We recently returned from our annual HindSite Business Summit. Our goal at the summit was to help our customers improve their businesses. We had them all take part in an exercise to discuss the biggest problem in their business, and then work together to help each other brainstorm ways to solve that problem.
The results were eye-opening: For the majority of attendees, their biggest issue was that they were spending too much time working in their business and not enough time working on their business. Especially for those with young businesses, finding time to work on improving their business instead of doing the day-to-day work is difficult.
The solution to the problem? Develop an ownership culture within your business. In a business that embraces an ownership culture, your employees are empowered to act like a mini-owner over their area of responsibility. They make decisions. They have a stake in the company. Oh, and as a result you’re more likely to retain them and they’re going to work harder for you.
Here are five steps to take to empower your employees so you can spend more time working on your business (or your golf game):
- Financially reward them. You know that owning your business is a high risk/high reward proposition. If your business is growing and you’re making money, well, you’re getting rewarded. But are your employees? What incentive do they have to go the extra mile, other than just keeping their job?
Typically, they don’t have one. So institute some type of incentive bonus or profit-sharing plan and tie it to a goal that helps drive revenue. For instance, if you aren’t picking up your phone, you could be losing a potential job. So reward your office staff for picking up the phone. If they meet the goal, give them a bonus. Odds are the extra revenue you received from answering the phone more than makes up for the bonus. - Educate your employees about how your company makes money, and what their role is in making that happen. At HindSite, we have a number of support personnel who help customers all day long. They know our software better than the back of their hand. But they may not know how we actually make our money. Because we don’t believe in license agreements (you can fire us at any time), our front-line support is a huge reason why customers decide to stay (or leave).
We also get paid based on the number of individual licenses we sell. So we teach them about our license structure, what kinds of licenses we offer, and what they cost in case they receive questions from customers about licenses.
It seems obvious, but your field techs may not actually be cognizant that not only are they there to perform the service that your customer requested, but they’re also there to look for more work, which will make you more money, and ultimately keep your customer happy. If your customer is using a dated controller, your tech shouldn’t be afraid to spend 10 minutes explaining how a new controller can save them money in the long-term while also delivering the right amount of water. - Set performance goals and share them with everyone. I’ve talked to a number of sales managers who say that the best way to motivate their sales staff is to encourage competition by creating sales goals and publicly tracking those results. No self-respecting salesperson wants to finish last, and they’ll typically work harder to make sure they meet their quota goal if it’s part of a competition with other sales reps.
Plus, if you’re not setting goals – 10-year, 3 year, annual, quarterly – how do your employees know whether they’re performing well or not? How do they even know what they should be working on, and what they shouldn’t be working on?
One of the great things about our work order software is that it allows you to track and manage the productive time of your irrigation technicians. That’s a great place to start – make a goal for each of your techs to have 80% of their time be productive time. Set similar goals (and reward results) for everyone in your organization. Your employees might hate it at first (nobody likes being accountable), but in the long run, they’ll work harder and smarter and probably even come to enjoy the challenge of exceeding a difficult goal. - Encourage employees to contribute ideas and information. The winningest college football coach of all-time, John Gagliardi, usually didn’t do the play-calling for his football team. Nor did anyone else on his coaching staff. That responsibility belonged to the quarterback.
To some coaches, that sounds heretical. How can a player know more than a coach? Simple – because the player is on the field actually playing in the game. No matter where he stands, the coach will not be able to see the same thing the quarterback sees. Nor experience what the quarterback experiences.
Your business is the same way. Your guys in the field know more about doing the actual work than you do. So why not ask them how you can do it faster or better?
Your office manager talks to your customers a lot when scheduling appointments. I bet she has some good ideas about what customers want. So ask her.
Implement an employee suggestion and you’ll find that your employees will offer more. If you have a culture that never solicits ideas from your employees, you’re probably missing out on a dozen easy process changes that could save you a significant amount of money. - Eliminate unnecessary hierarchical structures. Valve, a video game producer, has basically eliminated management. Guess what? They’re valued at 4 billion dollars, have 400 employees and 55 million customers. Click here to read their story.
Now, I’m not saying that your company becomes completely anarchic. But I am saying that unnecessary management can inhibit your growth. If you’re a 10-person company with middle-management, you might want to think about how to eliminate that middle management and put those resources to more productive uses.
One great way to eliminate management is to leverage the power of field service software. We hear often from customers who install our software, then turn their managers into salespeople, techs, etc. Why? Because the software manages the transfer of information that would normally be assigned to a manager.
By empowering your employees to do more, make decisions and help you grow your business, developing an ownership culture can significantly impact your business. Plus, it can free you to focus on ways to grow your business, instead of working in your business.
Need other ways to improve your business? Check out our eBook 33 Stupid Things Contractors Do (And How to Fix Them) to see if you’re making any silly mistakes that are killing your business.