Over 35 Unified Group members gathered in New Orleans, LA January 28-31, 2018 for our Service Management Forum; Think Like a Leader to Inspire Teamwork, Initiative and Growth. Guest speaker Nic Bittle kicked off the first day with developing others to perform at their best. He taught the group how to ask questions to understand and not place blame; if we ask the right questions we can pinpoint the issue and learn to lead our people. We also learned how to share drip info – Deliver an idea short and to the point with consistency every week. This can make a huge difference when we consistently give the same information to everyone because it trickles down. We navigated through the four different mindsets; every mindset wants something but needs something different. There were many takeaways by all during Nic's session.
On our second day, Tim Smerz, Owner of The Unified Group facilitated a discussion on how to go from peer to manager. We solved our biggest challenges in peer breakout groups and had talked about the R-22 crisis and what members are doing/using to solve this issue. Chris DeMers (CMC Corporate Solutions) addressed the group about Creating a Sense of Ownership within your team. In order to get buy in everyone needs to know the goals, clear expectations need to be set, take a moment to see things through your people’s eyes, always use praise over punishment because it wins every time and celebrate the small wins with your team.
On our final day we discussed Financial Metrics and KPI’s all should be tracking in service and shared scorecard examples. We also shared information on what our members are doing and finding successful for in-house training and external training as well as ideas for training we could do together as a group.
We had Scott Myers from Cushman and Wakefield discuss business opportunities with the group and Robert Brosnan from National Compressor, our purchasing partner, share information about their products, distribution and availability to the members, they have live service all the time and offer technical support.
Throughout the session we shared new technology and best ideas implemented that have made an impact on our members businesses over the past year. Frank Quintanar (J&J Air Conditioning) showed how they are addressing distracted driving by adding an autoreply for all techs letting the customer/office know they are on the road and will call when not driving. They also discussed XOi, new technology they are using to video while performing a job – it is a good way to show customers what their equipment looks like, if something is making an odd sound or if there is an issue that needs to be addressed. Kim O’Connor (Air Comfort) showed how they are process mapping their work order flow to create improvement on days to bill. Matt Blauch (Blauch Brothers) shared the new truck stock and PM Filter program they have implemented. Dave Robistow (VHV Company) demonstrated how they are using Zoomlock pipe on jobs and Mike DeVito (Air Comfort) discussed a new system they are using for lead generation.
A huge thank you to our task force; Matt Blauch (Blauch Brothers), Chris DeMers (CMC Corporate Solutions), Kevin Cowley (MSS) and Dave Robistow (VHV Company) who had multiple calls to choose a speaker, finalize topics and create an impactful agenda.