DON'T HAVE TIME TO GO?

This is generally the time of year that I hear from contractors that they just don't have the time or money to attend the annual BSCAI/ISSA annual convention, this year being held in Orlando, Fl., November 4-8. That is when I begin my speech on why you they need to go. 

Why am I asking them (and you) to spend time away from your business and invest money that is so hard to come by, especially in the early years of trying to establish a credible company? Let me give you a few reasons why you should join if you haven't and go, if you weren't planning on it.

1. You get to meet other contractors from all parts of the country and the world. You find out that you are not alone in the problems you have and by talking with others you find out how they handled those problems in their company which may help you when you get home. I found BSCAI members are more than willing to share information and it helped me immensely in growing my business profitably.

2. You will find out that there are a lot of things you are doing RIGHT and that you're not so bad after all. You'll go back to your hotel room at night telling yourself,  "I need a lot of help but I'm doing some things pretty darn good".

3. By joining the association (if you haven't already), you can become involved in various committees to learn about different phases of the industry. This can be extremely valuable in furthering your education. Not only that, but you find yourself making lifelong friends that are an outstanding resource for knowledge.

4. As time goes by you may even find yourself wanting to get involved in becoming an officer and eventually president of BSCAI. I had the privilege of spending several years as a board member, officer, and eventually President of BSCAI and I can tell you this was, by far, the greatest learning experience in my business career. I not only learned about my industry, I learned a lot about people. By the way, if you want to talk further about becoming involved in the association and what it did for me, come by my CONSULTANTS IN CLEANING, LLC table on Friday or Saturday (or both) and I'll be happy to talk with you about the benefits.

5. The annual convention is not the only event. You have the opportunity to attend other scheduled events during the year that provide even more opportunity to expand your circle of friends and expert resource people to draw knowledge from as the need arises. These events were invaluable in my business career for not only having resources to draw on but for developing wonderful friendships. 

6. The annual ISSA trade show (this year in Orlando) provides you the opportunity to visit with manufacturers and see firsthand what products and equipment they have that can reduce your costs and increase your profits. Here is also the opportunity to see what is NEW that can enhance your expertise. 

With the rapid changes in the way we do business today it is critical that we constantly keep up to date with our industry. 

This year there will be an array of new technology to see along with robotic equipment and the list goes on. Just this week I attended a webinar on a new software package for managing a BSC company. Impressive. 

All it takes is ONE IDEA for you to take home and implement and your time will have been paid for. With the expansion of roundtable sessions this year the opportunity is even greater than it has been in the past. 

Take the time to learn and become a better professional at what you do. You will benefit, the industry will benefit, and maybe most importantly, your customers will benefit from the added expertise you have acquired. 

By the way, tune in each day leading up to the convention, to www.youtube.com/user/Tripodcasts 
where I interview the various speakers for this year's convention and have them provide bullet points on the presentations they will be making. Really some interesting speakers this year.

See you in Orlando in a couple of weeks?

Till next time.   

WRITING EFFECTIVE EMPLOYMENT ADS

A Building Service Contractor asked me the other day what constitutes an effective recruitment ad to place on ZipRecruiter, Craig's list or in the local newspaper. A great question and after some more probing we determined what the best ad might be for his situation at the time. 

It has always been my objective in writing employment ads to use the opportunity to do some marketing as well as let potential employees know that we are an excellent place to work. Sometimes I would add in some wording to confuse my competitors. 

First let me suggest you spend the money and do the ad right. Many companies will spend thousands of dollars securing a new customer and then tell HR to keep costs down in recruiting the staff to service the new customer. Didn't you sell to the customer how great your employees were? If so, shouldn't you spend the time and money necessary to find the best people?

First, we generally ran ads that said something like 25 IMMEDIATE OPENINGS. Now for those of you that say you only have 5 openings now, my questions is, do you have 20 people you would like to get rid of if the right applicants came in the door? If your answer is yes, you have 25 immediate openings. Use whatever number you wish but here is another reason I put a number of immediate openings. 

Many of the people we employ don't have the greatest confidence and /or self esteem. If they look at an ad that says "we need an employee to work from 6-10 PM Monday through Friday", that will probably say something like "there is no use me going for that job because it will probably be filled by the time I get there. But if you use a number like 10 or 20 etc., they may look at that and say, "I can get one of those 20 jobs, and a person, who otherwise might not apply, could quite possibly become a valued employee of your company. 

Sometimes we also ran ads that had as their heading BUSINESS IS BOOMING. People like working for a successful company and this lets everyone know you are a stable organization. By the way, one side benefit of running an ad with this heading is your competitors will wonder what is going on at your company. They will try to figure out which new account you got and then check their accounts to see if they are in trouble anywhere. It's fun to do. Keeps them on their toes. 

While recruiting new staff members can be very discouraging at times it can also be a lot of fun. Put some excitement in your recruiting and it may even change YOUR attitude about finding those badly needed great employees. 

For more on the subject you can get our book--FINDING, TRAINING, AND KEEPING GREAT SERVICE EMPLOYEES. It's available at    www.consultantsincleaning.com. 

Don't forget to listen to our daily pod casts highlighting the BSCAI convention speakers. You can hear them at www.youtube.com/user/Tripodcasts.

We are really looking forward to the convention in November in Orlando. I hope all of you are planning to attend. It represents the second best learning opportunity for our industry. 

Till next time. 

 

ARE YOU LISTENING?

Hopefully by now you have registered for the upcoming BSCAI convention held in conjunction with the ISSA trade show in Orlando, Florida. This event held each year can be the most important time you spend in your business. With about 700 exhibitors, 15,000+ attendees along with over 20 hours of peer led sessions at the BSCAI educational portion, the learning that can take place is tremendous. This will be my 45th convention.

So why did I title this blog post, Are you listening? A simple answer is that we are providing daily pod casts to give you an opportunity to hear most of the speakers at the BSCAI portion give an overview of the session they will be presenting. This year several new speakers are presenting on several new subjects so it should be an exciting time. 

So, if you are not listening, here is the link for you to get the information--www.youtube.com/user/Tripodcasts. While on the sight you can sign up to receive an e-mail each time a pod cast is posted. This is the easiest way to not forget to listen to any of them. By the way, when you sign up you will NOT receive any advertisements from anyone. You receive only the e-mail letting you know their is a pod cast posted. 

Today, Tuesday, the 7th, the pod cast features Steve Shuchat from Sydney Ohio discussing the Bidding and Estimating Seminar that he and several other BSC professionals will be conducting on Wednesday, November 5. Each year this is one of the most, if not the most attended sessions at the convention. Listen to Steve discuss the agenda. 

Another benefit of listening to the tripodcasts is when you register for the BSCAI convention, whether a member or not, you get the early bird register rate just for being a tripodcast listener. All you need to do when registering is enter the code TSD in the promo box and the fee will automatically appear at the reduced rate. Saves you $100. A hundred here and a hundred there and pretty soon you are talking big money. 

Be sure to get your hotel reservations secured as soon as possible as the rooms go fast. There are several great hotels in the area close to where all the functions are and shuttle buses run every few minutes from many of the hotels. 

So, will you be joining me and other BSC professionals in Orlando? I hope so because we all become better professionals with the valuable information we gather. 

Let me encourage you to come my the Consultants In Cleaning, LLC table on Friday and Saturday, November 7 and 8 at the Hilton. No, you don't need to buy something and there won't be any pressure. Just come by and say hi. We truly enjoy visiting with other professionals in our great industry. 

Hope to see you there. Till next time and don't forget to listen to our daily pod casts---www,youtube.com/user/Tripodcasts.