39-24, 37-02 (x2), 28-17, 24-37, 07-17, 07-28,
07-02, 06-34 (x2), 38-42, 38-06, 22-42, 35-13, 03-19, 03-34,
19-26, 19-42.
How are the privacy acts affecting you and your business?
On January 1, 2005 the "Do Not Fax" law goes into affect.
Roman Okonowski does a tremendous amount of business via fax.
Now, prior to this date, he has to have written
authorization from each customer before he can fax them anything
that may be considered a solicitation of business. He
cannot fax them this authorization form after the fact or he
will be in violation. This law is very restrictive and can
create lots of problems.
Roman also pointed out that he will not initiate a call to a
potential client, even a lead from MABE. The "Do Not Call"
laws are also very restrictive. He will wait for them to
call him first.
Jean Batt gave us an example of how these "Do Not" laws
affect her business. These laws create road blocks to how
we normally run business. We have shot ourselves in the
foot with some of this legislation coming out.
Andy Jensen can't even answer a simple question via email.
He can only refer the client to the prospectus.
Roman likened it to insurance where there are so many gray
areas. The insurance companies are refusing to interpret
them unless a claim has been filed. And if you do get some
sort of answer, don't expect it in writing...they won't do it!
Lisa Schnaidt has similar problems dealing with insurance
companies. With the new privacy laws, they won't tell her
what is covered under her client's policy. She has to put
the client on the phone and guide them through questions to ask
because the insurance company will only speak to them. It
has turned a simple 5-minute call into a lengthy ordeal.
Email has not been addressed yet but Ralph Cunningham says it
is coming.
Dave Crissman
Your
ECO Water
Dealer
Dave Crissman started his business back in 1973. He began
as a plumber and a student at Phoenix College. Anything
that water ran through, he would take care of. In 1979 he got
his plumbers contractors license. He changed the focus of his
company to drinking water systems. He does very little
commercial work. He doesn't even hold his commercial license
anymore.
He recently began reading the E-Myth Revisited. Bob
Busch told him that there was a lot of "him" in the book. Dave
is an analyzer. As a MABE member, you get a lot to think about
if you attend regularly and participate.
Dave learned to be a businessman with a simple method of tracking
his success. If the money in his income shoebox is more than
the bills in the expenses shoebox he is doing good.
Dave had to learn to become an adequate salesperson. But
even more difficult was learning to become an employer. You
will never hold on to employees. But with 50-60% of his
employees having a long tenure with his company, he is doing pretty
good. You have be good. Otherwise, you spend all your
time managing and less time focusing on the customer.
He is an entrepreneur. People like him can never work
for somebody else because they always think they are smarter than
the person they work for. Dave brags that he only worked half
days. Half being only 12 hours! He learned not to drink.
Even though being an entrepreneur can oftentimes drive one to drink.
Up until 1994 Dave was a workaholic. He worked for the sake
of working. He had no business plan or roadmap. But one
can never build a business with that thought process. He also
thought that if he left the business for a week it would fall apart.
He had a weak company when he thought he nobody could do it better
than him.
Then he went through a period where he didn't want to work.
By the end of that year he realized that when he wasn't there,
others were able to carry the load. There are still times when
he will get pulled back into being a salesman or a service manager,
but he has found that his staff are more than capable of handling
things, sometimes better than he is. Instead of being the
person to complain to, he has become the teacher.
Dave's greatest love is plumbing. He loves to go into
houses and fix things. He likes the interaction with the
clients. He gets a big kick out of clients calling in and
saying they "don't want that guy again", not knowing he is the
owner. This also taught him a great lesson. When
customers complain, they often overstate or misstate the events.
After playing businessman, Dave went into his next phase of
working on his business. He attended seminars which can
be very dangerous. They pump you up for 2 hours but then when
you get back to the real world you realize there is more to it.
As mentioned earlier, he is also reading the E-Myth Revisited.
It is a funny book that is easy to read. You already know most
of the stuff in it but you never pay attention to it.
Dave has diagnosed himself with attention deficit disorder.
He can only concentrate on one thing at a time. But he will do
that one thing extremely well. If you have a lead for him,
don't mention it during the meeting and think he will remember...he
won't. Call the office.
The office staff will take care of you. Many of the people
in his people have been cross-trained so they have a better
understanding of the different segments of the business. It
takes time and is expensive but then you have a core group you can
depend on.
Dave also took over the sales and marketing side of the business.
The person he had managing things did not work out. He had a
different style that many customers complained about. People
in this group have even told Dave that they used his service in
spite of this person. Dave put off the change for a long time.
He knew he would have to take over that role if he let this person
go. But it finally had to be done.
This change was hard for Dave. It is a very different side
of the business. He had to read a lot and get advice from a
lot of people. But then he had a revelation. He didn't
run his other business segments the way competitors do so why should
this part of the business be any different.
He decided that run the marketing department and have the sales
department answer to marketing. Someday he will hire a
CFO-type to take over his role. In the meantime, he is
becoming pretty good at marketing. His former employee did 90%
telemarketing. But even before the "No Call List" came about,
Dave decided not to do this anymore. Instead he has gone back
to the door-to-door style of marketing. Customers respond
better. They like seeing the truck and meeting the person
face-to-face. He has employees that like doing this and they
do it well. The referral card they use has also had great
response.
Dave decided to include a 15% profit margin right into overhead.
He doesn't hide his financials from his employees anymore.
They are motivated by it. This year is turning out to be there
best year yet.
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Dave Crissman
20+ year member
Member since November
1993 |
PLUMBING & WATER SYSTEMS
All About Water/EcoWater
315 E Warner #1, Chandler, AZ 85225
Phone: (480) 892-7556
E-mail: ddave.dc@gmail.com
• Website: www.ecowateraz.com
ONE CALL THAT’S ALL.
We have been servicing plumbing needs of customer’s valley wide since
1974, offering a wide variety of solutions to water heating needs,
including solar; tankless water heaters; and lifetime green friendly
water heaters. As water treatment specialists’ we can solve all your
water related needs from whole house softeners or filtration to under
the sink
state of the art drinking water systems.
We are Rosie on the house preferred vendors. IT’S THAT GOOD!
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