What have you learned this year?

I am one of those people that think you should try to learn something new everyday. And if not everyday at least look to find new information or things to learn 2-3 times a week.

If you are not learning you are not growing as a person or in your business. So take a minute to ask your self "What have I learned this year?" If you don't have an answer, or don't think you learned enough maybe you need to start looking for things to learn and places to learn them.

I hope many of you took advantage of the trade shows and coventions offered this past month or this year.
That you are on at least one forum chat room that puts you in touch with others in your field of business.
That you tried to find new ways to do your jobs more efectively, less costly or faster.
That you learned ways to improve getting you & your business in front of customers with advertising.

Soap Warehouse wants to help you learn and to grow. Because face it, the more you grow, the more product you will need and the more we will grow with you. We only want to give you the best in products and in knowlege. So if there is a topic you would like more information on or resource links to, just let us know and we will be happy to spend the time, you may not have, to find the information you need to learn and make it available to you.

One great site I found this year that I have been letting all my car detailers know about is a site called Book Fresh http://www.bookfresh.com/. Now this site can be used by more than just car detailers and if you have been trying to find other ways to increase your customer base or if you have too many empty days to fill this may be it.

BookFresh is a service that you join and they get a cut for their service. With one system they offer, you fill out a list of your own service information for the jobs you are willing to do and lets you put prices to them. Then potential customers go on line, look at what you offer at the price you list and then deceied if they would like to book your services. It also lets you tell the customer when you are available to do the jobs. So say Tueday and Wednesday is always a slow day for you, you can leave those days as the only ones open for new customers. Each job has a time limit set with it, say roof cleaning under 1500 sqft 3 hours, and you have open three time slots per day. The new customer goes on line, finds the day and time they like, places the order, pays for the service and recieves a coupon. You then get an email notice of this new customers information, order and payment. You know you have already been paid before you even load up to drive to their home. Once there you take the coupon and do the job. Of course you should have already called and spoken to them, made sure the job falls in the specs you put down for the job and may even possibly up sell them for other services that they can pay for once you get there.

Don't want to pre-price your services, Book Fresh has another service to book free consultations for job bids. They place you on search engines like Google & Yahoo locally to find you customers. Take a look http://www.bookfresh.com/resources/handyman-business-marketing-software/.

Book Fresh gives you a website (even if you do not already have one) for customers to see your work, read testamonials, it even lets you link to any other website you already have, and offers many free business services for paying clients.

I think this service is a great idea that can move any business, that is not yet on line, into the computer age and open up new possiblities to gain the newer computer savey customer. More than 70% of new customers go line instead of picking up a phone book these days and you need to be where the customers are looking.

I hope you all keep learning and that this site can help some of our customers businesses.
Please let us know if you use them and how it works for you.