Frank Delano thinks in a different direction because he believes everyone else is on the wrong course. That attitude has enabled him to live with cancer while building A $49.95 Any Sewer or Drain Inc., a New York City-based business with 130,000 customers.
Within a year of opening his one-man operation in 1995, Delano had hired an office manager and a technician to help maintain his around-the-clock schedule. Although they responded to only 10 or 15 calls a day, Delano needed something better than his DOS program to keep track of repeat customers.
He started using business management software in 1996, purchasing Summit Service Profit Builder from Ritam Technologies in Eagle, Idaho, and accounting software. The company has done more than 260,000 jobs, 60 to 70 percent of them for repeat clients. By 2007, the volume of calls and number of customers were overwhelming the business software. Late that year, Delano also began selling franchises in the tri-state area. He needed a bigger, more powerful program that could handle everything.
Delano purchased Microsoft’s SQL Server, a relational database management system that can be customized to a company’s needs and grow with it. That’s a good thing, because Delano’s business plan calls for expanding the franchise to every state, while controlling them all from his New York office.
Guaranteed price
The New York area has no set prices on anything. Delano’s business strategy was to guarantee a price — $49.95 to clean a bathroom sink, tub, or kitchen drain. “Cleaning blockages isn’t hard,” says Delano. “My 28 technicians are usually done in 15 minutes and on their way to the next job. Making a profit, however, depends on keeping the trucks within defined ZIP code areas to limit travel time.”
His customers, 80 percent residential and 20 percent commercial, reside in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Nassau and Suffolk counties. Fifteen office personnel (seven or eight per shift) dispatch the 30 Dodge Ram service vans using borough and county maps taped to metal sheets on the walls. Each ZIP code area is outlined. When a call comes in, software identifies its ZIP code. Dispatch writes the time of the call on a green magnet, then places it in the correct location on the map.
Yellow magnets with the names of service providers indicate their positions within the ZIP codes. A glance at the map shows all the surrounding jobs, and dispatch sends the next available technician to the closest one.
If technicians call looking for a job, they are routed to the customer with the earliest time. When necessary, they use the vehicle’s Global Positioning System (GPS) if it has it, or Nextel phones with built-in GPS to find locations.
All that is changing as the new business software comes online. “Right now, office personnel enter yesterday’s transactions in Summit every morning,” says Delano. “Once SQL is fully operational, Caller ID will trigger a screen with the customer’s name and address, if he’s in our database. Technicians will receive that information and job descriptions on a flat, touchscreen computer box, like UPS drivers use.”
As soon as technicians are finished, they will e-mail the job ticket to the dedicated server, making the information instantly available. The software will accept credit cards or signatures to activate payment.
Informed decisions
Once Delano began tracking repeat customers, he realized how important it was to keep them. He initiated 10-percent-off coupons and purchased different mailing programs to keep track of them and to track other offers.
“I went with Valpak Direct Marketing Systems coupons for a while, but they weren’t cost effective,” he says. “That’s when we started designing our own flyers, stuffing envelopes, and mailing them to businesses.”
Until March 2007, when work orders overwhelmed the company, Delano mailed 10,000 pieces a month to commercial customers, using software to spot a ZIP code area where business could be improved. “We averaged close to 3-percent return,” he says. “That’s remarkable, because one percent is considered doing really well.”
Delano also creates his own commercials in-house. An advertising agency then places them with radio and TV stations. Mail targets included real estate and management companies and every restaurant. The company services numerous fast-food chain restaurants throughout the area.
Delano’s major source of new residential customers is referrals. His “motorized billboards” are second. The service vans have a big yellow rectangular explosion on the sides with the company name printed in black. People see and remember them. Yellow Pages, TV, radio and newspaper ads bring in the remainder.
At month’s end, Delano uses software to estimate how many calls came from which source. “We’re not charging a lot, so we have to watch how and where we spend our advertising dollars,” he says. “The software enables me to make informed decisions.”
Software also tracks the company’s 16,000 maintenance contracts and flags homeowners with laterals due for annual cleaning. Home-owners receive a postcard reminder, and the office staff calls commercial clients to set up appointments.
Delano holds the sole distribution rights in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to sell Goslyn automatic grease trap separators. Summit tracks these maintenance contracts and alerts Delano when service is due. Since the separators are expensive, he is thinking of leasing them to restaurants. The SQL software can be programmed to handle those accounts.
Delano also wants to collect the grease from the units because it is used to make biodiesel fuel. SQL is big and powerful enough to manage that, too.
Red or black
One reason Delano branched into franchising is that he can’t find enough service providers to handle customer demand. Unlike other franchises, he does the advertising, furnishes supplies, and answers the phones. “I don’t want my owners worrying about running the business,” says Delano. “I want them out there cleaning drains.”
He is now using some of the SQL program on a trial-and-error basis. When fully activated, it can send a text message to an owner’s portable computer in less than five minutes after the call center receives a job. “When we reach that stage, I’ll take down my maps and magnets,” Delano says.
The program also can track profit margins through assimilation with Delano’s bookkeeping software. In addition, it can monitor inventory and alert him when to reorder. SQL generates weekly and monthly reports of each franchise’s business activity, indicating how many of what kinds of facilities were cleaned, totaling the products sold, and breaking down operating expenses.
“The program saves everybody time and assists accountants in preparing taxes,” says Delano. “Each franchise can access it on the Web to do bookkeeping, and we can see what our profit will be. SQL has many built-in safeties and security levels to lock out people or prevent access to certain information.” Software writer Jehan Zeb is developing and customizing every page.
By selling franchises in only the tri-state area, Delano keeps the businesses close enough so that he can provide the necessary support. Once the franchises are running to his satisfaction, he will apply for licenses in all 50 states.
“SQL Server will grow with us, which is why we chose it,” he says. “We wanted software that could handle as many franchises as we can put out there, and not be limited by what we could do with it.” It is doubtful anything can limit Delano as he forges along untrod paths, building his empire in the Big Apple.
