The 4 Ps: Process, People, Product, Promote (Part 1 Process)
Process
The process (or lack thereof) within any organization will define the organization. "Done beats perfection" and "get comfortable being uncomfortable" are two sayings that I have engrained into my businesses.
Get familiar with them before diving into the art of developing processes for your company. “Who Moved My Cheese?” is a wonderful short book to read to help illustrate why adapting to change is actually a necessity. In the book the cheese represents where the characters want to be in life, but they are caught in a maze that represents their situations that are either helping them or preventing them from getting the cheese.
Done Beats Perfection
Many entrepreneurs and managers are guilty of being perfectionists. While this may seem like an admirable trait, it quite often hinders progress.
While the perfectionist manager is so busy trying to make it perfect, the other manager who has realized that 95 percent is good enough to start with, has already implemented to new changes. Aim for excellence as part of your values the quality of your output will be high.
This mindset is what allowed me to stay ahead of my competitors. Perfect is a lie. No matter what you do it will never be perfect. The goal isn’t to be done or finished. The goal is to implement something that is better today than yesterday, then keep improving it.
You set the tone as the leader in your organization. A new expectation must be established as the new benchmark. Expecting others to work at a level of perfection will lead to frustration. You determine this new benchmark and to what level of imperfection is acceptable. This new benchmark will establish the cadence or speed at which processes can be developed and implemented. I’m not dismissing the importance of quality, but quality will never manifest without simply getting started. But I cannot stress enough that “done beats perfection” should be your top priority.
Case in point
McDonald's does not sell the pinnacle of quality (as in perfection) but their consistency and process is elite. This is what has allowed them to scale to their size and be the leader in the highly competitive fast food industry.
Thank goodness the HVAC vertical isn’t this competitive. Our processes are simple, well-defined, easy-to-understand, and implementable with minimal training. If we can strive to create consistency and process at a level that McDonald’s does, then our HVAC businesses can scale.
How to apply my easy four-step process
First, ask yourself: ”What is the challenge we are facing and how does it impact the customer from the customers perspective?
Next ask: "Where are we today with this challenge / concern / process? What do we do today to meet the challenge?
Then ask yourself: "What is needed to improve this situation?
Last question "Is what we developed today / this week / this month (always near term) better than what we had yesterday?"
This is a true example of how done beats perfect. Once you have produced an output, keep striving for a better version of done. Trust me, it adds up. You’ll be so happy so just got started how ever many weeks, months, years ago it was that you put the stake in the ground and simply got to work instead of waiting until the perfect situation (that never comes.)
Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
An organization is always going to be limited to growth, excellence, success (whatever term you want to give it) by that same ability of its leadership. A company can only mature as the leader(s) mature. Maturity in leadership comes much as maturity in adolescence comes, with much pain and struggling with not wanting to take the next step in fear of the unknown. How many of us say,"If I only knew then what I know now." Being courageous to take the next step comes with getting comfortable with continually being uncomfortable. In the moment you might not enjoy what you are doing, but you will like the results… and results are the rewards.
Innovation is key
After identifying a challenge and determining something needs to be done, resist the urge to imitate another company.
With imitation the most you can do is match their success, but that is the possible BEST case scenario and quite often your efforts to replicate what your competitors own won’t work.
So, rather than hinging your success on their success, think of the root of the challenge. Within every challenge is an opportunity. Discover your true opportunity. There are dozens of examples in our industry where innovation could be created. Proactively eliminate the objection from the customer by solving the challenge. This is the opportunity zone.
How to apply this
Celebrating even the smallest of successes that your team earns helps to build their self confidence. As their self confidence builds they will become more courageous with innovation.
Support a company culture that understands, the worst that will happen is you go back to what you were doing before you made the change. People who are selfless adapt to this culture the best, while people who are selfish tend to underperform in this environment.
Start using personality based test. in addition to your existing hiring practices. Adding this behavioral trait to a personality test will be beneficial. Teaching skill can be challenging, teaching traits is impossible.
Celebrate the wins. Measuring the success of any innovative platform and celebrating it consistently helps to keep that innovative spirit alive and well.
Again, I implore you to read “Who Moved My Cheese?” It’s a quick read and will set the tone for everyone I cover here.
Process:
Process starts with structure. Some of these elements may seem trivial and unnecessary in the beginning of a business. However, as the business matures, an appreciation grows (as well as a need) for these foundational blocks.
The foundational blocks are an organizational chart, role titles, role responsibilities, role expectations, role pay grades (with next steps to the next role), pay scale structure, performance review system with expectations, incentive systems aligned with company initiatives, company goal or vision statement, company and employee goals.
Many other elements could be added to these, but these represent the core fundamentals. Process is what takes you from working IN your business to working ON your business.
There needs to be a process for everything—yes, everything, a written, easy to follow process.
An example issue to solve with process
Finding technicians is in fact getting more difficult, we all agree on that.
How to start tackling the problem
First we clearly define that the challenge of finding technicians is getting increasingly difficult. We decide today we will place a job opportunities advertisement.
To further improve our situation we add an element to our process. We decide that we need to market for technicians like we market for customers. We also add a step in the process where we will create a maintenance tech position in which entry level techs can be trained over a six-month period to start running basic calls or already sold repairs.
This position could also reduce techs being at the office by delivering parts to the tech and/or running to get parts for them. Is our solution “perfect”? No. But it is better than what we were doing yesterday. It is done. Time to celebrate that small win.
Other examples of some process in a home service business would be sales process, hiring process, training process for each position, call handling process, marketing process, recruiting/retainment employee process, and many more that can be given proper structure.
Another book to add to your arsenal of knowledge
In addition to “Who Moved My Cheese?,” another book I recommend is "The E Myth Revisited,” which addresses the assumption that an individual who understands the technical work of a business can successfully run a business that does that technical work. Sounds like many of us in the HVAC industry, right?