones that need to be set up, please let us know and we will provide some instructions via Go-To-Meeting. THE POWER IS IN THE ITEM!

Marketing Corner

Time management is especially challenging but paramount to a marketer’s success. We reviewed how to prioritize your daily and weekly schedules in our last marketing call. Below is a great follow up with specific tips on how to better manage your time. Just a reminder July is our marketing month so don’t miss the next few calls on Wednesdays. Enjoy! Jason Kaber.

Is Time-Management an Issue for you? Here are a few tips.

You'll agree that we live in a world where we are surrounded by distractions...

At any given time, there’s a hundred phone calls to make, thousands of people to chat with on Facebook and a million emails to answer. Sometimes, it seems impossible to get it all done…

That's where an essential skill comes into play - time management.

Here are 6 tips on Managing YOUR Time:

1. Measure a task Notice how sometimes things we think we can get done quickly tend to take much longer, and we find ourselves wondering where the time went? For one day, walk around with a stopwatch and time yourself doing everything you do on a regular day. How long does it take you to brush your teeth? How long is your commute? How long does it take you to go into Starbucks and get your morning latte? Once you figure out how long things really take, you can be more realistic about how much time you need to set aside in your day…and where to trim the fat from your daily schedule.

2. Everything Has One Home, and One Home Only How long does it take you to save a file to the right place? Ten seconds, max? Yet for some reason, we’re often apt to save to our desktops or some other place where the file doesn’t belong, only to spend hours looking for that document later on.

3. Be as Paperless as Possible Who hasn’t spent hours searching for a single copy of that one important document that you intended to take home and read over the weekend? Instead of hoarding large amounts of hard copies, why not take a picture of each item and then store it in a Cloud. I use Neat for all my paperless needs.

4. Manage Your Calendar to Budget for Every 15 Minutes of Your Day I know that if I budget for it, it’ll happen. This doesn’t only apply to projects that require funding, but it also applies to time: if you slice out time in your day to address certain things, you can be sure those will get done.

5. Don’t Underestimate the Power of “Yes” or “No” How often do you spend too long drafting a lengthy response to an email that you could have just answered with “Yes” or “No”? If you think about it, you’ll probably find it’s more often than you think. In 99% of these cases, “Yes” and “No” are acceptable responses.

6. Use Email Subject Lines to Convey Messages If you’re only listing a short message or response, include it in the subject line. That way, you don’t even have to send a full email, and the person reading can simply look at their inbox to see the response. This saves time for both the sender and the reader. The first time you use this trick with a new person, be sure to write “EOM (End of Message)”so that the person knows the message is complete in the subject line, and then you can use the acronym EOM at the end of subject line responses in the future.

Jessica HughFollowJessica Hugh Leveraging Social Media and Content Marketing to help you Build Relationships with your Audience and Customers. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140725042730-103373688-is-time-management-an-issue-for-you-here-are-a-few-tips

Delta Development Group Hits the Road Jason Kaber, VP of Business Development and Michael Mastous, President, spent the last week in June marketing for potential franchisees in Southern California.

We strategically targeted the Southern California market by having private, invite only dinners for a select group of contractors. We had private dinner meetings in Pasadena, Woodland Hills, Irvine and Anaheim. We met with over 20 general contractors in all. They were all very interested in what the Delta Disaster Services opportunity provided. We will be following up with them in the weeks to come and we will keep you posted as to the potential in the Southern California market.

DDG Webinars Moving Back to Wednesday

Just a reminder to all, the weekly webinars that DDG provides will be moving back to Wednesday. This begins as of NEXT WEEK. The marketing webinar next week will be on Wednesday, July 13 at 7:00am MST. As always if you have suggestions for topics that you would like us to cover in the Wednesday webinars, send your ideas over to Ragan.

What Does it Take to be a Successful Entrepreneur?

Getting a business off the ground is a very challenging endeavor. In our industry, the success rate after five years in business is 5%. That means that 95% of all restoration contractors are no longer in business going into their sixth year. We are all fortunate to be part of a franchise system because no one is in this alone! However, trying to do things on your own and create your own path for success is not what the franchise system is about. At Delta Disaster Services we have proven systems and procedures that when followed, will lead you down a successful road. The franchise industry as a whole has a 95% success rate over the first five years of a business’s inception. Think about that. Without a proven model, and doing it on your own, your chance for success is 5%. Being part of a proven system conversely, your chance for success is 95%. Following the system only makes sense.

And we will leave you with this…

If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride - and never quit, you'll be a winner. The price of victory is high but so are the rewards.

Paul Bryant -