Find out why Tom Graham is ALL-IN!

There are numerous, filling the board is an issue for us. Marketing is going to be a key consideration for us. I really see our business as being one of identifying hand raisers and getting good salespeople in front of them. I understand that model, we just have to get better at it. Obviously we’ve got to execute and deliver the quality service that people are paying for. We want to do that, but we’re not doing it as well as we need to. We’ve got to work on the execution, on our quality and getting people onboard with- you’re out there. Not only are you representing Joe Cool Air conditioning, you’re representing yourself. This is our craft, it’s what you do for a living and it needs to be the best work people can buy.
It’s a mixture, I’m very excited about the marketing things today. I think as much as anything I’ve kind of delegated some of my leadership obligations to others, and looked to them to deliver on those things. I haven’t been as effective as I need to in communicating and getting people aligned with this is the expectation, this is what I need you to do and you’re accountable. I think this is information we’ve all probably heard at one time or another, but getting it repackaged and shoved at you, as it has been, is a good thing for us to hear. Good thing for me to hear.
It’s strong. I mean it would be one thing to be in a hotel, you might wonder what does it all mean? As I walk through the organization, see it, you interact with people and they interact with me, I don’t have this in my company. There’s a gem here. I want it in my company and I recognize, more today than I did when I got here, whose responsibility it is to get that going. That’s been a great takeaway. You know it’s hard to quantify but I think some of the exercises that Mike has us doing in terms of how much money have we lost? How much money have we wasted? How much time have we wasted? That helps put a little bit of framing around it. Is it 20 to 1? Is it 50 to 1? 100 to 1? I don’t know. That would be up to me, to a large degree, but it’s a big number.
Fear of throwing the money away, fear of what am I going to hear, fear of failure. All those things are probably high on the list. It’s probably less of a budgeting issue and more of a what am I going to get in return? I had that too but the guy who recommended it, he doesn’t get excited about anything. I’ve known him a couple of years. I’ve never seen him get excited. He got excited about this and that was really the breakthrough for me. I understand now why he’s excited. I’m going to share some of that enthusiasm with other colleagues around or maybe I shouldn’t because I want all the market.
I just want to give you an update back here. It’s now day 3, I got off to a very strong start and pretty enthusiastic the last time. It just keeps getting better and as much as anything the real cool thing is he’s in my business. He knows the pain points and this is real stuff for service contractors. I’m all in. Well there’s a whole bunch of things. The 135 rule, which you have to come here to see, is a really cool thing. It’s really about prioritizing your work, getting good alignment with your team members, making sure that everybody understands what they need to do, what their role is and then holding them accountable. In the end we don’t want to have an environment where people don’t know what they’re supposed to do, we got expectations all criss-crossed and I think a lot of the things that have come out here have been very helpful to keep that straight.