Service managers are some of the busiest people that I encounter as I visit companies, and sometimes, despite their best intentions, all the time and effort they put in every week doesn’t translate to the results they’re looking for. Does that sound familiar to you? If so, let’s explore how this situation may have been created and what you can do to refocus your manager’s efforts.

Budgets are important, they define the win and give us our daily and monthly goals to help us keep track along the way. Do you know what your numbers need to be for 2017? Going into a year without even a simple budget can leave us hoping for the best instead of acting with focus and purpose.

As 2016 comes to a close, I’m left reflecting about the many conversations I’ve had with owners and leaders throughout the year. I find that many of those conversations contain simple, yet powerful phrases of wisdom that have been graciously shared with me over the years. I now get to pass these on for others’ consideration. I thought I would conclude my final blog of the year by offering three of these gems that I’ve found most impactful in my life and career.

The next time you see an employee doing something poorly, take a look in the mirror and ask yourself: Am I doing everything I can to ensure this person’s success?

Even if you don’t fall into the 20 percent of the population that has a chronic problem with procrastination, the remaining 80 percent of people still experience procrastination from time to time. Procrastinating can jeopardize some of our goals; it’s self-sabotaging. So why do we do it?

Ask my wife and she’ll pull out a list a half-mile long referencing every time I’ve been guilty of hearing, but not really listening. But what’s the difference between hearing and listening, and why is one so much more important when it comes to our relationships with others?

One source indicates that up to 40 percent of our daily activities are executed on autopilot without giving much thought to what we’re doing.  So when someone mentions the word change, we often want to put on the brakes and tell them they can keep their change.

Fail to prepare and you’re preparing to fail. It’s a common phrase we’ve all heard and frequently comes to mind when I think of hiring a new employee. All too often in our industry we give new technicians what amounts to a crash course in training before sending them on their way and expecting them to learn the rest on their own. 

Have you ever been “in the zone”? It’s that state of mind where you’re firing on all cylinders. Ideas and answers are coming to you rapidly — and they’re good ones. Professional athletes have games like this, in which they break records and carry their teams to the top. It would be nice to be able to create this state of mind every day.

We’ve all seen it before: We send one of our employees to an offsite training event and they return all fired up with new ideas. The first week performance is up. Then, a few weeks pass and the excitement begins to fade. Old habits begin snuffing out the newly learned behaviors.