For over a dozen years,
NSPG has been providing the tools that allow contractors to
increase profits and minimize business hassles. With our
simple-to-use-tools, you can make being a business owner
what you always wanted to it be -
successful, profitable and rewarding.
Charge enough to make a
profit, because you’re worth it. However you must create
the environment for it to happen.
Creating the Environment for Success
I was in Denver at a
Nexstar Super meeting convention recently. By the way,
this was one of the best industry events that I have
attended. If you have not been to a Nexstar event, I
highly recommend it.
After a busy and
demanding day at the NSPG booth, I got together with
some good friends, all Nexstar members, and we decided to go
out for some dinner. We walked into this first class steakhouse,
and the first thing we noticed as we walked through the
doors was the fine woodwork of the oak panels, granite
counters, and wonderful smells of sizzling steak. It was
very pleasing and conducive to enjoying friendship, fine
wine, tasty steak, and spending lots of money.
 The
moment we walked in we were whisked to a cozy oak
paneled private room. At that point, the build up to the
presentation was excellent except for one very
troublesome issue which I tried to ignore. It felt like
I was walking into a blast furnace. The visual
experience was wonderful, but my physical experience was
not as pleasant. I was overheating. I was thinking to
myself, “Could this be just me”? I hoped the private
room was air conditioned.
 All six of us were
seated, and I looked around the table. It was not a
pretty site. In comes our waiter dressed in a tux, and
he proceeded to start his presentation about how the
steak is aged four weeks and BLA BLA BLA. Nobody heard a
word he said.
Why? The environment was
not properly set for a successful outcome.
We were not comfortable,
and this guy knew it and ignored it. He went right into
his presentation. At that point, he was stopped right in
the middle of his presentation and asked what's the deal
with the AC. It’s 100 degrees in here! Aren’t you hot in
that Tux? (Remember we’re all Electrical, Plumbing, and
Heating & AC Contractors).
The response we got was
not what we were looking for. At that point, we got up
and left. The poor guy never had a chance.
We left that fine
restaurant that spent thousands to get us inside and
hundreds of thousands to make the place look wonderful.
But they neglected to maintain the temperature of their
establishment. They lost at least $1000 with our party
alone that night because of no AC. What a shame!
Everyone lost out. We didn’t want to leave and find
another restaurant, the waiter lost his tip, and the
restaurant lost big time.
 Here’s
my point. You, as a service contractor, spend a lot to
get a client to call you. You then spend more for people
to answer their calls, even more on techs, trucks, tools
and training. Now your tech gets to your client's home,
and his shirt is stained and hanging out, he’s wearing a
baseball cap turned sideways, and he smells really bad.
Well, he could go through his presentation flawlessly,
but you clients aren’t listening to a word he’s saying.
They want him to leave,
but even that’s not easy because most of your clients
don’t want to be rude. So they have him do the minimum
work.
Or, they make up an excuse like needing to talk it over
with their husband to get rid of him quickly. If you’re
not actively paying attention to technician performance,
it could really hurt your business.
That’s why you need to
look at your total company presentation, and create the
environment for success. It involves many factors that
include what the customer sees, hears, and smells both
physically and emotionally from your employees.
Take some time to sit
back and visualize the sales/service process when a
potential client responds to one of your ads for
service. Visualize your potential client looking at your
ad, making the phone call, talking to your CSR, meeting
your technician, listening to your tech introduce
him/herself and go through the presentation and then
moving on to the diagnosis and solutions presentation.
Visualize the client being brought through each step,
and visualize how you can make the whole experience as
enjoyable and stress free as possible.
 After you have that
process in place, it’s time to measure performance. This
will give you the feedback you need to make sure the
process is being implemented properly. Two specific
benchmarks are Close Ratio and Task per Call. They are
very good indicators that you are creating the
environment for success. Both of these indicators are
automatically tracked in our soon to be released Dispatch Performance
Plus software program.
We will examine some of
these performance benchmarks in future issues of the
newsletter.
Now go create your own
environment for success.
Measure Monthly, Adjust Quarterly
& Achieve Annual Profit Goals
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