Your New Orleans Expo came to a rousing conclusion just a few weeks ago—it was an incredible event full of new information and insight to help you build even greater success in your business. Below, enjoy a brief synopsis of each session—and if you see something that strikes your eye, watch the video of the presentation! It’s now available on your organizational website…
Although watching the sessions will certainly be helpful, nothing can replace the experience Expo provides. That’s why you’re urged make plans to join us at your next Expo in Phoenix, Arizona, October 12-14, 2016! Expos are something that are best experienced—not watched. Being in the meeting rooms and around other contractors is the best and fastest way to become successful.
In the meantime, here’s a detailed breakdown on what transpired in NOLA:
Wednesday, March 30th
Learning Alliance Day: Understanding Behavior Types Using the DiSC® Assessment Test
Learning Alliance Day took a deep look into the DiSC personality assessment and how our personalities drive who we are and how we interact with others. DiSC generates your personality assessment based upon how you answer a questionnaire. Based upon your answers, your personality is measured by DiSC’s four main personality traits: Dominance, Influence, Conscientiousness, and Steadiness. Most people prove to be dominant in one of these traits and can have “secondary styles.” For example, you can be heavily Dominant and also significantly show signs of Influence. By understanding the various DiSC personalities, you can better understand why others act the way they do. Instead of being frustrated with someone because they’re different, you can adapt your communications style to better connect with them, which can make you a better manager and leader in your business. You were able to put into practice what you learned about DiSC and working with other personality types during the scavenger hunt throughout the French Quarter! Learning Alliance Day proved to be an informational and fun day for everyone.
Thursday, March 31st
Serving Leadership by John Stahl-Wert
John Stahl-Wert is a best-selling author, an internationally known speaker, and an expert in growing great leaders. Today, he is a working executive serving as president of the Newton Institute (a subsidiary of Newton Consulting), and director of the Center for Serving Leadership. As you learned, John is a pioneer in the “serving leadership” movement, which is a new, fresh, and innovative approach to leadership. He says we should “upend the pyramid.” Rather that you, the business owner, being at the very top of the organizational chart, you should be at the bottom. Rather than asking how others can serve you, you should instead look at how you can serve your people, who in turn provide for your customers. John’s reasoning and methodology was highly interesting. You hopefully took away plenty of “nuggets” of information to help you shape your leadership philosophy with your team.
SGI Update:
Your SGI team works hard every day to further enhance your membership—that’s what you deserve. During this session, you were given a glimpse into what we’ve been doing lately. First and foremost, SGI member and owner Gus Antos took the stage to share with you a simple, but important, message: use your membership. He explained how his interactions with members like you transformed his company Milestone Electric & Air—he urged that it can do the same for you if you make the effort.
Next, you were introduced to superstar trainer—and new member of the Learning Alliance team—Krish Dhanam. Krish spoke for an insightful and moving 30 minutes about how we are shaped as human beings. We define ourselves, he explained, by four different types of expectations: Expectations of Self, Expectations of Others, Expectations of Vision, and Expectations of Dreams. If you only watch one video from Expo, make it this eye-opening session by Krish. Prepare to be inspired!
Following Krish, you were treated to an insightful and information presentation from a high-ranking Google executive. He talked about how technology has impacted peoples’ purchasing decisions—namely, people rely more than ever on their smartphone to find products and services—that’s especially the case when looking for service contractors. He emphasized that if your site is not easily navigable via smartphone, you should be making upgrades to it immediately.
Finally, Gus and fellow SGI member and owner Jimmie Dale announced from stage an exciting new development: They revealed a new frontend software/app that SGI is developing called ServiceLine. ServiceLine is still in its infancy, but it will allow you to better track your key-performance numbers on every single service call—and it will be incredibly user-friendly for the technician, and it will be compatible with all major accounting software. Stay tuned for more details!
Goal-Setting & Communicating Expectations
Successful companies are built on goals. Goals are achieved by communicating them with your team and holding them accountable. Patrick Somers, General Manager of The General and AirTime member, delved into this topic at Expo. He explained that all goals should be based on your long-term plan: where do you see yourself in three to five years? Once you know where you want to go, it’s time to figure out how you’ll get there. At the General, when goal-setting, they get their management team together off-site; they have a facilitator; each person shares ideas of what they want; and they create a Vision Board. Patrick stressed that for any goal to be achieved, it must fit the SMART goal acronym, which is to say it must be Smart, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Patrick said that at The General, the managers and company leaders build goals with their team—but they must align with the company’s goals. Then each department presents its plan to the company. Patrick closed his session with this: To best attain goals, you must have a team. The process of building a team isn’t always pretty—it goes through four stages: Forming, Storming, Norming, and finally, Performing. Be strong and fight through that Storming stage—and when you do, and you see everyone Performing, you’ll know that any goal is achievable by your team.
Profits before Growth
So many contractors went into business with the dream of being the major player in town. SGI’s Paul Riddle explained before you push hard for expansive growth, first get really good at what you’re already doing. With the help of members Mike Moffett, Russ Noyes, and Joe Zimmerman, Paul detailed the four main steps to boosting profit: 1.) Price yourself properly. That also means delivering value; you must give the customer a reason to spend more. And you need to train your team in order to communicate that added value. They also need to be adept at always performing inspections, offering options, and offering additional products/services. 2.) Monitor your material-cost controls. 3.) Monitor your overhead-cost controls. Instead of always being focused on driving revenue, profit can be had by keeping tight reigns on how you’re using your money, which goes with Paul’s fourth and last point. 4.) Know your numbers. Use your Daily Management Essentials report daily! It’s the best way to know about an issue now, rather than months later when it develops into a major problem.
Building a Pricing Strategy
If you attended this session, there’s likely a reason. You don’t think you’re priced properly or you’re not sure. SGI member and owner Jimmie Dale explained that there’s a myriad of reasons why contractors don’t price properly: Fear of losing customers, don’t believe you can get the price, too comfortable, etcetera. The fact of the matter is you can increase your prices—because hundreds of your fellow SGI members have higher prices than you, and they’re in similar markets. Jimmie said that a higher price can actually increase sales—research shows people associate higher prices with greater value. By being more expensive, you’re considered a luxury provider, as long as you deliver on that promise of higher value. Jimmie went on to review the pricing formulas, and he showed that by raising prices, even if you lost a chunk of customers, you’d still be making more money. Jimmie stressed you should be raising your prices at least once a year. And he emphasized that you deserve those higher prices—contracting is tough. It beats up on the body. Other industries get much higher margins on their products; you absolutely deserve to make great money doing what you do.
Overcoming Objections
You follow SGI’s recommendations, and you make a concerted effort to train your office and field teams. You work with them to develop scripts. You role-play and you talk about various challenges they face. But once your CCRs or technicians are with a customer, and they get a really tough objection, are you confident they have the best answers? How they handle that one objection can be the difference between sale and no sale. In this session, you had an opportunity to hear from many of the top performers from Milestone Electric & Air, the company of SGI member and owner Gus Antos. Gus’ team shared from stage some of their real-life experiences, their most difficult objections, and explained how they swat them with ease.
AirTime Only: Introduction to Comfort Guard
At your last Expo, your AirTime team rolled out an exciting new club-membership program, Guardian Alliance. What made it so exciting was the cutting-edge, system-monitoring technology that comes with it, Comfort Guard. It’s a series of monitors that when affixed to a system can give the homeowner and you thorough insight into its condition. The benefits are huge for both your customers and you. If implemented into your company, it can transform and drastically improve the level of service you’re providing. For those members that missed that initial presentation or for members who wanted a refresher, they could see how Comfort Guard could give their business a huge boost.
Building Your Marketing Strategy
AirTime Client Success Manager Heath Betts shared with you his steps to building a marketing plan. He said it centered around three steps: 1.) Determine how much you should spend. How much you should spend depends upon your goals. Always remember, marketing is an investment in your business, not an expense, and you get out what you put in. However, remember that marketing also doesn’t mask inefficiencies in your business. 2.) Have some self-awareness. Accept that you have slow periods, and build your marketing plan to combat those times, and realize that if you want steady growth, you’re going to be spending 12 to 16 percent of your sales on advertising. 3.) Analyze your options. There’s so much you can spend advertising dollars on. You must have a good website—it’s a representation of your business. To consumers, a bad website means a bad company. Once you have a good site, update it constantly with fresh info to help your search presence. Also, if you have the budget, radio is a sensational tool, but to do radio right, you should work with an ad agency. Even in today’s world, direct mail and door hangers generate leads. Whatever you choose to spend on, always look at what your cost per lead becomes.
Learning Alliance
The newest training arm of SGI offered a session for members looking to learn more about it. Learning Alliance offers learner-centered courses; there’s far more interaction by your student with other students in the course than ever before. Your training experience isn’t based solely on whether or not you like your instructor, such as the case with Success Academy. Learning Alliance classes also include preactivity work for students, as well as active learning, postactivity work, reinforcements, and measurable outcomes. That way, your student is forced to continually revisit the material, which helps them better digest it. Additionally, Learning Alliance classes are now being hosted all over the country—not just St. Louis. The four core Learning Alliances classes are: Service Essentials (for techs), Advisor Essentials (for salespeople/selling techs), Telephone Essentials (for CCRs), and Telesales Essentials (for sales-lead coordinators). Of course, Learning Alliance offers trainings by the incomparable Krish Dhanam; Krish offers a Top Performance course, which is meant for managers and owners who want to become better motivators and leaders, and a Culture Transformation course, which is meant for managers and owners looking turn your employees into a tight-knit team.
Personal Finance
You work with your people daily trying to help them improve their performance. You do it because it’s good for your customers, your business, and them—after all, productive, successful employees are happy employees. However, there’s one thing most of us never think to talk about with our people: It’s what they do with their money AFTER they have it. The sad truth is many people were not raised to understand personal finance. They don’t know how to secure their future. In this session, Baker Brothers’ David Bridgewater explained some basic investment tools that you or your employees could take with them back home to start saving money and getting their personal finances headed in the right path.
Leadership Development
You have so many responsibilities as a business owner. You’re managing, training, and administrating. You’re looking for talented people to bring aboard your company. You’re searching for better pricing on materials and equipment. You’re trying to identify new sources for leads. But if you’re truly looking to grow your company, none of these tasks are as important as your ability to develop leaders within your company. When you have a team of motivated, eager leaders, there are few limits to your ability to grow and enjoy success. In this session, John Stahl-Wert explained some strategies to help you in your leadership-development goals using his “Empower” model. Be sure to watch the video from Expo to gain a greater understanding of John’s insightful message.
AirTime Only: Comfort Guard for Existing Customers
You’re an AirTime member already selling Guardian Alliance club memberships with Comfort Guard, or you’re an AirTime member who is invested in Comfort Guard and preparing to launch the program soon. If so, this was the session for you and your team! During this presentation, strategies to selling the program and its technology to your customers was discussed. You left knowing how to sell it on maintenance calls, service calls, and with replacement equipment. You heard from people actually implementing the program who talk with homeowners on a daily basis, so you can understand the impending challenges you may face and know how to respond to them.
Industry Trends (Each Affinity Group Broke Out Separately)
Each SGI affinity group enjoyed a separate breakout session that centered on topics or issues that related specifically to their industry. In PSI, executives from AO Smith took the stage to share the latest developments on water-heater technology and how the market is fluctuating in its demand for water heaters. In AirTime, the folks from Daikin/Goodman spoke about the recent trends in the ductless and replacement markets, how the need for financing is greater than ever for consumers, and they shared some technological advancements the company is working on. In ESI, Gus Antos explained that companies either have a calls problem or (lack of good) people problem. He shared that at Milestone, he is putting the focus more than ever on ensuring his people love their workplace, even if that means he no longer runs 24/7 and loses customers. To him, his employees are more valuable than any customer. RSI enjoyed a visit from the fine folks at CertiPay. They discussed the all-important issue of OSHA compliance. They also talked about the benefits of providing insurance rather than simply offering more money, and they talked about the merits of labor compliance.
Friday, April 1st
Understanding Behavior Types Using DiSC Assessments
For SGI members—or more specifically your employees—who were unable to attend the Wednesday Learning Alliance session on DiSC, SGI offered an abridged session on this important topic. DiSC is a personality assessment that helps explain how our personalities drive who we are and how we interact with others. DiSC generates your personality assessment based upon how you answer a questionnaire. Based upon your answers, your personality is measured by DiSC’s four main personality traits: Dominance, Influence, Conscientiousness, and Steadiness. Most people prove to be dominant in one of these traits and can have “secondary styles.” For example, you can be heavily Dominant and also significantly show signs of Influence. By understanding the various DiSC personalities, you can better understand why others act the way they do. Instead of being frustrated with someone because they’re different, you can adapt your communications style to better connect with them, which can make you a better manager and leader in your business.
Online-Reputation Management
It is a different world out there. Today, people whip out their smartphone or laptop and pull up their favorite search engine when looking for a service contractor. What they find is your website and a host of third-party websites promising relevant reviews of your business! The fine folks from Marketing Type Guys explained in this session that you must always be monitoring what’s being said about you, namely on Google, Yelp, and Facebook. They said that the companies with reviews on these sites, especially great reviews, look more reputable, and it enhances their SEO and PPC. The Marketing Type Guys shared step by step how to claim your business on each of those three major sites and how to respond to each review. They stressed—do not bury your head in the sand. Every review needs a response, especially bad ones. You need a process on how your company will handle each. The Marketing Type Guys emphasized that your responses should be as immediate as possible, concise, calm and cool, and never argumentative. The absolute best way to deal with negative reviews is to bury them. Make a concerted effort to get customers to leave reviews. Inform your techs that it’s a priority they ask their customers to do so. Make getting positive reviews a huge part of your company culture. Before you know it, you’ll be enjoying a bounty of sensational reviews and your website will benefit from it.
Faith-Based Organizations
SGI member and owner Gus Antos directed another Faith-Based Organizational discussion. He explained that while a company can’t be Christian, its leader obviously can. The leader can institute Christian-like values in the company. Three values that Gus holds dear at Milestone Electric & Air are: 1.) Trust. Gus told the story of the Hebrews being freed by God from the Egyptians, and yet, even after their liberation, the Hebrews had doubt. Gus said to always have faith—have trust—that things will sort themselves out, and you will ultimately be fine, no matter how difficult your challenge may seem at the time. 2.) Giving. Gus said to always give your best to your team (in both pay and respect), your community through charity and abiding by the highest ethical standards, and make an effort to enrich the lives of everyone you touch. 3.) Peace. Gus reminded us that contracting is hard. You’re dealing with people, and people aren’t always easy to deal with. With that much stress, it’s important to take a Sabbath. Gus prescribed at least one hour each day, one day a week, and at least one week of vacation a year. You need those bits of time to recharge your batteries—and get some perspective. Work is only a part of your life, not your entire life. Gus urged that if you operate your business with core values, such as those, you’ll develop a strong culture and enjoy your business more than ever.
Branding Strategies
When you mention branding, everyone’s mind immediately goes to marketing. Marketing is only a part of a brand. True branding accounts for the entire client experience with a business. Great brands make people feel good. To develop a true brand, you must clearly define your core values, mission statement, and code of ethics. Everyone on your team should know them well; they should be clearly posted in your office and even trained on. With your foundation clearly established and understood by your team, you’re ready to communicate your brand, who you are, to your customers. You do this in your marketing, selling how you’re different. (It should also be clear on your website how you’re different.) Once your technician is in the home, your service tech should dazzle the customer with his service. Finally, it’s your tech’s responsibility to create a customer for life by always looking for a way to go above and beyond—give the customer are reason to love you. When your customers know what you stand for, are impressed by your professionalism, and love your commitment to personal service, you will have a strong brand presence that will allow you to enjoy immense success.
Operational Excellence (Each Affinity Group Broke Out Separately)
Each affinity group separated for a very important discussion on operational excellence. And while the message was slightly different in each session, each carried many of the same essential philosophies. The first of which being that the most successful businesses have finely tuned operations, and finely tuned business operations are built off of a strong business plan. Your business plan is much more than a budget. A budget is a desired outcome; a plan is your roadmap. A true business plan includes a budget, manpower and marketing plan, a training plan, an organizational chart, and your business priorities. With your plans in place, you should be relying upon your Daily Management Essentials report to be the constant monitor. If implemented correctly, your DME will alert you to unforeseen issues. It was stressed in every presentation, if you only know one number in your business, it should be your labor percentage. If you keep your labor percentage in-check, you should be making money every day. This was an intense, but hugely beneficial session that every member should consider reviewing once again by watching the online video.
Community Involvement
SGI member and owner Tim Boulden of Boulden Brothers provided an insightful presentation Friday afternoon of Expo. He tackled the topic of community involvement. As he shared, active community involvement by your company benefits so many: You’re able to help others in need; you’re earning community trust; you’re increasing employee engagement; hopefully you get a little publicity from it; and it’s obviously a tax deduction. When choosing a charity to support, just be sure to do your homework. Find one that you and your team would be passionate in supporting. Boulden Brothers supports a variety of charities: Well for Ghana, Ronald McDonald House, Folds of Honor, and several others. They do so by donating a percentage of every service ticket to that charity for a designated period of time. To do something like that in your business, simply set up the money to be directly taken from each service ticket in your accounting software; it should be called something similar to “contributions payable.” Once you’re done collecting the donations, write the check to the organization and zero out the account. Boulden Brothers likes to provide the donation in the form of a big check to help in the publicity purposes. So get involved with a charity. It’s the right thing to do as a company that earns a living from the community. Plus, you’ll help people in need and feel good about yourself, too.
It’s All about Attitude by Sam Glenn
With Sam Glenn, “It’s all about attitude and it all starts with attitude!” Sam went from working nights delivering newspapers—negative, depressed, and sleeping on the floor and barely getting by—to discovering renewed purpose, happiness, and humor. Sam had one of the most negative and self-defeating attitudes you would have ever encountered, but as you learned from Sam, something happened that changed everything! It was a chance encounter at a buffet nearly 23 years ago, when Sam accidentally knocked over the legendary Zig Ziglar. This led to a positive friendship between the two and with Zig’s encouragement, Sam got on tract in a new direction for his life. Sam preached to you how a positive attitude can and will impact your success.
SGI Awards Gala & Show
We hosted our very first SGI Awards Gala & Show. During this celebration, we recognized the top sales producers throughout the entire Success Group International family. We’ve always had some type of recognition for these high achievers at our spring Expo, but we’ve never delivered something like this—An Event. It was emceed by Joel Zeff, a renowned motivational speaker. We had live entertainment throughout the night to accompany an elaborate dinner. It included a traditional New Orleans jazz band marching throughout the crowd. The feedback from the evening has been “off the charts,” and we look forward to making the event even better in the spring of 2017.
View photos from the gala.