Measurement That Matters

We're warned that pride is a bad thing. And I fully understand. Pride entraps its victim in a blanket of mock superiority on its way to personal doom. Boasting becomes pride. Pride becomes conceit. Conceit becomes no one.

Funny, but the ever-boasting blowhard of self-achievement 'thinks' that their accomplishments make them more attractive, more fun to be around, more likable. None are true. Just as this paragraph started, they make you a blowhard. Knowing all this...

My son graduated from High School this past weekend. I am proud of him. There, I said it. He got a scholarship in an honors program. He won the headmaster's Award for Excellence. And all this was achieved with at least half of his parents not being all that great of a student (guess which one!).

If my chest pokes out any further, I will have Eva Mendez' profile... or snap a rib. So I'll stop.

The thing about school is that they 'measure'. Scores are scores, grades based thereupon, college acceptance/scholarships directly correlative, segments sliced accordingly. "Oh, you made a 33 on the ACT test? You go in this stack. And you with the 18, you go over here."

In the job world, the surface measurement is usually money. This - along with pride - is another set up for the Scriptural Sin Grab Bag. Sure, many worthy alternative definitions of success abound: title, influence, responsibility, result, impact. All are important; all worthy of your focus. Harder to measure, but worthy.

Yet here is THE problem with most contractors' measurement and focus Click to see how many thousands of people he can offend in 2 sentences or less...

Many contractors drastically decrease the effectiveness of their marketing and advertisements by choosing poor timing or demographics.  Too few leads in 'off-peak' season; too many leads when the weather hits. The 21-Day Method is an answer to poor timing of Direct Response offers, saving thousands in misspent marketing dollars, wisely 'partnering' with the weather instead of 'waiting on' or 'fighting' it.

The 21-Day Method also serves to "level out" seasonal fluctuations, allowing a steady stream of lead generation by going from a smaller list of excellent and most-likely respondents to successively less qualified - but much larger - lists.  While you are decreasing the quality of your prospects, you are increasing the quantity, resulting in a steady and level workload throughout the off-season. This works for service or replacements.

I always knew childhood pool games would come back
to haunt people...

What kind of training do you invest in for you or your staff?