Why is running a commercial, residential service and install business so hard? Why can’t employees do what I need them to do? After all, it’s just common sense…isn’t it?
"Life before Planning Power! was like knowing you need to go to the gym and lose weight or work out, these are the things you KNOW your supposed to do, but don’t. The answers are all the same,“not enough hours in the day” or “I am too busy working to focus on that.” We are all guilty for more reasons than can be listed."
Tim Flynn, Co-OwnerWinters Plumbing
Belmont, MA
Archive for the 'Success Stories' Category
When I first spoke with AI, I wasn’t sure that what Al has done with other contractors would fit my company which is primarily a commercial service and install company that also does residential service and install. I was pleasantly surprised in both our first step together called Planning Power and our second step called Customizing Operating Power to learn that Al has done commercial, industrial, and residential work and has an incredible grasp of the inner works, trials and tribulations we owners face every day.
Before we did the Customized Operating Power! Manuals with Al, no one in our company knew what was expected of them. It was always,“You didn’t tell me that!” Now that has all changed – we’ve created the manuals and those are what we train on.There is no more “I didn’t know that.”
So, when Al Levi came in, I spent three days locked behind closed doors with him, going step-by-step-by step as to what I expected from my technicians–and from my dispatchers, my customer service representatives, accounts receivable, accounts payable–even the oil truck driver.We weren’t really having a tremendous problem on the financial end, it was organizational, communications.
I ’d been reading Al Levi’s column in PM for months before meeting him at a C2000 meeting where he spoke.After that, I had no doubt. We needed him to get our operations to run smoother. Our company had been growing at more than 20% a year and that’s a good thing. But it was creating bottlenecks and stress for everyone.
Every time we thought we were dialed in to start real growth,we would lose a core tech and actually lose ground.We became so dependent on our core guys that we couldn’t enforce standards for fear of them leaving.The flow of the business suffered and the egos we allowed were no longer tolerable. “More techs, more [...]
My partner, Gene, and I had attended the seminars and read the books that preached ‘you need to hold your staff accountable to your company standards.’ But, they never could show us how to actually do that without causing a revolt. You know how hard it is to find Techs, so if we actually enforced [...]
We had a training center before Al arrived.We even had weekly training sessions before Al arrived. But, they never really worked the way they should have until Al created Customized Staffing Power! for us. For the first time,we really knew how to recruit, hire and train the right way, which is on willingness and not [...]
When there are five techs, you’re a Service Manager. When there are 10 you’re an overwhelmed Service Manager.What are you when you have 15 techs? Not nearly as effective as you need to be! In the 24 months we’ve been working with Al Levi, he’s shown us how to use the Operations Manuals he created [...]
One of the most valuable things about the Sales Power! workshop was all of the scripts with techniques for the techs and the customer service experts. Al also did a great job relating to the techs– they paid attention all 12 hours – amazing! The best part for me… Al taught me how to use [...]
