Night Clases for CEUs

Oh, you WORK during the day?  How would you like to take your CEU classes at a time that doesn't cost you?  You can take either Business Skills or Identity Crisis from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on two consecutive days.  Voila!  You can pick up 8 hours in two evening classes without missing work. More on the classes here.


Check out our schedule here.   Keep checking because we are adding classes--especially these after-hour classes--regularly.  The first ones will be in San Antonio in May. 

So, What's the Best Part In Using CAD?

My last post touted using CAD (computer aided design) for drawing beautiful and unique irrigation and landscape plans.   All true.  But that's not the best part. 

While I'm writing this, CAD is still relatively new.  Most irrigators and landscapers draw by hand.   They are losing some efficiencies, but, ultimately efficiency is not the name of the game.   They may have erasure marks that detract from the neatness, but that's okay too.   If they need a copy of their C or D-sized drawing, they can only depend on their local copy house and, again, that's all well and good.  

I can tell you from my own personal experience that customers view a CAD drawing differently than a hand-drawn one.  I know it may not be fair.  Design knowledge, experience and taste went into both renderings, but there's something about a color CAD rendering that says more than it should.  It says "competent, professional, accurate." 

I don't know about you, but I want and need to tap into all the help I can get!

Why Use CAD (computer aided design) When Drawing Is Faster?

Usually every class has at least one person that is there to learn how to draw beautiful plans using CAD--with a nagging thought in the back of their head.  "This is great, but I think I'm faster drawing by hand."  I can relate.  I've been using RainCAD's CAD programs over 15 years, but there is a learning curve.

Do you enjoy snow skiing? Did you enjoy it the first day you tried? Did you ever say, "Why am I doing this?  It's cold, I'm tired and besides all that I'm already at the bottom of this dumb mountain. Why do I want to get on this scary tram just to come back down again?  I've thought about it now, and it's illogical!  Where's the lodge?"  If you never got over it, you missed out on a lot of enjoyment.

When you know what you're doing and you have practiced enough to execute your craft with speed, accuracy, taste and ease, well, it's a joy.  Until then, though, it's work.  As you know, we humans are not known for wanting to think, work or change.   CAD takes all three. 

But, if you're willing to pour yourself into it and stay with it long enough to master it, new vistas suddenly appear.  Keep in mind we're talking hours, not days, weeks or months.  

You learn that measuring a property is different for CAD than hand.  It's easier and faster.  There are simple ways to check yourself so you don't have to go back out to the site and re-measure something.  Once you draw the property, you realize that you can now consider more than one plan without having to redraw (we call redrawing sawing sawdust).  

The bottom line is I can't tell you CAD will be faster for you.  It is a lot faster for me and I sincerely believe it will be for you.  It does depend on you, though.  If you will invest yourself and commit to use CAD on several plans so you can internalize what you know, you'll be able to draw faster.  

That's not even the best part.  More later . . . 

To find out more about our CAD Class click here.

The New INTERNATIONAL Home of ceuWOW

We have just finished our first CAD class since it has been approved by the TECQ for Texas landscape irrigators. As it turned out, two of the class members had Mexican-sounding surnames. That's not unusual anywhere in Texas, but especially not in San Antonio. When I asked them where they were from, they said they were irrigators from Monterrey, Mexico!

That's makes our company an international provider of CAD training. So, just in case you had missed the largeness of it all, I hope you are duly impressed. ;-)

New CAD Class Approved

ceuWOW would like to announce that our new CAD Class, a 16 hour continuing education unit (CEU) class, has been approved by the TCEQ for Texas Licensed Irrigators.

We are holding the class in the major market areas of the state now. At this posting we still have room in the Houston and Austin classes. Classes are small due to the hands-on nature of the instruction, so enroll early.

The CAD Class teaches irrigators how to use RainCAD's latest software offering, Pro Contractor Studio.

The cost of the class is $275 for both days.

Forgetting the Purpose--So Easy

May I tell you about a distaseful conversation I had Thursday with a yellow pages salesman? The conversation was completely amicable, but, at least for me, tense.

We had tried this new phone book for two years. Last year we even put in a different phone number so we could really test the book's effectiveness. It wasn't. I was dropping our investment from about $2,000 for the year to $300--and would have gone lower if I could have.

When the salesman asked about what I wanted to do in the white pages, I said I wanted just a regular listing. He said that would be an extra $10 per month. I didn't think he understood so I clarified by saying, "No, I don't want bold or anything--just a plain, regular listing." He understood all along and reiterated that it would be $10. "You mean I have to pay just to get my name in the book?" I said incredulously. He said I could take my chances, but if I wanted to be sure it was there, I'd have to pay. I told him I'd take my chances.

Now understand, our day job is sprinkler repair and about 70% of our business comes from the yellow pages. I need the yellow pages. The yellow pages represent a form of advertising that works for us. I have no ax to grind with the yellow pages. But . . .

The yellow pages are only good as an advertisement for me if the book is seen as a valuable and complete reference book for our prospects. The reason I don't use this new telephone book is because I could not consistently and reliably find the phone numbers I was looking for. I have to assume ditto for the rest of Waco.

Somehow the management of this new phone book has lost sight of the purpose their book absolutely must nail with perfect precision. There's really just two points:

1. They must have a book that has every person and every business in alphabetical order with their correct phone number.

2. They must make sure that book is in everyone's hands that lives or works in the area they intend to serve.


If they don't do that, they have no reason to expect advertisers to patronize them. I don't hope they go out of business. I hope they change.

We believe that our purpose is to repair sprinkler systems as quickly and painlessly as possible. May we never loose or confuse that purpose with anything else.

Designing the CAD Class

The past four days I've been hold up in a hotel in Fort Worth with one purpose in mind: Designing a CAD class that was something other than the same ol' type of class. I thought of every detail and every skill-set we wanted to convey and wrote it down on a Post-It note. I used the hotel's wall to start placing these benchmarks in order (right) and started the task of building slides to support it.

I hope you'll join us when we come to your town and let me know how we're doing. We are trying to make this class engaging and an experience that you will remember for a long time.

Remember this is specific to RainCAD's Pro Contractor Studio. It is not transferable to RainCAD 10. Call if you have questions: 866.728.9834 or doug.s@ceuwow.com.

Surprising Best Tool for Pro Contractor Studio

Just press an arrow key and magic happens. At least if you're comparing your productivity to getting out the pencil, ruler and compass. That's because arrow keys invoke a tool on RainCAD's Pro Contractor Studio's CAD program they refer to as "point polar." If you're familiar with RainCAD's other editions, it would be something like the Drafting tool.

The arrow keys don't "do" in that they don't really move the cursor. But press any one of the keys and Pro Contractor Studio brings up "Point Polar," which looks something like a field compass (as opposed to drawing compass). "North" is 90º, south is 270º. Now all you need to do is enter the number of feet you want the line to be drawn and press the Enter Key and, viola! you're line is drawn in that exact direction for that exact number of feet.

I realize that the newbie to CAD might not be all that excited about this, but believe me, mastering it, although not difficult at all, is huge.

ceuWOW's CAD Class teaches this new, robust, and affordable software package to irrigators. If you're in Texas, you know our law has changed to require a scale drawing for every installation. Deviations from the drawing can be made, but they have to be reflected on an updated "as built."

If you'd like to enroll in one of our classes, we will have them in the major market areas. Just check our schedule here.

Are You Setting Up Your Bussiness to Sell?

I know, I know. You're always looking for customers. May I suggest that you need to be looking for only ONE customer; the one that will eventually buy your business.

In our Business Skills CEU course we talk a lot about the value of your business. We calculate your business' worth as if you were a prospect for purchasing your business. We ask the question, "What is this business worth as an investment?" We do this for two reasons:

• It gives you a good idea of where you are as you build your business.
• You discover if your business is a good investment for you. (By extension, you can look at your business from the eyes of your Ultimate Customer, the person that will eventually buy your business.)

Here's a place to start: Can your business operate without you? Do you have people trained that can repeat your desired outcome day after day? Does everyone know their job? Are the patterns and procedures that generate your desired outcome (excellent installations, perfect repairs, etc.) written down?

Please don't kid yourself into thinking that it can't be done. Not only can it be done, it simply must be done if your business is going to be sellable.

Maybe today would be a good day to do something to attract your Ultimate Customer–your business' new owner.

How to Lapse-Proof Your Irrigator's License

We are working on a plan that will virtually ensure that you never do what I did and let your license lapse. It's a simple plan and it involves a benefit to both of us.

If you will tell us your name, license number and its expiration date, we will notify you of that date on a progressive schedule. Here's the way it will work:

We will send you an email message 90 days before your license expires–just like the State does with your physical, in-the-mail renewal form. But that is all you get from the State.

So we will send you progressive emails at 60 days, 30 days, 14 days, 7 days and 1 day before your license expires.

If you don't know your expiration, we'll look it up for you. You are also giving us permission to keep you updated on our CEU and non-CEU classes for Texas irrigators.