Growing up, Al’s dad owned several businesses, and he worked on all of them. He saw that no matter how different those businesses were, there were several important concepts that consistently made each business successful.

Once he took on more of a leadership role in the businesses, he also saw how challenging it is to both deliver services and work on the business. He found himself in this position, doing well financially, but stressed out and unhealthy. Al shares how he finally “shut up and listened” to advice, and this reshaped his success, his health, and lead to the 7-Power Contractor.

The 7-Power Contractor

Al outlines these seven powers as the foundation of a successful business.

1. Planning Power: you have to have a plan for accomplishing your goals.
2. Operating Power: you need to have policies and procedures of how you will accomplish your plan.
3. Staffing Power: you need to be always recruiting, hiring, orienting, training, and retaining.
4. Sales Power: sales needs to be asking great questions, listening, and affirming to your customer that you can hear their wants and needs.
5. Sales Coaching: you need to coach customers on good, bad, or indifferent results.
6. Marketing: you need the right amount of calls from the right customer at the right time.
7. Financial: you can’t ignore this. You need real world accounting to make good financial decisions today.

These are the things that make the difference. Al highlights that while you don’t have to be a 10 at all seven of them, you can’t be a zero.

“I was always getting run over by the business, not ever ahead of it. So planning power is working on the right thing at the right time in the right way.”

Challenges to Retaining Staff

Al says you have to put yourself in your employees’ seats. The way you orient people dictates their success for the rest of their time in your business. By creating a clear path for your employees to follow, you set them up for success.

His approach to recruiting techs is to find willing people and teaching skills instead of hiring skilled people and trying to rewire and retrain them.

His Journey

“I share all the time that my dad’s advice is why you paid me to come to your place today.”

Al explains that his dad was both his life coach and business coach. From a young age, he remembers going along with his dad to jobs, sometimes in the middle of the night, and how special that experience was.

Lessons his dad taught him include:

• He didn’t enjoy going to wakes, funerals, or hospitals. But his dad taught him that those were non-negotiables.
• When you feel overrun, remember that your customers woke up today and chose you out of 2,000 choices. Instead of thinking of your to-dos as a burden, think of them as an honor.
• Think of all the things you’ve accomplished. If you don’t congratulate yourself for what you have in your rearview mirror, you can’t move forward.

Al feels he was given a gift when he shifted from working on the business to consulting. Once he got systems and processes and the right people on board, he realized there was a whole country out there that he wanted to help.

Pivotal Moments of Growth

Al says he is constantly learning, but can pinpoint a few moments and decisions that resulted in pivotal growth.

1. They stopped hiring experienced technicians in the HVAC/plumbing business, and instead hired people eager and willing to work.
2. They created detailed manuals for each job.
3. They integrated all of the manuals across departments so that they were able to serve their customers in a uniform way.
4. They wrote down the 30 projects that must be completed for success, and then prioritized them to find the top five projects. Then, at least once a week, worked on completing the top five.

As a contractor and business owner, Al confesses to being competitive. However, he had to learn to let go and delegate so that his team could learn, grow, and improve.

“We’re competitive. We want to win every battle. But here’s what I’m going to say today: ‘You can’t! And if you did, you’d lose the war,’ which is what I finally got attached to.”

Where Do You Start?

• Build an organization chart with the various boxes it takes to run your company. Then, expand those boxes to create a depth chart and create cross-trained positions.
• Write manuals that will help guide those charts and that you can build systems around.
• Make sure your goals are objective and measurable.
• Cultivate leadership that is balanced between having a plan and a vision.

Stay tuned for more home services business fundamentals and lessons for success in Part 2 with Al.