January 16th, 2007 → 11:23 pm @ terry
I had some very uplifting conversations today but I cannot do them justice this late at night. So, just so you know I’m still here, I’ll give you the secret code for today and a small amount of information from a page in the business manual.
The page is titled “Do The Right Thing”. (1•35)+(44•6.50)
January 16th, 2007 → 12:19 am @ terry
How long have you been in the field services business? A year or less? One to five years? Heck, maybe you have been doing this for a hundred years. I bet you’ve learned a lot too! You know pretty much how to do the job, what companies to avoid and how to find your own jobs. Good for you!
There is one thing I am pretty sure that you don’t know however and that is what goes on inside one of the big companies. How do they decide the quality of work a field rep is performing when they may have never met the rep or looked over her shoulder? What are they really looking for and what is almost irrelevant? How are the assignments really distributed? Unless you have worked on “the inside” you really can’t know.
We have a new columnist over at The Rep Reportâ„¢.  She held the title of “Vendor Manager” for many years at one of the largest field services companies in existance and now has gone out on her own and consults with field inspection companies that may want to have their business critiqued by someone with the knowledge that can only come from experience gained at that level and “on the inside”.
She cheerfully agreed to write a regular column, The Knowledge Tree, for TheRepReport™ and we hope to eventually have her available for a question and answer forum.
The Rep Report™ will publish contact information as soon as she is settled in. Until then, please contact her through the contact page at www.TheRepReport.com
January 9th, 2007 → 8:57 pm @ terry
What a day! We may very well have to again hire some field reps and get Vickie some part-time help in the office. The 1st to the 15th is not going to be our quite time this month. I am quite convinced that there will be no slack time in January this year.
I started the day with three insurance loss inspections followed by thirty-eight occupancy inspections. (3•25)+(38•6.50). I also had thirty-eight pictures. Not every company pays extra for pictures but I will get paid for twelve. (12•1.50)
It’s late here and we are still working-Vickie more than I since she does the uploading of the inspections. We will be up early tomorrow morning since work continues to come in: 106 from one company, 12 from another, and 6 from yet another. You probably will not hear from me tomorrow unless a miracle happens. I will be working the rural south end of the county where the inspections are miles and miles apart and when I get in, I have to get ready for our usual Wednesday night out.
To relax in the evenings, I normally write or design web sites. Most of my writing lately has been on the business manual. I am giving it a facelift and of course it is constantly upgraded. Since I have never shown you a page of my manual, I am posting a page that I updated tonight. That will be it for today. Did you know that facelift without the hyphen is a noun and that face-lift with the hyphen is a verb? Here’s the page:
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Mortgage Field Services Business Manual
Our two most important software programs are:
Here is an example of the directories on the computer that hold these scanned images:
Inspections-2006
————————2006-09
————————2006-10
————————2006-11
————————2006-12
Each of the monthly directories has a directory for each company we work for. Like this:
———————–2006-12
———————————-Company-One
———————————-Company-Two
———————————-Company-Three
Each of the company directories has a directory for each field rep. LIke this:
———————————-Company-One
———————————-Company-Two
———————————-Company-Three
——————————————————–TerryP
——————————————————–VickieP
Looks like TerryP did not work from October 7, to October 21, which is correct.
When the document is found we now know when it was done and by which field rep.
After many false starts, we adopted this directory structure and it has been in place for over five years. As the years and months roll by, just add new directories. As you pick up new companies, make a directory for them in the year-month they become your client.
Every picture is saved by street address so we search by address. If we want to see all pictures of 5566 BigYellowBird Lane taken for SuperBigCompany in year 2006, we would have Corel Photo Album use the main directory for that company. The example above is marked with the blue arrow. The program would display all pictures taken of 5566 BigYellowBirdLane during year 2006. Maybe we took a picture every month, maybe not. Either way, we will know in just a few seconds after this search.
On occasion I will ad-lib a subject to spice things up a bit. While writing this page, it occurred to me just how secretive everyone in this business is. Everyone is fearful of loosing what they have. Believe me, I’ve heard it so many times: “I ain’t sayin’ ‘nuttin. I gotta protect what I got”.
It’s my opinion they don’t know they are loosing it anyway. Do a little searching on the internet and you will find lots of companies running help wanted ads for field reps. I’ll bet they just hired somebody right down the street from the guy that’s “protecting what I got” and he dosen’t have a clue!
If you have good information that can help other reps, share it. If you find some killer software, please let me know.
I am beginning to evaluate some other software products that will replace everything we now have. Our business has grown so much that we are scanning thousands of documents a week and digitizing hundreds of photos a week. It really is too much work for a home business. Looks like we are going to be forced to find more efficient technology so we can continue to grow.