KickStart: Don’t waste precious business time on non-important busy work.
Maybe Fyodor Dostoevsky said it best 143 years ago, “Above all, don’t lie to yourself.” And yes, our Home Services industry is full of hard-working entrepreneurs who are lying to themselves.😥
“Say what, Steve?” Here’s the deal. Everyone “fritters away” time. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing- we all need down time to relax and recharge.😎 But when we fool (lie to) ourselves we may fall into what I call…
KickStart: man·age ˈma-nij To direct with a degree of skill.
Finding a balance in business (and life) is an ongoing, moving target for most of us. Our shared Home Service Pro entrepreneurial challenge? Managing our OCD tendencies to not get distracted off into Displacement Activities!🙄 Instead, you must focus ONLY on the high-profit, “important stuff”.
True Confession Time: I still find myself going down obsessive rat holes while wasting enormous time on pursuits that add nothing to my happiness, relationships or even my financial net worth!🤔 (You’d think I would have learned by now!)😲
Remember, your residential services company is an incredibly fragile creature. This means as a service business owner or manager you must…
KickStart: “Accountability breeds response-ability.” Stephen R. Covey
An essential part of growing into adulthood is becoming “accountable” for our actions. Honestly? Prisons are full of overgrown babies who have never matured enough to follow this basic rule of nature: “For every action there is… a re-action.”😥
However, I (eventually) learned that “accountability” shouldn’t focus ONLY on the bone-headed mistakes of my service employees! Instead, when a worker took “response-ability” I needed to both praise them and share the extra profits that they generated!
KickStart: “Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure…” Andrew Grove, CEO of Intel
During his eleven years(1987-1998) as CEO at Intel, Andy Grove used his absolute hatred of “business complacency” to rocket Intel’s value by 4,500%! (From $4 billion to $197 billion!) But now let’s talk about you and your residential services business…
KickStart: “… the inexperienced keep right on going and suffer the consequences.” (Proverbs 22: 3) If you choose to “stay small” protect yourself going forward.
I’m so very proud of you! You’ve analyzed your personality, skills, circumstances and what you (and your family) want out of life.
This honest self-appraisal may have convinced you that the inevitable stress, drama and (at times) agonizing sacrifices required to build a larger Critical Mass Business simply aren’t for you. Instead…
KickStart: “I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.” Groucho Marx
So, have you found your “Happy Place” as a Home Services business? (And life?) Your biggest “Happy Place Choice” in our residential services industry is…
KickStart: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it!”😲 Yogi Berra, Baseball Hall of Fame catcher/manager and pithy folk philosopher.
Good for Yogi! He was a man of action! But Yogi overlooked a very important part of any “fork in the road”.
Recognizing that a decision “masquerading as a small choice” now can have HUGE consequences later in life!😲
KickStart: “… it’s not what you say or what you do, but how you make people feel that matters the most.” Tony Hsieh, Zappos founder
“Feelings, Steve? Seriously?” As a rugged, profits-obsessed residential services business owner you likely focus ONLY on your bottom line! (I did too!) After all, who had time for a squishy, hard-to-manage word like, “feelings”?
I mean, everyone knows “emotions are for sissies”?💪 Right? WRONG! For far too many agonizing years I struggled before FINALLY learning that…
In a residential service business success is based on building “trusting relationships” (TR’s)!
In fact, Mr. Logical here even reduced this concept into an “Emotional Equation”: Success= (ETR + HTR) x SE= CMB. Say what, Steve?😲
KickStart: Develop EASY, step-by-step written systems for all workers to help your company run smoothly without… YOU!
How many of you A) have more ‘toys’, B) make more money, and C) are more ‘comfortable’ than you could have ever imagined? Yep- the Home Services industry truly can provide a ‘comfort zone’ for you!👍👍 And yet, I’ll gently remind you…
KickStart: Examine building a Critical Mass Business to bring you the elusive ‘Personal Freedom’!
We’ve recently discussed the why and how of creating a work atmosphere that is 1) safe, 2) sane, and 3) stable. (More important than ever in these CRAZY TIMES!) However…
While happy, engaged and committed workers are incredibly important they shouldn’t be the Primary Purpose of your business. NOTE: Please don’t focus ONLY on ‘getting big’. After all, I’ve consulted with Home Service entrepreneurs who have 100’s of employees and are totally enslaved by their business!
Of course, I (of all people) am a big fan of money! After all, I tell every class, “All things being equal… it is better to have more money than no money!” Why? Because financial success is a tool- to help others and bring you (and your family) freedom! (More on this in a bit.) But first, a warning…