Naturally, you want to keep your good employees, but too often Michael Stone of Markup and Profit has soon quality lead people quit in frustration. Too often, he says, that occurs because there isn't clear communication between the lead person and the person overseeing them.
As Stone puts it:
Communication isn't the proper word, because it's about more than explaining what should be done. Communication is part of it; you need to hold a pre-job layout on every job after it's sold, and the lead person is an important attendee at that meeting. We discuss the pre-job layout in our book Profitable Sales; it's the salesperson's responsibility to conduct that layout.
But you can't stop at just the pre-job meeting. If you're the owner, or if you're a job superintendent with multiple leads running jobs, it's your responsibility to check those jobs on a regular basis to make sure things are being done the way you want them done.
Stone then provides a checklist of this you need to discuss to make sure a job is going properly. "When you check jobs, if you find things happening that shouldn't be, or not happening that should, it's time for a discussion with the lead person," Stone says. "It's time to clearly communicate the problems you see and how they can be fixed."
Lead people on a job do their best, but they aren't mind-readers, Stone stresses. For more tips on how to communicate with them, check out his latest column.
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