Brian Kaskavalciyan argues that contractors and business owners need to make hard staffing decisions to reach profitability. He uses the example of a long-tenured employee named Jim who can't meet sales targets or adapt to new processes and needs to be let go, no matter his seniority. Profit requires clear standards and the willingness to remove underperformers.
I know lots of contractors that were not making money, but then went to a, one of our profit workshops or got involved with somebody that showed them here's how to be profitable. And then they went to work and they made hard decisions. It's not easy because you got to change your pricing, which means you probably have to raise your pricing, which means if you have salespeople, they're probably going to revolt. How do you deal with that? I've had people basically fire their entire sales team and start over again because they could not hit the right numbers, the type KPIs. So if they're not hitting the KPIs, how do you expect to make any money in the business? So you got to make hard decisions, and a lot of people aren't willing to make the hard decisions. They'll deal with, oh, that's Jim, he does it his way. Jim's been here for 15 years. Oh, we can't teach Jim how to do the new system. Oh, Jim doesn't like it when we leave, but Jim's been here for 15 years. Jim's got to go. If Jim can't follow the training, if he can't follow the process, if he can't close at the expected rate, then Jim's got to go. You have to ask, hey Jim, do you want to improve? Here here's where the business is going. Here are the standards that we have set in this business. And if you can't meet those standards, I'm sorry, Jim, but this might not be the right place for you.
