Articles written by guest contributors
Jeremy Martin
What if something happens to you?
By Jeremy MartinIf you listen to the business gurus, they’ll tell you that your business should be structured to run without you. Otherwise, you don’t own a business…. you own a job. You’ve got to write SOPs. Train your first foreman. Train a second foreman. Train a salesperson. Hire a secretary. Build processes.
But, you’re putting 50 hours a week in the field and another 20 to 30 in the evenings in the office. You cannot find time to build systems, so you grind it out year after year. Besides, you’re having fun building incredibly cool projects. Life goes on, season follows season, and all is well. But you know what, the gurus are right.
Today’s business gurus weren’t the first to figure this out. “It is not good for man to be alone.” “Two are better than one. If one falls, his companion will lift him up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up!” Ancient words from the Bible written long ago regarding spouses and friends, but still true today. And from a more recent sage “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”
While concepts for personal relationships don’t always translate into the business world, many do… including this idea that life goes better together than alone! So why delegate?
First, you cannot do this forever. Some day you’ll quit the field work; perhaps you can delegate that work and stay in the office. Or you’ll sell the equipment and retire. Second, it’s hard to have a truly great company without delegating some responsibilities. None of us are wired to be the perfect fit for every position in our company. Third, sometimes life brings a storm and we find ourselves physically unable to work. What then?
If you follow my writings, you know we’ve weathered some storms in the last year. A sudden death in the family, a trip to the Midwest in November for a funeral. Days off work. Weeks later, another death in the family just before Christmas… this one after a long heartbreaking battle with cancer. More days off work. First week in January, I was in bed with the flu all week.
More recently… another storm that gave me no time to prepare! I felt a little weird Memorial Day evening: perhaps indigestion? Tuesday morning I still felt a bit sick, but went through the day’s plans with the crews and headed off to meetings. That morning was endless… I just wanted to be home! By afternoon I was in bed, by dinner I was headed to the ER and had my appendix removed that evening.
As I lay in the ER waiting to be wheeled back to the operating room, I sent a text to the foremen. It was succinct… a pic of me in a hospital bed, and a short message to carry on. That was it. It’s amazing how fast you can go from the ER to the OR; there was no time to make plans! Today an appendectomy is an outpatient surgery; I was home shortly after midnight and slept in my own bed!
But I wasn’t back at work. Wednesday passed in a fog… painkiller and sleep is a wonderful thing. Thursday I promised my hardscape foreman I’d be over to his project. After all, it was only 5 minutes from my home. I drove less than a mile and knew it was a serious mistake. But I went… I’d promised, even though I couldn’t sit up for more than 30 minutes. Yes, I am stubborn! I finally made it into the office for a few minutes on Friday.
The storms weren’t over! Sunday night, I got a call no parent wants. My daughter was in an accident minutes from home. No serious injuries, and it wasn’t her fault. We were blessed! Still, I spent the night in the ER with her. We came home at 4:30am Monday, and my foremen again got a message that I might not be around. Well, I’m happy to say I was only 5 minutes late to the office and got through my day despite less than an hour of sleep!
What have we learned?
How well can Willow Gates Landscaping operate without Jeremy at the helm? Our strengths and weaknesses were revealed in these storms. Here’s what I observed: Office: My secretary is remote, so the phone was still answered. He simply told new leads to expect a longer than normal response time from me. He had a lighter work load since I couldn’t assign some of the extra tasks and supply the needed information.
What needs to improve? More of the invoicing needs to become his responsibility. For our design/build projects, the foreman should have better knowledge of payment schedules. If I were missing a long time, Willow Gates would run out of money.
Hardscape: The hardscape crew did great! We had a sub scheduled for the following day, and weren’t sure if we were quite ready. I texted the contact info to the foreman, and told him to figure it out. He did! Our hardscape projects often range from 2 weeks to 3 months. Once we’re past the first days, I have much less involvement. Our processes are more detailed, and the foreman is already scheduling material deliveries on the larger projects.
Landscape: Here we schedule much more loosely. Many projects are repeat customers, and the work may be done more from memory of the previous year than from a well detailed work order.
What needs to improve? A better planned schedule that we can realistically meet. Along with that, having work orders printed and ready to go for 1 to 2 weeks ahead. Plant orders need to be placed earlier and included with the work orders. Yes, much of this lives in the cloud but an old fashioned paper works better especially when there’s a design.
Why plan for emergencies?
Emergencies happen. There will be a day where the owner can’t work. My goals? I already began writing some things down for my personal life… passwords, which accounts are paid automatically, etc. so my wife can figure it out more easily. I need to write a business contingency plan that my wife can use. If I’m incapacitated, I want the business to support my family and employees for at least the short term. What if both of us were incapacitated or deceased? It happened to one of my clients. Both husband & wife died in an accident and their business suddenly had no owners. How can I give employees the ability to find necessary information to keep going if I were gone for weeks or indefinitely?
Think about the risks of unfinished projects. If you took a 30% deposit on a $10K project, it can be repaid easily. But what if it’s a $50K project? $100K? What if it’s a $1M project, and you already have $100k in deposits? What if it’s a $300K project that is mid way, and the only person who knew everything is lying in a hospital? What if there were multiple projects underway?
Imagine subcontractors trying to get paid, and homeowners threatening to sue because their yards are a wreck and projects are stalled. Your family is already reeling, and your employees are leaving because the paychecks quit. You see, the bigger the business… the more catastrophic a disruption will be.
I love big, exciting projects that challenge me, but I have a new realization of the risks they carry. Want to hear more about how I plan these big projects? Come see me at HNA as I present on that topic! I’ll be speaking on Friday on “Project Planning for Advanced Hardscape Projects”. In the meantime… find your #2 at home and at work, thank them, and think about how you can continue developing those relationships. See you in Louisville!
Jeremy Martin co-founded Willow Gates Landscaping in 2005. He became an ICPI instructor in 2016, NCMA in 2018. He also founded Dust Killer Tools to help his company meet 2017 OSHA silica standards. Email Jeremy@DustKiller.tools. Visit WillowGatesLandscaping.com and DustKiller.tools
