The Unified Group’s Annual Meeting & Owners Forum was held in Hollywood, FL, from November 13-17.  It was a valuable time for members to work on their businesses instead of in them.

“The best part of the meeting was getting to further build relationships with other contractors in the group with plenty of time for discussions and thoughts to be shared.” Derren Saucier, Temperature, Inc.

Guest speaker, John Howman, started off the first day of the meeting.  John is an entrepreneur, Vista Chair and business advisor; John’s insight into people and his exceptional market analysis capabilities, combined with his business acumen and creativity helps create passionate, driven and successful work teams.  At the session, we covered The Execution Tune-Up – Getting from Vision to Execution and Results in a workshop environment.  Every CEO has a vision for their company, that is the easy part!  Few companies fail because there wasn’t a vision; they fail because they can’t execute the vision and get concrete business results.  The secret isn’t having some unique or phenomenal vision, it is creating a vision, getting everyone to understand it and their role, and then executing like crazy.

On day two, Shane and Melissa Dick of Atlas Accounting and Consulting joined the group to discuss our financial benchmark that all members participate in.  They shared what is normal to put owner’s minds at ease and they discussed KPI’s and ratios that companies should be measuring such as gross margin and revenue per technician.  A dashboard template was shared to help members track these items more easily.

“The Benchmark review is always great to compare where we are at with the best in class contractors that are in the group. There are always certain metrics I bring back that we need to strive to achieve.” Scott Krum, Legacy Mechanical

Large group discussions on marketing and how-to recession proof our businesses were followed by breakout sessions for small groups to discuss strategic issues and challenges that are important to their businesses.  Throughout the meeting, members showed new technologies they are using such as Learning Zen, Smart Sheet and Mind and Body to keep your employees healthy.

In addition to sharing challenges and working on business solutions together, members were able to enjoy a margarita mixology contest, dinner in town and a closing dinner on a private yacht with a DJ.  “If I didn’t attend this meeting, the biggest item I would have missed was the feedback and input from members at the meeting.” Dick Wilcox, VHV Company

Thank you to our task force Todd Carver, Adrian Mechanical, Bobby Grimes, A&G Services, Chris Schaff, Air Controls and Brian Martinenza, Jr., Service Unlimited Inc., for planning a great Annual Meeting!