Tips on Managing Your Growing Restoration & Cleaning Business

This past week I was given the unfortunate news about the passing of Bob Keenan, my grade school football coach. Reflecting on the fond memories of my upbringing in a parochial school, many of the lessons I learned go back to the practice field where Coach Keenan made the football team run wind sprints up and down “the hill.”  

His philosophy was simple: the best way to avoid injury in sports was to be properly conditioned.  As a result, our team was always in the best shape, played with limited injuries and posted a nearly flawless record under his tutelage.

To me that hill symbolized life, and in many ways, business.  A well-conditioned business avoids injury and is properly positioned to overcome down turns in sales, cash crunches, the loss of key employees and a host of other challenges that may present themselves.  As coaches in the business world we try to teach our clients to be fiscally responsible, to mitigate risk, to train and
educate their employees.  We push them to keep running “the hill” because it will make them better entrepreneurs, managers and leaders.
 
At the end of the day, it is still up to the individuals to have the discipline to condition themselves and their businesses.  As Coach Keenan would always say, “You gotta want it baby!”


Tim Hull

A tough lesson a lot of business owners have to learn is that they must grow up if they want to keep pace with their growing company. I’m not talking about just getting older; we can all do that without any help. I’m talking about growing up behaviorally so you can be a leader of your business. 
 
I’ve repeatedly witnessed business owners who never let go of the emotionally immature behavior they had when their companies were smaller; when their behavior might have been explained away as the “work hard, play hard” behavior of youth or the unpredictable personality quirks of an entrepreneur. Often business owners will find the behavior they might have been able to get away with when their companies were small may no longer be tolerated when the future of employees’ families and customers’ businesses are on the line.
 
At the same time I’ve also seen owners who made this transition at an early stage and have enjoyed the accompanying rewards in their businesses. 
  
How have you seen this play out with business owners you’ve encountered?


Chuck Violand

I am not quite sure if Punxsutawney Phil had his head in the game this year in seeing his shadow and predicting six more weeks of winter, because aside from our friends in Alaska most of the country has not had a winter. The unseasonably mild weather has left many restoration companies scratching their heads and trying not to think about their empty wallets. After last year’s windfall most companies planned to start this year off strong. Now that Mother Nature has thrown them a curve ball, what do they do?

Growing up playing baseball I used to love the high fastball. I was bigger than most kids my age (I know that is hard to believe) and I could step into that pitch
and drive it over the left field fence. As got older and my team mates and competitors got bigger and stronger (and I remained the same size) I had to adapt my hitting style. I had to learn to hit the curve ball! The best way to hit a curve ball is to keep your weight back and take the pitch to the opposite field. No more homeruns but doubles and triples down the right field line are still nice and productive.

Now is the time that companies affected by this slump need to start adjusting their hitting styles. They need to keep their weight back by managing cash, controlling their spending and making good decisions. They cannot be tempted by the high and tight fastball thinking that one big job will bring them out of the slump. Restorers who are thrown this pitch need to take the ball to the opposite field by finding work that is not caused by the influence of weather.  They need to do it diligently  and  aggressively and they need to do it now.


Tim Hull

The Ethics Resource Center recently conducted a Business Ethics Survey for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). In this survey it was reported that three out of four respondents work for organizations that have written standards of ethical business conduct. At first glance I found this to be an impressive statistic, giving me hope for the future of ethical conduct and performance in the workplace. However, my hope was short lived.

The report went on to indicate that "more than half of the survey respondents said that they observed conduct within their organizations during the past year that they believed violated the law or the organization's standard of ethical business conduct." Over 47 percent of these employees indicated they felt at least some pressure from other employees or managers to compromise their organization's standards of ethical business conduct.

What are you observing in your own environment? If your company has an ethics policy is it making a difference and are people striving to follow it? Are there any best practices you’ve observed which are having an impact at driving home just how important it is to have an ethical environment?


Scott Tackett

As “an older person” it’s much harder to embrace “what is” than “what was”.
 
The realities of youth:  They dress differently (more relaxed), they speak differently (less political correctness) and they communicate differently (my sons would rather text than talk).

So the real challenge for you as an “older person” or you as a “younger person” is to understand one another.
 
If you want to win, befriend youth.  And youth, if you want to win, befriend experience.  Together take advantage of every opportunity. Don’t fight each other; embrace each other for who you are and what your talents are!


Tom Cline

When the elder John D. Rockefeller was setting up the Standard Oil Company he said, "The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun."

The ability to deal with people and potential conflict is even more important today with the current pressures of our world. Being able to handle conflict in a productive way is frequently mentioned as one of the most challenging skills for managers, leaders and owners.

My experience is that some of you thrive on conflict and create it wherever you go, some of you go to great lengths to avoid it, some of you will instruct others to deal with it, and some of you will let it go in the hope that the best (or toughest) man or woman wins.

What's your conflict resolution style and how is it working for you?

 
Scott Tackett

To this day I am astonished by the amount of debt that has been incurred by our society.  You can pick your reasons: assets, growth, risk, social perception or personal enjoyment.  The list is long.  I do not profess to be an economist, but I do feel as though I have a fair amount of common sense and to me this certainly doesn’t make sense.  Small business owners are a unique breed.  They have an uncanny ability to recognize opportunities and risk everything they have to pursue it, expecting the rate of return to far exceed the investment.  When it works, they look like a genius.  When it doesn’t, they look like a compulsive gambler that hasn’t learned when to fold.
 
Over the past month I had the opportunity to spend some time with over 50 small business owners, speaking to them about cash flow in their business.  I asked them all the same question: “Who does NOT have cash flow issues in their business?” Much to my dismay only 3 said they did not.  We then proceeded to have an hour long discussion on the characteristics exhibited by companies that manage cash well.  In doing so I learned a very important lesson.  Those in attendance already knew what I was telling them!  Their actions were just not in alignment with their knowledge.


Tim Hull