On this episode of the Profit Roadmap, we welcome Justin Woodford and Caleb Esuary!
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Pro tips for conducting effective meetings
- Team communication tools and strategies
- Leading ways to create a cohesive hybrid work environment
Getting Started in Field Services
Our first guest, Justin Woodford, has been in the service business for over 20 years. Initially running a College Pro Painters franchise while attending the University of Rhode Island for electrical engineering and business, Justin started Two Brothers Painting with his brother, Dan, in 2008. After this venture, Justin has continued down an entrepreneurial path with his landscaping company, 855RILAWNS, and his real estate business, Yorktown Properties, LLC.
Justin’s highly refined work habits, systems, and processes have enabled him to step away from the day-to-day and remotely monitor and optimize his businesses. After becoming a Service Autopilot Certified Advisor in 2018, Justin started his consulting business, Ready Business Systems.
Ready Business Systems specializes in helping service businesses produce $1-10 million in annual sales, to free time and increase profits through expert marketing, system building, and automation.
Our second guest, Caleb Esuary, has been in his family’s business, Complete Heat and Air, in Easly, South Carolina for 12 years. He was only the fourth employee when he got his start in the family business as an installer. In 2014, their business grew enough to need a full time person, so he began managing their office. Since then, he’s helped grow their family business from six employees and $840K in revenue to 43 employees and $10M+ in revenue.
Caleb has been involved in all aspects of managing an HVAC business—creating processes, training new employees, administrative work, HVAC service, installation and sales.
Now, Caleb serves as the vice president of Complete Heat and Air.
How Hybrid Work Has Changed the Game
Justin talks about how a remote work environment has provided a better quality of life for his employees. They don’t have to spend time and money commuting back and forth to the office.
Additionally, it provides an opportunity for businesses to eliminate office expenses and all that comes with it. However, he mentions it can make managing your team more challenging.
Alternatively, Caleb discusses how he is the only hybrid employee on his team. He talks about how he enjoys the flexibility of working from home.
Also, Caleb mentions how he tends to be more productive working at home than at the office because there are less distractions since there aren’t coworkers at home to converse with.
Likewise, Justin finds he’s largely more productive at home than he is at the office because of the minimal distractions and sidebar conversations.
Caleb talks about how having a totally separate, dedicated office space in his house is one of the most important aspects of working from home. This minimizes distractions and also creates crucial boundaries between work and personal life.
Top Strategies for Developing Strong Internal Communications
Caleb discusses how his field workers communicate through a digital tool (like FieldEdge). This allows his field workers to upload videos into the cloud so if the office can get all of the information they need to give an appropriate quote or order a specific part.
On the office side, Caleb’s team uses WhatsApp for group chats. They have entire company groups where they celebrate the big wins with the team. Then, they have individual group chats for their different departments, such as sales, service, and installation. Plus, you can have WhatsApp on desktops.
Alternatively, Justin’s team uses a wide variety of tools to communicate within the company. For instance, Justin Google Voice to separate his personal and work life on his phone.
Additionally, his company uses emails and Slack to internally communicate. They use Ringcentral to manage and redirect calls.
Leading Ways to Conduct Effective Meetings
Justin talks about how his company uses a Google Docs outline with timeframes for each portion of the meeting. Similarly, Caleb’s company uses a Word Docs outline with goals, topics, and an agenda for the meeting.
Caleb says his team always starts with their mission, vision, and value statements to bring the team together. Then, they always try to kick off the meeting with some “wahoos,” meaning the good things going on in everyone’s personal lives. He talks about how this brings everyone together before they focus on the work stuff.
Expert Tips to Cohesive Team Communications
Justin and Caleb discuss some of their best tips for developing expert tips for cohesive team communications:
- Transparent with the team
- Coach privately and praise publicly
- Keep information public and open for the team using a cloud drive
- E.g. Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.
- Clarify company values to ensure everyone on the team is in unison
- Take advantage of a project planners so your team can see what different departments are working on
- E.g. Monday, Trello, Microsoft Planner, Calendly, etc.
Streamline Team Communications in Your Service Business Today
Developing cohesive communications and effective meetings takes time and dedication to your team. The evolving field service landscape into hybrid work makes solid communication strategies increasingly important.
Want to learn more about Justin and Ready Business Systems? Check out these links below:
Want to learn more about Caleb and Complete Heat and Air? Check out these links below:
Related: Growing Your Brand on Social Media With Naylor Taliaferro
The following music was used for this media project:
Music: Summon the Rawk by Kevin MacLeod
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/4434-summon-the-rawk
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
