Should You Have Company Meetings? – Episode #388

In this enlightening episode of Potty Talk, The Million Dollar Plumber and The Lovely Laura divulge the secrets to conducting fruitful company meetings. Don’t miss out on joining Richard for this valuable discussion

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Resources

• The Million Dollar Plumber Blueprint
• Success Academy

3 Golden Nuggets

1. Set the Tone
2. Keep ‘Em Under 30
3. Review Non-Negotiables

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Want to own a professional plumbing business? Then you need to hold meetings. Here’s why…

Set the Tone

Holding weekly meetings helps you set the tone, especially when you have them first thing on Monday morning.

This way, you get to start your weeks right, having addressed the essential things.

And even if your business is just you and another guy? Still have the meeting because it adds a sense of indisputable routine to your work week.

As for HOW to hold meetings? Here are a few ground rules…

1. Have them outside of your workstation
2. Always pay for meeting times
3. Never sit 
4. Separate the weekly meetings from training meetings

The location of your meetings is significant. See, you want to hold meetings somewhere comfortable where your men won’t mind sitting and maybe have breakfast together. Providing food at your meetings is always a good thing because it incentivizes your men to attend, breaks the ice, and keeps things nice and friendly.

But never, ever hold a meeting at your home OR the work location. Because you need to keep things professional, and meeting in your living room or just outside a customer’s house is the opposite of professionalism.

And while you’re keeping things professional–leaders never sit during meetings. That’s right, you have to separate yourself from your men. You’re not their pal; you’re their boss. So always stand during meetings. 

And if you need to hold training meetings to introduce a new tool or learn a new thing together, have those as part of your Monday meetings too. Because you want to have the least amount of meeting days to keep your men from feeling uncomfortable.

As for paying your men for meetings, if you require them to attend, you have to make up for the time you’re taking and include that time in their rate.

Keep ‘Em Under 30

As for how long meetings should be? Always keep them under 30 minutes!

Why? Because people can only listen for so long, so don’t force them to sit through a long talk they’ll likely forget later.

So try to keep your talks under 30–we recommend 20 minutes as an excellent sweet spot.

Remember, these meetings aren’t supposed to be for fun; they’re to review the essential things and keep things professional.

And always have a specific time set. If someone is coming in late for that meeting with a good excuse, you allow it; if it happens twice, you don’t let them in to show that rules are meant to be followed and that you’re serious.

And if you’re wondering what to talk about during those 20-30 minutes? Read on to find out.

Review Non-Negotiables

We’ve covered the how and the how long, and now we get to the why of meetings.

Why should you hold these weekly meetings, and what should you talk about?

You go over your non-negotiables. For 30 years over at our plumbing company, every Monday, we’d gather around for breakfast and go over the ground rules that the company runs on. For our plumbing business, there were only 3 rules…

1. Offer 3 options
2. Take “Good Job” notes
3. Clean and stock your truck

But these rules can be anything for your business–they must relate to your business culture. Things like keeping uniforms and trucks clean, treating Mrs. Jones with respect, cleaning a job site after you’re done, safety first, etc., are perfect examples of non-negotiables to go over in your meetings.

Anything other than these rules don’t need to be mentioned in meetings. Especially if you need to go over a mistake someone made–don’t hold a meeting for that! Just talk to the person privately, don’t make others sit through a talk that doesn’t concern them!

And for when you do have training meetings–keep them short and rare. Because if you keep having to train these men about everything, then you’re treating them like children when they’re professionals who know what they’re doing. So don’t have them rely on too many training meetings because… 

1. You’re making them uncomfortable by implying that they can’t figure it out themselves
2. You’re wasting your time 
3. You’re wasting your money 

(because, remember, you’re paying them to attend these meetings!)

So, keep your meetings short and sweet, to the point, and worth everyone’s time.

And now you know the why, the how, the how long, and the where of company meetings!

Richard’s Call to Action

If you want to learn more about numbers that matter and how to best run your plumbing business, why not schedule a free 30-min strategy call with us? Let’s talk about your goals and where you want to be this time next year, and we’ll help you create a path to make that happen. Schedule your free strategy call here today!