Do You Train Your Team to Think or Just Work?
Every Monday, we hold a short training session with our team. We train on communication. leadership. & mindset. The reason being most tradespeople aren’t struggling because they can’t do the work. They’re struggling because they were never taught how to: Speak with clarity Handle conflict Lead a crew Represent the business professionally These tend to be the issues I see bottling up, either from our exit interviews or customer feed back or when things are misunderstood. Thats why I'm curious: Do you train soft skills with your crew?Upsides and downsides of hiring a summer helper?
I am thinking about hiring someone to help me in the busy season and the idea of a high school kid as a summer job sounds like a promising idea. I wouldn't have to pay them a crazy salary, they are like sponges with information and they are typically more physically full of energy. I wouldn't be able to send them on their own, but they could help me get a few more jobs done in a day. I am wondering if anyone has tried this and what would be the pros and cons of doing it?How do you balance kindness and strict standards as a business owner?
My personal values are very important to me as a business owner. Being a person of faith I care deeply about people. For years I have struggled to find this balance between kindness and compassion and strict standards. For those of you that have hearts for people and want to be kind and compassionate...how do you help your team rise to the occasion without having to seem heartless and only care about the bottom line?When to hire a General Manager?
I am a painting company. Have any of you hired a general manager and stepped away from the day to day operations of your business? How did you go about it? Was there a revenue metric you aimed for? Break it down for me in detail? Did it help you grow and go to the next level? How did you find your general manager? What did you set as the pay/salary? Bonus structure?Anyone using an ESOP?
I have recently heard about ESOPs a couple times over the past few weeks. It has me thinking this fits my culture and might be a good fit for my business. If you are running an ESOP can you share details about it? Does it work for you? What are the benefits? Has it helped team culture and morale/buy-in?
