Cleanfax, September 2019

SEP 2019 cleanfax com 31 have a beer or iced tea or lunch with and theyre willing to sit down and chat Theres not a lot of positioning My value in this industry is the opportunity to have employees to create something that helps other people out Ive been in this industry for five years and Ive been able to make my own future and I think that that is such a beautiful opportunity that we dont see anymore People go to college and say I dont know what I want to do And they pick whatever job comes their way and work with little passion In this industry with some hard work you can make something for yourself If you come in and work hard you will be making as much as the top project manager in any restoration company in two years AH Was it hard to find restoration contractors that were ready to work with you or was that an easy thing to get into KJ Its all in marketing and knowing the power of numbers you have to reach out to everybody But honestly Id say 80 of restoration companies do not want to do contents Id say about 40 of companies dont do contents The other 40 find it a necessity and do it but they would prefer to hand it off because they dont have the customer service that comes with contents You know a contractor walks in with work boots work gloves and a sledgehammer A contents person walks in with booties white gloves documentation and bubble wrap The focus is different and there are so many companies that dont want to do it Youre wanted youre needed to help provide the service So its really just about going out and finding out the needs of the contractor and their desires Some might do pack outs but what happens when they have a three story fire or flood What happens when they need 20 people to pack out something for a weekend Are they going to give it to the bigger competing companies or are they going to utilize somebody else to make their service better full service so they can compete Finding the restoration companies to work with was just about being at events being out and social being in the mix and just going by and find out what their needs are Loss Inventories Ramona Gallagher Owner of Great Estates Inventory LLC Stonington CT Amanda Hosey What initially sparked your interest in contents work Ramona Gallagher I kind of got thrown into it because I was an office manager working for a company called an inventory service company in Westfield MA I was hired to be the office manager but my background is in retail I did an internship at Bloomingdales and worked in department stores and specialty stores so I knew how to do inventories I noticed that the people doing the contents work didnt really know how to inventory properly I started telling them how they should be doing their inventories and one day they invited me to come in the field with them Thats how it all started I was out in the field and really enjoyed doing the inventories AH What first steps did you take to learn the work RG Ive been doing contents work for over 20 years and when I first started there wasnt any training for contents Luckily my background was in inventories so most of my training has been done out in the field and I kind of learned along the way I have done some specialized things like I went to the Rhode Island School of Design and have a certificate in Appraisal Studies in Arts and Antiques I have not had any formal training but Im planning to get the new RIA Contents Loss Specialist designation AH Whats the most difficult part of contents work and how do you overcome that RG I think the most difficult part of contents work is trying to manage the job and make sure you are able to record everything properly How you overcome it is that you just make sure that you are a good project manager making sure to cross all your ts and dot your is and that you have everything done AH Whats the best part about the work RG The best part of the work is actually helping the customers the insureds after their loss because a lot of times its one of the most devastating times in their lives And you get to be an integral part of making their lives complete again So I get the most joy out of helping people AH Anything else youd like to share with people who are thinking about moving into contents work RG I think people should know its not a very easy job Youve got to know what is good what is better and what is best in terms of value in order to do contents properly That means if you need to bring in an expert then you need to know that you need to bring in an expert You just cant try to handle the whole contents job yourself if its a high end job And not all jobs are the same If you have an expensive painting for example you need to call in an expert Its a matter of good versus better investing