Restoration Rewind May 2016

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Restoration Rewind Delta Development Group Monthly Newsletter

May 2016


Mickey Lee and Dick Wagner are BACK! At DDG, we always talk about how we plan out things far in advance. How we talk to important people in the industry behind the scenes to see how we can partner with them. This is another one of those cases. About 6 months before the convention, we begin planning for the event, well about 3 months before that we begin contacting those people that we would like to have make presentations. In our initial conversations about inviting Mickey Lee and Dick Wagner, we hoped that we could use the convention as an opportunity to get to know them, and more importantly for them to get to know us. Both gentlemen are very well known and very well respected throughout our industry and we want them to know who Delta Disaster Services is. We hoped that once they saw what an excellent network we had, they would want to work with us in the future. We enlisted them for the convention with conversation about both of them presenting their full programs exclusively to our network. Fast forward to now, and we have both of them booked to present their full programs exclusively to us. Dick Wagner has spent much of his career teaching is PREP Course to restoration contractors, giving them the marketing knowledge and tools to work in the commercial side of the industry. Typically Dick’s program is the same for everyone. On top of that, he doesn’t work with franchise systems. Dick was so impressed with our network that he has broken both of those rules just for Delta! He has agreed to give us a program that is tailored specifically to the Delta Disaster Services business model, including branding all of the materials and teaching DDG how to teach new members into the system. Dick’s class for Delta Disaster Services will be Wednesday, July 13th through Friday, July 15th at the Interlink/Aramsco Denver classroom. We also have a block of rooms for those needing hotel accommodations at the Drury Inn Westminster. This hotel is located right next door to the hotel where we hold franchise training. You can book your rooms using this link: http://www.druryhotels.com/Reservations.aspx?corpid=326007

If you have not already sent your employee commitments for this class to Ragan, please do so ASAP. Mickey Lee is THE Commercial Drying Specialist. He is the chairman of the board that writes the S500 and he is one of only 5 people across that country that teach the IICRC Commercial Drying Class. Under normal circumstances, Mickey teaches this class in


accordance with the IICRC schedule. Not this circumstance. We have booked Mickey Lee for a PRIVATE class, allowing only Delta Disaster Services employees to be in the class. This is an amazing opportunity for our network, please take advantage of being able to have your technicians’ front and center with Mickey Lee. The class with Mickey Lee will be held Monday, September 19th through Friday, September 23rd at the Interlink/Aramsco Denver classroom. Hotel rooms are available for this class as well. Once again, please send your employee commitments to Ragan ASAP. We are very happy to be able to bring both of these opportunities to you and your employees. Please take advantage. Let us know if you have any questions.

The Value of the Employee Review The employee review may be your most valuable management tool, if it is used correctly. Who wouldn’t want to know what’s expected of them and where they stand? Most every employee does! How many managers are doing this? Very few, if any! Every employee in your company needs to have a well-defined and continually updated job description. The requirements of their job need to be specifically outlined in the employee job review. This is what they are being hired for and thus being reviewed for. We suggest that you go over the 90 day review with every new employee, during their orientation. CLEARY define and discuss your expectations of the position and what will be looking for in those first 90 days. There should be no surprises at that 90 day mark. It is important you give your employees attainable goals throughout their career with your organization. This will not only keep them motivated and hold them accountable, but it will also give you a great tool to manage them. We have effective templates that you can use to create your own reviews, check FranConnect and let us know if you need any assistance with providing your employees with great reviews.


Congratulations, Delta Disaster Services of Western Colorado!

Congratulations!! Your company has been selected as a 2015 Crawford Contractor Connection Top Performer. Your dedication to quality and excellence in service is much appreciated. All winners of this award will be provided special recognition during the general session at the 2016 Contractor Connection Conference & Expo in Las Vegas June 20-24. At the conference your companies’ attendees will also receive a special “Top Performer” ribbon and a “Golden Hammer” lapel pin. In addition, all Top Performers in good standing will be invited to send two representatives to a special Top Performer Symposium event in October in New Orleans hosted by Contractor Connection. The Top Performer Award is provided each year to our performance leaders based on overall excellence measured by estimate upload TIP, customer service scores, professionalism in communication, cooperation, and overall POMS scores.


The Marketing Corner You may have heard me say this before, “If your referral is talking then they are remembering you, if you are talking your referral is tuning you out.” Below is a great article on the importance listening to your customer and how to get them talking. Enjoy! Jason Kaber.

How to Improve Your Sales Success by Listening More and Talking Less Posted in http://smallbusiness.com/selling/sales-success-through-listening/ Shared by SmallBusiness.com SmallBusiness.com Staff

You know that guy. The one who never stops talking about himself (no matter what the topic of the conversation was originally). If you own or run a small business, you don’t want to be that guy.

Unfortunately, we are all wired to talk about ourselves. According to research conducted by Harvard neuroscientists Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell, about 40% of what an individual talks about every day is devoted to what we feel or think. (Thus, the popularity of Twitter.) The reason we chatter so much about ourselves? It feels so rewarding, at the level of brain cells and synapses, that we can’t help sharing our thoughts. Bragging provides us sensations of pleasure similar to that provided by food and money. “Self-disclosure is extra rewarding,” Tamir told the Wall Street Journal, “People were even willing to forgo money in order to talk about themselves.” Unfortunately, forgoing money is exactly what will happen if you’re responsible for selling products or services and you make yourself the center of each conversation you find yourself engaged in.

The benefits of listening. In popular culture, the stereotype of a salesman is something akin to a carnival midway “barker” encouraging people to step right up to see his demonstration of Ginsu knives. But even a good Ginsu knife salesman knows when to stop talking and ask the reluctant


customer if he’s ever seen such wonderfully sliced tomatoes. When a sales person stops talking and starts listening, it’s amazing how much the customer will reveal about themselves, their needs, their purchasing preferences, their favorite color. More than any browser cookie will ever reveal, a 10 minute conversation where the customer is talking and you are listening will provide you a deep understanding of whether or not you can develop a mutually-beneficial longterm relationship with them.

The Judo approach to becoming a brilliant conversationalist.

To succeed in sales, it’s important to work on developing a skill similar to the Errol Morris interview technique we’ve shared: “Shut up and listen, or, speak as little as possible.” Because you now know there’s a scientific reason people want to talk about themselves, use that knowledge in the same way a person who is an expert in Judo uses their opponent’s momentum as the source of power to knock them off their feet.

Tips for getting other people to talk about themselves. All you need to do is Google the term “icebreaker” and you’ll see hundreds of top-ten lists for ways to start a conversation in any situation. We prefer the natural ways that reflect your personality and that don’t make you seem like a stalker. We will skip the “pickup line” approach and focus on some general guidelines:


1. Be aware of the context: A natural way to start a conversation if a customer is looking at an item in your store is different than a natural way to start a conversation at a Chamber of Commerce business mixer. “Where do you work?” is not a great way to start a conversation if you run a tee-shirt shop, for instance. 2. Children and pets: Just like on the internet, you can’t go wrong if you can get a person talking about their children or pets. You can’t stop them, either. If you head down this route, plan for a long, long conversation. 3. How can you help them?: As we have written before, great salesmanship is not about being slick and “always be closing.” It’s about making customers smarter. If you can get a person to talk about a frustration that can be solved by the service or product you supply, you’ll have a much better chance of finding a natural way to segue into discussing your company.

Remember DSO? You have all heard us talk about “DSO”. You have seen “DSO” on your monthly dashboard. You have seen “DSO” in previous newsletters. So, if you think this is deja vu, you might be right… We basically “finance” all of our jobs in advance and then try to collect the money on the back end just as soon as we can. This is very true, especially in mitigation, because we have payroll and supplies that must be paid long before we get paid for the work we did. In Order to continue to finance jobs, you MUST keep the cash flowing in the door. You can have sales in the millions of dollars, but without the cash coming in to pay your bills, you will be bankrupt. Cash is what keeps any business running and operating smoothly. Getting cash in the door just as soon as we can does and will continue to keep your business running and profitable. The standard for measuring cash and how quickly we turn our receivables is called “DSO” or Days Sales Outstanding. Below is the definition of DSO and how it is calculated.


'Days Sales Outstanding - DSO' DSO is something you need to be measuring on a regular basis. The “Dashboard” that is included with the royalty report shows you how to calculate the DSO. Please use it and measure your DSO. DSO is a measure of the average number of days that a company takes to collect revenue after a sale has been made (or in our case the work is completed). A low DSO number means that it takes a company fewer days to collect its accounts receivable. A high DSO number shows that a company is selling its product to customers on credit and taking longer to collect money.

Days sales outstanding is calculated as:

And… To simplify it: 1. Run a Company P&L for the past 12 months. Make note of the Total Sales or Total Income. 2. Divide the total income by 365 (=Average per day) 3. Make note of your current open invoices (Accounts Receivable) 4. Divide Item #3 (Current Open Receivables) by Item #2 (Average per day) The resulting number is your DSO. This all sounds great but what is the real relevance of DSO in running our Delta Disaster Services business? The average DSO in a “Service Business” is 55 days. The average DSO for a restoration company is 45 days. The Goal DSO for Delta Disaster Services of Denver is less than 30 days! DSO is something you need to be measuring on a regular basis. The “Dashboard” that is included with the royalty report shows you how to calculate your DSO. Please use it and measure your DSO at least once per month. Please contact Dixie if you have any questions about calculating your DSO or ways to lower your DSO.


Cash in The Door!! This month’s winner…

Delta Disaster Services of Southern Colorado! We challenge all of other offices to knock these guys from the top spot. Congratulations to Emmis Chellman and his whole crew!

Leadership and Management Forum In April we held out monthly (almost) Leadership and Management Forum. Emmis Chellman was our leader for this month’s lesson and by all accounts did an excellent job. Our topic was, “How to Manage Your Employees and Build a Strong Team”. This particular lesson had many takeaways from those attended. Initially we discussed how to delegate duties, and how to hold your team accountable. The second part of the chapter discussed how to motivate professionally and with respect. Those attended discussed many ways that individuals are motivated and how to use those tools to help you as a business owner reach organizational goals. Some of the topics discussed at length were; • • • • • • •

Show how much you value everyone in your department Help people grow Encourage employees to recognize each other for great work Motivate by building their confidence Show your employees that you truly care Stress the importance of company morale Do not rule by intimidation

We again thank those leaders who attended. As leaders we need to recognize that we need to continue to push herself to new heights to be better people and increase our overall skill set. This forum is a great way to do that with those who have the same challenges as you. While you can join by conference phone, the most is gained by being in the conference room with the group. We all have room to grow and we can all learn something from one another. Join us at the next meeting at the Denver office in June.


Top Performer Congratulation are in order! In April’s Crawford Contractor Connection Network, Delta Disaster Services of Northern Colorado was recognized as one of the Top Mitigation Performers!

CCC has a great list of the traits held by their top performers:

• • • • •

A top performer does not make excuses, they provide solutions A top performer accepts challenges as opportunities to learn and excel A top performer exceeds customer expectations A top performer has a continuous empathetic attitude for the insured A top performer recognizes communication is the key and prevents confusion

It is very obvious that Delta Disaster Services of Northern Colorado embodies all of these traits. Congratulations, you guys! Keep up the great work!!


Phoenix R250 LGR Dehumidifier The Next Generation R The Phoenix R250 replaces the R200 in the Phoenix Rotomold LGR product line. The Next Generation in the Phoenix R Series, the R250 has been redesigned from the inside out to be a rugged, high-performance dehumidifier. Phoenix is leading the industry by introducing epoxy-coated coils. This new feature will extend the life of the coils, provide protection in corrosive environments, and maintain the coil’s heat transfer ability. Phoenix has also added a new heavy-duty condensate pump and a new rugged float switch designed specifically for restoration environments. We kept the outstanding handle used on the R200 along with patented ByPass™ technology, increased airflow, multiple ducting options, and a pleated media filter. And, with some amazing Phoenix Engineering, the NEW R250 removes the most water of the Phoenix rotomolds at 135 pints per day (AHAM) while drawing only 8.3 amps of electricity, making it one of the smallest, lightest XL category LGRs on the market. The R250 pulls 135 pints at AHAM while drawing only 8.3 amps. By using Phoenix’s patented bypass system, the R250 will continue to maximize water removal in temperatures beyond the competition’s acceptable operating range. The R250 also offers user-friendly solid state controls which - in addition to power and purge buttons featuring total hours and job hours. The R250 also provides a number of convenience features that set it apart from the competition. The unit features an outlet grill that is configured to accept a variety of thermohygrometer probes (e.g. HM-34 and 40, Humiport, LM-8000, etc.) for taking accurate psychrometric readings. For added convenience, the power cord and condensate hose store inside the hinged lid, while the stackable design helps maximize your storage capacity. Like all Phoenix dehumidifiers, the R250 also features superior filtration, and multiple ducting options.


And we will leave you with this‌


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