Stress

Everything you do comes with the big "S" word, "Stress". Most of us tend to do the things that are not stressful and avoid the activities that are. The things we are good at are low stress; the work that we do not understand or we do not have the right skills for are high stress. That is why the old parable

    "Things tend to remain the same"

is true.

Let’s apply this to a typical privately-owned business. When you start your business, in most cases, it is a one-person operation. You work hard and measure your success by the money at the end of the week. During this time you are learning what the business is all about, and stress often comes from not having enough money, mechanical breakdowns and from dealing with (or trying to avoid) the "OH, NO!" events of a young business.

As your business grows and becomes successful, there are additional causes of stress, such as:

• Customers

• Employees

• Equipment

More customers. You are meeting total strangers who are usually under duress before you get there. In addition, the money they are about to spend was not planned for and they feel out of control which puts them in a high state of (guess what) "STRESS," and the most important thing they own, i.e., their home or business, is broken. So as your business succeeds, you get to hang around with stressed-out people. Many businesses stop growing or fail because the owner is working harder and wondering why he/she is having all the "people problems" and says "It’s not worth the effort. I quit" and walks away from a good business. If you understand the fact that part of your service is to reduce your customers’ stress, your customers’ stress level will drop and so will yours!

Here are some ways to reduce your customers’ stress:

• Education about what is being done on their property. Take a few minutes to give out some literature and answer any questions. Lowering your customers’ stress level is as important as completing the service that your company supplies, be it lowering the level of the septic tank or servicing portable toilets.

• Education about typical symptoms and problems of waste services.

• Explanation as to the reasons for what has to be done.

• Showing that you are familiar with your customer’s needs, i.e., service history.

.

If there’s more work to be done, you can hire another person to do the work and relax. Wrong! You now have to do your own work and manage the work of another person. So when you hire a person, it increases the amount of (you guessed it) "STRESS" that you have. This is why you see many owner/operator businesses. They have tried hiring somewhat and found themselves working harder and worrying more. When you expand by hiring, you need to learn new skills and new tools to manage other people in a way that does not bury you in worry. This is a both new type of work for you and an increase in expenses without the associated increase in revenue.

When you hire additional staff, some changes in the way you manage your business might include:

• Tracking sales by driver, truck and type of service so that you can tell if the individual you hired is "really improving revenue. If, after a period of time, sales have not increased, you have the numbers to guide you in the decision process.

• Using a time clock to minimize conflicts over payroll.

• Doing customer follow-up via mail/phone on a regular basis to see that your company is being properly represented.

As your business grows, you’ll be getting more equipment, i.e., toys. The problem here is that the equipment usually comes with LOANS, which results in higher expenses and, yes, higher STRESS. Double the equipment is now four times the problems, not just twice the number. Equipment maintenance aside, if you have a breakdown, not only do you lose the work of the equipment, you also have the expenses associated with the driver and gain the aggravation associated with the customers who are not being serviced. So, you thought a second truck would reduce your stress and worry? Such clever plans!

Some things you might consider when expanding equipment are:

• Track productivity by truck number. This will allow you to understand the revenue associated with new equipment.

• Develop a schedule that covers several days for each truck/route. This will give you a way to push back or move up services and manage the work load when equipment fails.