Keep Your Promises? Probably Not to This Person.

I love working with contractors because they’re hard-working, blue-collar types. Dependable, loyal, consistent and all those other words that describe good, solid men and women who work with their hands to provide a service.

Many owners in this industry started at the bottom rung, cutting their teeth fresh out of trade school as someone’s apprentice, and then developed a love for a job that eventually made them small business owners. Building a successful business demands you to be trustworthy. Creditors must take a chance on you, employees must believe in you and homeowners must trust you enough to let you into their homes and complete the job, right? Without those things, you’re going nowhere.

So, for years you’ve been keeping your promises to customers with quality service, to employees by working long hours and to the man by paying the bills on time. But, do you know who we rarely ever keep our promises to? Ourselves.

My Word Is My Bond, Unless It’s My Word to Me

When you have a goal to work toward and make a promise to yourself that you’re really going to dedicate yourself this time, what happens as soon as your promise conflicts with one made to someone else? I know the answer to that. We put our dreams on hold in the name of good business, right? Putting others first is rarely ever a mistake, but when it causes important things to continually be put on hold, we know problems are on the way. Or, more commonly, one of the promises we’ve made to ourselves starts to get tough, and that’s when the issues start. There’s more money, time or work involved than first thought, and we fold. But let me ask you, if it were a promise to someone else, would you give up so easily? Probably not. You’d fight tooth and nail, work the overtime, front the money, whatever it took to come through and be good on your word because that’s the kind of person you are. So why does our word mean something is absolutely going to get fixed, UNLESS we make that promise to ourselves?

Who’s It Really Hurting?

Mostly us because we feel if consequences fall on our shoulders it’s okay if it’s just us who feels the pain. You promised to lose weight this year and when you gave up by February you thought, “Oh well, it’s me who still has to carry around this spare tire.” But what we don’t consider is that breaking our own promises for self-improvement affects many more people than we know. It’s not just you who’s affected if an unhealthy lifestyle ends with a heart attack… now it’s your family and friends who’ve paid a steep price for your broken promise. This is especially true with business owners. The promises you make to yourself to improve affect every employee and customer you have. And the negative is also true, they are hurt when you give up half-way there. “I’ll get around to it,” has cost more people their livelihood than any single phrase ever spoken.

So, let’s reign this thought in a little. I’m not your doctor so I won’t shame you into trading your double cheeseburger for celery sticks. But I am a trained marketing coach who sees good contractors struggle growing their businesses, and follow-through is the main cause. You’ve probably left trade shows with a plastic bag full of brochures that could all change your business if you gave them the attention they deserved. And you were planning to, that’s why you picked them up and told yourself, “Things are going to be different this year! I’m going to blow the roof off this thing!” But soon the bag full of could-have-been is tossed in the corner of your office, then in the trash can. Year after year you’ve got the best of intentions and some great ideas, but they never get put into action.
Here are some tips to help them change from empty promises into game changers.

#1 First, you must believe it can happen.

Sounds simple enough, right? If I were to ask you, “Do you WANT to grow?” The easy answer is, “Of course!” But there’s a reason every contractor out there isn’t swimming in piles of cash. Only some want to grow AND are willing to do what it takes to get there. Ninety-nine percent of our hopes fail simply because we never really believed the change could happen in the first place. “Maybe some people can pull that off, but not me.” Well, the answer is, yes, it can happen for you, and there’s a pretty simple formula. Marketing, when done correctly, works, and there were 223 billion advertising dollars spent in the U.S. last year to prove someone believes that. But it doesn’t happen magically; it takes investment and persistence to get you there, so the first hurdle is simply believing it can happen for you. If you don’t believe that, you’ll never be willing to make the required investments.

#2 Don’t let FEAR take you out before you get started.

A much more common hurdle presents itself next. The thought of growing can be scary. It’s new, it’s unpredictable and it messes with our routine… basically, it makes us uncomfortable. “Can I handle it? Do I know how to manage this? What if I have to hire new people?“ You might actually be sabotaging yourself from the start because you’re afraid of success. Success brings high rewards, but it also takes risks, so most contractors are happy sitting right where they are. Stable and… stagnant. But listen carefully, the market is ever changing with new competition popping up daily, I don’t think you can afford to sit in a rut too long.

Business Insider Magazine ran an article titled, “Why Most Small Businesses Get in Their Own Way” that said this – “Most small business owners spend all their time focusing on how to make it as a coffee shop or restaurant in town, and little to no time thinking about how to become THE coffee shop or restaurant in town. Their focus is just on surviving instead of thriving, and ironically that’s what leads to them shutting their doors.” There’s a lot of wisdom there. Most areas have multiple contractor options for homeowners to choose from, and all promise quality service at a fair price. You know what they don’t have? They don’t have your ideas on how to better serve your market. So, let them be scared to move forward while you make the changes to become THE contractor in town.

#3 Don’t try it alone.

I started this article by bragging on you, so I hope it softens this blow a little. For all of the great qualities that contractors have, the common attitude of, “I don’t need any help, I’ll figure this out myself” is a killer. One of the major keys to success in anything is accountability. There’s a reason why people pay personal trainers and financial planners thousands each year – we need help staying on track. The American Society of Training and Development found you have a 65% chance of completing a goal if you commit to someone. And if you have a specific accountability appointment with a person you’ve committed to, you will increase your chance of success by up to 95%. Find a marketing coach that you trust, develop a plan together and stick to it. Schedule regular meetings to check progress, and if nothing else, this will keep you encouraged as you see your dream taking shape.

No, it’s not easy to keep promises to ourselves. If it were, we’d all have six-pack abs and be multi-millionaires… sadly, that’s not the case. It’s the contractors who are willing to believe in their good ideas and follow through with them who rise to the top.