Anyone working in a business that requires a high volume of services or products to be completed in order to be profitable quickly runs into a situation dealing with organization. This is very true in the world of process serving.
In the beginning you might have one or two assignments to work, and the mind can handle keeping track of what is going on with those. But what happens when you get to where you dozens or even hundreds of assignments?
If you're not organized, this could lead to crises (as in plural). Court documents become lost. The day-to-day status (read: where are we with the progress on serving an assignment) becomes clouded and confused with other assignments. Deadlines are not met, which means a court appearance may not occur for a client (or perhaps several clients). Eventually, this leads to your client base dwindling and/or a complete mess on your hands, and productivity and efficiency goes down as you struggle to fix one problem after another because things become so disorganized.
Two critical management tools and one bahavioral practice in our office manages to keep most of the disorganization from causing dysfunctionalism. I'll address the behavioral practice first.
As the owner of a small private investigative/process serving company, I have come to realize that although I am not a "neat-freak", I do enjoy the fact that everything has a place and at the end of the day, everything goes back in its place when I am done. And I require that, too, of those who work with me. Remember when you were a child and your parents would say to you to put things back where you found them. The hammer goes in the toolbox. The broom goes in the closet. The milk goes back in the refrigerator. Simple stuff, right? It made sense because then when you needed the hammer again (weeks later, perhaps), you knew exactly where it was without even thinking about it. The same holds true for the office space. Have a separate place for everything. And I am not just talking about where you put the pens and pencils at the end of the day, either. I am talking about where you place your current active assignments, where to file away the completed assignments, and where do you put your receipts for business-related expenses (yes, even those). If you do that, then at the end of the day, your desk should be clean enough to eat off of (well, perhaps not literally, but you get the point). And this also has a psychological impact for you, as well, because the next morning when you come in you don't have to look at a swirling mass of confusion right off the bat that you will have to spend at least a few minutes figuring out before you can get started with the day's task.
So, now for the management tools that go along with the behavioral practice just mentioned. First, there are a software managment tools out there specific to the process serving world. We use one of those to input all the information on a particular assignment so that we can track the progress on the assignment, build affidavits, issue invoices, and keep track of all the client information for that particular assignment. The most prominent software management tool in the industry is Process Servers Toolbox which was developed and is operated by Database Services, Inc. These software managment tools are a real time saver as you can write notes into the database for each particular assignment, so you know in writing what is the status, and you can even send reports from it to your clients so you do not have to call them or them call you about status. There are a ton of other neat benefits to having one of these software management tools, and I highly recommend them even if your volume of work is under a hundred assignments a month.
The other organizational technique I would suggest is a very good filing system. We have the usual filing system for things like receipts and where we put assignments that need to be placed on hold or assignments that we need to run a skip trace, etc., but we also use a separate filing system that is specifically designed to manage deadlines and to push productivity. What we do is we have set up one filing drawer that has 31 separate folders each marked 1 through 31. And we use those 31 folders to place "reminders" (or notes) within so we know when to check on pending assignments. We also use these folders to remind us of other things, such as calling a business contact to set up an appointment, etc. Why 31 folders, you might ask? Well, because each folder is for one day of the month. So that way when it is the 5th of June, we pull out folder number 5, and we pull out of folder number 5 all the reminders in it so we know those are the things we need to work on that day. We use a physical filing system for this, which seems very "old school", but you could set something up like this on your computer as well. We tend to use the physical "old school" method because sometimes computer's crash and lose all their data, and also there is just something about having a tangible (physical) paper reminder staring us in the face that tends to work better on the mind in terms of getting things accomplished than an electronic version might. We also have extended this 31 folder filing system by adding twelve other folders each labeled with each month in the year, so that if there are certain tasks that should be projected out 30 or 60 or 90 days into the future, we have a place for those "little reminders" as well. We learned this technique from a business management book called "Getting Organized" by Chris Crouch. It is not the most entertaining read, but if you want to organize your office, the book is a good start.
There are certainly tons of other things you can do to get organized, but these tips will turn you in the right direction. But whether you use them or not, I strongly suggest that if you are going to run a process serving company that you do some sort of organization of the office ... otherwise, you might find yourself working until midnight just looking for a missing court document and only figuring out where your hammer is, and that the milk in the refrigerator is cold.
Also, check out, "The Business End of Process Serving", by Bob Hill, available at Amazon.com, for more useful information on running a process serving company.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
The 80/20 Rule
This past month was a sparse one for our blog posts, and we have good reason for it, too. Recently we have been composing and putting together a book on how to start up and run a process serving company. It is a basic primer that provides some of the nuts and bolts to get new process serving companies going, and perhaps provide tips for those of us who are more experienced on how to run more efficiently and/or become more profitable. Hence, the blog suffered a bit while we worked out things to get the book published and ready on Amazon.com.
For those who might be interested, the book is titled, "The Business End of Process Service" by Bob Hill, and as far as we know it is available on Amazon.com, as well as available on Kindle as an ebook. If you want us to send a copy to you, then please contact us at www.rtr-i.com, and we will be happy to send you a copy as well.
Now, as for the 80/20 rule, it is an axiom in business that states that 80 percent of your company's revenue will come from 20 percent of your customers. Naturally, that means the remaining 80 percent of your customers will only provide 20 percent of your revenue.
So what does this tell you? Well, it says a lot about how to manage your overall book of clients. First, in my opinion, those 20 percent who give you 80 percent of your work, you should really focus on giving them top notch and superior service. That's not to say that you give the others poor quality service, not be any means, but just keep in mind who might be helping pay the mortgage versus who is only helping you pay for the cable bill. There might come a moment when you might have to make a decision as to which customer to take care of first (the one that is part of the 20 percent, naturally).
The other thing the 80/20 rule can tell you is that it works in the opposite manner when it comes to the actual labor you will have to employ. Although the 20 percent who give you 80 percent of your revenue will be labor intensive because of the volume of work, studies have shown that the remaining 80 percent of your clients who give you only 20 percent of your revenue will work you much harder (which is partially the reason, but not the entire reason, those customers only provide you with 20 percent of your revenue). In other words the revenue generated by doing services for those remaining 80 percent of the customers will be demonstrably more labor intensive than it is for the 20 percent. Don't ask me why it is like that, but it has been examined by top scientists, and that is their conclusion. And, in my experience, that seems to be the case.
When comparing side by side an assignment from one of my larger client accounts (part of the 20 percent) and one from a very small client account (part of the remaining 80 percent), invariably the small client account's assignment is fraught with difficulties, an exaggerated increase in teeth gnashing on the part of the client (but sometimes by me), and perhaps more than would be necessary "hand-holding" for that particular client. Additionally, the small client account customer sometimes wants and oftentimes asks for discounts on the service, which of course also effects your bottom-line. The larger account (the one nestled within the 20 percent of your work and 80 percent of your revenue) tends to be less inclined towards these things for various reasons, such as since they are in frequent contact with you for your services, they are often comfortable and familiar with you, so there is less "hand-holding" and less anxiety on their part. They understand the ebb of flow (your routine) of things in "your world", too, and so that tends to make things smoother. Lastly, your larger client's (read: larger law firms) tend be able to absorb expenses better, so they are less likely to ask for discounts and/or special favors, and are willing to pay you what you are worth. Remember, you are not just some trained monkey delivering papers. You are a professionally trained process server with technical expertise in the area of executing court summons and other writs. And the larger client accounts understand this, so they are willing to pay you a reasonable, competitive rate for your services.
Just remember to take care of them.
For those who might be interested, the book is titled, "The Business End of Process Service" by Bob Hill, and as far as we know it is available on Amazon.com, as well as available on Kindle as an ebook. If you want us to send a copy to you, then please contact us at www.rtr-i.com, and we will be happy to send you a copy as well.
Now, as for the 80/20 rule, it is an axiom in business that states that 80 percent of your company's revenue will come from 20 percent of your customers. Naturally, that means the remaining 80 percent of your customers will only provide 20 percent of your revenue.
So what does this tell you? Well, it says a lot about how to manage your overall book of clients. First, in my opinion, those 20 percent who give you 80 percent of your work, you should really focus on giving them top notch and superior service. That's not to say that you give the others poor quality service, not be any means, but just keep in mind who might be helping pay the mortgage versus who is only helping you pay for the cable bill. There might come a moment when you might have to make a decision as to which customer to take care of first (the one that is part of the 20 percent, naturally).
The other thing the 80/20 rule can tell you is that it works in the opposite manner when it comes to the actual labor you will have to employ. Although the 20 percent who give you 80 percent of your revenue will be labor intensive because of the volume of work, studies have shown that the remaining 80 percent of your clients who give you only 20 percent of your revenue will work you much harder (which is partially the reason, but not the entire reason, those customers only provide you with 20 percent of your revenue). In other words the revenue generated by doing services for those remaining 80 percent of the customers will be demonstrably more labor intensive than it is for the 20 percent. Don't ask me why it is like that, but it has been examined by top scientists, and that is their conclusion. And, in my experience, that seems to be the case.
When comparing side by side an assignment from one of my larger client accounts (part of the 20 percent) and one from a very small client account (part of the remaining 80 percent), invariably the small client account's assignment is fraught with difficulties, an exaggerated increase in teeth gnashing on the part of the client (but sometimes by me), and perhaps more than would be necessary "hand-holding" for that particular client. Additionally, the small client account customer sometimes wants and oftentimes asks for discounts on the service, which of course also effects your bottom-line. The larger account (the one nestled within the 20 percent of your work and 80 percent of your revenue) tends to be less inclined towards these things for various reasons, such as since they are in frequent contact with you for your services, they are often comfortable and familiar with you, so there is less "hand-holding" and less anxiety on their part. They understand the ebb of flow (your routine) of things in "your world", too, and so that tends to make things smoother. Lastly, your larger client's (read: larger law firms) tend be able to absorb expenses better, so they are less likely to ask for discounts and/or special favors, and are willing to pay you what you are worth. Remember, you are not just some trained monkey delivering papers. You are a professionally trained process server with technical expertise in the area of executing court summons and other writs. And the larger client accounts understand this, so they are willing to pay you a reasonable, competitive rate for your services.
Just remember to take care of them.
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