On July 14th we entered a new stage of our partnership with BluePay and we’re incredibly excited to announce that you may now accept ACH payments, via BluePay, from your customers. Please allow me to explain what that means for your business. ACH is an acronym that stands for Automated […]
Protected: CLIP New Hire Training Guide
It’s 2017 But You Still Need A Business Phone
It’s 2017 and it feels like we should be able to handle all of our communication via apps, text message, and email. But as a business, you still need to setup and manage a phone system. One option that just came out this week is the Microsoft for Business PBX (the new […]
If I Could Just Work Harder!
I just talked to my mechanic today. I was dropping off my minivan to get the struts repaired ($1000.00 job. I’ve done the work before but don’t enjoy that job). He had some business insights that we can learn a lot from in our industry! Working harder, not smarter He […]
Calculating Your Costs Per Man Hour
The off season is the perfect time to evaluate what you did last year, and plan for the next year. For CLIP Lawn care that means calculating our costs for last year, and forecasting or hourly costs for next year. As you grow you need something to measure your productivity […]
Leaders Anticipate Needs
I remember distinctly working on a tree house with my Dad on a bright sunny day (one where you squint your eyes because the sun is so bright). That day he taught me an important lesson about anticipating need. He was framing the walls for the tree house (think 10′ […]
4 Ways To Get Better Reviews For Your Lawn Care Company
Reviews have a large effect on your local (think searching maps) search engine optimization efforts. Here are some tips for getting your local search engine optimization started for your lawn care business. If you search for “Lawn care Frederick, MD” you’ll see that the top results have reviews filled out. […]
New features in CLIPitc
As we start 2017 I want to go over some of the features that we added to CLIPitc over the past year. We have a lot planned for 2017, and have much better processes in place internally!! Additional Charges Additional charges are one of the things that we added. Use additional charges if […]
Why piecework matters part 1
We just finished up the next installment in our business video series. This one is about Piecework, hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it! If you missed the first one, click here to view it!
Equipment questions: Rent or buy?
Equipment purchases when your starting out I have seen lots of business owners get into the business and immediately start purchasing equipment. This can set you up to fail before you even start. I’ve also seen the other side, where the owner is mowing 6 days a week 10 hour […]
Account Updater for Credit Cards
The Benefits of Using Account Updater for Your Recurring Billing Customers As a lawn care or field service business owner, it’s not uncommon to put your regular customers on a recurring billing schedule. Doing so allows you to easily accept payments in the future — without requiring your customers to […]
Employee FLSA exemption salary changing
There is an exception for certain types of workers (managers, administrators, etc.) that makes it so that you don’t have to pay overtime if they are paid salary over a certain amount. The government is changing the salary cap for the exemption from $23,600 per year to $47,476 (see the […]
Solar landscape projects
As we get to the end of the year business owners and individuals start thinking about how to lower their tax bills! One way that your customers can do that is by installing solar. They’ll get the benefit of renewable energy, and possible lower electrical costs, and a large Federal […]
Employee overtime rules and piecework (Section 7 Fact sheet 20 FLSA)
Is Piecework Legal? At the GIE show I had a lot of questions about piecework. With more employment laws changing it seems like this is a great time to cover the legal aspects of it. While I am not a legal professional, and can’t give you direct legal advice. I […]
Texting in your lawn care business
Lately I have heard a lot of buzz about texting in your business. There are 2 reasons that you might want to implement texting in your business. Texting for Marketing People usually open texts quickly. If you have a marketing campaign that you want people to see right away, and […]
CLIP2go Basic GPS tracking – better office dispatching
We’ve brought GPS tracking to CLIPxe (not CLIPitc, yet…) If you are using CLIPxe today you will probably need an update, and possibly an updated Android app for your guys. The good news is that it’s provided to you at no additional cost. If you are already using CLIP2go just […]
Importance of Job costing
Why is job costing so important? Learn more about it in this short video on Job costing.
Google project Fi for business?
With a landscaping business you need to stay in touch with your workers! Google just made it a little bit more affordable to do that. I’ve been using googles phone plan Project Fi personally for about 6 months. It seems to work pretty well for what I need, and I […]
Small business owners salary
Some small business owners that I have talked to have a hard time telling the difference between profit and salary. Owners take a draw from the company, so they don’t really understand how much they made until the end of the year. But for accounting purposes you should always include […]
Lawn care businesses and the Minimum Effective Dose
What does swinging a kettle bell have to do with business? I read a book by Tim Ferris about working on your body. In the book he introduced a really important concept called the “Minimum Effective Dose”. If you use this concept in business it can help you focus on the things […]