Year One Journey: Maximizing Your First Year on Aspire

Unlocking the full potential of Aspire can lead to improved profitability and work-life balance for you and your employees. However, adopting a new tool usually comes with a learning curve. That's where the Year One Journey comes in. Aspire's customer learning program will guide you through the process, helping you become an Aspire pro quickly. The Year One Journey is not just about learning where to click but about building daily and weekly habits to achieve your desired business results.

“I cannot recommend the Year One Journey enough. If you are currently implementing Aspire or still learning different modules, the Year One Journey webinars will save you time figuring things out and getting set up. Even after being a user for some time, I will jump on occasionally to refresh my skills and learn something new.”

- Sarah McPherson, Outback Landscaping

What does the Year One Journey cover?

The Year One Journey is a step-by-step program designed to help you leverage Aspire to its fullest potential. It covers nine key areas to empower you to use the tool effectively:

• Crew Mobile/Time Entry

• Scheduling

• Work Ticket Management

• CRM

• Invoicing

• Accounts Receivable

• Purchasing

• Changes

• Project Management

From reviewing the basics to discovering advanced tips and techniques, the Year One Journey provides live and interactive classes where you will learn from Aspire experts, ask questions live and practice simultaneously.

“I have only been doing the training for 4 months now, but everything I have been exposed to has helped me so much in implementing Aspire for my entire company. It helps us work smarter, not harder.”

-Nikki Jordan, Elements Landscape

Getting started with the Year One Journey

Before diving into the Year One Journey, we recommend gaining a baseline understanding of Aspire. Spend time exploring the platform, familiarizing yourself with its features and interface. Take note of the areas that feel intuitive and those that posed challenges during implementation.

Typically, customers begin their Year One Journey once they have transitioned from implementation and using Aspire on their own.

The Year One Journey series allows you to build upon the foundational knowledge you’ve acquired during implementation. Rather than overwhelming yourself trying to learn all of Aspire, we recommend taking one class per month. This approach lets you focus on implementing what you've learned, building the right daily and weekly habits, and steadily improve over time.

“As we went through the Year One Journey, we began automating more with Aspire, which took so much work off my plate,” says Nikki Jordan of Elements Landscape.

You can use Aspire’s planner to keep track of the courses you need to take and have completed, as well as determine which courses other employees in your organization should complete.

Planning out classes

When picking out classes, it's essential to prioritize your strategic needs and determine which courses to take first. While Aspire has a recommended learning path, courses can be completed in any order.

To help you plan, consider the following:

• Which parts of the platform would have the greatest impact on you and your employees?

  Focus on the features that can drive significant improvements in efficiency, productivity, and profitability.

• Which areas are relatively easier to tackle initially?

  Building confidence and momentum by mastering sections that are easier to tackle initially will help set you up for success.

• Which features of the platform will you be using most frequently?

  Consider the features you will be utilizing most frequently in your day-to-day operations. Prioritize learning about these areas to ensure you’re optimizing their potential.

• Are there any sections where you're struggling to get up to speed?

  Learning new tools can be frustrating at times. Be prepared with questions to ask during these modules, and plan to repeat these courses as needed.

• What other team members should participate in the different topic areas to promote adoption throughout your organization?

  While not every team member needs to be a power user, there might be people accessing different modules of Aspire and should have a strong understanding of how their responsibilities work inside Aspire and/or affect other areas.

While it can initially feel overwhelming, having a plan during implementation will help. Austin Salsbery of Salsbery Brothers Landscaping recounts the hesitation his team felt when switching to Aspire. He shared, “We were really intimidated at first after talking to other people who have done major software changes. But utilizing Year One Journey made it so much easier, and getting everything up and running has felt immensely rewarding.”

Maximizing Your Year One Journey

Before diving into each module, we strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with the module you are learning about. You can use Aspire’s Knowledge Base and User Guides for general overviews and specific step-by-step training. This preparation will enable you to make the most of the course. Consider having two screens available—one for the training session and the other for your system—allowing you to follow along and practice simultaneously.

As part of the Year One Journey, we provide a sandbox environment—a safe space where you can freely explore and experiment without the risk of affecting your live data. As Nikki Jordan of Elements Landscape experienced, “Having the sandbox to practice in during the Year One Journey webinars took the pressure off me, so I don’t have to worry about accidentally deleting something and messing up my books.” The sandbox will help reinforce your learning and allow you to experiment with new processes before going live with them in your production system. You can prepare for busy seasons, set up test templates, configure settings, and teach others about Aspire without changing anything in your live system.

By leveraging the sandbox environment and actively participating in the webinars, you can ask targeted questions, seek clarification, and gain hands-on experience. This interactive learning approach will enhance your understanding and boost your confidence in using Aspire.

Most Aspire accounts have a sandbox environment; you can confirm your access with AspireCare. Submit a ticket to AspireCare when you are ready.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

Now you have the knowledge and tools to make the most of your Year One Journey with Aspire. Participating will give you valuable insights, strategies, and techniques to use Aspire fully. Each class is thoughtfully designed by our team of experts to empower you whether you are a very new user or uncovering advanced features.

Austin Salsbery reflected on how the Year One Journey helped him maximize the company’s use of Aspire, sharing, “You can get comfortable with the system and only use it 25%. The Year One Journey is a tool to utilize more of the system to help you grow and improve your business.” He emphasizes, “If you aren’t utilizing it, you will never realize your investment's full potential and value.”

Our live webinars allow you to interface directly with Aspire experts, ask questions, and practice in real time. Remember, you can make the most of your Year One Journey by getting a baseline understanding of each module, strategizing your course order, and practicing beforehand.

Ready to take your first step? Sign up for a class and let the Year One Journey help guide you to becoming an Aspire pro.