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Service vis-a-vis Tools

Posted February 5, 2013 By tjflynn

As a teenager, working for my dad summers and weekends, I remember wooden ladders being the norm. There were no aluminum ladders that telescoped, extended or flexed at angles to morph into scaffolds. When I was a little older, still working with my tools, air compressors and nail guns changed the paradigm that was used for labor in the field. Not literally in a “field” like a cotton field, but working on a jobsite as opposed to working in an office. When I was a older still, working as a project manager, the fax machine and computers changed that paradigm for office labor, especially estimating and scheduling. In the late 80’s and early 90’s we didn’t use Flir infrared cameras or Surveymaster moisture detectors for building inspections like we do now. Those tools have changed inspection paradigms.

My question is…have these tools changed service for the better?

As with any and all technology, I think that they have the ability to increase efficiency, but that better service ain’t automatic unless someone uses that increased efficiency to benefit customers or clients.

Lowered labor costs, more thorough inspections, and faster project turn-arounds can certainly represent increased service to clients. But, they can also represent more money for providers if not shared.

An economist could probably generate a complex mathematical formula with several variables to produce a chart of the cost for buying and implementing new technology in relation to the perceived customer benefits producing an increase in business volume less a constant for what competitors would be willing to cede to stay in the game, netting a dollar-certain benefit.

Common sense, however, tells me that those who give good service with old technology will be the same ones that give good service with the new stuff.

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One bank with good service.

Posted January 25, 2013 By tjflynn

When my daughter and her family lived in Clearwater and I lived in Kentucky (but did most of my work in Florida), I opened banking accounts with let’s call them Bank X. I had accounts with a Kentucky bank, but spending over half of my time in Florida made it necessary to bank in both places. That was around 8 years ago.

Since I opened that account, I’ve not heard from Bank X except to get normal statements and notified when my checking account balance was low and money was transferred from savings to cover a debit card purchase or a check that I’d written. For all of these years, I’ve been charged $14 per month for the privilege of using Bank X, and being subjected to their other fees…debit card fees, overdraft fees, paying for checks, low-low savings account interest, mysterious and inappropriate charges by international businesses on my debit card(s), etc. AND, when I married Angie, it almost took 3 pounds of paperwork to add her to my accounts. Seriously, copies of marriage license, drivers’ licenses, social security card, applications, background check and a personal appearance just to add her to my existing accounts?

A couple of months ago, she hit a wall with them and told me to find another bank or wash dry and fold my own clothes. I did a ton of online research which boiled down to three banks. Then, I called each bank on the phone to get a feel for them and decided to give Wells Fargo a try. I would have preferred that they were a Florida bank, but I didn’t get everything that I wanted and the tradeoffs are worth it so far.

One of my telephone interview questions was, “Why should we choose your bank over another.” Without taking a breath, Dawn Reprogel answered, “Me. As your personal banker, I make the difference.” That kind of self-confidence is comforting. It shows that personal responsibility that I mentioned a few posts ago. And, it says to me that she is my kind of service provider.

We spent several hours opening accounts primarily because Dawn tried so hard to identify our needs and tailor her products to meet them. During that visit, Dean Friedman gave us a run-down of merchant services. We were put in contact with Wells Fargo’s insurance services, and met the branch manager and other branch personnel. We opened business, personal and merchant services accounts, have automatic payroll deposits and are happy with the new relationship that we have with our few sheckels (dollars) and Wells Fargo’s care of them. After a month, my only negative is that they try so hard to provide stellar service that it borders on being too much.

I forgot the password that I set on my debit card and needed help resetting it. The branch manager immediately sat down and fixed it for me,
Dawn has called me twice following up to make sure that we’re happy.
I’ve spoken to Dean and their insurance guy a few times.
I’ve been to the teller window a couple of times and they always make friendly conversation, look customers in the eye, and seem to genuinely want to be of service WITH A SMILE.

Friends and neighbors, Wells Fargo in Indian Harbour Beach Florida knows a thing or two about providing good service. Their great customer service ratings are well deserved from our perspective.

Common sense whispers, “they jumped out of the starting gate to a commanding lead-lets hope that they have the wind to stay out front and keep their competitors looking at their braided tails.”

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Service Is Spiritual?

Posted January 21, 2013 By tjflynn

One must have a spiritual perspective of service. Knowing what to do and being able to do it are only 2/3rds of the equation. We are motivated to do, or not to do, based on whether or not we think it is right or wrong.

We are more than what we know, or what we feel, or what we think. Defining who you are (and the levels of service that you are willing to provide) includes the sum of at least three interactive components:
mind body spirit T.J. the person, therefore, is the sum of his learning, how functional his body is and how advanced his spirit is. And, T.J. ‘s offerings of service are the sum of his intellectual perspective on service (mind), his spriritual perspective of service (spirit), and his ability to physically perform services (body). Obviously environmental factors affect and shape each of these components as well.

For the purposes of this blog, we’re going to assume that one is physically capable of performing good service and has a firm intellectual grasp of what good service is and question spiritual influences.

Pastor Jason Byars at the Coastline Community Church has a way of involving everyone in the sanctuary in his sermons, which are based on biblical scriptures and generously spiked with references to them. On a recent Sunday morning he ran off a string of things that fit Galatians 5:14. Quoted from my Living Bible, “For the whole Law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love others as you love yourself’. “ The one that hit me like a George Foreman body punch was, “…it’s the best business model…”

So what motivated a preacher to advocate adopting the posture of a servant and loving others as you love yourself as a business model? Is it that he knows that’s what Jesus did and what we should aspire to? Is it that he does the same thing in his ministry? Is it because he understands this as an immutable law of the universe? I think yes.

Read Chapter 67 in the Tao Teh Ching. Lao Tsu advocates the same thing for Taoists. He holds and protects three treasures: Benevolence, frugality and never trying to be number 1. The idea of not trying to be #1 is anathema to “successful” people today. The value of the Tao’s treasures is that you can have them now and keep them forever.

Hindus have a similar perspective. “At death, those who have developed the mode of goodness, will go to the higher planets where the saintly persons live. Those who have developed the mode of passion will take birth among those engaged in materialistic activities. Those who have developed the mode of ignorance, will take birth in the animal kingdom.”(Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-Gita 14.14-15). Those who are intelligent will work hard to make a living but they will also gain some spiritual knowledge so eventually they gain enough to go back to the spiritual abode where we live in the same beautiful body. That is eternal, full of bliss, and full of knowledge.

Paul from the Christians’ Bible, Lao Tsu from the Taoists’ Tao Teh Ching, and Lord Krishna from the Hindu’s Bhagavad-Gita advocated assuming the posture of a servant as a way of life. For what reason? It was the same for all of them, to fare better in this life and future ones.

I aspire to following Pastor Byar’s advice, though I don’t always reach the mark.

Common sense (from the spiritual component of Christians, Hindus and Taoist at least) seems to dictate that we adopt the posture of a servant in service to our clients to fare better in the present and hereafter, and to stay out of hell or coming back as a jackal or javelina.

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Home Inspectors and Poor Service

Posted January 18, 2013 By tjflynn

Living in a new area is exciting!

Inspecting homes and commercial buildings accounts for a growing portion of my marketing and business. When I’m going through my checklist, looking for safety or systems issues, I feel like Sherlock Holmes and might even like it if someone nicknamed me “The House / Commercial Building Whisperer.” I’m not as good looking as Robert Redford who played the Horse Whisperer. And, I’m not as exotic as Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. But, I would match knowledge of my unique whisper subject versus theirs with either of them.

I met a nice lady this week who told me a horror story related to the Home Inspection business. She’s very visible and extremely active in my community-associated with a business meant to connect, promote and enable the growth of businesses in the area.

Her home inspector made a couple of mistakes that were costly to correct. Her lament was similar to all others related to buyer’s inspections and marginal inspectors, “I wish that I’d have known that before I bought the property. Isn’t that what I paid you for?”

The specifics of her case are a matter of indifference. Generally, home inspector or professor of string theory physics, if you make a mistake and can fix it…you should fix it. It has to do with owning your actions and taking responsibility. Both are tenets of good service.

Making mistakes is part of life and business. Fixing them is the difference between growing/learning and stagnating. It’s part of the difference between good and bad service.

I make mistakes regularly. Just ask my wife, she points out most of them and must have a list somewhere. My dad used to say that “if you ain’t makin’ mistakes, you ain’t doin’ nothin’.” In rare cases when my mistakes cause issues, I don’t hide like a sissy when a client calls to discuss them. Most of the time, I’ve taken steps to rectify the situation beforehand and when I haven’t, I promise the client that I will…and then follow through.

The home inspector in her case didn’t even have the courtesy to answer his phone when she called, and after several months hasn’t bothered to call her back. These are the competitors that give my business a bad name. The ones who are churning fees, rushing from one job to the other doing 3 or 4 inspections a day, and setting themselves up for long-term failure, not success.

There are plenty of cases where clients have unreasonable expectations of inspectors. In my experience, those can be reduced by going over the contract with them before the work to produce clear expectations. Another quantity can be handled by discussion afterward.

Recently, while completing a continuing education class, I met another nice lady. A Realtor and investor, she was there to learn what they are supposed to do because the home inspectors she had recommended and hired herself were lazy. In her words, “The fat asses would not go in crawl spaces or attics. They’d check No Access and skip over them.”

Friends and neighbors, I was taught to inspect every attic and crawlspace that I could squeeze into and inspect without harming myself or the structure.

Common sense seems to indicate that the path to inspector oblivion has a lot of runners who ignored their clients during and after the sale.

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A Primer On Bad Service

Posted January 2, 2013 By tjflynn

Being born and raised in Florida and able to trace at least 4 generations of ancestors (paternal and maternal) from Florida, it pains me to say that my state is brimming over with people who provide poor service. Some of my family would say, “it’s because them damn yankees have overrun us and there are so few natives here.” Others would say, “Castro and them South American dictators have flooded Florida with their rejects”, or “them folks from south of the border will work fer nuthin.” All of that may be true, but I think the problem is bigger than that.

People just don’t know what good service is.

Go to any large town in Kentucky and you’ll get good service. People there care about service. Drive past the small towns, though, because they don’t trust or like strangers. It’s the same in all other southern states, probably because good manners breeds good service and people in the south generally have good manners. If you disagree with this statement, please don’t comment here-contact Jeff Foxworthy. I heard him say that on TV just last week

As a public service for all carpetbaggers, refugees, emigrants and young Floridians that may not know yet, the list below has examples of poor service and you should not do these things:

1. If you work at Wal-Mart and there are customers that have been standing in your line for more than ten minutes you should NOT
(a) Chat on your cell phone
(b) Compare social notes with the cashier two aisles down
(c) Turn off your light and go on break without at least apologizing for making the customer reload his/her cart with groceries already placed on the belt.
(d) Stop in the middle of ringing up a $250 grocery order to have a personal conversation with the bagger about his medical issues, most especially if those medical issues concern his excretory functions.
(e) Provide lectures on the evils of alcohol consumption while ringing up a 24-pak of Corona Light or four liters of Fat Bastard wine.
2. If you work in Sporting Goods at Wal-Mart and a person with a sweaty T-shirt on comes in with grease under his fingernails and asks for a bicycle spoke key or spoke wrench your answer should not be, “Where did you come from? I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Even an idiot could figure that on out if he listened to what his customer was asking for.
3. If you work at Papa Johns Pizza you should greet customers as they come in the door and not wait four minutes and eighteen seconds while their to-go order is getting colder. By the way, just because you don’t make eye contact doesn’t mean that the customer doesn’t see you while you are standing 26 inches away. And, the cash register does not give you the shield of invisiblity until you get around to greeting customers.
4. If you are an usher at church and someone is saving a seat for their husband, there must be a better way to let her know that the church is crowded other than saying, “He’d better hurry up and get here.”
5. While working at Walgreen as the only cashier, please don’t leave to stock shelves without acknowledging customers standing in your line waiting to check out. If at all possible, check out those customers before putting Revlon’s latest line of lip gloss up on a higher shelf.
6. If you work at Lowe’s in the electrical department, please learn what ‘madison clips’ are.
7. If you cut lumber to length at Lowe’s and the customer asks for ‘exactly 48 and three quarters of an inch”, don’t cut it 49 and say, that’s as close as I can get.
8. If you sell paint at Lowe’s and the customer asks for the cheapest flat white interior latex paint that you have in 5-gallon buckets, please don’t argue when he won’t be upsold.
9. If you work at Home Depot, ignoring customers and keeping your area clean and stocked only accomplishes 2/3rds of your job, and continues to drive people over to Lowe’s.
10. If you have a bicycle shop that takes trades, don’t call the customer’s trade-in a piece of crap in order to justify allowing a fourth of what it’s worth on a trade against an overpriced model.
11. If you work at Bonefish Willy’s, don’t start out with great service and then disappear after serving the main course. Customers may want Key Lime Pie and/or coffee…and your tip may depend on service during the entire meal.
12. If you are a server and say to one person, “that’s an excellent choice” you should say the same thing to all others at the table.

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Say it out loud.

Posted December 24, 2012 By tjflynn

When I was growing up two of my brothers were in the same age range and worked in Daddy’s home renovations business like I did. My older brother was out in the world, flying solo, a fledgeling, by then. I mentioned one of my brothers in a previous post. The other one had (has) his idiosyncratic moments as well. He would delight in nodding his head in response to verbal questions. For example, he might respond by shaking his head side to side if you yelled to him, “hey do you want to work overtime tonight to finish this task?” Normally, that response presupposes that one could see him. Which one could not many times. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world to do that. It must have been his own private joke-nobody else thought it remotely funny.

A good friend of mine from high school days is very good about rounding up the ‘old’ group when we are all in town. We used to meet at the all-night burger joint near our neighborhood after dates, eat silver-dollar sized sliders and lie about how masterfully we handled the woman we’d just taken home before the 11 or 12 o’clock curfew. He invariably invites one of the guys that I didn’t know that well-and liked even less. Over the years, it’s become a joke to the other guys that Bustle (not his real name) was my most bestest buddy back then.

While trying to crystallize my thoughts on male and female communication…I realized that communicating with women is impossible for me to dissect, analyze, make structured, rational or verbalize. So, I’ll just leave that to people more glib than myself. To those who can explain why human beings from different planets coexist at all.

Every project that I manage starts with a pre-construction meeting. I ask the contractor to have all of his key subs at this meeting. I say with great pomp and emphasis something to the effect of, “We are going to open this restaurant or retail building on “X” date. To make that happen, all of your work needs to be completed by “Y” date. If you can’t meet that date, let’s figure it out right now…don’t wait until the 11th hour to say it’s an impossible schedule. Once you walk out of here today, you are on board with this schedule. Since all of your businesses involve more than one person-even your demise will not be an acceptable excuse for not completing your work by this date. We will open this restaurant or retail building with your help or hire another subcontractor to complete it at your expense.” Most of the time I then ask the client to confirm to the subs that time is of the essence.

Every project that I manage ends with some subcontractor or subcontractors not pulling their weight, not finishing on “Y”. The contractor then has to juggle, struggle and massage the remaining subs to pick up that slack. Did you ever hear that, “no good deed goes unpunished”? Good subcontractors always pick up the slack for the bad ones. And that ain’t right. It is, however, the way it works.

Sorry, I slipped off task. I’m trying to say that even with contracts holding subs to dates, contractors making dates clear, project managers and owners making the dates clear…subcontractors and suppliers miss dates.

Several times during my career, I’ve offered bonuses to contractors who finished projects early. I’ve never paid one of those bonuses.

I’m still trying to find the right communication technique. The one that gets to every stakeholder in a project and motivates them perfectly to perform top quality work, safely, at the lowest possible price, on the schedule that we all agree to before the project starts.

Until then, common sense would seem to dictate that I continue juggling quality, safety, schedule and costs to get the best possible combination on every project.

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One subcontractor can control your project schedule.

Posted December 21, 2012 By tjflynn

It seems that all of my schedules are tight. Some because they must be to meet client deadlines. Some because the contractor diddles around before getting started. Some because permits or financing are delayed. Most of them however are tight because that’s one way to keep costs down.

Direct Overhead costs for small contractors that I use run roughly $3,000 to $5,000 per week. Therefore, cutting two weeks out of a schedule can mean the difference between a low bid and a losing one. Even on cost-plus jobs, I always fix the “Fee” to include these costs which puts the schedule responsibility where it ought to be-on the contractor.

So, if a project is rolling along and one particular subcontractor continues to delay…especially on a short scheduled project-it has to affect the overall schedule. For example: If you are renovating a restaurant and adding steel railings for safety to the patio and those steel railings are continually delayed…there will be schedule problems.

If the railings are not fabricated and pre-installed, they can’t be powder coated and finally installed. Nor can the Hardware supplier supply the proper closers and locks without seeing the gates.(Obviously we did not require shop drawings). Without the railings installed, the owner could not install tables and chairs, or the waitress stand and equipment. In addition final touch up paint could not be completed. All but the last item were required to be inspected by three agencies before a certificate of occupancy would be issued.

In this exact situation, I suggested that the superintendent stop calling the sub and visit his shop. If not for motivation, to at least scope out progress. He didn’t. For some reason, he wouldn’t. When I was contracting, I wouldn’t hire a sub until I had been to his place of business to see his operation. After that, I felt perfectly comfortable “dropping by” during a project to check production progress. I guess contractors now-a-days don’t do that.

We opened late on this project. It was directly attributable to the one subcontractor’s dereliction and the contractor’s inability to control him. And, I must add, my inability to control the contractor.

My common sense says: “Mr. Contractor, be proactive. Go to the sub’s shop and rattle his cage if he is not performing.”

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Changing horses in the middle of the stream

Posted December 20, 2012 By tjflynn

I had a job that, in retrospect, was outrageously wild-in every possible way. The permitting for this particular project was intense. We had site plan review after site plan review. The elevations were changed, at the city’s insistence, because the colors did not add up to the right brightness number (or something silly like that). There was a parking issue-even though we were taking over an existing restaurant that had a drivethru and our restaurant did not have a drivethru. The water management district and the state highway department could not agree on who was responsible to maintain the ditch where our runoff went. The Purchase Contract had a shorter fuze than it was possible to obtain permits. The buyer (my client) had hard money in the deal from the start and made a huge deposit before permits were issued. And then, there were the personality problems.

Our civil engineer was also our permit expediter (civil and architectural permits were required). This company was owned by a trusted friend whom many successful projects were completed with. He had multiple active projects with us at the time and we were skipping along nicely on all fronts…until. Until he had an offer to purchase his business that he could not refuse.

The guy that bought his business alienated the city’s engineer during a couple of meetings and the city guy called me to reign him in a little. That conversation led to me firing him for permit expediting and completing that task myself. Forgetting the headaches of travel between my office and the permitting office which were approximately a thousand miles apart. And forgetting the headache of getting myself up to speed on several issues which were in limbo between our engineer and the city engineer. And forgetting the tension between myself and our engineer…we finally got a permit and started construction.

The low bidding contractor was another nightmare. I had problems with the building for years. But, our new engineer came through like a champ during the certificate of occupancy process, going way beyond what any of us expected-way beyond what was usual to certify and test and review and document to the city’s standards (which I believe were made stricter on that job because of the issues we had).

Common sense about changing horses in the middle of the stream might be that, quality people do quality things…even if they start out rough?

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Is there any room for personal consideration in a project schedule?

Posted December 12, 2012 By tjflynn

Have you ever noticed that some projects flow smooth as warm butter-and some you need to drag along? I’ve had my share of both types of projects. Further, I have not yet found the magic way to start or the secret incantation to use to produce smooth projects every time.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The photo is of a project that I did in upstate New York. In spite of being several states away from my home base, designed by an architect that I only met on the phone and built by a contractor I didn’t know-coming from the other end of the state…it was a smooth project and it finished early.

My ego pushes to say that it was a shining example of my managerial skills! It wasn’t. After lots of review, critique and feedback from the client and consultants, we determined that our joint success was just a lucky mix of the right people on the right job at the right time.

That brings me around to the point of today’s post- If you determine that one of your team is dropping the ball…should you replace him or her?

I’ve been stubborn about this for my entire career, sending the weak link home most every time. On a seven-week restaurant remodel project, I kept getting bad vibes from the project superintendent. He was a week behind schedule after only 2 weeks on the job. The contractor assured me that he was experienced and fit. After another week, I determined to my satisfaction that the superintendent was over his head and told the contractor to replace him-or better yet, to run the job himself. Again, he talked me into letting the whomper-jawed monkey stay on the job. This decision led to me providing my client with an inferior product-late.

I should have sent him home that 2nd week

The very next project was another restaurant remodel with a four week schedule. This time I hand-picked my favorite contractor and my favorite superintendent. We negotiated a “cost plus a fee” contract and I thought I was gonna have a smooth sail. In fact, I determined that this was the best time for me finally pull the trigger on moving my home and business. Almost from the start, the superintendent had a dazed look that reminded me of once seeing a deer up close, on a dirt road with a spotlight. (Never mind what I was doing in the woods at night with a spotlight.) I went ahead and moved anyway. The project got further and further behind. I went from providing daily task sheets to hanging out on the job, following the super around.

You’ve all guessed by now that my presence on the job every day added to the super’s frustration (I found out later that he was having family troubles) and ultimately led to a confrontation that ended with him being sent home. The contractor sent a much less experienced man to finish the job. In my memory, at least, all he did was overeat and drink during training and pre-opening activities. This time the product was good-but late. In a future post, I’ll explore this question further.

For now I still lean toward taking the rotten apple out of the project barrell, but it is much more difficult and thought provoking when you know them.

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It pays to know the players

Posted December 11, 2012 By tjflynn

As a prelude to building a comprehensive development schedule for Dollar General stores, I identified all “Players” in the process.
1. Accountant
2. ACOE
3. Analyst
4. Appraiser
5. Architect
6. Attorney
7. Building Department
8. Building Contractor
9. Buyer
10. Cable Utility
11. Civil Engineer
12. Concurrency Dept
13. Dollar General
14. DOT
15. DRC
16. Ecologist
17. Electric Utility
18. EPA
19. Escrow Agent
20. Executive Committee
21. Fire Dept
22. Gas Utility
23. Health Depot
24. Insurance/Bonding Agent
25. Land Development Dept
26. Land Seller
27. Lender
28. Landscape & Irrigation
29. Owner/Developer
30. Owner’s Rep/Development Manager
31. Planning & Zoning Dept
32. Phone Utility
33. Public Utilities Dept
34. Real Estate Brokers
35. Signage
36. Sign Contractor
37. Site Contractor
38. Site Lighting
39. Site Permits
40. Soils/Environmental Engineer
41. Solid Waste Utility
42. Surveyor
43. Traffic Engineer
44. Water Utility
45. Water Management District

I then built a detailed schedule in MSProject that would have been the envy of a professional scheduler and his “Scheduling Professor”. Right here, I should probably admit that nobody understood the schedule-except me. It was bulky and complicated. And every time a consultant or permit department held up the schedule, I had to change dependencies to keep the turnover date the same. However, when I ran reports, everyone understood the dates that my partners and I expected their tasks to be completed.

The list of Players above may be of some use to the odd reader. At the very least it should make you think about all the moving pieces, and players that we are dependent on to complete projects.

Please consider, also, that some people may be players in multiple categories. For example, the Executive Committee in # 20 was made up of the Owner/Developers in # 29 and me in # 30. And the Soils Engineer in #40 was the same person as the Environmental Engineer.

All of this background is meant to point out that there may also be hidden or unannounced player-roles that can bite you in the you-know-what if you aren’t careful.

The first example goes back to 1968, when I was a lowly USMC Corporal in the tropical paradise of Vietnam. The details are not important. But, in retrospect, I may have been too forthcoming in my response to a question from an unknown Lieutenant who later became our Commanding Officer and refused to sign my promotion warrant until the day he rotated home.

The lesson here is that players can change positions

sarasota

On a project in Orlando where, I was the manager of design and construction for a franchisee, the contractor was also a principal in the franchise corporation and I didn’t know. Although I would do the same thing today, there were bad results for me when I firmly denied a payment request by the contractor that was obviously padded to his benefit. He ultimately got his money from that draw and I got the privilege of not working for any of his franchisees again.

The lesson here is that players may not disclose all of their roles.

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