How Brad Gaul grew from 5 to 11 without growing the paperwork
Brad Gaul measured up his first job 25 years ago with a tape, a clipboard and a carbon copy book. He was still doing it that way in 2017, by which point his business had five people and an admin load that needed two of them plus a bookkeeper to hold together.
Today Signature Shade Solutions has eleven people. The admin takes fifteen hours a week.
The paperwork did not get delegated. It stopped existing.
We had five people and it took two of them plus a bookkeeper just to keep up with the paperwork. We've got eleven now and the paperwork takes fifteen hours.
The BeforeA quote book and a ute full of paper
For sixteen years the system worked like this. Measure up on site, write the job out by hand, drive back, type it up again. Order the parts from the supplier separately, in a different place, from a price list that may or may not have been the current one.
By 2017 that was two admin staff and a bookkeeper, for a business with five people in it. Nearly half the payroll existed to move information from one piece of paper to another.
Nothing about that is unusual. It is how most shops in this trade still run, and it holds together right up until the business gets busy enough that the admin stops fitting into the evenings.
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Everything written twiceOnce on site, once at the desk. Every repeat was a chance for a measurement to change on the way.
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Price rises took a weekendSupplier pricing moves whether you are ready or not, and updating a paper price list means updating every quote built off it.
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History lived in the shedA customer rings about a job from two years ago and the answer is in a box, if it is anywhere.
Double handling was what killed me. Measure up on site, write it out, get back, type it up again, then chase the supplier order separately. Every step was another chance to get a number wrong.
Brad Gaul, OwnerThe ChangeThe quote is done before he leaves the driveway
The switch itself is not the interesting part. What matters is what the day looks like now.
Brad measures up, builds the quote standing in the customer's yard, and the customer has it before he has left. Quotes that used to take one to two days now go out on the same visit. The supplier order comes off the same job, with the supplier documentation attached from inside the app rather than hunted down afterwards.
Faster quotes and no night-time data entry add up to the same thing. The evenings that used to go on paperwork now go to his family.
A quote used to take a day or two. Now I build it standing in the customer's yard and they've got it before I leave. That's the whole job.
Brad Gaul, OwnerWhere the time went back
55 hours a week back
Admin that used to take seventy-plus hours a week now takes fifteen. The team did not shrink to get there. Brad went from five people to eleven over the same stretch.
"The paperwork didn't get handed to someone else. It stopped existing, and the time came back to my family."
Pricing that keeps up with suppliers
Supplier price rises used to mean reworking a price list and every quote built off it. Now it is a short job, and the quotes that go out after it are right.
One version of the job
The van and the office see the same job. Offline on site, synced in the background, approved and paid online. Nothing gets re-entered, so nothing gets re-entered wrong.
What's NextThe dealers decide where it goes
Xobuya ships changes that dealers ask for. Not a roadmap handed down from a vendor, but requests from the people measuring up and quoting every day.
Two of Brad's are in the app now.
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Supplier documentation in the jobThe spec sheet is attached to the order instead of being found again later.
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Template notesThe standard paragraphs a quote always needs are already written, which is most of what used to make a quote take a day.
I'm in the same boat as every other dealer on here. I'm measuring up, quoting, chasing suppliers, same as them. So when someone calls and says a part of the app is driving them mad, I know exactly what they mean, because it's probably driving me mad too.
Brad Gaul, Owner, Signature Shade Solutions and co-founder of XobuyaAsk me to go back to the quote book and I'd sell the business first.
Still quoting on paper?
You do not need a migration, a consultant or a six month project. Most shops are quoting on Xobuya the same week they sign up, and the features you ask for have a real chance of shipping.