Boost Your Company’s Performance – Attend ACCA’s Fall Meetings
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Contractors can significantly boost the performance of their businesses by attending ACCA’s Next Level and Service Leadership Conferences this November in Fort Worth, TX.
ACCA NEXT LEVEL
At ACCA Next Level, happening November 7 and 8, the next generation of contractors will learn to build the business and personal skills they need to excel at their jobs through professional development sessions and networking opportunities.
Joe Abraham
At the conference’s opening session, Joe Abraham, founder and CEO of bosiDNA. com, will deliver the keynote speech, “How Your Entrepreneurial DNA Works For and Against You.”
Abraham’s book, “Entrepreneurial DNA: The Breakthrough Discovery That Aligns Your Business to Your Unique Strengths,” is based on research he and others conducted on the behavioral traits of entrepreneurs. The researchers found that when entrepreneurs make business decisions, they fall into one of four categories: specialists, builders, innovators, and opportunists.
“They are distinctly different in how they handle risk, how likely they are to be good at marketing and how likely they are able to scale a business to 20 locations,” Abraham says. “Knowing if you’re wired more like Steve Jobs or Marcus Lemonis matters when building strategy. One size does not work for all.”
More broadly, entrepreneurs need to learn how to identify these traits in their team members, he says. For example, if sales representatives aren’t producing enough or if service technicians seem to lack the motivation to get referrals, it’s tied to their ‘Entrepreneurial DNA.”
“It’s going to be a great discussion about how to get the most out of ourselves, our people, and our business,’” Abraham says.
Trevor Flannigan
Trevor Flannigan, chief operating officer of HomeServiceChats in Lees’s Summit, MO, will present the session, “CRUSH Your Numbers: What You Need to Know to Grow.” Flannigan will take a deep dive into the two biggest expenses within a contractor’s business — labor and materials, followed by vehicle expenses, office expenses, and salaries.
“We’ll dig into those five areas and map out how to look at them and how to move those businesses along,” he says. “We’ll show them how to develop a simplified approach to business planning, with a workbook to help them meet these goals and show them how to reverse engineer the growth they want to hit in 2019.”
Ryan Kletz
In his session, “Mistakes Can Make You Better,” Ryan Kletz, vice president at One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning in Virginia Beach, VA will discuss how next generation leaders can avoid learning many lessons “the hard way” – and instead embrace situations as learning experiences that can help them grow.
“I am a millennial, yet I have always been motivated by techniques that were effective for other generations,” Kletz says. “When I was first entrusted to be a leader on our team in Virginia Beach, I led the way I wanted to be led. Very quickly, I realized that not everyone is, or even should be, motivated by the same means that I was. This revelation was simply the beginning of my journey as a leader.”
SERVICE LEADERSHIP
At Service Leadership, happening November 8 and 9, contractors will learn how to beat the competition with expert advice from successful peers, as well as from service leaders and other industry experts.
Ryan Harris
In his keynote speech, “Beyond Belief: Creating the Performance You Want,” Ryan Harris, NFL veteran and Super Bowl Champion, will provide contractors with tools to create a mindset “that will help them win in business and life.”
“Through unlocking the phrases I am, I can, I will, audience members become better leaders, better team members, and the best person they can be in the face of every opportunity and obstacle they face,” Harris says. “Discover your opportunity to choose your mindset and face everything you do each day with joy.”
Michelle Hogan
Michelle Hogan, national sales director at One Biotechnology in Sarasota, FL, will show contractors how to best leverage customer information in the session, “Customer Data is King.” Hogan previously worked alongside her husband, a third-generation builder, and “knowing our database was critical.”
“When we got into residential construction, we wanted to know where our customers were coming from,” Hogan says. “So we studied the zip codes they were calling from and then we did very strategic target marketing to attract more clients in those areas.”
Contractors can also use their database to focus on why they lose customers – “it could be that they just moved away, but how do you know if you are not tracking how many you lost?” Contractors should also know how many new clients they were able to attract last year and how many they’ve been able to attract so far this year.
“New clients are gold and you must take care of them so they do not become someone else’s clients,” she says. Lastly, we will discuss your core database — who they are, what they like, and how you can keep them.”
Renee Lucas
In her session, “What Happens When You Fire 50% of your Workforce,” Renee Lucas, co-owner of LCS Heating and Cooling, LLC in Indianapolis, IN, will discuss how LCS rebuilt and completely changed its company culture.
“Hiring for cultural fit is a common workplace practice,” Lucas says. “Sometimes firing for cultural fit is necessary, too. While it’s not uncommon to have at least one negative employee, what do you do when it’s half of your company? After spending too much time dealing with bad attitudes, absences, gossip, and lots of callbacks for sloppy work, something had to change.”
Lucas will ask contractors to identify what their “rock bottom is: What has to happen for you to take steps to make change in your company?” Contractors will also learn how to develop a plan to create the company culture they want, and identify steps and processes needed to implement the plan.
Chris Crew
Chris Crew, a success coach at Blue Collar Success Group in Sarasota, FL, will present the session, “Branding Outside the Box.”
“Marketing for contractors typically is very tough,” Crew says. “The world we love in today is the brand, and that is what drives customers to a business.”
In his session, Crew will discuss the distinction between branding versus marketing, how to attract the right customers, where to best spend marketing dollars and what doesn’t work.
“I will also be discussing what I believe to be the future of marketing — there’s going to be a real paradigm shift, and it will wreck their world if they are not prepared,” he says. “I’ll be talking about how contractors can position their business to be cutting-edge marketers.”
Ray Isaac
Ray Isaac, president and co-owner of Isaac Heating & Air Conditioning Inc. in Rochester, NY, will explain how contractors can best engage their workers by first being truly engaged in the business themselves in his session, “Never Work a Day in Your Life.”
“As business owners, we wonder why employees are disengaged and not fully productive — but often the fish rots from the head back,” Isaac says. “If there’s a problem within your organization, typically it’s because you are showing them that you, yourself, don’t really want to be there.”
Isaac will discuss the “Six Es” – business owners should engage, educate, empower, and enable, and “then all we ask is for our employees to execute and enjoy.”
“The seventh E is the evil E, and is the one that can destroy the other six — and that E is Entitlement,” he says. There are two vastly different approaches to business — an equity business or a lifestyle business, Isaac says. People might view their business as a way to support their lifestyle, but they’re not really engaged in it for the long haul. Then there are people who want to build their business and operate it in a way that the interests of the business is first and foremost to them.
“If you truly love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life and your employees will follow your lead,” he says.
To register for ACCA’s Next Level and/or Service Leadership visit www.accanextlevel.com or www.serviceleadershipforum.com.
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