The company described above needs a focused product to sell, smart business systems and competent people to make the company go.

As a hard working technician who wants to professionally develop on board a ship with a destination, how do you know whether or not your owner is capable? Or, if you are trying to hook up with a company to get you there, how will you be able to recognize a competent captain?

Read Built to Sell. This is an easy to read story about a business owner who desperately wants to sell his business and enjoy his family and life. To help envision what sort of shape his business is in think: 1973 Ford Pinto for sale. Proceeds to finance my daughter’s education at Harvard. What does Aerosmith say? Dream on, dream on, dream on.

While this is a work of fiction, it is an example of real life businesses and their often misguided owners. The business owner gets a family friend to help him turn his company around and make it into a desirable and sellable company.

The process in which this company turns around is the map you need to help identify a competent company to work for. The author, John Warrillow, weaves this process into eight steps. While some of the steps will not pertain directly to your quest, the ones that do are enough. Here are the first five:

1. Create a Standard Service Offering. This means selling a service that your company is really good at.
2. Create a Positive Cash Flow Cycle. You’ll hear it on the street if the owner doesn’t have positive cash flow. “Sorry Bob, XYZ Mechanical is three months behind payment. You’ll have to get a check if you want this item today.”
3. Hire a Sales Team. John recommends at least two salesmen. Competition upholds a healthy atmosphere. Consider it a humongous red flag if the owner is the company salesman.
4. Stop Accepting Other Projects. This one might be the key. Your company needs to do what it is wired to do. If you are trying to perform work you are incapable of, everyone suffers.
5. Launch a Long-Term Incentive Plan for Managers. This is a very cool one. You need your manager to be engaged and relatively happy at what he is doing (remember he is your career’s primary ally).

Items six, seven and eight are not really relative to your mission.

For the most part, owners are sincere people who want to do right by their family, self and you, their team member. To be brutally real however, many are not cut out for this role. This doesn’t mean that you disrespect them, make fun of them and talk about them behind their back. It simply means that you shouldn’t be working for them.

Pick up a copy of John’s book today and get yourself on a ship with a destination that helps your family, personal development and career.

Matt Michel, author of Comanche Marketing and CEO of the Service Roundtable, pens an article titled “Creating Positive Imprints on the Self-Image.” Matt tells a story about how Lanny Bassham, an Olympic athlete created positive imprints on his self-image and went from a silver to gold medal performance.

We’ve spoken quite a bit here about how important our physical image is. Matt provides a different perspective on image, one which is every bit as important. Place yourself into Matt’s story. Think about the action and process you will take to produce an enhancement in your own game, the game of the professional technician.

Lenny’s company is called Mental Management Systems. Check it out when you have a chance.

Also, keep this story in the back of your mind. In the future I am going to write about ideas to help you along in the process of making that desired self-image come true.

Yesterday was twenty-five years ago and if Bill had kept in touch with Bob he’d have known Bob was on the way up and destined for positions of greater responsibility. If Bill had kept in touch with Bob maybe he wouldn’t still be working for PT Mechanical and climbing ladders with knees that belonged in a museum. If Bill had kept in touch with Bob maybe he’d be more aware of opportunities that other techs took advantage of.

Should you keep in touch with a guy like Bob in hopes of riding along on his coat tails to bigger and brighter things? No. You should keep in touch with Bob because Bob is the type of person who wants to make himself better. He wants to know all about the latest technology and he wants to become the best professional that he can be.

A general manager position would never be a fit for Bill nor would he ever want to be a manager of any kind. But Bill could have been a technical trainer…if he had wanted to be. And if he had pursued that path of professional development and stayed in touch with Bob, most likely Bob would have considered hiring him. Or could have hooked him up with a decent company.

The point is, if you want to make the most out of your career, hang out or at least stay in touch with guys like Bob. Have a cup of coffee with them every once in awhile. Send them a congratulations note when you hear of their promotions. Be a sponge when they offer advice and ask them for help when you need it.

“Not bad advice Dave. Now about that bit about lugging senior technician’s tool bags around…”

No matter how fair or unfair it is, you are being judged. Yes, it’s your private life and yes, you should be able to do as you please. And you can. But you’re still being judged. Why not make this work in your favor? (My suggestion doesn’t involve cool whip).

In the future we’ll be talking more about developing a focused online presence that showcases who you are and what you can do, but for now, let’s keep it simple.

Be respectful – when you’re writing and commenting online, be decent to the other guy. I listened in on an online HVAC talk forum the other day. There was a technician who is in his early twenties participating in a discussion with senior techs. As the conversation begins to degenerate, the tech has this to say: “but anyway too all the grumpy guys who are talking about me *middle fingers*”

The grumpy guys are mostly senior technicians who, if treated with respect, would give this guy the world. If I were a service manager and thinking about hiring this twenty-something year old, and I discovered what he said online, I wouldn’t give him one more second of consideration.

Help people out – In this same online discussion two or three other technicians are offering the young tech advice, encouraging him to be respectful. If as a hiring service manager I came upon these guys online, I would want to know more about them.

If you participate in an online forum or comment on someone’s blog or write on your Facebook page, always try to help people out.

Online security settings – Most communities like Facebook, allow you to set your own security settings. This way you can only allow access to people you know. Make sure to make adjustments accordingly.

Lets say you realized that your online behavior will cost you the opportunity to get jobs. While it’s impossible to go back and erase what you’ve done, first, begin to help people online. Or if you have little experience, demonstrate online that you are a student who wants to learn. After awhile a pattern of good behavior will emerge online. A competent hiring manager will notice this. You’ll still have a lot of work to do, in regards to your previous behavior, but at least you will not be a victim of the DELETE key.

Don't Even Think About it!

Actually, this is when it matters more than ever. This is when you separate yourself from Average Joe technician. Because Average Joe is going to think it won’t matter if he lets his appearance go one day. And when no one comments to Average Joe that day, he’ll think (and we use the term think liberally), jeeeze, what’s the big deal? But people notice, they notice more than you realize. They make a little negative mental note about you and file it away. Rest assured, when you least expect it, they’ll bring it back up and slap it all over you.

Don’t give in. Don’t give up. Be a relentless warrior and fight for what you know is right. If you do, no one will ever think of you as Average Joe.

Image from Bryan Z on Flickr

Don’t be rude to people…especially, especially, especially your loved ones!

As a dear friend and person who I look up to says,

Hug your kids.

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of objective people and endure honest criticism; To appreciate beauty; To find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, by a well-raised child or social improvement; To know even one person has breathed a little easier because you lived; To accomplish this is to have succeeded.  – Harry Emerson Fosdick

The idea for The Technician Shop first came to me in 2004 when I began to question, who out there was trying to help technicians with their work, career and education? I ran my idea by a person of whom I had tremendous respect for. This gentleman was a warrior. He crusaded for a professionally, improved contractor world. While he loved contractors, he knew they were a stubborn lot and slow to make changes for the better. So he battled them toe to toe, hammering home his you-need-to-change-viewpoint and the reasons that you did. As a ballplayer, I never hit that many home runs, but my hero was Babe Ruth. As a professional, I didn’t have (and still don’t) what it took to battle contractors, but this guy did and he was my hero. So when he spoke, you can best believe I listened.

He said, “I caution you about asking contractors what they are looking for in Techs, they don’t really know yet. Better to ask Techs what would make being a tech job a proud job to have.”

So, why are you proud to be a technician?

Of course, if you’d rather sit there and listen to me tell you how you have to sell more stuff…

Did you ever think about how a waitress could control her own destiny? The better service that she renders, the more tips she makes, right? Maybe her service is so good people will want to return and ask to be seated in her section. What do you think her boss will think when people continue to ask for her? And how do you suppose she feels – to know that her customers appreciate her.

As a technician, do you suppose it would be to your advantage to have customers asking for you? How do you suppose your manager would feel about customers continually asking for you?

Over time, if you pay attention, you’ll learn what customers appreciate about the service you render. Today, we’re going to let you in on a trade secret that successful waitresses use. You’ll no doubt begin to get positive results from it right away too. Here it is:

Show the customer that you are glad to be there, glad that she is your customer.

Remember, small steps forward. No worries. We’ll continue to talk about other ways of helping you at the point of customer contact, but for now, let your customer know that you are glad to be there.

Photo by sourjayne on Flickr

Today, I’m recommending the whole darn book. Living in More Than One World by Bruce Rosenstein. Bruce’s book is based upon the teachings of perhaps the greatest management teacher of all time, Peter Drucker. Living in More Than One World is all about you, not your manager (though it would be to him in his own sense).

Bruce’s book is centralized around what he calls a total life, which consists of family, friends, work, education, associates and affiliation groups. What caught my eye is how this philosophy parallels what I described in It’s All About You.

In an interview with Bruce, Peter Drucker described people who were satisfied and content as those who lived in more than one world. A quick view of the book’s chapters will provide more clarity:

• Designing your total life
• Developing your core competencies
• Creating your future
• Exercising your generosity
• Teaching and learning
• Launching your journey

Early on in the book you will note that Bruce writes this book for knowledge workers, a term that Drucker coined back in the 1950′s. Here is his definition:

People who work with what they know and can learn and who thus own and control their own means of production. Their knowledge is portable and not dependent on any particular employer or industry.

You might have heard that knowledge workers are white collar workers. They are, but technicians who are frequently described as blue collar workers, also fall into this class. Maybe even more so, as continuing education is almost mandatory for technicians who must engage their minds before they can engage their hands.

Living in More Than One World is an excellent, MUST read book! By the way, Bruce’s book is hot off the press. Recommend a copy to your coworkers and manager.

*I have read extensively on marketing, writing, design, management, personal branding and leadership and would be happy to recommend books, learn your point of view or trade information away from this forum if you’re interested.

Image by NASA / Goddard Space Flight Center