Contract Spot Blog: Simplify Your Services

My name is Steve Mandery, and I am one of the four co-founders of ContractSpot.com. For five years, I worked as a service provider running a successful landscaping company in Cincinnati, OH. As an entrepreneur, there are obvious upsides – no boss being the obvious winner. That sense of power turns anyone’s mind into a winding wheel on how you’re going to turn your business into “the best one anyone has ever seen.” In the landscaping business you have quite the wall to climb to surpass your competition. That being said, reliability and quality are the keys to any business, and this is what I focused on. Little Joey from down the street can cut your grass for half the price as me, but what he couldn’t offer was professional style lawns guaranteed to look that way every week. Would you be willing to pay for quality and reliability, the answer is yes.

My key focuses during the five years I was a landscaper, however, came with downsides. Since I spent all my time working to please my clients, I had little time to focus on the billing side of my business. Initially I felt this wouldn’t be a problem, and it would just work itself out. Well, if invoices are not sent out in a timely manner money isn’t coming in timely either. Money is what runs the business, so therein lays the predicament. I was amazed on how difficult it was to get quotes and invoices to customers and how long it took to get responses and money. I tried various so-called solutions (i.e. quickbooks, peachtree, etc.), which led to stress rather than success. Serving over 100 customers on a weekly basis, it became nearly impossible to keep track of which customers have paid and which customers have not. This backend B.S. quickly began to weigh on my mind as the weeks passed without having time to invoice and collect from my clients.

After a few beers one October evening, Bryan and I (one of the co-founders) began to get into our “feeling-good, ground-breaking idea state of mind”. You’ve been there before.

“Hey man, wouldn’t it be nice if we could just sit here all day and play golf because we had that big idea that would solve millions of peoples’ problems.”

Most times, those ideas just end up in some black hole that can’t be pieced back together even if Stephen Hawking figured out that problem he is working on. Anyway, I think we were onto something that night. We both woke up the next morning and discussed what we talked about the night before. This had to be a good idea right? We both remembered the conversation and were extremely excited, but didn’t really know what to do. Well, that is the first step – diving into a problem without a clue in hell what to do. This way you aren’t scared of what could potentially be a barrier down the road. Enough, enough, what’s the big idea then?!

We decided to build an online service network connecting customers (residential or businesses) and service providers. As a customer, you can invite pros to your network, receive quotes/invoices, accept quotes and pay your bills. As a pro, you can build a network of your customers. From that network you can send out quotes/invoices and give them online payment options. You can also grow your network by adding your company profile and receiving leads from customers outside of your network. Everything comes together as one big network of pros and customers connecting.

Cincinnati, OH - Nationwide website now allows contractors to electronically submit and manage quotes to customers through one central location. Contractors spend countless hours spelling out and delivering quotes to customers in the hopes of obtaining their business. Much of this maligned time is due to availability of the contractor or customer, and the lack of organization and standardized templates. Of course, leading the headache is paper, paper, paper!

The speed of interaction between contractors and customers is improved with an electronic quote system developed by Contract Spot. Expediting the quote process ultimately leads to acquiring potential jobs quicker. Contractors simply fill out an online quote template, which is then emailed to the customer.

Landing jobs in the service industry can sometimes rely heavily on who gets their bid delivered in a more timely fashion. The traditional method of quote delivery is typically either phone, mail, or hand-delivered. Each of these mentioned systems have flaws. Phone quotes do not give the customer a written visual of all aspects involved with the quote. Mailed quotes rely on the speed of the postal system. Hand-delivered quotes require travel time and fuel.With this new electronic quote system, contractors will now be able to manage all quotes they have sent. Quotes can easily be sorted by open, won, and lost quotes. Adding a quote logo personalizes each quote. Printer-friendly quotes can also be printed out for hard-copy storage.

Contract Spot CEO, Steve Mandery, explains “As a former contractor in the service industry, keeping track of quotes between multiple customers could sometimes become burdensome. Electronically submitting and managing quotes would have saved me time, and more importantly- money.”

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