The Must Have (But Often Missing) Procedure for Running You Need to Have a Successful 7-Figure Contracting Company Business That Can Run Without You

May 4, 2018
Category: Achieve Consistent Business Success,Be a Highly Effective Owner,Techniques and Solutions

Do you have procedures for your most important daily tasks? Doing an estimate, scheduling the work, starting a job, finishing a job, billing customers, etc.? If your business is like most of the 7-figure and larger contracting businesses that I know, you probably have procedures for these tasks.

Wait, you have procedures for these things, don’t you?

If you don’t, you should. It’s well known that procedures produce better, more predictable results, higher customer satisfaction, higher sales and better profit.

One critical (but often missing) procedure

One procedure I rarely find, when I talk to owners about their businesses, is a procedure for how to manage the business. Yes, you absolutely need a procedure for managing your business too!

As your business grows, it gets more complex. By the time you break the million-dollar threshold there are so many competing priorities, customer needs, employee needs, moving parts, and details to manage—it become very hard to do an effective job of managing it all. As a result, important things start falling through the cracks, problems and fires increase, and your stress and hours at work increase; all because there are more things going on than you can handle by yourself.

How Can I Manage Increasing Complexity in my Business?

To manage the increasing complexity, most owners hire managers to run parts of the business. They may hire someone to run sales or a production manager to manage the crews and, of course, an office manager to run the HR, financial and office functions.

But the most common complaint I hear from owners—even with a management team—is that things keep falling through the cracks. The problems, fires, and stress persist.

Are you experiencing the same problem? You are, aren’t you? That’s because you don’t have well-defined procedure for managing your business!

What is a Management Procedure?

A management procedure is a well-defined, and consistently applied system for managing your business. It’s made up of a regular schedule of meetings that happen throughout the year with your management team and the company as a whole. Your management procedure helps you more easily manage the business without having to micromanage and keeps everyone in the business aligned and focused on meeting or exceeding goals. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Notice I said your management procedure needs to be a “well defined and consistently applied system.” I mention that here, because many owners I talk with say they already have a management procedure. BUT when I probe for details I find a patchwork combination of:

• informal “as needed” meetings
• on-the-fly impromptu hallway meetings
• in the field one-on-ones
• drive by delegation
• and managing by walking around.

Maybe I’m crazy, but that doesn’t sound like a management procedure to me!

Recommended meetings for your management procedure

Below are five meetings I recommend my contractor business coach clients include in their management procedures that I think you should seriously consider for yours.

Together these meetings will help you run your business more easily and more effectively and will keep your business running smoothly and moving in the right direction:

• Annual Planning
  The Annual Planning Meeting is a full day meeting that happens in the late fall with your management team. The purpose of the meeting is to take stock of the year that is coming to an end, and to determine the annual goals, budget, key priorities and plan for the upcoming year. I recommend you let your managers take part in setting the goals for the upcoming year and also help identify the priority areas needing improvement for the business overall and in their departments.
  
  Having your management team participate in the planning meeting sends a clear message that they play a key role in your business’ success. It also, helps them understand and buy in to your annual goals and objectives.

• Company Kickoff
  The Company Kickoff is a 2 – 3 hour all employee meeting that usually happens in January or February. The purpose of the meeting is to put closure on last year by recapping last year’s results, celebrating the good things that happened, then sharing the new year’s goals and plans with all employees to align everyone around your goals and objectives.
  
  If you have an incentive plan, this is the time to introduce it to everyone. Many of my clients also do team building during the Kickoff Meeting and give all company awards such as the Employee of the Year. It’s a great way to launch the year.

• The Monthly Management Team Update and The Monthly All Company Update
  The Monthly Management Team Update and The Monthly All Company Update are separate meetings that take place a week or two after the end of a month after you get back your monthly financial results and other important success measures. While the audiences are different, the purpose of each meeting is similar: to update all employees on progress toward goals, celebrate successes, address problem areas, coordinate efforts and keep everyone motivated.These monthly meetings are great way to keep everyone aligned and energized throughout the year.

• Quarterly Check-In Meetings
  The Quarterly Check-In meetings happen at the end of every quarter with the management team (although some of my clients do them every four months). The Quarterly Check-In meetings are like mini Annual Planning meetings. They usually last 2 – 4 hours.The purpose of the Check-In meeting is to take stock of progress year-to-date. This allow you the ability to adjust plans and priorities or make mid-course corrections to maximize your chances of meeting or exceeding goals.

• Weekly Individual Manager Meetings
  Hold individual weekly meetings with each of your managers. During this meeting you will review their results, hold them accountable for achieving their goals, delegate tasks and coach and mentor them to help them improve their performance.These meetings are designed to help your team learn how to take personal responsibility for their function. It is critical they come prepared to brief you on what’s happening in their function instead of you briefing them.Having regular weekly meetings with each of your managers will give you the opportunity to spin them in the right direction for the week. These weekly meeting are designed to build your trust in your managers. As your managers gradually demonstrate they are taking responsibility for their function, it will become easier for you to trust them and let go. It’s critical that you have these meetings without fail no matter how busy things get!

Here’s what I’d like you to do…

I strongly recommend you sit down (right now preferably) and:

1. Design your own management procedure and write it down.
2. Schedule all of your management procedure meetings in your calendar for the year and make sure your team has these meetings in their calendars too.
3. Commit to having these management procedure meetings—and make sure your team commits to the schedule too. These aren’t optional, nice to have when we can fit them in meetings. The meetings are must-have, critical for the business, must be there, no excuses meetings! You must treat these meetings as mandatory for this procedure to work.

The results can be miraculous!

Do you feel yourself resisting having a management procedure? Is this too much structure or too many meetings for you? Are you worried you could never make this work because your schedule is too crazy to have regular meetings?

You’re not alone! Most of my clients resisted too.

And I’ll be honest, implementing and following through with your management procedure can be rocky at first as you and your team get comfortable with the new system. You and your team will struggle to keep the meeting schedule, especially when things get busy. But don’t give in, because there’s a pot of gold at the end of this management procedure rainbow!

My clients who implemented their management procedures (and stuck with them through the tough times) have reported results nothing short of miraculous. Their teams took ownership of their work, problems and fires were eliminated, and their sales and profits increased significantly.

As a result, my clients were able to work fewer hours with less stress and they got more of the work on their own personal to do lists done than ever before! I kid you not!

Your management procedure can help you produce such great results because most people need structure in order to excel, and your management procedure provides that structure.

It gives everyone goals for the year and a plan on how to achieve those goals. It gives you a regular opportunity to point your team in in the right direction. It keeps everyone’s attention focused on your goals and on the most important activities that need to be done to accomplish them. It gives you dedicated time to mentor your team, recognize their good performance, and gently nudge them when they aren’t performing up to expectations. It gradually helps you trust your team and as they become more self-sufficient. It makes it easier for you to let go of managing them so tightly, which frees up your time.

Great benefits from implementing one procedure. Right? So, don’t let those feelings of resistance stop you. Create your procedure and implement it ASAP! You can thank me later!

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Need help with designing and implementing an effective management procedure? Give me a call today at 856-751-1989 and let’s talk about how I can help you improve your processes and grow to a multi-million-dollar business.

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