When you were a tech at someone else’s company, the customers loved you because you were the one tech who could actually fix things. And hey, you may have figured you didn’t need to be working for someone else anymore because you could start your own company and be your own boss.

I call it the entrepreneurial seizure moment when you decide to leave your steady paycheck, going for the brass ring and growing fast. And growing fast can mean taking on big marketing expenses and overpaying staff you hoped were preloaded with all the prerequisite skills and abilities to make it all work.

What most techs who left work to start their own company figured is that they could make their own hours, charge a little less, and the money would come flowing in.

Not necessarily so. The sad fact is almost eight out of 10 small businesses fail within the first several years of opening.

Wondering why? There’s so much more to running a successful contracting business than just being a good tech. And that’s the hard truth. The fact that you can fix things is great, but there’s a whole lot more to it than just fixing broken equipment.

Don’t get me wrong, actually knowing technical stuff for the work you do is helpful, but it can be a double-edged sword if you’re the only one who can run a call the right way (at least, in your mind, anyway). It automatically limits your growth.

You become stuck. And typically, you’ll end up blaming your staff for letting you down, or you’ll keep flailing away, just hoping for your next new hire to make it all work.

Sorry, but heavy is the head. It’s not them. It’s you! How do I know? Because I had to learn the lesson the hard way.

Based on the 26 years I put in at my own plumbing, heating, cooling, and electrical company (and now for 15 years working with contractors all over the U.S. and Canada), the only way to get out of this cycle is to put repeatable systems in place for the policies and procedures it takes to run your company without you.

And I’m on a mission to help contractors build operating manuals. Why would you invest the time, energy, and money to be a part of this exclusive program? Good question.

Well, I spent a year of my life just writing the outline of all the tasks our company did. Yes, just the outline. So, why would my family and I invest $153,000 in today’s money just to conduct hundreds of hours in meetings and write manuals based on them? Because those manuals paid for themselves in about two years.

Below is a list of just a few of the reasons why:

• Callbacks went down;
• We were freed up to do our jobs more efficiently, and that increased profits;
• Each job was a better job, which just happened to end up in bigger and, more importantly, better sales that benefited the customer first and foremost;
• We were able to hire more willing people and give them the skills they needed vs. always trying to rewire “talented” prima donnas who were skilled but held us hostage; and
• We were able to get our insurance company to re-rate us because we had fewer accidents and injuries than before.

Ever wonder where my tagline, “Run Your Contracting Business with Less Stress and More Success,” came from? Well, it started at my own company with the creation of the operating manuals, and it built from there.

You’re responsible because you sit at the head of the table. So, what’s it going to be in 2018 that’s going to make a bigger difference at your company?