Sliding Floors

He does a final sweep around the office and nods to himself. 14 years of hard work, triumphs and personal lessons – what an amazing journey it’s been. He hands over the keys, shakes hands and walks away.

Sales this last year are the best year he’s ever experienced. They were the worst floods the region had seen for years – the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie – and for Matt Johnson a silver lining was rent in those bilious grey storm clouds.

 As the mutual mop-up came to an end, the phone began to ring. And it rang, and it rang, and it rang…for days on end.

 The need to repair commercial flooring went through the roof. Schools, nursing homes, hospitals – the floods left a trail of destruction from Southern Queensland through Northern New South Wales.

 As the only specialist vinyl layer in the region, Matt was swamped with calls for help. His first quarter for the year exceeded the whole of last year’s turnover. And it showed no signs of slowing.

 Matt’s 28-year old son, Adam, returned from overseas to help him manage all the quotes and then he set about looking for someone to help with the office admin. He jumped at Judy, a 50-something woman, who’d previously worked in a local office, because he felt she would bring some maturity and stability to the small team.

 Matt and Adam worked in a frenzy. Adam’s mission was to bring some modern systems to the business so that they could streamline quoting and invoicing, and gain efficiencies in job allocation. Trouble was, he was at odds with Matt, who was used to doing things his own, highly manual way.

 Judy, it turned out, was also pretty set in her ways. She didn’t take too well to the new software Adam introduced and what’s more, she didn’t like problems. Anything that was even slightly out of the routine she handed straight to Adam, whose frustration grew by the day.

 While Matt and Adam always bent over backwards to treat clients well, Judy’s abrasive manner on the phone put a strain on the relationships Matt had worked so hard to cultivate over the years.

 So began a series of work-arounds, where Adam would try to answer every call. Great news for Judy, who now just busied herself with the things she preferred to do, but all it did for Adam was put him under even more pressure. The lofty ideas he’d had of revolutionizing and systemizing his Dad’s business were constantly shelved as he and Matt jerked and responded to the constant flow of new jobs.

 Both Matt and Adam avoided having the difficult conversation with Judy, resorting instead to ignoring her and giving her the few things they trusted her to do. As her resentment and disdain grew, she started her own little campaign of disruption.

 The final straw was when Matt discovered Judy had been passing confidential pricing information to one of their contractors, who had subsequently undercut them on a job for a long-standing client.

 Bracing himself for the confrontation he’d tried so long to avoid, Matt gave Judy her marching orders. Vitriol fuelled by guilt lashed him in a long stream of invective, as she slammed the office door.

 The cancer removed, both Matt and Adam breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived. The reality of managing a business that had grown too fast for it’s own structure took its toll.

 Having planned to give his Dad a year of help, Adam had applied, and been accepted, for another overseas contract.

 Matt was stuck. He was back on the tools and at night had neither the energy nor the inclination to develop the necessary systems or spend time finding the right replacement for both Adam and Judy.

 He does a final sweep around the office and nods to himself. 14 years of hard work, triumphs and personal lessons – what an amazing journey it’s been. He hands over the keys, shakes hands and walks away.

 The landlord saunters back to his waiting car.

 Matt’s tired. He’s too tired to even feel the anger any more. All that’s left now is an overwhelming sense of resignation and futility.  He asks himself how a booming business can be worth absolutely nothing after 14 years. But he knows the answer. It was the answer that fuelled his now dissipated anger. Without him, plus an office manager and some systems and operating procedures there really is nothing to sell. His client base perhaps, but with things crumbling around him, his competitors will likely pick off his clients one by one anyway. Why pay for what they can get by default?

 What he keeps asking himself is why he didn’t do something about making his business a “business” in the first place. Instead he just built himself a well-paid, but hard-on-the-body job, and now he’s paying the price.

 If only he’d taken a step back from the tools and spent time recruiting the right people, putting the brakes on the jobs flowing in, picking and choosing, instead of trying to appease everyone. He knows it wasn’t about greed; he just hates to disappoint anyone, so instead of saying “no”, his habit is to say “yes” …and now he’s paying the price.

 14 years and no nest-egg to show for it. He looks in the mirror and sees a failure. His dreams of leaving some kind of legacy for the future are shattered. He feels empty, and lost, and disillusioned.

 But there’s nothing to be done but move forwards.

 He does a final sweep around the office and nods to himself. 14 years of hard work, triumphs and personal lessons – what an amazing journey it’s been. He hands over the keys, shakes hands and walks away.

 Sales this last year are the best year he’s ever experienced. They were the worst floods the region had seen for years – the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie – and for Matt Johnson a silver lining was rent in those bilious grey storm clouds.

 As the mutual mop-up came to an end, the phone began to ring. And it rang, and it rang, and it rang…for days on end.

 The need to repair commercial flooring went through the roof. Schools, nursing homes, hospitals – the floods left a trail of destruction from southern Queensland through Northern New South Wales.

 As the only specialist vinyl layer in the region, Matt was swamped with calls for help. His first quarter for the year exceeded the whole of last year’s turnover. And it showed no signs of slowing.

 Taking stock of the situation, Matt knew he needed a strategy if he was going to survive this period of sudden growth and come out the other side with a business bigger than he could ever have imagined.

 But he’s out of his depth.

 He knows he needs help, but where to start?

 All his instincts tell him to get someone in to manage the office as quick as he can, but he’s grabbed at straws before and paid the price.

 He’s read somewhere recently about hiring slow, but firing fast, and that makes sense to him.

 Instead of saying yes to every plea for help that comes across his desk, he picks and chooses what he’ll accept – for now. He sets aside time each week to work out who he needs to help him: who’ll have the same work ethic as him; who’ll care as much about his clients as he does and how he’s going to test that when recruiting. He wants to take it slow and get it right. His future depends on it.

 He finds a coach who specialises in helping small business owners describe and find people who are the right fit, and as a result, he employs Steve after a lengthy recruitment process.

 Once Steve is getting the hang of things, he looks for someone to start mapping out their systems and processes so that they can create a procedures manual – a manual that will help all of them, but particularly new employees as they join the team.

 Whereas he needed someone who’s a good people manager while being organised for the Operations Manager role, he knows he needs someone detailed and systematic for the role that will oversee procedures.

 After a two-month search, he settles on Alicia. She’s organized, detail-oriented and looks for process.

 It’s taken 12 months, but finally the office is running like clockwork. He can concentrate on what he loves doing best: meeting clients and solving their flooring problems creatively. He’s got a team of highly skilled contractors who are all trained in the way they do things around here – right down to the way Matt likes them to speak to clients.

 At last, after 14 years of hard work, Matt feels it’s time for him to move on to the next phase of his life: one of travel, investing, renovating and surfing where and whenever he feels like it.

 He does a final sweep around the office and nods to himself. 14 years of hard work, triumphs and personal lessons – what an amazing journey it’s been. He hands over the keys, shakes hands and walks away.

 The half a million dollars hit his bank account yesterday and the new owner is over the moon that Matt will still be around to offer advice and step in now and again to help out when they win big jobs. But for now, the surf is calling and Matt has a date with the ocean.

 There’s everything to be gained by moving forwards.

 If you’d like help finding the right person – the person who can free you up to have the lifestyle you got into business for in the first place – we need to talk.

 Give me a call this week on 0404 010 837 and let’s have a conversation.

 Hiring someone who shares your values and your vision takes a very different approach – it’s not about hiring for skill.