Guest Post by Scott Avery: Profiting From Good Communication

Some­times the great­est part of own­ing a busi­ness is the adren­a­line rush you get from being ​“on the hus­tle”, espe­cial­ly in the begin­ning. Hus­tling makes the day go faster and you feel like so much was accom­plished. Occa­sion­al­ly the fast pace of con­tract­ing can get the best of you when com­mu­ni­ca­tion between home­own­ers or oth­er con­trac­tors is over­looked. I feel a strong con­nec­tion to the paint­ing indus­try because our com­pa­ny is a hard­wood floor­ing com­pa­ny and there is a huge inter­ac­tion between our trades. At the core of both busi­ness­es we all know that the final fin­ished prod­uct is so crit­i­cal for both trades. The com­bi­na­tion of a sharp paint job and a well-fin­ished wood floor can real­ly make the crafts­man­ship of a remod­el project come togeth­er. Some­times this can be the source of rival­ry and time loss when com­mu­ni­ca­tion between our trades isn’t clear enough. One of my com­peti­tors refin­ished a very cus­tom wood floor and had a seri­ous fin­ish fail­ure dur­ing the remod­el. Dur­ing fin­ish­ing, the wood floor con­trac­tor applied a fin­ish sys­tem that end­ed up hav­ing a very poor adhe­sion to the floor. After­wards, the painters applied blue tape to the floor, did their work, and pulled up the fin­ish around the perime­ter. The floor­ing con­trac­tor end­ed up re-doing the floor over the course of a year and a half, which inevitably lead to a very irri­tat­ed home­own­er. Who was to blame? It’s real­ly hard to say, but I blame the prob­lem on the wood-floor­ing con­trac­tor. The floor­ing con­trac­tor did not dis­cuss with the painters how they were going to pro­ceed after his floor was fin­ished. This over­looked detail cost the floor­ing con­trac­tor thou­sands of dol­lars and count­less hours of lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. Despite com­ing to a con­clu­sion over who is at fault, all par­ties involved looked bad to the home­own­er, which is a big part of main­tain­ing a rep­u­ta­tion. In our indus­try peo­ple often use time as the mea­sure for expe­ri­ence and rep­u­ta­tion. Despite how much you have learned over the years it takes con­fi­dence to focus and dis­cuss the fine details of a project to be a real pro­fes­sion­al. Con­fi­dence is built when you’re in con­trol of your busi­ness, employ­ees, and espe­cial­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tion. I encour­age you to invest your time in con­stant­ly improv­ing your com­mu­ni­ca­tion by writ­ing blog posts, arti­cles, and giv­ing reg­u­lar edu­ca­tion­al pre­sen­ta­tions in your field where pos­si­ble. You will be invest­ing heav­i­ly in your mar­ket­ing, allow­ing you to con­trol your busi­ness and work only with the peo­ple you like because the phone is ring­ing. When your plate is full with gravy busi­ness it will give you peace of mind you’ve nev­er thought was pos­si­ble. Your prof­its will be at their best and you will own your time. Noth­ing is more impor­tant than time for your fam­i­ly and time for your­self and it should be the reward for run­ning a well-focused com­pa­ny. Scott Avery, Pres­i­dent of Momen­tum Agents & Own­er of Mod­ern Tech Floors