Paul Riddle
Contributing Writer
Success Group International
If you asked most business owners, they’d love to have a company where they knew what to expect. One of the hallmarks of a successful company is consistent revenues and profits coming into the company.
However, those consistent results require consistent actions. Without consistency, your company will have difficult time reaching the goals you’re trying to achieve. Your team will have a hard time following your plan and serving your customers at the highest level.
If you’re running around putting out fires every day, it’s hard to stay focused on your plan. That’s why it’s so important to put systems in place in your company and then train your team on executing those systems. They allow everyone to know how things need to be done. They create consistency.
But consistency is more than doing the same things every day. Consistency involves the actions you have and the behaviors you foster in your company and your team. Here are the two most important types of consistency in your contracting company:
Manage with Consistency
If you asked a person a question and got two completely different answers, you’d be confused. You wouldn’t know what to expect. The same thing happens to your team when you don’t treat them and manage them with consistency. Your team should know what to expect from you and they should know the standards that they are being evaluated on every day.
The problem arises for some owners and managers when they hold people to different standards. This inconsistency causes not only confusion in your company, but it breeds resentment, too. Think about your top producer in your company. Do you let him or her get away with more than your lowest producer? Some managers do. They give their star employees different standards, and when the rest of the team sees that, the natural reaction is to resent the manager for doing it.
To remedy this, make sure that you are clear on what is expected of everyone and then treat them with fairness and consistency regarding those standards.
Serve with Consistency
One of the biggest threats to consistency in your company is what happens when your team leaves the office and steps foot inside your customers’ homes. What are they doing on every call? Is it consistent with the systems you’ve put in place and the standards you have in place for your company?
Here’s what tends to happen. Your technicians go out to a home and they make assumptions about the homeowner. They assume that the homeowner won’t be interested in a particular product or that they won’t be interested in a particular service. As a result, the technician never even mentions it. They don’t give the homeowner the option of choosing to have something repaired or replaced. Often, the technicians say they feel sorry for the homeowner and they modify what they normally do on a call as a result. They might forego a whole house inspection because they feel like the customer just wants them to get in and get out.
All of that causes a real problem. Obviously, every one of those calls where your technician doesn’t offer the client all of the possible options is an opportunity you are possibly missing to generate additional revenue. However, it may be a case where your client is missing out on fixing a problem that they would love for you to fix while you’re there.
This type of inconsistency from your team can often be seen in lower than average invoice totals. When you see your team bring in a low invoice total, question them about it. See what happened on the call.
If your technicians need some perspective on why this consistency is so important, ask them to think about going through the drive-thru of their favorite fast food restaurant. Every time they order food, the workers put it in a bag for them. What would they do if one day the worker decided that your technician didn’t need a bag and instead handed them a messy pile of hamburgers and fries? It’s consistency. Every time you order a meal at the drive-thru, they provide a bag for you to carry it away in. The same should be true for your services.
Be aware of the consistency that you bring to your company and your team. When you act in a consistent manner, your team will see that and they’ll be more willing to do the same. When your whole company acts with consistency, you’ll have a business that produces consistent results, and that’s a goal to shoot for.
About the Author: Paul Riddle, Vice President, Success Group International
Paul Riddle has over 25 years of hands‐on experience as GM, COO, CEO, and owner of service companies specifically in the mechanical and restoration segments. Throughout his career, he has personally trained the owners and employees of hundreds of businesses, including several turnaround situations. His hands‐on training for owners and their employees has been in the areas of business planning, sales & marketing, and company culture. Paul enjoys applying his knowledge and experience working directly with business owners and their employees to increase profits, improve the company’s present value, and unlock the intrinsic value of the business when sold. Paul joined SGI in 2009 as the VP of Operations.