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“Estimating and bidding takes up a lot of time. With LMN it speeds up the process tenfold,” Carter insists. “All you do is bring it up on the screen and save it and you’re done.” Carter insists that he uses LMN’s budgeting software every day. “Every job is done through the budget 100 per cent. Even if I go out for the day and I do hourly jobs and it doesn’t require a quarterly estimate, I still add it to the LMN system.” Carter says he likes the formality of using a budget and updating it regularly and he depends on the numbers the system spits out to make every day decisions. Although he admits figuring out how to initially build and use his budget was tough, “I’m not a book guy and I’m not a numbers guy,” once he got the hang of things and started using his budget, he was amazed at how much it changed his business. “It opened my eyes to things I didn’t pay attention to before. Now we’re using real numbers, we know what we’re tacking on, and, therefore, we know what we have to play with at the end of the day.”

It may seem like a big initiative for such a small matter, but Grant assures it isn’t. “I came from a large company that was system-oriented; when I left I knew I wanted to put systems in place in my own company.” This fact alone was one of the reasons Grant was drawn to LMN in the first place. “I started sorting through the Systems Library, putting things in place as much as I can at a time.” Grant insists training is of utmost importance to him because he understands the value of systems and he knows putting systems into action will only take him so far. The real secret lies in educating his employees to use systems properly, hence the Ivy League business student!

Moving forward, Grant is excited for all the opportunities that lie ahead, especially now that he feels he understands his business more and has all the tools he needs to see it grow. “It takes time to implement everything,” he explains, adding “One more year and we should have everything in place.” One of the most telling effects of implementing LMN, Grant notes, is the fact that he was able to grow his company during the economic downturn, especially considering many other companies either produced the same sales or closed down. “I think having this program allowed us to grow even when we shouldn’t have,” says Grant. “I remember on the first week I was self-employed, I was listening to CBC radio and they were talking about how ‘we were officially going into a recession.’ I thought ‘great, I quit a full time job to be self-employed at the start of the three year recession?’ But we have made it and are in great shape to grow stronger as the economy grows.”

In response to the most important business lesson learned, Grant says the importance of working on the business, not in it – a feat he says is possible thanks to LMN. “LMN makes working on the business easier and more enjoyable, especially when the time you put into it shows up on the bottom-line.”