It’s one thing to drive your business to profitable levels of success. It’s quite another thing to keep it going year after year.
After working with Contractors for over 20 years, I’ve learned three challenges cause most business owners to lose power in their day-to-day operations.
When you lose power in your operations, you lose money.
The fact of the matter is that every business is operated by people and these people have attitudes, emotions, and, sometimes, conflicting points of view.
Oftentimes, this can seriously get in the way of your employees’ productivity.
It doesn’t have to, though.
Here are the three challenges to overcome so you can sustain your profits for years to come.
CHALLENGE #1: GOSSIP
Gossip is the number one killer of productivity in your workplace.
People waste more time and energy on who said what to whom or who did or didn’t do the right thing at the right time. This kind of gossip kills your employees’ productivity and your business’s ability to make money. Unneeded, unnecessary drama is an enormous waste of time and money.
I really don’t want your company to experience this, so here’s how to eliminate gossip.
Straight talk
Straight talk means to take whatever issue someone is experiencing to the person with whom they have an issue. It is a commitment to no drama and instead of a focus on pure productivity.
This requires professionals to act like the adult professionals they are.
It’s about being honest. Nothing gets people back to work faster than speaking the truth. Chances are, whatever was a “problem” was just miscommunication.
Or, you may find out one person appreciates the honest feedback because they had no idea or any intention of hurting another person or you may uncover an undisclosed problem that can now be addressed directly.
When one of your employees has a problem with someone, make sure they take it right to the person with whom they have an issue.
They do not need to get other parties involved because this usually creates gossip and wastes a lot of time and mental bandwidth.
What straight talk accomplishes:
• Expedites communication
• Saves enormous amounts of time
• Increases productivity
• Teaches people who may be afraid of being confrontational how to resolve problems without your help
• Gives the listener valuable feedback
• Helps your employees maintain successful working partnerships
One of the significant indicators of health I see in successful companies is people being at work, focused, and on task.
CHALLENGE #2: SALES
Another challenge that is critical to your business’s profits is sales.
A problem I see many businesses make is not having all employees take ownership of the sales process.
This may look like your team waiting around for the phone to ring or depending on third-party programs to generate more sales opportunities or the weather.
The real problem here starts by allowing your employees to believe selling belongs to someone else.
This is a dangerous thing for any company.
When you hear your employees say any version of something like, “You’re responsible for selling and I’m not,” this is a really big problem because it’s indicative of laziness and lack of accountability in your business’s culture.
You need to help your employees to understand that everyone sells.
Every employee should take on the attitude and practice of selling. When this happens the financial health of your company increases significantly.
Your employees should be willing to stick their necks out and take some risks; they should be willing to do whatever it takes to support a co-worker or whatever they need to do to go the extra mile.
Here’s how to shift your employees to understand that everyone sells:
• Help them understand how they can exceed the expectations of your customers with exceptional service.
• Help them understand the importance of returning phone calls as quickly as possible.
• Put procedures in place so you can push work through your production pipelines as fast as possible and, of course, do a great job in selling.
The bottom line of this shift is getting all your employees on board to do whatever they can each day to reach out and invite new customers into a working relationship with you and take care of existing customers by working hard to exceed their expectations.
CHALLENGE #3: PERSONAL OWNERSHIP
The last place where you may be losing power in your day-to-day operations is your employees lacking personal ownership.
If your staff is just showing up to do their part, do what they are told, or just want to put in their time and have an unwillingness to look at anything outside of their job description, you’re likely experiencing a drag and loss in productivity.
This type of culture will cost you dearly over the years.
If you’re the type of business owner who feels this type of business culture isn’t that big of a deal and thinks this is how all employees think, I’m willing to bet you don’t realize how good you can actually have it.
I want you to have the best. You deserve it, so let’s go to work on this.
The reality of business today is that you not only need people who are highly productive and who think on their feet, but you need leaders.
You need leaders who inspire others to lead, and you need these types of leaders at all levels in your business.
I have seen mitigation service technicians making marketing calls to insurance agents or outselling fire jobs and board-ups.
I have seen customer service coordinators driving sales and closed work for the whole production team through their efforts of tracking and cheering the team!
I have even seen estimators and project managers drive educational and cross-training efforts with their sub-contractors and the whole team.
This is the kind of ownership and leadership I want for you!
Your employees should be willing to stick their necks out and take some risks; they should be willing to do whatever it takes to support a co-worker or go the extra mile.
Like Art, Williams says in one of his best online videos, “Just do it!”
This is the attitude you need in your entire business culture, from top to bottom. Whatever it takes to be successful and a little bit more.RIA
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