It's Your Business!! Run It! - Lessons Learned at QSC Power Meeting VI
Peer pressure was definitely a plus at last month’s Quality Service Contractors’ Power Meeting VI held in New Orleans, Jan. 30 - Feb. 1. Dynamic speaker Bob Kreutzer, (Tatro Plumbing, Garden City, KS), urged fellow contractors to take control of their companies, “It’s your business!! — Run it!” In his session Controlling Overhead & Understanding Financial Statements, Kreutzer stressed the need for business owners to manage company finances by designing their financial statements to fit their needs. “Don’t accept figures and bills just because they’re sent to you — question and challenge everything,” advised Kreutzer. He also emphasized the need to attain insurance certificates from subcontractors, examine worker’s compensation polices, and obtain a competitive quote on insurance every three years.
Kreutzer’s battle cry was echoed throughout the two-day conference as members discussed various ways to manage their companies instead of their companies managing them. At the beginning of his talk, How to Build a Service & Repair Business that Works, California contractor and entrepreneur George Hedley posed this question to QSC members: “Are you going to work just as hard as last year even though you made a New Year’s resolution not to work as hard?” The consensus was a reticent “yes.” But by the end of his three-hour session, Hedley had provided numerous ways to work smarter, not harder including viewing your company as an owner interested in purchasing it and making necessary changes, establishing systems for such tasks as marketing and call-taking, practicing effective delegating, and developing an expert niche for your business.