You are right in catching the use of "would" when describing details about this topic. I have not officially started doing inventories yet but have spent over 4 years doing everything from a test inventory of my own home and neighbor's to my own marketing material, website, networking, assorted paperwork, etc. I basically just need to get insured and I am ready to go.
I have spent far more time in planning and preparing for my "Grand Opening" than many companies have been actually working as inventory professionals. I have seen many come and go, online and locally, and just want to make sure I am as prepared as I can before diving in officially.
I am sorry if I might have misled anybody about my experience but like I said, I have spent countless hours (hundreds, if not thousands) researching and tweaking over the years and feel I know what will work and what will not. My wife might say "millions" of hours since when I think of something new, I spend much of my free time working on it.
I will certainly be adding my experiences and thoughts regularly as others have in the past. This is a great business to start and as long as you stick to it and market yourself properly to the right clientele, you cannot go wrong, especially if you present yourself as a knowledgeable and dedicated business professional.
It's interesting to me that you said you "would" keep track of it on a spread sheet and that you "would" add it to the file...
You're telling us what you "would" do as opposed to what you "do" do.
It is good advice, but is this something that you currently use in your business or is this speculation?
It's a small distinction, but I think it is important for the success of us all that we get advice from people who are having real world success as opposed to some ones hypothesis.
I'm also willing to admit that I have a tendency to over analyze stuff!
I would keep track of it on a spreadsheet. As I am doing a new zip code, I would add it to the file with the sequence number and date and build from there.
I understand how the format works. My question is how do you recall how many inventories you have done in a particular zip code?
If I have done 13 inventories in the 94618 zip code in 2009 and in 2014 I get another client in the 94618 zip code, there is no way I'm going to be able to recall that in 2009 I did 13 inventories in this zip code.
How do you keep track of the numbers that you are assigning so you don't have multiple duplicate numbers in a particular zip code with different dates?
How do you keep tract of how many inventories you have done in a particular zip code? Maybe you do two today and one more in the same zip 3 months from now and 6 more 2 years from that.
I like the idea of using the homeowner's zip code and count of inventory for said zip. For example - 68122-001 or 68116-014. This lets me know where most of my business is coming from and I can offer deals such as being one of the first 5 in a zip code gets a discount of some kind. It also prevents somebody tying the ID to a specific homeowner or house.
My format is this last name, street, last 2 digits of zip. This is for the file name. For the client number I use the date and the number of the inventory for the day. Say I perform an inventory on Jeff Smith's residence and he lives at 100 Summer Lane, Destin, FL 32876 and he is the third inventory of the day. I would use
Smith'100summerlane'76
and
05010903
That way they are all unique and short. There won't be another smith on 100 summer lane in that zip.
I always use some combination of the client's last name and house number. That's just what's easy for me to remember. Whatever will be an easy identifier for you is what you should use.
__________________
Robert Shockley
Proprietor
PhotoProof Inventory Services
(603) 809 - 1502
When opening the software, a window pops up and wants you to enter a client Id #. What is the best way to start? Should I start with 1 or 000001 or 10000 or 56748395485.
My first run through the software is going to be my home and I don't want to screw myself later by making a poor choice today.
