A healthy and fit staff is more productive and happier. Build a fitness area in your shop where employees can gather to workout. Base on the space available, determine if you have room for just a treadmill, or for a full blown gym.

Ideas to make the most of your fitness area:

• Provide lockers for storage
• Provide showers so people can prepare for their day after their workout
• Provide a variety of equipment to meet the needs of all levels
• Hang instructional posters
• Paint the room a bright color to stimulate activity
• Provide a means to play music
• Consider bringing in a yoga instructor for weekly classes
• Have mats or carpeted areas for stretching

If you do not have the space, here’s an alternative: Provide a monetary incentive for employees to join a gym of fitness center in the area.

Looking for more inspiration and ideas:

• Contact Nexstar member, Aquarius Water Conditioning! They have a great fitness area for their staff!
• Learn more about the benefits of fitness and nutrition from the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition
• Check out WebMD’s Health and Fitness Guide

Guest blogger, Dan Friesen eleborates on the changes that are impacting our industry:

Disclaimer: The following are opinions only!

Top 3 changes affecting our industry: 

1. The near extinction of mid-to-large, just-making-it construction based companies

2. A proliferation of ‘dude-in-a-white-truck’ companies

3. A thinning out and subsequent strengthening of service-focused companies (that’s us!)

When I opened my own shop in late 2009, at the bottom of a North American recession, I asked myself “Is there a day coming when the modern world will no longer require our services? Will the proliferation of internet resources and DIY workshops from our box store friends be enough to render us obsolete?” My answer, after some deliberation, was absolutely not. If that’s true, then what’s next for us? If, by the way, you think we will be obsolete, I would suggest it’s time for a good exit strategy.

I would bet (and kind of did) that we are going to see a fairly significant increase in both the number of magnitude of breakdowns and failures in their homes, and subsequent decrease in a homeowner’s willingness to take the cheap route.

2. An increasing number of unemployed techs from the defunct construction company are going into business for themselves. Point of clarification here — a proliferation of one-man companies does not necessarily mean a proliferation of sustainable one-man companies. They will continue startup and fail at high percentages, but they will always be with us. Same white truck, different dude every day! His prices are low and his voice mail is full. He is undoubtedly a pain in the neck. His ever present pressure on prices may cause a few companies in our circle to pack their bags and sell hotdogs on the corner (not a bad idea somedays, right?). 

3. Now the exciting part. For those of us who choose to stay focused on service, our future is bright. Not easy, but bright. The gap between us and our competitors will grow. The need for professional technicians who fix it right and stand behind their work is going to get bigger (thank you dude-in-a-white-truck). But our costs of doing business correctly and professionally is not going to drop so we’ll continue to be triple the price of dude-in-a-white-truck. Isn’t life like that? The blessing always comes disguised as a challenge. “Dude” is doing two things for us: a) He is leaving a lot of work in every customer’s home (some he missed, some he fixed poorly and will fail again). b) He is teaching those customers what cheap, poor service looks like. That plays right into our hands.

            1. Urgency — treat every call like it’s the only one you get this year and drill that mentality into every person in your organization. 

            2. Training — keep on teaching your team to focus on the small stuff. Do it a little bit better than you did yesterday. Never rest. 

 Okay, then. Enough Profundicating. Your thoughts, feedback and comments are coveted. 

Dan Friesen is the owner of My Service Company in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. He will be a featured headliner at the upcoming Nexstar Super Meeting in Nashville. He will be introducing all of the exciting updates to our Nexstar Service System. Don’t miss it! For more on Dan, check out his blog at: www.danfriesen.ca

At the request of members, here is a close up of a blank Nexstar kudos. You of course, can customize it to say what you would like. Please click on the link below.

NexstarKudos

Here’s a great piece of small business advice: always remember to take time to celebrate your successes, even the small ones, which add up to big things. Watch for people doing good things and celebrate the moment.

The Small Things:

• Hit your daily sold hour goal? Send a page to the entire company congratulating them on a great day.
• A tech exceeds his weekly sold hour goal? Have a note or a card waiting in their paperwork with a personal congratulations and thank you for their contribution.
• CSRs exceed their conversion rate goal? Deliver a beautiful bouquet of flowers with a thank you note to brighten the office.
• A glowing review from a happy customer? Read it aloud in a staff meeting and publicly thank the people involved in making that customer a fan.

There are small successes every day, just remember to look for them! Keep in mind that the best way to show your praise is to make it personal–it only takes a couple of minutes to show you care. Here at Nexstar headquarters, we have a special bulletin board, where we leave kudos to each other for a job well done. Once a month, at our staff meeting, we draw two winners for a $25 gift card. One winner is the person who the kudos was for, and the other is the person that submitted the kudos. It’s a little thing, but we really enjoy taking the time to celebrate our team and our commitment to providing great service to our members. Here’s a picture of our board–as you can see, it fills up fast! Are you doing cool things to recognize your employees? Share with us!

Here’s a close up shot:

We also post kudos from our members! You can do the same with the great messages you receive from your customers!

 Check out these other posts and links for more ideas:

Keeping Employees Motivated During A Heatwave

25 Ways To Motivate Employees Without Spending A Dime

Wise Advice On Recognizing Great Performance

Frequently the best way to increase sales is not just to focus on training and improving the bottom producing technicians or sales personnel but to provide incentives and encouragement toward your very best people. Don’t forget to keep your focus here – particularly during slower revenue periods – as a way to generate incremental sales. Consider personal side bets and other special forms of recognition to get your top people to produce even more…flex your creativity and have fun!

Also, if you are looking for some top-notch training our Service System retreat is coming up in about six weeks. Service System is the best training available and will get your technicians and supervisors focused on the tools, skills and knowledge they need to take full advantage of every service call opportunity. You’ll see the benefits of this training in your employee satisfaction, customer service and your bottom line!

Nexstar has compiled our three surveys (Financial, Member Satisfaction and Peer Profit) to determine who is the #1 shop on a compiled basis in the Nexstar Select Service “Award of Excellence.” This year, the winner is…
Hargis Electric!

For those of you in the know, this is a three-peat for Hargis Electric–an amazing, record-breaking accomplishment. Please take a moment to congratulate Bryan and his team!

Below are the lists for all of the select service categories. Congratulations to all of the winners! You are the best among the best!

Select Service

1. Hargis Electric LLC
2. Donnely’s Plumbing, Heating & Cooling
3. Shafer Services
4. Sanders Trade Services
5. ABC Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electric
6. Atomic Plumbing & Drain Cleaning
7. Above & Beyond Electric Company Inc.
8. Tri-City Refrigeration, Inc.
9. Applewood Plumbing, Heating & Electric
10. Gene Love Plumbing, Air & Electrical Services

Customer Service

1. Rooter M.D. Plumbing, LLC
2. Mel Carr Electric Corp.
3. Hargis Electric LLC
4. Kelly’s Heating and Air Conditioning
5. N&M Cooling & Heating, Inc.
6. Elite Electric & Air
7. Kaiser-Battistone Plumber-Rooter
8. Tri-City Refrigeration, Inc.
9. Alliance Plumbing
10. Cook Heating & Air

Company Profitability

1. Horizon Services, Inc.
2. Len The Plumber, Inc.
3. Applewood Plumbing, Heating & Electric
4. Williams Comfort Air
5. ABC Plumbing, Heating, Cooling & Electric
6. M.W. Donnelly, Inc.
7. Heritage Plumbing & Heating, Inc.
8. Blessing Plumbing & Heating, Inc.
9. KB Complete Plumbing, Heating & Cooling
10. Bob Hamilton Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning

Employee Satisfaction

1. Best Electric & Air, Inc.
2. Cranney Companies
3. B & J Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc.
4. Advanced Plumbing & Mechanical
5. Fox Services Express
6. Mike’s Plumbing & Heating Service
7. Donnelly’s Plumbing, Heating & Cooling
8. Hargis Electric LLC
9. Wright’s Electric, Heating & Air, Inc.
10. Pippin Brothers

Nexstar has a number of campaigns we’ve developed for the off season, like Freenace Fest (which is based on a successful member program; this campaign includes a radio commercial), oldest furnace and AC contests (both of which include many marketing materials, including radio, direct mail, newspaper ads and stickers, website flash animations, home show kits and more), etc. Oldest equipment contests have been very successful for a number of members; in fact, one member won an Eddie Award for Marketing Effectiveness an Oldest AC Contest, and another won for the success he’s had with an Oldest Furnace Contest. You can see descriptions of their programs, as well as their results and images of their marketing materials, on our website. Go to:

 Downloads

Visibility (Marketing)

2008 Eddie Awards

Look for Tri City Refrigeration and JC Heating, Cooling, Plumbing & Electrical

You can always reach out to your marketing coach. We can share cool new ideas that we’ve heard from other members. Also, consider coming to a Marketing Planning Workshop. One of the big advantages is we’ll help you answer questions exactly like the one you’re asking (What should we do during the off season to smoothen out our calls?) When you’re done with the 3-day workshop you’ll have a customized 12-month marketing plan so that you’ll know what you’re going to do every week of every month. All you have to do is implement!

Have you worked with a media planner? If not, these people can answer important questions, like A) Are radio and/or TV right for my business at the current time? B) Do I have enough money to be an effective radio and/or TV advertiser? And so on. We have two media planners who are strategic partners. They can help you answer these questions and more.

In a continued effort to help Nexstar members unlock the potential of social media, Nexstar News will be posting a weekly social media tip. Featuring Caroline Melberg of Social Media Incubator, these tidbits will help members understand how social media can be pivotal in growing their business and provide measurable, bottom-line results.

Are you planning on attending Super Meeting this year? If so, these weekly posts will help you prepare for Caroline’s pre-conference seminar, Get Strategic About Social Media. Her seminar will:

• Provide specific examples of how you can use social networking sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter and others to increase word-of-mouth referrals, find new customers and increase your sales.
• Get you going by helping you create a strategic social media marketing plan

This week, Caroline introduces how you can get started with Twitter!

 Getting Started With Twitter

By: Denise Swafford, Nexstar Business Coach

The Tool That Costs The Least To Implement, But Delivers The Greatest Return Is…

The Morning Huddle!

You might be scratching your head. A morning huddle? What’s that?

Nexstar members identified this as having the biggest impact on their business, citing that it’s the best way to measure performance of the team against the goals set by the company. It’s about people connecting with people and building a team.

Why does this work?

• Your team can touch base at the start of the workday before getting absorbed in the day’s responsibilities. It’s a quick way to review the daily schedule.
• It’s a chance for team members to communicate with others on the team with whom they might not interact with otherwise.
• You get the opportunity to recognize performance on a daily basis. Giving praise in a huddle, allows employees to get praise from their colleagues and shows everyone that a job well done will be recognized.
• It’s an educational opportunity. Give your team a quick lesson on a skill that can help them.

Nexstar business coach, Denise Swafford will dive deep into the morning huddle and other effective tools in her Super Meeting breakout session titled, Driving An Accountable Business.