The Difficulty and the Enjoyment of Finding the Next Technician to Hire

The wonderful world of HVAC is where I spend much of my life.  Many of the hours spent are with our people who are or become core members of the tribe, we call them AirTightans.  We search high and low for the right type of person to join our tribe.  No they are not tribe members day one, but if we search out the right kind of folks, they can blend into our tribe and as they learn the AirTight culture, eventually (10,000 hours or so) they morph into AirTightans.

Yes, we do all of the "must do's" to ensure we are vetting out and getting the people to interview who at least have the best chance to stick around long-term.  35% of our small and young company have been with us 5 years or longer.  We are 14 years old and have 35 employees on the pay-roll.  We also have the first ever employee, Denny Baumgart and our first customer, Childress Klein Properties.

As you know if have ever tried to hire anyone, let alone a skilled craftsman, it is a laborious effort.  As you are interviewing, multiple times with multiple different people within your tribe, real life keeps going.  So after three rounds and three different groups of us interviewing, we narrow down or list, as that list gets narrowed, we ouch into the relationship with a ride along session with team leaders, work with our production team, etc...

If all of that goes well, then we get to make an offer and see if we can come to terms on finances and benefits.  We are not a unionized shop, so we actually get to negate the person skills value, versus there positional pay, way better in my mind .... Kind of like our customers do us!

Well, this past Friday we came to an agreement with such a gentleman, we are excited by the prospects of him coming, his opportunities to understand us, our ways and most importantly, how strongly we feel that Excellent Customer Service and Care are the cornerstone of AirTight.

Wish us well in our new relationship, we will be learning each other, coaching, mentoring, guiding and everything humanly possible to allow this to flow as it should.

Next up .... Start looking and being open to the next great soul that comes along and wants to take the ride with us.

Is that you?

Lunch as part of Success Series of Interviews / "Bob Smith" – A World Class I.T. Industry Leader



The lunch interview was one more installment of the “Success Interview Series”.  “Bob Smith”, the successful CEO of a local, Charlotte, NC, Co-Location & Managed Hosting Company was my willing guest.  Bob has been a friend of AirTight for many years, we have been fortunate to be able to assist their growth within the infrastructure of their companies multiple data centers scattered throughout the region.  I asked him if he would break bread and allow me to better understand what it took to become successful, at  least from my view-point, as you know, most successful people are slightly reserved when it comes to anointing themselves as successful.

After settling in, he was kind enough to really open up, we discussed how he got to where he was, the real road map, complete with pot holes, steep grades and even some dirt roads.  It was really amazing to me to be able to get a glimpse into the world that normally we only imagine.  Most often, I find anyway, that when I think about success and the people who fit under that banner, it seems pretty glamorous, then to find out about the pot holes and the slippery slopes of inclement weather, it allows a deeper appreciation.

This interview was certainly not the exception to that rule.  The exception was how much this gentleman told me and how goofy I must have looked as he told me some of the happenings.  We talked for over an hour, towards the end, he settled on just a few examples of what had “Made Him Successful”.

Being Forgiving:  This was the dominant thought.  Bob relayed how forgiveness allowed him to move from one business relationship that didn’t end so well, but the forgiveness he allowed to enter his heart, really put him on his current course.  I didn’t take this at all lightly, in fact it made me recount a time or two that I should have been / wished I would have been more forgiving.  It certainly would have allowed for quicker wound healing.  The second and most spoken about publicly part? … Having people around you that you can trust and have candid conversations with without the raw words spilling out.  Just good, simple and clear communications to put all on the same page.  The final thought was about your investors: …  Be it capital, emotions or just confidence:  Work to have a great rapport with the team, they can allow you to really roll, but they have to believe in the mission, they cannot do that if they do not believe in you.

This session, like all of them thus far have been, are about just a handful of things.  You do not have to complicate things, just concentrate on the basics.  (Jim Rohn was/is famous for this line / www.jimrohn.com)  Honesty, being fair and do not put your reputation at risk.

These are the exact things that Bob has done.

Warren Buffet's 10 Rules to Success

I like to follow Warren Buffet.  He is a quirky, funny and great guy.  While he operates in an entirely different stratosphere than our company does, these rules seem to work for many different sized enterprises.  They are a good read and good things are bound to happen when you implement as many of them as you can.  He appears to have a great time in life and hangs out with some "fairly" successful folks as well.

So here they are, as he presents them:

1. Reinvest Your Profits. This makes sense not only in the stock market, but in a small business as well. Entrepreneurs who bleed all the profits out of a business find that they may struggle to grow the business into something larger and more valuable.

2. Be Willing to be Different. Buffet didn’t make his fortune by following the crowd. Instead, he invested when everyone else was panicked, and sold off when everyone else was buying. That strategy always beats the market. Doing what everybody else is doing - the same way they are doing it - is the recipe for becoming average. Nobody pays extra for “average”.

3. Never Suck Your Thumb. After you gather the information you need, make a decision. To Buffet, any time wasted to get to a decision is just “thumb sucking”. Success comes from immediately grabbing every opportunity that you can recognize.

4. Spell out the Deal In Advance. Your bargaining position is never stronger than before you are committed. So, advantage of that opportunity to spell out the details and specifics of any deal before you start. This is especially true when working with friends or family.

5. Watch Small Expenses. In the investment world, this translates into watching not just the returns offered by investment funds, but also the fees charged by the fund managers. This is so true in every aspect of small business and personal finance, as well.

6. Limit What You Borrow. Buffet claims to never have borrowed a significant amount of money. His advice is to remain debt-free, and then save and invest money. This is a very counter-cultural (see #2) contrast to those who preach getting rich using Other People’s Money.

7. Be Persistent. This is an advantage that the small entrepreneur has over larger, more established competitors. Persistence and ingenuity can, and often does win against large odds. If you’ve done your research, taken care of the details, watched your expenses and stayed out of debt, your success through persistence may only be a matter of time.

8. Know When to Quit. Don’t throw good money after bad. Resist the temptation to salvage a bad deal with a last-minute home run.

9. Assess the Risk. Buffet recommends thinking through both the best-case and the worst-case scenarios. This helps clarify the risks and rewards for any venture, which is critical to the decision making process.

10. Know What Success Means. Buffet doesn’t measure success in terms of dollars. As he says, “When you get to my age, you’ll measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.” Here is wisdom.
 

Cheap Is No Bargain

First Composed by Jim Bartolotta (HVAC – Mechanical Contractor & Friend), Chicago, IL / Tweaked add images added by G. Crumpton / AirTight

 

“It is unwise to pay too much, but it is worse to pay too little.  The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot … it can’t be done.  When you deal with the lowest bidder, it is wise to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better!”

                                                                   John Ruskin (1819-1900)

 

This simple fact regarding cost was written in the late 1800s, but it still holds true today.  The HVAC industry is full of companies who claim to offer discount service, when in reality they perform “breakdown maintenance”.  The scenario usually goes something like this:  the building owner or manager calls for service (oftentimes, it’s an emergency); the “discount” company sends someone out to patch things up, and the building owner is led to believe that everything is working fine.  A short time later the system fails again, and this cycle continues until the system is in such disrepair that it must be replaced.  Now the building owner is faced with a large, unexpected expense. 

Maintaining a complex mechanical system in this way is like putting a band-aid on a serious injury.  Without routine testing procedures there is no way of knowing what trouble lies ahead.  So why then, when it comes to a building’s HVAC system, which is mechanically very complex and represents a large investment, that routine maintenance is often put off or forgotten?

One reason is because in commercial buildings, heating and air conditioning systems are usually housed where they’re not readily seen, like on the roof or in a basement mechanical room.  Their location makes it easy to forget that like anything mechanical, they need attention.  The functions they perform are also easily taken for granted, until the system ceases to operate properly.

Quality mechanical contractors take a different approach to mechanical systems.  Due to lack of maintenance, many building owners are spending far too much on their HVAC systems and related costs such as higher energy bills, loss of production, emergency repairs, and ultimately, premature replacement.  Long-term success comes from the contractor sharing their customer’s concerns and providing a planned maintenance program that offers solutions.

Because HVAC systems are extremely complex, quality contractors provide experts in all facets of operations, ensuring their customers get the right person for the job and information on technological advances.  Regularly scheduled visits guarantee that the system is constantly monitored and maintained according to the manufacturer’s recommendations.  An offensive approach to maintaining such valuable equipment allows for budget control and just makes good business sense.

Establishing a Leadership Team from Within

Many companies get to a point where you have to have some lieutenants to help forward the mission.  So you corral your top talent, real stars who get it, care about the mission and yet, have been taught little, if any, leadership skills.  Maybe a couple of them served our great country through one of the armed forces, maybe one was the captain of the football team or the majorette in charge of the drill team in college.  But overall, we all grow up, refrain, most of us grow up having to learn leadership from in front of the keyboard, becoming a student teacher, which from what I gather is like the band scene in the movie “Roadhouse” where the crowd was throwing stuff at the band  or peering out of the windshield of a service vehicle.

First step, get your core together and ask them what is it they want from a leadership position?  Most of the front line assassins simply do not know.  It isn’t that they do not want to help, it is simply that many people do not know what leadership looks like, sounds like or moreover, feels like to be sure.  Once you get them circled up, it does get easier, for me, we start simple and depending on your group, ours are mid-thirties with a wife/husband and two kids on average.  The amount of time that they can spend on personal development can be impaired fairly significantly until the kids are of a functional age and that the spouse of said employee or team member realizes that the effort by their partner may well indeed pay off later in life.  Learn how to deal with the DIMK’s (Dual Income Multiple Kid’s) group, they make up our future and current leaders.

As a male, I can attest to the fact that we on average do not mentally mature until we are in our mid thirties or at least 74.5% of us.  That isn’t a bad thing, it just is, deal with it, pace yourself, your expectations and work through it.  As a male doing what I can to serve the female members of our team, they do get it much faster, they also tend to have many more responsibilities than their hairier spouses, it all will come in time.  Just keep the faith, keep the energy flowing and work on your on expectations as to what you can expect from this next generation of EXCELLENT leaders you are shepherding.

Parting thought, Do Not Not Do This, It Is Important, We all need the next generation to be strong, keep the faith even on those days when you feel that ... whatever feeling.  

 

Dig In!

Ctrl Alt Delete

Reboot Your Business. Reboot Your Life.

Your Future Depends on It.

 

I sat there on my favorite couch at home peering into this funky colored orange book, delighted to finally have it in my hands.  Though it was a typical morning, me up early, great coffee and study time before the "real day" had begun.  It was an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of Ctrl Alt Delete, the new, soon-to-be-released book by one of my new favorite authors, bloggers and thinkers:  Mitch Joel.

 

Mitch Joel was a gent who I had grown to admire over the previous few years, I was introduced to him by the Internet... Shocked right?  I was on #Amazon looking for some new reading material by some up and comers, I read about Mitch Joel (@MitchJoel) and took him to be a little of Seth Godin (@ThisisSethsBlog) and a little of the business owners that I have known and appreciate, due to the common sense and logic displayed in the table of contents ... In a word, it was relevant to me.  So I bought it, yes, hardcover for me, yes like electronically-formatted books, et al , mainly for travel ... I still enjoy paper books though for my morning read.

 

OK, how did I come to get this ARC?  One day, while reading Mitch post of the morning, I saw an invite that he published, it basically said, hey, if you buy Ctrl Alt Delete today, in a pre-purchase from Amazon kind of way, you will receive the ARC for your efforts.  So Again, I did. 

 

Shortly before this posting by Mitch, I was fortunate enough to be able to meet him, talk a bit and watch him work.  Mitch and Jeffrey Gitomer (@Gitomer), Jeffrey who is a friend, had invited me over to watch and listen to this podcast he and this "Great Guy from Canada" were going to be recording.  I say to #Gitomer, Hmmm, great guy from Canada huh, would it happen to be Mitch Joel?  Gitomer says yes, I went on to explain me following and enjoying Mitch's work, so I was psyched to get to go to the Gitomer offices and see this go down.

 

The winter day arrived and I was able to meet Mitch and listened as he and Jeffrey talked and discussed several topics on the podcast, both were spot on.  Mitch showed his hand just a bit and discussed some of the core work within his up-coming book. #CtrlAltDelete.

 

OK, back to the couch, cracking it open and zooming in on the Table of Contents page, I had a flash back to Six Pixels Table of Contents.  Good, clear and succinct chapters.  Digging into the pose over the next couple of mornings, I really was drawn to The #OneScreenWorld and the #EmbracingtheNext chapters.  This book is filled with real-world examples sprinkled in with a usable "road-map" if you will about what lies ahead.  Not a pie-in-the-sky kind of way, but in the way of:  Look at this point, and that point, by analysing Mitch's words, the road-map parts really jump out.

 

I highly encourage any and all that want to be #relevant in the coming age to buy and study this book, one reading is not enough, simply use it as you would a #Fodors travel guide, it is that forth-telling.

 

Read, Learn & Share

 

 

Greg / @gregcrumpton

www.airtight.co

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 



My Zappos Moment

I was fortunate not to many weeks ago to attend a tour and subsequent Q & A session at the Zappos world-wide headquarters facility.  Zappos huh?  Maybe you are wondering why anyone would go to a shoe distribution place for a tour, well, if you have ever dealt with Zappos and things didn't go perfectly, then you would know.

Many people do not know what a huge commitment Zappos has towards serving you, the customer.  The machine they have built is pretty well-oiled, so problems do not arise often, therefore, you may have never seen them leap into action.  Leaping and action are very appropriate words to use at this juncture.

I really do not remember how I first got exposed to Zappos ... I would wager a bet though that it was through the buying habits of my Imelda Marcos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imelda_Marcos) impersonating wife. Imelda is noted well for her love of nice shoes, Connie, that initially exposed me to the company.

Following pop-culture to a degree through Twitter, I became keenly aware of Tony Hsieh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Hsieh), pronounced Shay, the founder and CEO of Zappos.  While digging around on the Zappos website, I found a section that offered a free book on their culture, the 2009 version.  Upon more snooping I found that Tony had just recently released a book he wrote called Delivering Happiness, obviously then I was on the search to get it bought and read as well.

The book was a great read, it really exposed how Tony, Fred and the team started, the concepts, their beliefs, etc...

So fast forward a few years to December 2012, I was reading an article on Zappos and how they were helping to redevelop North Las Vegas.  This area was old school Vegas, crime riddled and full of hookers and other types that the city really didn't want or need hanging around.  Zappos, as you may read in the Hsieh book, moved to the Vegas area years ago so as to have access to a city that pretty much was 24x7, as a call center has to have folks working when most folks are at home ordering shoes from the Internet.  Zappos bought the old City Hall from the City as I as write this, are in the process of moving 2,000 or so people from the campus in Henderson, NV, just 15 miles from Vegas, into this really cool, huge and refurbished facility.  (http://is.gd/ULr6kV) The goal being ... getting all of the smart folks of Zappos under one roof, the Henderson-sized buildings have not allowed them to do so as they have grown.

Before a blink of an eye, I was back on their website & saw they had a "training with us" type tab.  Upon clicking on it, I saw several options.  You could register for a tour of the facility or tour and then capped off with a 30 minute one on one session with a team leader or do a full 3 day immersion session.  I opted for the tour plus one on one. 

April 17th, 2013 was a beautifully, all though cool day in Las Vegas.  I arrived a few minutes early, shocker for those who know me, not, Anyway, signed in and sat and watched.  The first thing that got me was the "Mayor", he was the greeter and having the time of his life in doing so.  Warm welcome to all would be an understatement, this gent made you feel like you were the only soul in the lobby, although there would be a total of about 30 of us in general for the tour.

We did the tour ... Complete with a parade that we got to watch, no one really knew what the group was celebrating, but they did it very well ... We saw the entire facility, including Monkey Row, that would be where Tony & all the exec's sit, as well as a well appointed (see image of wall art) bathroom. 

The experience was really great, I wasn't surprised, as having read about the culture, I kind of got it.  However, the group of 13 Red Hat Ladies that were in the group, well, they were not accustomed to young ladies with full sleeves and blue hair, I had as much fun watching that crew as I did on the tour.  I sat with Jim G & Tom, both Team Leaders in the Customer Service Group.  Great guys, really get it and represented Zappos so well, what a privilege it was to talk to people who embody the company spirit.

The bottom line is this ... from my reading and visitation ... Hire smart people, keep your core values up front and practiced consistently, then get out of the way and let good stuff happen! 

Happiness Delivered!