Is Your Solar Company a Family Business? Here are our 5 Keys to Thriving

Is Your Solar Company A Family Business?

Here Are Our 5 Keys To Thriving

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If your solar contracting company is a family business, you know it isn’t easy. Mixing family with work is always a tough balance, and for this reason, family contractors face challenges that standard businesses don’t.

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There are a few common weaknesses that are seen in many family businesses. If they aren’t remedied, they have the potential to hold your business back and cause unnecessary hassle.

Below, we’ll go over 5 solutions that address these weaknesses and put your family business in a position to thrive.

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1. Do Away with Special Treatment: Nepotism is one of the biggest problems in family businesses of any industry. When family members get unfair advantages over non-family employees, it can have farreaching consequences.

The first being a simple matter of efficiency: when less-skilled family members are promoted over more competent, unrelated staff, your company isn’t able to operate at its best. More mistakes get made, and opportunities for growth can be missed.

The second big issue is that special treatment creates a hostile work environment. When unrelated staff are held to a higher standard than family members, it can cause feelings of resentment to build.

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And rightly so. It’s not fair or professional to make other employees pick up the slack for family members who don’t carry their weight, or to make staff face consequences that family members are exempt from.

To combat this problem, there are a few good rules to set in place. First, start holding everyone to the same standards, and don’t give family a free pass on disciplinary action.

Feedback and un-biased structure are also key tools for eliminating special treatment.

Giving feedback to all employees is an essential part of ensuring everyone fulfills their roles, but family members are often exempt from criticism.

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Offering constructive feedback to family members holds them accountable - an effect that can be strengthened with a strategic hierarchy. If possible, have family members report to senior non-family employees. This will reduce the chances of “letting things slide�, and keep power balanced between the family and non-family halves of your business.

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2. Get Organized: If there’s one thing family contractors are prone to, it’s being informal. This can breed a lack of organization. Administrative duties are often assigned to just one or two people (who may not be trained in the best practices), and most agreements and arrangements rely on word and memory to be enforced. Of course, this opens up the door to mix-ups, mistakes, and inefficiency.

One of the best things family solar businesses can do is get disciplined about organization. Start putting things in writing, and have clear, written guidelines and policies that everyone can refer to. Start using specialized sales and accounting software, if you aren’t already.

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And if your file cabinet is a mess - then it’s time to do some sorting.

All of these measures will help your business stay on track, avoid unnecessary mishaps, and easily scale up when new staff members join the team (or when Aunt Margaret finally takes a well-deserved vacation).

3. Take Training Seriously: Family contractors sometimes go lax on training because they figure young family members can learn as they go. In other cases, they minimize it because they are smaller businesses that feel they just don’t have the extra time and resources for training.

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But this is a mistake. Avoiding training increases the chance that your business will lose money on faulty installations, product damage, and customers who decide to take their business elsewhere. Good training pays off in the long run, in the form of flawless installations and happy customers.

Start viewing training as a worthwhile investment, and you’ll get your returns.

4. Establish Standards for Customer Service: No matter what the industry, there can be a sharp contrast in the customer service approaches of corporations vs. familyowned businesses. In some cases, family businesses may be more polite and friendly than their big-corp counterparts, but in others, they drop the ball.

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This is often the result of a lack of training, and of being exempt from consequences.

For example, if your hot-headed nephew Randy knows that he won’t be fired or reprimanded for being rude to a customer, then he doesn’t have much incentive to change his behavior.

Poor customer service can also arise from the lack of formality in the work environment.

When everything is casual and loose, it can be easy for family staff to forget that they need to interact with customers in a polished and professional manner.

If lacking customer service is a problem in your business, you can address it with training, and by enforcing a well-outlined set of rules for dealing with customers.

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These rules should reflect your brand’s values, and make your family name a trusted one in the local industry.

5. Upgrade Your Solar Lead Generation Process: Family contracting businesses tend to be on the smaller side. So naturally, they often have limited resources for marketing and attracting new sales leads.

If you’re struggling to keep your cash flow positive, you need serious leads that have a high chance of yielding profit. This can be tough to accomplish with standard (and expensive) marketing methods, but it’s simple and affordable when you team up with a reputable Solar Lead Generation company.

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For example, we at Grid Freedom regularly provide contracting businesses like yours with solar leads that have already been thoroughly vetted, spoken to, and even set up with their first consultation appointment.

This allows us to deliver the best possible sales opportunities, and eliminates the need for contractors to invest in advertising.

With no purchase minimums or long-term contracts, we offer the flexibility and scale that family contractors need. You can start small and get more leads as your business grows.

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Call: 855.596.9567

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