Embrace The Suck

In today’s article I wanted to discuss the trials that come with business. I currently have a good friend and a family member that are starting their own businesses. This article is dedicated to them, but I am sure this will ring true to many of my followers.

I can remember a while back when a good friend of mine named Devo, made a decision to go into the Army. He used to be a roadie for my band and we had a lot of good times together. However, after his 21^st birthday he decided he had to do something with his life. He made the decision he was going to join the Army, not only to get his life on track, but to also help him get into shape. You see he was a very large guy, standing about six feet four inches and weighing in at around 300 pounds. I remember the night before Devo left for basic training. Well, I remember the beginning of the night because we threw him a going away party. Devo was scared but excited at the same time. He had that same feeling inside that someone has when starting their own business, because you are excited about the possibilities, but scared at the same time about the unknown.

About six months after Devo left for basic training he came back to visit us. We couldn’t believe how great he looked and what good shape he was in. He must have lost 70 pounds and was solid as a rock. We caught up in between music sets and he was telling me about how hard it was for him going through basic training. Devo explained that he was never really an athletic guy, nor had he ever done any exercising in his life. So when he went to basic training it was a really tough experience. He went on to tell me about his sergeant and all the yelling he had to endure. I remember thinking to myself; I don’t think I could take someone yelling at me like that. When I asked him how he got through it he told me about a saying they had, “Embrace the suck”! Every time he was hurting, he would think about these words and mentally taught himself how to embrace the suck and push through any mental limitation he was trying to set on himself.

It has been decades since then but I still think about Devo and the term “embrace the suck”. I can remember when I was starting my first business and things would get rough, I would think about that term and it would help me push through.

Recently, I just started trying to get back into running. As some of you know, I  severely injured my ankle a couple years back and haven’t been able to get back into the swing of things without reinjuring my ankle. This whole article came to me yesterday while I was running right as I was starting to hit the wall of pain. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is a term in the running world to describe a point you hit when running. For anyone who has even tried running you are probably familiar with this moment.  The wall of pain, it is the point when you are running and everything is hurting, your lungs, your legs, your feet, I mean everything. Then your mind starts messing with you. You are convinced this is as far as you can run. You begin questioning yourself and why you are even running in the first place.

I bring this up because there are many times in life when you hit that wall of pain. It doesn’t have to be when you are running, or even physical. You can hit the wall of pain mentally, physically, spiritually, or even in a relationship. I have been married to the most wonderful woman in the world for 31 years, but believe me we have had our share of walls of pain throughout our relationship.

When you are in the business world, and probably even more when you own your own business, you will hit the wall of pain multiple times, sometimes even in the same day. You can’t find the work, or when you find the work you can’t get the guys. You have a customer who won’t pay you and then you have to figure out how you are going to pay your team, or your suppliers.  You have a major piece of equipment break down and now you can’t get the job done until it is fixed. These are all examples of the wall of pain at work. It is at this point when your mind kicks in and starts questioning everything. Why am I doing this, I can’t take this anymore, why did I ever go into business for myself, I am not good enough or smart enough, etcetera. It is amazing how much your mind can mess with you, make you question your own capabilities, and destroy your self-confidence.

Here is the thing though, as anyone who is into running knows, if you push through that wall of pain, if you bust down these false barriers your mind inflicts on you, you suddenly start to get this rush of endorphins known as a runners high. You feel better than you ever have and can press on for miles.

The same holds true for business or any other part of your life. If you push through that wall of pain you will achieve amazing success. The one thing you have to keep in mind is that there is no up without down, there is no good without bad, and there is no success without failure. Remember that if it was easy then everyone would do it. You didn’t start down this road thinking it would be easy, you are doing this to transform your life. So “embrace the suck” and push through that wall of pain. When you get through it all you will feel so much better about yourself and what you can achieve. By embracing the suck and pushing through the wall of pain, it will make your victories feel that much better and you will teach yourself how to embrace the suck!

What Is Character?

I have always believed that to be a person of strong character, you have to do the right thing when nobody is looking.  That is what this article is about, character. It is easy to do the right thing when all eyes are on you or to do the right thing knowing you will be praised for the act. But what about when no one is looking, or if the act will happen without you getting any acknowledgment?

I have always hired based on character, attitude, and aptitude rather than focusing on skills or experience. Skills can be learned, and experience means nothing if the experience someone has gained was in doing things wrong. Yesterday this hiring process resulted in an unexpected return. To tell the story, I have to go back several months to a service call performed by one of my team members.

Tony had a service call for a store we had under contract that was located in a large strip mall. When he completed his job, he was backing out to return to the shop and ended up backing into a light pole. This accident happened despite all the time and effort we put into training our team members in defensive driving and being aware of their surroundings. Now when he hit the pole, it didn’t knock the pole down, but it did cause a pretty significant dent in the side of the pole which damaged the structural integrity.

Our contract was with a company that occupied one of the stores located in the strip mall, not the strip mall. Since Tony parked towards the back of the parking lot, it would have been very easy for him to drive off and not tell anyone what had happened. However Tony was a person of strong character. So he immediately called his manager, Patrick and told him what happened.  This had to be a hard decision for Tony since he knew that calling in with an accident was not going to be a fun conversation, and would also require Tony to complete our company’s safe driving training all over again.

Once Patrick assessed that Tony was ok and no one was hurt, Patrick told Tony to see if there was a management office at the strip mall so we could report to them what happened. After Tony told Patrick he could not find any management office, Patrick told Tony to fill out an incident report, and wait for Patrick to see if he could reach someone at the strip mall’s management company.

Patrick was finally able to get in contact with Will, the property manager for the strip mall. Patrick explained what had transpired, and requested that Will allow us to fix the pole. Will asked Patrick to send over a copy of our insurance and licensing to verify we were legally allowed to work on the lighting pole, but told Patrick that as long as we are a bona fide company, he would have no issue with allowing us to perform the repairs. Patrick let Tony know and had Tony disconnect power from the pole, take the pole down for safety, quarantine off the area, and then pack up and head back to the shop.

Patrick called around to find the same exact pole to match the one that was damaged. Once he found the proper pole, he was informed there was a four week lead time before we could receive the pole. Patrick called Will, the strip mall manager, and informed him of the lead time, but assured him that we would verify the safety of the work area and as soon as the pole comes in we would be back out the next day and make the repairs. Will told Patrick that would be fine, but asked Patrick if he could change out the heads to LEDs since we were there anyway. He wanted his boss to see the difference between the existing HID lighting and the LEDs light spectrum. Will further stated we could send him a bill for the LED heads. Patrick told Will he would be happy to replace the heads with LEDs and that we would cover the cost difference to make up for all the trouble we caused. Will was ecstatic and thanked Patrick profusely. 

Four weeks later the pole came in, and Patrick notified Will and scheduled a crew to replace the pole. When Patrick called Will to let him know that the new pole was installed and working, Will thanked him and said he would be in touch. 

About a week later, Will called Patrick back and told him he was able to show his boss the LED lights, and his boss was sold on retrofitting out the entire parking lot with LED fixtures to replace the older HID fixtures. Will asked Patrick to get him a price and he would send it up to his boss for approval. Later that day Patrick sent the price, and by the following day, the purchase order was cut.

Patrick called Will after receiving the purchase order to thank him for the business and to set up a schedule for when we could plan the work. Will let Patrick know that the reason we got the work was because of the way we handled things with the damaged pole. Will immediately recognized the character it took for us to notify him about the accident. But that wasn’t all, he went on to tell Patrick that the way we did the work and how safe we were with quarantining the area also impressed his boss. Finally, he stated that our level of communication and the fact that we made his job so easy, he literally didn’t have to do anything and the pole was fixed and in better condition than before, is the reason we have earned their business. Will closed the phone call with Patrick by saying that they manage 18 other properties in the area and they will exclusively be using us moving forward.

In this story, the example of true character was demonstrated several times. Not just by Tony, but by Patrick as well. It would have been easy for either Tony or Patrick just to disappear and not say anything about what happened. Chances are no one would have been caught. It also would have been easy for Patrick to charge the customer for the LED fixtures, and maybe even cover the labor in the markup. However, Patrick and Tony chose to do the right thing when no one was looking. In the end, they were rewarded for their character, but that wasn’t the reason they did what they did. Tony and Patrick were people of character; they couldn’t help it! We spend a lot of money on training; we constantly teach our team about providing the Ultimate Customer Experience and instructing the industry’s best practices. But in the end, you can’t teach character, you either have it, or you don’t. Luckily for me, I am surrounded by people of strong character, and that is the foundation for providing the Ultimate Customer Experience, even when nobody is looking!

Over the Edge

Today I wanted to write about the customer experience. While I have been called an expert in this area, I believe we all have to continually raise the bar if we want to continue to gain the competitive edge. Today I am going to tell you about my experience as a customer and where the contractor fell short.

Recently we had a bathroom remodel done in our home. We looked for the right contractor by asking many questions and reviewing several proposals from different contractors that wanted the job. We decided to go with; we will call them Company B. We choose Company B because we were talking directly with the owner and felt there was more of a personal touch by using them for our contractor of choice. There were several things discussed during the proposal stage, one of which being that I planned on doing all the electrical work myself since I am a licensed master electrician. 

Once we signed the contract Company B said they would be out the following week to start the demo. The first thing that happened was they were replacing a beam in our garage underneath the bathroom, and when it arrived, they offloaded it in our front yard. A 22-foot beam was just dropped in our yard with no warning. It just so happened that the next day was the schedule with our lawn guy to come out and cut our grass, which now couldn’t be done.

We reached out to the owner of Company B and told him that we need to have a schedule, so we know when people or materials are going to arrive. We can’t have surprises like this happened again. He apologized and said he would send a schedule. A couple of days later he called my wife and said that the demo crew would be there tomorrow. While this was some heads up, we still had not received a schedule. Since my wife didn’t have any hard plans, she said it was fine for them to come and start the demo that day.

Several people showed up that day, and started not only demo,but also started some of the improvements. I got home to a disaster but was glad to see progress. Then around 6 PM, after everyone left our doorbell rings and it is a plumber saying he is there to do work. We explained that I get up very early for work and I am usually in bed by 8 PM. The plumber said he wouldn’t be long, so my wife allowed him to work. The plumber didn’t leave until 10 PM and was banging and cursing the whole time. Later we found out that he was moonlighting and not a licensed plumber, so he had to work at night.

My wife received a call the next day from the owner telling her that the drywallers would be there the next day to start drywalling. I freaked out because how was I supposed to get the electric done if the drywall was already installed? I have a job, and it was made clear that I would need a weekend to work on the electric and get it done. The Owner told my wife it was only about an hour’s worth of work so he didn’t understand why I couldn’t do it when I got home. BTW, it wasn’t anywhere near an hours work; it was easily a full day’s work. Luckily, I was in a position that I could come home and get the work done, but it was a real inconvenience, and very poor planning and communication.

I could go on for pages and pages of all the horrible customer experiences we encountered during this four-week renovation, smoking in our home, leaving doors open with the A/C on for hours, cutting wood and drywall in the house, but I don’t want to bore everyone with all the details. Thank God it was only four weeks.

The owner did everything he could to try and make it up to us, but much of it could have been avoided had he just supplied us with a schedule and communicated better. One of the most important things to remember if you want to provide a great customer experience is respect. I teach this to every new team member we onboard. While we do not do any residential work, I think it is probably even more important if you do residential work to show the upmost respect to someone’s home and family when working. A simple schedule up front, better communication, and better training for his subs could have made a world of difference. 

We are planning another renovation in about six months, and we are still on the fence about giving Company B another shot. The owner did apologize, took our criticisms very well, and in the end, the completed job looks great! However, there are great lessons in respect and communication to be learned here to keep from pushing your customers over the edge.