Steve Stone
Contributing Writer
ShuBee®
ShuBee® Owner, Steve Stone, grew his plumbing and HVAC business from six trucks to 32 vehicles with $5.5 million in sales by networking with successful professionals. Stone gives us some insight into the benefits of success groups and what to look for when joining a group for your business.
First, how do you define a success group?
A success group is a group of very successful businessmen and women who understand best practices, the numbers; what true cost is, such as hard and soft costs. Joining a success group had a huge influence on my success. It taught me how to truly understand the cost of running my business and that the customer pays for everything, including my kids’ college fund. Success groups taught me how to hire the right people. They look past the present day and look further into the future. By joining a success group, it keeps your finger on the pulse of your business and it will broaden your thought pattern. We’re good techs, but we miss that business side…they don’t teach that in school. Before, I was learning trial by fire.
What are some of the ways you have benefited from joining success groups?
A main reason you want to join a success group is because no one in your area would share this kind of information. When I joined I was running 6 trucks, so I sought out people who had more trucks and more employees. I was struggling growing my business because I really didn’t know how to run the business properly. These contacts gave me the fast track to know what to do. I had to get out of the trenches and get what I call a “helicopter view” versus actually working in the business. You’ve got to take a helicopter view. You’ve go to get out of the truck! I even quit giving estimates, and I thought I was the only one who could give those bigger estimates. One of the mentors in the success group told me I didn’t need to be doing that, I should train my techs to do it. They were right. My techs did a better job on trading jobs than I did.
In each success group meeting I would learn something new, we’d call it “gold nuggets.” I learned the biggest asset in my company was the empty right hand seat in my trucks, and that I should be training my upcoming techs to take the existing tech’s place or when I add a new truck.
That’s just a few of many concepts that changed the future of our company. We had the money to grow and we were adding more and more techs. I didn’t want to hire the competition’s techs because I wanted to train them my way. We would take young guys, put them in the empty right hand seat and turn out techs that fit into our culture. You don’t want to bring in culture from outside that can poison the culture on the inside. Do your best to not hire your competitor’s techs and grow your own. That’s just one of thousands of concepts I learned through joining success groups.
What advice do you give business owners looking to join a success group?
You want to know what kind of training the success group has and what kind of support they offer. Training is a must. Some groups even have people who will come to your place of business to help you on site. You want to find a group that has mentors. That will help you transition over to their success guide. You want to make sure there is a forum – a way to chat online and the ability to ask open and honest questions to your group. You’ll also want to make sure you have access to a meeting once or twice a year for brain storming sessions.
I joined 30 years ago, and to this day I’m still friends with the people who mentored me and the people I mentored as I grew my business. You create life long relationships. Things change and they change at a rapid pace. Back when I joined there was not as much technology-driven marketing. Now people easily go to the Internet and look for service companies. I couldn’t have grown my business without aligning myself with a success group. It’s a must.