Watch Out for the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

 

I once heard that the two most important ingredients to a successful business are urgency and accountability. I agree.  In fact, if your business lacks urgency, it probably makes up for it in desperation.

Before you dismiss this topic as something that does not pertain to you, you should first make sure your company’s urgency is not desperation in disguise.

•  If your business is always in panic mode trying to fill the schedule to cover payroll, you’re not being urgent; you are being desperate. You should be urgent to market for more clients or train your people to serve them better, or cut cost to stay profitable no matter what size you are.
• If your call-takers are rushing through the calls to answer the next ringing line, you are not being urgent to gain business; you are being desperate to stop the ringing phone. Your urgency should be to find out why the call-takers are not able to spend the time needed to correctly use their scripts.
• If your techs and/or salespeople are running as many calls as dispatch can squeeze in each day, you are being desperate to get the calls done.  The focus is on pacifying clients, not serving them. Your urgency should be to find a way to allow your field people the time necessary to serve your clients.
• If dispatch is grabbing whatever calls they can to fill the schedule, they are not being urgent about profits; they are desperate to make the schedule look full. This is a sure way to run up labor costs. The urgency should be to run a profitable schedule by marketing for more clients or giving a tech or two a day off.
• You have installers cleaning the shop when there is no work that day. Keeping people busy when there is no work is desperation to get caught up and keep your people happy. This runs up labor costs. I promise they will take their time cleaning when they have it. If you have urgency to keep the shop and yard clean at all times, they will move much quicker after a day on a job as they will want to get home.

A company with true urgency bred into its culture will have a different attitude about things.

• When you are so excited about a decision to make change in your business that you begin implementing it right away, you have urgency.
• When you are faced with a customer complaint and your team moves fast and is eager to resolve it, you have urgency.
• When the phone rings and you rush out to serve the client—even when you are ahead of budget, and you have fun doing it—you have urgency.
• When you move the repair call on the five-year old system a couple of days out and waive their diagnostic fee for the inconvenience so you can fit the repair call on the 18-year-old system without over working your techs, you have urgency.

To have urgency, you must have an “urge” to do something.  The urge of most people is to sweep problems under the rug as soon as possible and go home as early as they can. These people are easy to spot. They are the same ones who complain about the same things over and over.

So how do you create a company with urgency? The easiest way to do so is to make sure your company has that other thing I mentioned earlier… accountability. You can use accountability to create that urge needed in your people. But before you do that, you need to set an expectation. Set high expectations, and hold your people accountable to them. This will give them urgency to achieve. If it doesn’t, you have the wrong people. Lack of urgency and accountability will stifle sales and lead to the entitlement mentality in the workplace. In other words, it’s a knife to the wrist of your business.

If you have disguised urgency in your business, you should address it now. The best time to start something is the time you decide to do it. Don’t wait. I’m not saying you should not take a moment and plan it out a bit; you should. But don’t halt progress looking for reasons something can’t be done. Look for reason it can.

Sometimes you are too deep in your business to see it objectively. This is a good reason to have an outsider and help you see your business as you should. Coming to a Success Day can do just that. Call 1-866-412-8093 to join us at a Success Day and let us help you.