What are the keys to contracting business success?
Al Levi helped kick off season 2 of Toolbox for the Trades in Episode 11 by ServiceTitan, Al Levi shares the keys to success – systems and trainings. Without these two, a contracting business can’t succeed.
What happens when your company has too many leaders all going in too many different directions?
Chaos!
Yes, like the old adage says, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.”
To expand on this, in a kitchen, there can only be one head chef. They run things and the others on the team help produce the outcome desired. You can’t expect good results if everyone is free to jump into the process.
Pardon the pun: That would be a recipe for disaster.
Here’s how and why this dynamic of “Too Many Chefs” reveals itself to me as I go about my work as a consultant at a new company…
When I talk to contractors, many ask the same question, and that is, “How do I grow my company the right way?”
To me, there are only two answers:
1) Master Organic Marketing
2) Master Acquisition
Mastering Organic Marketing means you are so good at the right messaging delivered using the right marketing vehicles that you create more demand for the work you can do in a given day which means you need to grow your team to support this ability.
Great Organic Marketers have figured out on their own or with good marketing outsources how to make their phone ring “off the hook” which has allowed the owner to hang up their tool belt and begin to focus on what it takes to run a successful business.
Mastering Acquisition means you’ve learned how to buy someone else’s company and acquire their customers and good will and sometimes their assets like trucks and inventory or even their building.
Great Acquisition Players know that Acquisition can and often does happen in many ways and in many forms.
My focus here is on Acquisition as the best way to… Buying Your Way to Growth.
A few years back I worked with a phenomenal contractor, Mark Paup of Golden Rule Plumbing, Heating & Cooling, in Des Moines Iowa.
Mark had grown his business into a systematic and money making company. And as I like to do with former clients, I called him up just to see how things were going.
He asked me a question, “Al, do you ever just get to sit on the beach, and it all runs without you forever?”
I replied with the answer he knew I would, and that was, “No…”
And after the briefest of pauses, I continued with, “You absolutely don’t have to be so heavily involved in the day-to-day running of the business like you were when we first started. And you are actually encouraged to take time away from the business because you deserve it based on all the hard work you’ve done with me. It’s actually good for your team for you to let them run things without you.
“That said, you’re the face of this business, and you must keep a finger on the pulse of it to keep it headed in the leadership direction we created during Leadership Power! if you’re to reach the near-term goals set and the long-term goals still ahead.”
Do you feel like all hope is lost for your business amid the Coronavirus pandemic?
On episode TSS 244 of The Site Shed podcast, Al Levi and Ellen Rohr share practical advice for struggling business owners with host Matt Jones. A lot can be done to emerge stronger after this crisis. The discuss refining business objectives, the role of communication to get your business’s message across, seizing and spotting the right opportunities that this crisis presents, and more.
The purpose, or what I call the “Why” for what your employees do at work, is becoming more important to them than just collecting a paycheck.
I know this to be so because I witnessed this when I was a contractor and now as a consultant to contractors. This long-time trend has become the norm. And I think it’s not just a good thing… I think it’s a great thing.
This may seem scary to you. Or, you may be in disbelief that this could be true. A quick review of articles and blogs online will validate what I’m saying here.
And if you’re an owner or manager who is over 50 years of age, you probably grew up in the trades with being told, “This is what I want done”. There was no discussion. You were just expected to do it because your boss told you to.
But having worked with consulting clients over the last few years, all I see are Millennials and now even some of the Generation Z arriving at work. This movement is in full swing, so doing things because “I told you so” is long gone. In general, they’re not going to engage their heart and soul into anything at work until they know the “Why” they’re doing something.
Has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted your trade business?
On this special edition of The Sharpest Tool Podcast, Al Levi and Ellen Rohr join host Josh Smith to discuss how coronavirus is impacting the trades. They have good advice to offer business owners during tough times. Listen in and hear what they have to say.
Listen to the special edition of The Sharpest Tool podcast here.
As part of Staffing Power, I advise my clients to make sure that Personality Profiling be a part of the hiring process.
To be clear, I don’t like the term “Personality Profiling” because it feels, to me, manipulative. Profiling is just a very bad word unto itself. That’s why I prefer the term Motivational Mapping.
Motivational Mapping is seeking to know how the new hire interacts in the world or at least how they view things. That promotes better communication because if you know the words they want to hear they’re more likely to be more motivated.
This switch of terms to Motivational Mapping isn’t meant to be a game of semantics. It’s more about recognizing that the term fits better because it’s about the things that motivate us. That’s different because we’re all wired differently. All of which I think is a really a good thing as we don’t want to live in a world of clones.
That said, we all have tendencies. And recognizing those tendencies early on will help set up the potential new hires to better succeed at your company. It can also reveal if a new hire is a good fit for your company. That’s why you want to pay attention to what the Motivational Mapping is revealing.
Have you heard of the Blue Collar Titan Podcast Series?
The mission of the Blue Collar Titan Podcast is to provide you with valuable insights and inspiration from 21 blue collar industry titans over 21 episodes.
In Episode 13, Al Levi shares with hosts Erik and Larry the whole story about how his family’s contracting business got systems into place. You’ll also hear about the difference these systems (operating manuals, etc.) have made in some of Al’s clients’ businesses, as well as why systems are such a critical aspect of your business — if you want to grow and prosper.
Register Here and Listen to Episode 13 of the Blue Collar Titan Podcast Series
Is there such a thing as a bad employee?
Yes, there is.
Is there such a thing as an employee who’s just a bad fit at your company?
Yes, there is.
How do you know if you have a bad employee or just a bad fit for your company?
Ah… that’s a little trickier! Good news is I’ve got some things to share with you that I think will help you make a better decision for yourself.
But I must let you know that until you have a systematic way of doing business at your company, your employees are at risk which puts you and your company at risk.
The only fair way for an employee to be judged good or bad is to have things documented in writing that helps your employees fill the box or boxes on your Org Chart. More than that, you also need to have the associated orientation process that gets them up to speed and provides the metrics they will be judged on. This coupled with never-ending training is the only way to give an employee the ability to step up and be a good-to-great employee at your company.
Tough news here…
Connect With Us
