Left Turns and Peanuts

The year 2020 has brought about many changes to what “business as normal” really means. Some of those changes have been forced on you through mask mandates, social distancing and regulations. But other changes are being made by smart business owners adapting to survive, and it’s not always a major overhaul that’s needed.

When our systems and procedures aren’t producing the desired results, an easy temptation is to just firebomb the whole thing, burn it to the ground and start over. Sales manager isn’t closing enough system replacements? Fire him, and promote someone else to fill the position. Lead count not what it used to be? Well, let’s just scrap everything we’ve been doing and try something completely different. That sounds simple enough, and Albert Einstein taught us that only insane people keep doing the same things over and over and expect the outcome to be different. But you would not believe how often in consultations with contractors I find that HUGE overarching changes aren’t needed to fix problems. They’re usually just a few simple tweaks and some attention to detail away from seeing vastly improved results.

I recently found a strange bit of trivia about one of the largest shipping companies in the world, UPS. You probably cross paths with one of their big brown trucks on a daily basis, but there’s one common thing that you rarely see them do – turn left. UPS employs 55,000 delivery drivers who average 100 - 150 deliveries per day. That’s a logistical nightmare that would make any dispatcher have a panic attack. Actually, delivery route planning on 5 - 8 million deliveries per day is too large a project for the company to hassle with at all. So, they leave 99% of that to the individual driver with one company policy that’s been around since the 70s… “Plan your routes efficiently and only turn left if absolutely necessary.”

Somewhere down the line, an incredibly intelligent person noticed that turning left across traffic was less efficient because the wait times are longer, and a left-hand turn is more than three times more likely to result in an accident as you cut across oncoming flow. Long story short, this small tweak ends up saving the company an estimated $14 million a year in fuel conservation and fewer accident claims.

Or how about this one: Delta Airlines hands out 61 million bags of peanuts each year (in a normal non-COVID year) and almost the equivalent bags of pretzels. In 2009, they made the appalling decision to short all their unsuspecting patrons one peanut or pretzel out of each bag, hoping we wouldn’t notice. We didn’t. There was no outrage, and it’s been saving the company millions of dollars per year ever since. Small changes made in the right spots can bring HUGE changes in the long run.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking. These are Fortune 500 companies dealing in tremendous amounts of volume. If you tell your techs not to turn left anymore or say the new company policy is to use 1/10 of an inch less PVC per call to reduce overhead, you’ll get some strange looks. But the concept is the same. UPS didn’t spend millions of dollars on software development and operations staff trying to efficiently manage an untamable logistics monster, they simply studied what caused inefficiency and implemented a simple solution. You can do the same.

Did you know a small change in the verbiage or manner of your sales presentations can probably result in a significantly higher closing ratio? Do you know the verbiage and manner your team is using now that’s not getting the desired results? It’s time to start paying attention and get out your red pen. A simple tweak or even some sales training is MUCH cheaper than hiring or promoting someone new for that position, only to run the risk of having the exact same issues. Did you know that many customers willingly give their email addresses or submit reviews if they’re simply asked by the tech? This is a quick procedural change that could lead to tons of marketing gold accumulated over a year’s time. If your website isn’t producing the leads or Google ranking you want, maybe it’s time to scrap it all and start over with another vendor, but maybe it’s not. How about a 10-minute conversation with a trained pay-per-click (PPC) expert first to see if just a few keyword changes could turn on the light switch? Outdated content could be your problem, or even a misplaced form. Doesn’t it make sense to examine all the easier solutions first before spending the next month on a full website overhaul?

Like I said, many contractors are just a few small tweaks away from success, but instead of letting a trained eye help them with the fine tuning, they get frustrated and hop from vendor to vendor, stopping and starting the process over and over. Don’t throw your hands up and buy a whole new system every year when your problem might be as simple as changing out your filter.

Over almost two decades of helping contractors solve their marketing problems, we’ve seen every type of frustration under the sun. Let us be your outside, highly-trained eyes to look over what you’re doing and offer some simple suggestions. Quite honestly, you might need a complete reboot from the floor up, and if that’s the case, we can help with that too. But more often than not, we’ll suggest some simple action items you can implement almost immediately to improve ROI, closing ratio, leads and retention.

Contact me directly at [email protected] or call (800) 489-9099 to book a free consultation. I can’t promise I’ll find a peanut that will save you millions, but it’s definitely worth looking.