Business Coach for Contractors | The School of Entrepreneurship

How to Build Competent Managers in Your Home Improvement Business

2018-12-10T00:00:00.05Z

Trying to do everything yourself at your home contracting business is a recipe for being overworked, frustrated, and not getting things done well. It’s also directly related to a business that is stuck. You can only scale your business if you have team members who help you – who are in charge of a given department.

Being a leader who tries to do it all verse being a leader who builds a team and sets clear goals and expectations, while empowering others to get results are two VERY DIFFERENT leaders.

To grow, we need to be the second kind of leader, AND we need to be able to motivate and enable our managers over long periods of time. We also need to keep them working for our home improvement business. We need to be the kind of person – the kind of leader – they want to work for.

Putting People in Charge

No matter how small your company is, you have to have someone answering the phones and converting leads into sales appointments – right? Well why not have someone IN CHARGE of doing that, and improving or maintaining the KPI associated with that department?

No matter what size your company, you have to have someone doing some marketing. Why not empower a person to be IN CHARGE of marketing. Give them goals to shoot for, tools to use, and get them the best training you can.

It’s the same for running a sales department, a production department, accounting or service departments. Someone has to be IN CHARGE.

Get Your Managers the Resources They Need

Once you have empowered functional leaders, now you can work to enable them with resources, and get them to work together. They will build teams of their own to get their jobs done, and as the leader, your job changes from doer to continually monitoring progress and building the team and improving their capabilities.

If you never give authority away, you’ll keep the job forever. Is that what you want? Is that the different action that will produce different results?

This excerpt and video come from “Building Competent Managers” a course in the School of Entrepreneurship. The full-length course will help you identify who you have and who you need, as well as give you the tools on building up and supporting your managers.

Get Building Competent Managers today by subscribing to the School of Entrepreneurship.

The Highest Calling can be purchased here.

How to Grow Your Home Improvement Contractor Business

2018-12-03T00:00:00.05Z

How to build and grow a home repair or home improvement business is known. There are hundreds of books, seminars, videos, blogs, and business coaches out there. And if you gather this piece and that, talk to this person, this sales coach, read this book, you can piece together a plan to help grow your home improvement business.

For the past 35 years, Larry Janesky has looked out into the world and built the best systems and processes for his business. He's discovered what works and what doesn't.

Curated and Tested Programs to be Used in Your Business
If you join the School of Entrepreneurship, all this information has been curated and packaged into a complete program. The School will:

Make you a better leader.
Save you years and years of missteps and mis-directions.
Save you thousands of dollars on chasing bits and pieces of solutions.
Hand you processes and systems for each part of your residential contractor business.
Help you grow your business beyond what you thought possible.

Hundreds of Contractors have Added Millions to their Home Contractor Business
Larry has trained over a thousand of contractors through live and in-person trainings. Students from the School of Entrepreneurship call him the "Millionaire Maker."

Larry has walked the walk, he's a sales expert, a marketing expert, a leadership expert, a hiring expert. In the video, you see Larry standing in front of a "training" house that he built inside his home energy training facility, the largest in North America. He started as a builder, but soon became a sales and marketing expert. He then educated himself on every piece of his home repair and home improvement business so he could train his staff and the staffs at the dealerships.

He's done the work, then he created the School. With Larry and the School of Entrepreneurship:

You get tried and true business systems and processes.
You won't get book reports of trendy business concepts.
You won't get "good ideas" that the business coach hasn't implemented himself.

Subscribe to the School of Entrepreneurship today for a special offer.

Do the Best People Work for You?

2018-11-28T00:00:00.05Z

Did you download the Free Self-Assessment to see if you are an employer of choice in your area?

If not, get it here. This checklist assesses where you are and gives you the direction of where to improve to be an employer of choice.

Does it matter how well I score? Don't I just have to be better than my competitors?

When it comes to hiring, people can work anywhere. You not only have to be better than your competitors, but to get the best people, you need to be the top place to work in your area!

Does a sales person need to stay in a specific industry? Does an accountant? Does a marketer? Most people can work for whoever they choose. You need to do everything you can to make sure they choose you!

What if I didn’t Score Well?

You have work to do. The good news is that you can improve in each of the eight categories. Some may take more time and commitment, but all are doable. The School of Entrepreneurship has guidance on how to improve in all these categories.

I Scored Well, Why am I Not Getting the Best Employees?

You need a strong recruiting and hiring process. If you’re not good at either recruiting or hiring, if this isn’t your top focus, then you will struggle getting the best employees.

There’s help! HireHigher – of which the Self-Assessment is one page – is a super-cost-effective and easy-to-use program that is a bullet-proof process to hiring the best people. It’s a step-by-step program that tells you how and where to find the best people, and then how to interview them. Every question to ask, and what to look for on resumes is all laid out. You just have to follow along!

Get the proven fool-proof HireHigher program here.

How to Grow a Contractor Business through Hiring and Time Management

2018-11-27T00:00:00.05Z

While the idea that we don’t have time to do the things necessary to succeed seems true, it is erroneous. Other people who succeeded have the same amount of time as us. The trick is that they are just doing different things with their time than you are. They are managing their time better than you.

That’s what you need to do – different things with your time.

As the owner of a home improvement business, you need to liberate yourself. You need to get others to do many of the things you are doing now, and some things you just need to stop doing altogether. Finding the right people, one by one, delegating to them, and empowering them is one of the first new and different activities you’ll do that you are not doing now. These are time management skills that all business owners need to adhere to.

Working IN Your Business is the Opposite of Working on the Right Things

In the video, a contractor knows he is still working too much in his business. This recognition, and the fact that he has already begun to train more people into management roles, shows he is moving in the right direction. Are you?

More information on time management can be found in the article, "Do These 3 Things to Improve Time Management."

The School of Entrepreneurship focuses heavily on how to recognize and work on the right things in your business.

Failure is Part of Goal Achievement

2018-11-26T00:00:00.05Z

This is a great message about setting and pursuing a goal. This message translates to all goals you set in your life, personal or business.

A Good Goal Deserves Failure
Setting an attainable goal does not mean that it has to be obtained on the first attempt. Actually, if you are achieving your goals on the first attempt, or sooner than the projected deadlines, then it's likely your goals aren't set high enough.

Goals set at the right level should take more than casual or normal effort to achieve. Failure is to be expected. As long as the goal is reasonably within reach, don't quit, keep going. Be thankful for the failure, it will lead you to win!

For Larry's daily messages subscribe to ThinkDaily.com.

Do these 3 Things to Improve Time Management

2018-11-21T00:00:00.05Z

Something heard from contractors across all service types, regardless of how many years they’ve been in business is, “I don’t have time.”

What the contractor is referring to is that:

I don’t have time to keep up with the videos in the School of Entrepreneurship
I don’t have time to implement new systems or processes
I don’t have time to implement what I’ve learned

What is really being said is that the contractor is spending their time in different ways. It’s not that there’s “no” time, but rather, there’s “no” time for these things because other things are taking precedent. Their job is too big (meaning the leader/owner is doing too much) or that the owner is working in their business running sales, installing work, or even answering the phone.

The Problem of Having No Time

A business depends on the leader/owner for its direction and success. If the leader has thinking problems or not enough time to think, this will reflect in the business. When we see a business with a problem, we can trace it back to the way the owner is thinking.

One of the goals of The School of Entrepreneurship is to get the leader to go from doing everything, to do nothing.

Go from doing everything – generally early in a contractor’s career – to doing nothing.

When a contractor starts their business, they do all the jobs. Hopefully, if the contractor is of the right thinking, and on the right path, that they eventually get to doing as little as possible.

A Time Management Strategy

The leader needs to continuously cut off parts of their job, delegating to others, and thus creating a time management process for themselves. Hiring great people, coaching them, and delegating parts of the job to them, becomes the role of the leader. Three simple principles to follow include:

Hiring. Hiring of the right people comes first if a leader or business owner is going to be able to delegate or empower their managers.
Delegation.
Empowerment

“Go from labor to leadership as fast as possible!”
-Larry Janesky

If you need help with hiring, the School has the HireHigher recruiting and hiring program as a standalone course. You can get it here.

It’s an illusion for the leader to believe that one day that there will be enough time to catch up. That’s a poor time management strategy. The solution is to delegate everything in the leader’s life except leadership.

"Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.”
-Jim Rohn

5 Ways to Motivate Your Staff

2018-11-20T00:00:00.05Z

A motivated staff can perform 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, even 70% better than one that is unmotivated. What could this mean to your bottom line?

Seventy percent is a worst case scenario but think of all the people on your staff. Are they all working at 100% efficiency? The answer is no, and, more surprisingly, it's not their fault. Few people can work in someone else's business and perform well without clarity and direction from their leader. People need to be trained, coached and motivated to perform their best.

Are you providing that?

Here are 5 easy things you should be doing to motivate your team:

Clearly Communicate Goals and Expectations
In the post “Building Trust in Your Company”, we talked about Predictability equaling Trust. Predictability comes from Clarity. Be clear with your team. Explain your goals and expectations, more than once (actually, as often as necessary so that each person can repeat them back) to get alignment.
Build Positive Relationships
Your team will do more and work harder and smarter if they like and understand you. This requires you to act first. You need to be the one that respects each person, that listens to each person, that’s courteous, that leads by example, that recognizes their desires. If you’re the type of person that “loves” people, you will have a much easier time at this.
Ask for Your Employees Help and Listen
Communication has to go both ways. Ask for your employees’ opinions and listen with sincerity. Even when you know an answer or have a solution to a problem, ask for your team’s thoughts on the matter. Your team may come up with a better solution and it will help them buy into the work that needs to be done.
Challenge Your Employees
To challenge your team, keep score. Make sure you are measuring goals and key performance indicators. Name your projects and have clear and reasonable due dates. Then post results on a public whiteboard or monitor where everyone can see.
Recognize Your Employees
People will do more for recognition than for money. Recognize hard work and great efforts in team meetings. Do it publicly. If something goes wrong, take the blame – it’s most likely your fault anyway for not training someone or not setting clear expectations (see #1).

“You can accomplish amazing things if you don’t care who gets the credit.” - Ronald Reagan

Pro-Management: In the School of Entrepreneurship, the 9-part Series called Pro-M is Larry Janesky’ Pro-Management training program that has helped hundreds of contractors across the country develop top-level managers. These managers have then gone on to coach and train the entire staff at their company. At Larry’s own business, the Pro-M program has developed his management team so that they effectively run his $30+ million home repair company with little of his daily time or input.

Subscribe to the business coaching School for the complete Pro-M series and much more.

CHECK THIS OUT: In a previous Think Daily message, "A Leaders Motivation Contagion," motivating staff is the focus. Think Daily is a daily quick note of encouragement or a thought-provoking message from Larry Janesky. It's free to subscribe.

Unwavering Desire a Must for Achieving Business Goals

2018-11-16T00:00:00.05Z

A fundamental part of success it to focus on the business principles. In the video, Larry Janesky tells the story of how the mentor teaches the student that he needs to have the same desire to succeed in business as you do to breath air when held underwater.

In Napoleon Hill’s classic book, “Think and Grow Rich,” he identifies desire as the starting point of all achievement. He wasn’t talking about any desire – but a desire for a positive result, outcome, or personal goal.

This principle of the desire for a positive result in your business has to be strong. In the School of Entrepreneurship we start with goals, both business and personal.

Why personal?

Because you started your businesses for personal reasons. You wanted money, or freedom, or to be your own boss. There’s lots of reasons, and often more than one as to why you wanted to be a business owner.

In a Think Daily posting, Larry writes about “Disciplining Desire.”

He says, “We all have desires, but we have to discern which ones will take us to long-term success and happiness and which will only lead to problems for us. Then we need to choose to follow the right ones and be self-disciplined enough to forego the wrong ones.”

Maybe it’s been a while since you thought about the reasons why you went into business for yourself. Take time now to reflect. Write down your reasons. Make sure they are strong enough to get you through hard and harder times.

Building Trust in your Company

2018-11-13T00:00:00.05Z

Do you have a trust or integrity issue in your company? Are you getting poor or bad reviews on the Internet? Do the most hirable candidates not join your team? Do your best people leave to go work where they believe the pasture is greener?

A trust issue can hurt your company's ability to hire and retain good employees. It can also damage your ability to generate new business and make sales. We’ve seen businesses have to change their business name because of the amount of bad reviews they had received, only to finally go out of business because they couldn’t escape, or fix, their reputation.

There's a Free Assessment here to see if you're the kind of company top people want to work for.

How to Fix Your Reputation and Build Trust
Trust starts with the leader. It stems from the leader’s actions and attitude.

Trust = Predictability. To build trust with your team and with your customers, you need to be predictable. Predictability is not the only thing that equates to trust, but it is very much in line.

Some of the things you can do to become more predictable with your staff and your customers is to:

Show up when you say you will.
Keep a set schedule.
Do the things you say you’re going to do.
Keep the same positive attitude day in and day out, regardless of what’s going on around you.

In the video, business coach and contractor Larry Janesky, talks about how to build trust with your team and subsequently with your customers.

Here's a quick "Think Daily for Businesspeople" message on principles and keeping your reputation and integrity intact.

Free Chapters of the Award-Winning Highest Calling Book

2018-11-15T00:00:00.05Z

The "Highest Calling" is the inspirational story of a small business owner, Troy Becker, who has struggled for 12 years with his home remodeling business. Troy’s not making much money, he’s working 70 hours a week, and his family life suffering. The most difficult part of all this for Troy is that he doesn’t know what to do to fix his situation.

The Highest Calling is written by Larry Janesky, and although fictional, it stems from life lessons that Larry learned along his journey as an entrepreneur, business owner, and teacher. At the time of its publication, the book won numerous awards, including the 2010 Small Business Book Awards, the 2010 New England Book Festival, and the 2011 National Indie Excellence Award.

The Highest Calling is the story of a struggling small business owner and a business mentor coming together under mysterious circumstances. The mentor, Cy, works with Troy on the most important and powerful business principles. Cy’s teachings are beneficial to business owners and managers alike.

The Highest Calling is an emotional and inspirational book. For those that seek to learn, it is a powerful entrepreneurial education; one that just may set you on the most important journey of your lifetime!

Download the first two chapters for Free! Get them here.

Reviews

“If you’ve been in business for a few years and have started to feel like you’ve hit a brick wall, you should run — not walk — to get The Highest Calling, by Lawrence Janesky. It will renew your enthusiasm, re-energize you, and inspire you to work through your problems and get back on the path to higher successes... Troy is the proverbial business owner so caught up with working in his business, that he can’t muster enough energy to work on his business.”
- Anita Campbell, Small Business Trends
https://smallbiztrends.com/2010/04/be-inspired-read-the-highest-calling.html

"This book is destined to become a classic! Larry has masterfully assembled dozens of critical business lessons into an entertaining and emotional story of how it can happen in the real world for business owners. You must read this powerful book!"
-Brian Tracy, author of The Psychology of Achievement and Advanced Selling Techniques

"I loved The Highest Calling and am eager to share it with everyone I know. Larry captures the soul of business. This novel is a must read for anyone over 15 years of age! Enjoy!"
-Juli Ann Reynolds, President & CEO, The Tom Peters Company

Daily Thought-Provoking Messages for Businesspeople

2018-11-12T00:00:00.05Z

Here's an example of the types of message you will receive when you subcribe to Think Daily for Businesspeople. These messages are delivered daily to your inbox or through the Think Daily app. Sign up here.

In the School of Entrepreneurship, prioritization for business leaders is a thread that moves through the courses. Business owners and entrepreneurs know that prioritizing everything down to the single most important task is a key to success.

Execute Your Vision: Learn All You Want, but also do Things!

2018-11-07T00:00:00.05Z

There’s the wills, and the will nots. The contractors who WILL do the necessary things to accomplish their business goals, and the contractors who WILL NOT.

When you actually do something different in your business, your employees take notice. They may do so quietly, but they will notice that something is happening. That the standard is improving. It’s up to the leader to make these positive changes.

Payroll is a contractor’s largest expense. Doing things that make your team feel good about you and your company, that reward them for accomplishments, and that ultimately, make them want to stay with your company, these would be important things.

Small things you can DO to begin to make a positive impact:

Hang a poster of your company’s Vision, Mission, and Values.
Hang a bulletin board and post great things being done by your team.
Decal interior windows with messages
Create a Job Board where people can comment on the work done
Name the rooms in your office with positive names that mean something to your business, like Craftsmen, Talent, or Results.

Whatever it is, no matter how small, do something consistently to make your team notice that positive things are happening.

11 Steps to Hiring the Best Talent

2018-10-30T00:00:00.05Z

Hiring is one of the most important things a business needs to do to be successful. Hiring the right people, the best people in your market, will make all the difference between success and struggle. Joe Polish said in a recent email, "Hire bad-ass, smart, effective people early on versus half-assed people who aren’t players. This will make a huge difference."

Change your thinking about hiring.
For most, we spend too little time recruiting and hiring… even though we know that people are what make up our businesses.
Put yourself and your business in the right light.
Not sure how you’re being perceived in the marketplace? Download this free self-assessment tool and score yourself.
Craft your compelling story.
You had reasons for starting your business. You reasons that your business is different than others. Make sure you tell the story.
Understand exactly what you are looking for.
Too often we get sidetracked during the hiring process. Stay tight to get the best person for the job.
Networking across your sphere of influence is 100X better than posting help wanted ads.
The resume is the key to uncovering the truth.
On the resume is a story, some truthful, some exaggerated, some incomplete, and maybe some fabricated. Uncovering it all is how you learn about someone.
Phone screen to maximize your time and effort.
Give homework to screen out the disinterested.
In the 1^st interview ask questions that uncover if the candidate can do the work.
In the 2^nd interview ask questions to uncover if the candidate wants to do the work.
Have your key people on the 3^rd interview.
This will eliminate your biases.
Of course, do the background and reference checks.

If you’re looking for more help on:

What questions to say on the phone screening?
What to say in each of the three interviews?
What homework to assign?
What are the best ways to recruit candidates?
What am I looking for on the resume?

Then you’re in luck! The School of Entrepreneurship now offers the Hire Higher Recruiting Program as a standalone tool for you to get the best people. Get it here.

Included in the Hire Higher Program is a 142-page eBook, 27 videos with creator Larry Janesky learning the program right along with you, 3 Recruiting Cards and 6 Candidate Folders (hard copies mailed to you upon purchase, plus PDF digital copies immediately available).

Use this Free Business Tool for Meetings

2018-10-22T00:00:00.05Z

In the Industrial Age, if you stopped moving, you got left behind. Now in the Information Age, if you stop learning you get left behind.

How do you keep your team learning?

Have your management team sign up for free to Think Daily for Businesspeople. You can use the messages as a discussion point for meetings and as a group learning tool. For example, the previous Think Daily for Businesspeople started the thinking along the lines of where managers should draw the line in how much help to give the people they lead.

Here's an example:

Servant Leadership?

A leader should be there to serve their team, yes. But not to do all the work for them and give answers every time someone has a question. The best way to serve your team is to empower and enable their motivation and ability to do excellent work and get excellent results with internal and external customers.

It’s the difference between giving your kids everything they want and raising happy self-actualized kids who are able to stand up strong in the world.

Leaders and managers must be catalysts for creating high-performance teams and bringing out the best in others while accomplishing the goals of the organization.

Why did you Start your Home Contracting Business?

2018-11-02T00:00:00.05Z

Your desire at the start of your business to create a richer, fuller life can diminish as the day-to-day realities of running your business consume your time and energy. You want your business to give you more of a life, not take more of your life. Having compelling (clear, meaningful, and powerful) personal goals crystallizes your thinking and provides laser-like focus that drives your life in the direction you want to go.

In the School of Entrepreneurship, there’s an exercise called "Your Personal Goals". In this exercise, Larry discusses how home service business owners can start making significant changes to their business and their life, by remembering and knowing their “why.”

Why did you start your business?

Financial Freedom
High Income
Being the Boss
A Sense of Adventure
Being Best in Your Business
Free Time
Expressing Your Creativity
Independence / Freedom
Building Wealth

What was your reason? If you’ve been in business for a while, remember back to why you began. If you’re new to your contracting business, think about it. Get clear. This “why” is a powerful motivator.

Sign Up for our Newsletter and Receive a Free Personal/Business Goals Aligning Exercise
Our newsletter is full of helpful business information for contractors. Sign up to receive it and as a thank you, we'll send you a link to download the free exercise on aligning "Your Personal Goals" with your business goals.

Start here to Download this exercise.

In the newsletter you'll also find offers to third-party discounts, options for financing, dealership opportunities with internations brands, and much more!