Want to Supercharge Your Business?
Most contractors tell me they want to spend more time working on their business and less time down in the weeds working in it. And they also tell me they really don’t know how to make that happen. Would you like a solution for that?
You tell me that it would be nice if you didn’t have to always figure out everything for yourself, that you feel like you are constantly having to “reinvent the wheel”. You’ve also discovered that inventing wheels is not so easy to do! Would you like a solution for that?
What I also see and what contractors almost never tell me is that, after stripping away the effects of inflation and the influences of whatever the economy might be doing at the moment, they are not actually growing. They don’t tell me this because they don’t want to admit it. But they are stuck. Would you like a solution for that?
I have one and it is the same for all of these (and more).
You need to get involved in a peer group. A peer group is composed of companies that are of similar size and focus that come together a few times a year to spend a couple days working on their businesses jointly. They share best practices, brainstorm solutions to common problems, and help each other. More on that in a bit.
Peer groups can be self-organized, meaning you find people in the industry you know and like that you met at a trade show, FEI, or perhaps on an association board or committee. There are also facilitated peer groups where a company finds appropriate members and then organizes and facilitates the meetings for a fee. Self-organized groups tend to be fairly small with 3 or 4 members. They have the advantage of intimacy and time spent in meetings can include things that are more “personal”. (And because your personal life impacts your work life, such conversation and sharing are very appropriate). A facilitated group will usually be larger with somewhere between 8 and 12 members. This can be a big advantage when working on issues because there are more people involved and therefore more diversity. Diversity of ideas can be a powerful tool, especially when working on problems that none of you have solved. (A good example of that is finding quality talent in our current economy where all businesses are being impacted by the lack of talent. The more ideas, the better.) While larger groups tend to be more focused on the specific work-related topics, that does not mean that you can’t or won’t develop really significant friendships.
There are also two types of facilitated peer groups. There are some really terrific national organizations that facilitate peer groups. The best known are Vistage (www.vistage.com) and EO or the Entrepreneurs Organization (www.eonetwork.org). Both are structured around bringing local businesses together in a peer group setting, but because members must be non-competing it means you may be sitting in a group with your local auto dealer, somebody with a local chain of pizza stores, but no other contractors just like you. The advantage of this can be that they all bring perspectives to a conversation that are quite different than yours. The disadvantage is they really do not understand the details of your business. The second type of facilitated peer group is industry specific. If you are a commercial roofing contractor, everybody in the group will be a commercial roofer about the same size as you. If you are a GC, then all GCs, etc. In a group like this there are terrific advantages. Everybody sitting in the room with you will understand your problems in a very personal way. Most of them will share exactly the same issues as you. If you want to upgrade your estimating software, somebody in the group will probably already be using what you are considering. They can give you the pros and cons that they discovered when the upgraded. You can share industry-specific best practices on safety, insurance, compensation, exit planning, equipment, manufacturer’s discounts, new products and all of it should be applicable to you. No more “reinventing wheels”. If somebody stumbles on a unique solution that is helping them hire talent, they will share it with everybody. If somebody has discovered a great marketing solution, they share it. In many ways, these are the same advantages you have with a self-organized group. But there is one really big advantage that a facilitated group has over one that is self-organized that hasn’t been mentioned yet. They have a facilitator!
A professional facilitator will usually be a trained coach and, in the case of an industry-specific group, will likely have expertise in your industry as well. He will be responsible for the mundane aspects of running the group: Scheduling meetings, selecting and arranging the lodging and meeting venues, coordinating all pre-meeting paperwork, questions or topics, etc. (Those in self-organized groups will understand that these are time-consuming chores!). He will also facilitate the meetings. He will make sure that they run on time, focus them so conversations don’t get too far into the weeds, keep egos in check, ensure that everyone has the opportunity to contribute, keep notes and assignments and otherwise work to ensure that everyone gets the maximum value out of their time spent.
He will also, on occasion, contribute. If you are in an industry-specific group and he has industry knowledge, he will likely have a larger pool of resources to draw on outside of your group that he can tap into, plus he likely is a coach. That can be a big plus. Sometimes in meetings, contractors will dance around the real issue. For instance, a contractor might complain about poor performance by his or her team members, when the real issue is that s/he is unwilling to hold them accountable. (We use that as an example because something like that would never happen in the real world.) A trained coach will sniff out something like that, usually pretty quickly, and will then find a way to address it. If he is good at what he does, he will find a way of doing it that isn’t overtly threatening to the contractor, but still shines a light on it, or whatever the “real” issue is. By focusing attention on the real issue, contractors can make progress and get “unstuck”. Facilitated peer group members usually have the opportunity for regular coaching sessions with the facilitator, to help them work on the initiatives they develop coming out of the meetings.
Finally, a few years ago Gallup did a survey of businesses on facilitated peer groups. What they found is that those businesses in such groups grew at 3 times the rate of those businesses not in such groups. What they did not say is that we believe the growth was more stress-free and sustainable, less subject to the whims of the economy.
Peer groups work and will “Supercharge Your Business”.