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Making Winners

The people we encounter daily play a major role in who we are and what we do. What happens in your office can determine your company’s victory or defeat.

What kind of influence does your office environment support? When your employees come to work each day, do they encounter coworkers who encourage achievement, or do they find themselves pulled down by bad seeds? You know what I mean by bad seeds—people who say “this place is the worst,” “the boss hates me,” and “the managers don’t care about us.”

As a manager and/or owner you can control your work environment and are able to create one that has the right stuff. You can inspire the team, encourage others to become your champions, and grow your own farm of influencers to produce a winning culture that cultivate team success.

Mentoring team members encourages stronger working relationships. Mentoring employees is a win-win experience for you and your employees. Who knows… you may create other mentors in your business making your mentor responsibilities less time consuming.

Grooming team members to become winners through training is essential for any company. It does not matter if

you work for McDonalds or Apple, Inc. If you are not properly trained to deliver exceptional customer service, your company will not reach its full potential. It may never scratch the surface. Use the resources that you have at your fingertips to grow your team’s skills. That is what we are here for.

Addressing challenges immediately with your employees fosters a winning environment. Letting employees know they crossed the line is the responsibility of the manager. When employees do not meet their goals, fail a customer or the company, it is your responsibility as the manager to get the employee the training necessary to bring up their performance.

Closing your eyes and ears, and thinking if I cannot see or hear the challenge, it cannot see or hear me, and it will just go away. Not a chance does that occur. Instead, let employees know that bad attitudes or acts will not go unnoticed or unaddressed. When performance fails, you are willing to invest in them by sending them to training—and always explain what performance levels you expect when they return from training. Talk with the employee professionally and in private when addressing challenges. Set the expectation and let the employee

know that you expect them to take personal responsibility for their attitude and performance at work. Only positive attitudes and performance will be welcome.

Acknowledge your team members in public for their achievements. People are more willing to meet you half way if they feel appreciated.

Understand those who are around us shape us—good or bad. This is why it is important for you, the manager

and/or owner to adapt your personal style and become more aware of the affect you have on other people.  Infectious attitudes and positive work environments start from the top.  Be a good influence and you will have a good team.

The Key to Success: Goal Setting

How do you react when someone asks you the question, “What are your goals?” Do you find yourself ill at ease looking around the room for some answers?

Goal setting has a tendency to be directly linked with looking into the future. However, I would like to offer you an alternative and enlightening approach to viewing the subject that changes “What are your goals?”  into “What are you doing, and are you currently doing it to make sure you reach your goals?” In other words, this approach allows you to link goal setting to both the future and the present.

There are three stages to goal setting: the dream, the goal, and the objectives. These stages start out broad with the dream and narrow down to specific details with objectives. The dream is your vision when you first started your business. It is what outlines the direction you want to go.

In your case, your dream is probably to become a successful contractor. Next are your goals or wants. These are more specific and defined. For example, “I want my top technician to produce $300,000 annually.” The most important part of goal setting is the objectives. Break down the annual goal into monthly and daily increments (e.g. $300,000 divided by 250 working days yearly is equal to $1,200 daily). Then you must measure yourself against the goal that you have set.

A helpful tip is to write your objectives and goals down in as much detail as possible. Don’t use words like “try” and “maybe.” But use “I will” or “I shall.” Be specific! Also, give yourself a deadline for your objectives. This allows you to know exactly what you are going to do and when you are going to do it. Once you have an outline, you can start working on it.  

How do you get to your goals? Motivation is a powerful reinforcement or cure to the “goal-setting blues.”  You would be amazed at how much more you can accomplish and come up with when you are motivated. Motivation is all around you, but the trick is that it needs to be found. It is one of the greatest treasures, making it worthwhile to look for.

What motivates you? Your kids, a great book, a song, a walk in the park, a winning lottery ticket, a football game, a new addition to the family, a new outfit, coffee with a best friend… the list is endless. Whatever it may be, use the adrenaline rush you get from it to build yourself up. Pick up a pen and brainstorm. You might not be able to use these ideas at that moment; however, once they are written down, you can always go back to them.

The next time someone asks you—”What are your goals?”—tell them what you are doing to make sure you reach your goals.

Focus on Making Money Daily

Let me ask you this, when’s the last time you considered your own focus?

Do you make decisions throughout the day with your profitability in mind? Is it your focus, and do you put in the effort to achieve it? To make money every day, you have to come to work each morning with a focus on doing what it takes to achieve this goal. You have to focus on sales, and to do that, you must master these three areas.

Know What You Need

The first is that you must know the numbers you need to generate each day to meet your goals of revenue and profitability. How many calls do you need? That should be a number you share with your team each morning and track throughout the day. If it looks as though you’re falling behind on this goal, then hit the phones and call your customers with a special offer or schedule your yearly maintenance agreement visits. If you don’t know what you need every day to meet your goals, you won’t be able to focus on achieving it.

Boost What You Have

You must also strive to maximize what you do have. This means that you must train your technicians to make the most of each service visit they run in a day. That doesn’t mean taking advantage of your clients because that is never the goal. Boosting your revenue comes from, first, maximizing the number of calls you book from the calls that come in.

Your call-taker should have a highly effective script for booking calls and you should train them frequently on this script. Here’s a tip. Mystery-shop your call-takers and record them. Then, use these recordings in your training sessions. If your average invoice is $263.00, and they miss one potential service call a day, you’re losing $68,380 in lost revenue each year, so training is crucial.

Secondly, your technicians must do what is in the client’s best interest. By doing this, you’ll maximize the amount of revenue available on each call. Perhaps it is in the client’s best interest to replace their system, roof, panel, or water heater instead of going forward with an expensive repair that may break down again in the future. Not only is this scenario in their best interest because their comfort will be protected, but it is in yours because you’ll reap the financial rewards.

Boosting what you have comes from training and focusing on the details. Train your call-takers to turn as many incoming calls into booked calls as possible. Train your technicians to offer options to your clients that are in the customer’s best interest. Training your employees in these areas and focusing on them every day will boost your sales and the money you make every day.

Track What You’ve Got

If your focus is on sales and meeting your goals every day, then this step should be a no-brainer. You have to track your results to see if you are meeting your goals. Doing so will show you where you have to improve and what you must do differently to meet your goals. You’ll see where your team needs more training and you may even end up changing your goals.

Focusing on sales every day takes a top-down commitment. As the owner, that commitment must start with you, and you must pass it on to your team. Get your team excited about hitting their goals. Show them why revenue and profit are important to the future of your company and to their future success.

Getting your team involved in this daily sales focus will help refocus your team on the most important goal – service success.

Making Easy Money at Your Desk

It’s a slow day in your company.  Everyone is dragging as that empty callboard stares you in the face.  It’s getting close to quitting time, and everyone is just ready to put this sales-killing day behind you.

Suddenly, your best technician walks through the door.  He has a hint of a smile on his face like he knows something you don’t.  He walks right over to your desk and puts a piece of paper down on the desk.

You pick it up slowly, expecting a resignation letter after such a slow day, when you realize it’s an invoice.  And not just any invoice.  It’s a $10,000 day-saving invoice!

Your technician just made a $10,000 sale!  You jump out of your chair and give the man a huge bear hug.  Everyone cheers!  The day is saved by the $10,000 sale!

And, it is great, but just how great is it really?

If you’re like the average contractor, you’re operating at a 3 to 4 percent profit margin.  In that case, that $10,000 monster sale netted you a whopping $300 to $400.  Not so exciting now, is it?

But here is what’s exciting.  You can gain that $300 – the profit equivalent of a $10,000 sale – and more just by making some simple tweaks from the comfort of your desk.  These profit-minded tweaks don’t require you to step foot in a truck, put in any extra hours, or even take on an additional headache.

These are stress-free dollars that drop right to the bottom line.  To get them, you just have to start buying right, and here are four simple ways to change your buying behavior so that you’re earning $300 to $400 in savings without lifting a finger:

1. Grab the discount – The easiest way to grab those savings is to pay your bills in time to grab any early pay discounts your suppliers might offer you.  If you have this option, take it!  Even if it requires some extra cash flow management, it’s worth it.
2. Work with low levels – The second strategy is to keep your stock and inventory at a low level.  This saves you the expense of the space needed to house that inventory, lessens the chance that those parts become obsolete, and limits your exposure to shrinkage.  Bottom line – it saves you money.
3. Pass the hassle, keep the savings – The best option is to have someone else manage your inventory altogether.  If you can work with your supplier or manufacturer, you may be able to get involved in a virtual inventory management program where they manage your inventory and you only pay for parts as you use them.
4. Buy smarter with a little help from your friends – This one is huge.  The biggest impact you can have on your bottom line is by buying smarter at the lowest prices possible.  Even if you’re a $1 million company, you can buy lower.  Chances are there is a $5 million guy buying at even lower prices.  And even if you’re a $20, $30, or $40 million dollar operation, there are $400 and $500 million dollar companies getting deals you wouldn’t believe.  It all comes down to the power of numbers.

The only way for the independent contractor to get the same power of numbers is to band together.  Plumbers’ Success International®can help you do just that.

When you can consistently save $300, $400 or more by buying right in your business,  you’ll feel like you are tripping over the $10,000 sales every day because those savings will drop right to your bottom line every time you make a smart buying move.

Start buying smart and start earning the extra profits you deserve.

Use Rejection as Inspiration!

One of the great things about running your own show is the freedom. The rewards can be sweet, but when things don’t go as planned, you may think of it as failure.

Frankly, if you want to get to the next level, you have to let yourself (not force yourself) out of your comfort zone. You’re going to deal with rejection, and that can leave you feeling exhausted and defeated. It may sound challenging, but what if you changed your perspective?

Keep in mind that every rejection is an opportunity to learn! Whether you’re making cold calls or trying to finalize a long-term contract, you will be faced with reason after reason why you shouldn’t get your way and your business will suffer. You need to craft arguments and solutions for each of those scenarios – often on the spot – and that takes practice.

It’s like working out. You could swing by the gym a few times a month. A little bit here. A little bit there. And you’d be lucky to see results any time soon. But stick to a plan to look and feel amazing.

If you can commit to the sting of rejection as a part of your company’s growth, you’ll also be blessed with the most opportunities.

If someone is more successful than you, they likely fail more often, too. So are they a bigger winner? Or bigger loser? As I mentioned before, it’s just a matter of perspective. They’re willing to put themselves out there, are willing to hear ‘no’, and are reaping the rewards.

Commit yourself to fail. Get ready to get turned down. Learn to love rejection. And imagine your success. These are where your most valuable lessons are learned, and all you’re putting at stake is your ego.

So why learn slowly when you could excel? The more you deal with rejection, the faster you will learn.  Remember how much power you have in almost every situation you’re in, and remember to take something from every experience.

As John Burroughs said, “Leap and the net will appear.”  Go for it.