Anthony Made SIMA's Snow Business Magazine!

After the historic twenty-two inches October snow we had here in southern NH Knott's had to get back to our scheduled landscaping work. Pictured in "Snow Business" - the trade journal for the Snow & Ice Management Association (November/December 2011 volume) (SIMA) - is Anthony Vaccaro a dedicated Account Representative who stepped-in to help us complete a planting job.

To read the digital version follow the link:

http://goplow.com/current-issue/september-2011-current-issue.html

Innovative (Crazy?) Training Method

How May I Serve? Train your staff.


Training is important. It teaches the staff member how things are to be done. At Knott's there are certain procedures to follow and particular ways of working. This is information that the new staff member needs. Veteran staff also require training as new way of working or planting a tree, spreading treated salt, etc have been developed.



Training also helps to create a sense of camaraderie, purpose and is used as a tool towards getting buy-in with the company vision and goals. Training is another way to serve your staff (How May I Serve?).



Our training program is by no means perfected, but in the last year or two we have really tried to step it up. As usual, we are creating our own programs. (Re-inventing the wheel is one of my hobbies :).)



Anyway, I am not going to bore you with a soliloquy about the merits of training, but I did need to include some text about the attached videos.



These are obviously home-made, but I wanted to share them. We took leaves and grass, etc that are composting and spread them into the parking lot, then used a plow truck to move them back to the bin. Plowing snow is gathering, containing, moving and relocating material. So in lieu of having any snow to plow we used the above-mentioned materials as snow. (Please forgive the assumed Aussie accent of one of my staff!). It may not be the best idea, but it is an attempt.



If you have questions feel free to contact us or use the comments section below. Even if you hate it, we want to know. DK

How May I Serve?

I am promoting this sentence and philosophy as a sales and marketing strategy. No, this does not make me crazy. Having a focus on service towards others is not only an excellent way to live, but can provide more sales. As long as your focus is not on more sales, but service. (No, this is not Catch22.)


A case in point.


Several years ago Knott's Land Care, LLC purchased our first articulated wheel loader; a 1980 1/2 1.25 yard bucket machine (I am intentionally omitting the brand) via a private sale - no dealer was involved. It had about 7600 hours on the meter and was in decent shape. The machine's intended use was to plow snow. Wow, was I excited. We had loader! We could really move snow.


Two transmission lines broke during the first storm of the season. The machine was down on the side of a state highway for a few hours with a police officer who was quickly growing impatient with the hunk of metal that was clogging his highway.



I called the closest brand-name dealer who was about thirty-five minutes away (in good weather) who was unwilling to give me a crossover hydraulic oil as I could not get to their location in the snow. I felt I had nowhere to turn and ended up calling a local dealer of another brand. I had purchased a few small items from this dealership over the years and the construction equipment salesman would come to call on occasion. The salesman had just departed from the dealership, but he turned around and picked up two five-gallon buckets of hydraulic oil and delivered them on-site to our waiting mechanic.


I thanked the salesman profusely and said to myself and staff to note this man's service to us. We were not a steady customer, but he saved us in the middle of a snow storm. His service not only saved us money, but allowed us to get back up and running and serve our clients.


This happened approximately four winters ago. The following winter we purchased a loader from him and this autumn we purchased two brand new 95HP agricultural tractors with plows/pushers and one used loader with a pusher. In the spring we will purchase approximately five commercial mowers, blowers, trimmers, etc from his dealership.


I prefer a different brand of tractors and loaders. However, the service this dealership provides overcomes any equipment specific objections. They appreciate our business. Without directly saying it they ask the question; "How May I Serve?".

Passion

Passion. Do you have it?

On a recent Saturday my wife and I arrived at the office after dropping our daughters at their weekly arts and crafts meeting. It was mid-afternoon and my youngest son, who is four, was with us. He was supposed to attend the arts and crafts meeting, but his shyness would not allow him to enter our friend's residence.


While enroute to the office, after the four-year old decided that we were a safer bet than the arts and crafts meeting, he began to ask me if he could use the shop-vac to clean the garage. I asked him if he would vacuum my office, the hall and the conference room upstairs instead. He agreed and vacuumed these areas with a wonderful infectious enthusiasm. (I am also proud to report that he missed close to nothing, performing his task with excellence.)

Passion.

This little boy has a passion to please my wife and me, a passion to vacuum and a passion to engage in activities performed by his older siblings and adults. If, as adults, we were able to keep the purity of intent, detachment from self and gratitude and joy, in our work that the four-year has would not our work lives be better? Would not our customer service be the best? Would not our work be top-notch every single day?


I know if I was able to capture his enthusiasm and brought it to work daily, it would spread to my staff and clients and we could conquer the world, never mind our local market. What if this passion was applied to the day-to-day challenges of our marriages, friendships, peers and co-workers? What if we brought it to the organizations where we volunteer, or our clubs, or churches? What if we brought it to the check-out line at the grocery store? Would we be better leaders?


Passion. Do you have it? If not, can you find it? The little boy does and can.

A Weather Service?

During the winter Knott's Land Care, LLC hires a weather service.

Really? Why? Wow, that sounds expensive! I just watch the local weather. I have an app on my smart phone. The preceding is a list of remarks that I usually get when I tell (brag) about our weather service ( http://www.hometownforecastservice.com/ ).

By partnering with a weather service during the winter months, we are able to better monitor current and future weather conditions. Access to this information enables us to make intelligent decisions about when to anti-ice, when a storm will be hitting and more importantly what is going on during an event.

The price is not nearly as expensive as one would assume. The service can actually be a money saver. There have been many times that other companies thought salt was necessary and they salted. We did not because of the information provided by our weather service. One less salting pays for the service for the entire season. It is also better for the environment to only apply chemicals as needed. There are also times when we were salting and others were not. They should have been salting and did once they realized the situation.

Daily reports arrive via email. Updates arrive as needed as an event approaches and during the event we are able to discuss with real meteorologists what the storm is doing in real-time. The fact that our service is in touch with the local airport and has access to their in-ground temperature gauges is even more information that we have that most others in our area do not.

A weather service is another tool in our box. It provides us with critical information. It is not any different than a plow, a spreader, shovel, snow blower, loader or other piece of equipment. It should be considered a standard tool. The information a weather service supplies provides allows a snow management contractor to make intelligent decisions on when and how to respond to winter weather events including when to use chemicals.

Lastly, as part of Knott's philosophy of working with local vendors as first choice, our weather service is in the next town. We are spending our money back in our community while serving our customers as best as we can.

Does your snow and ice management contractor use a weather service? No, why not?

Solidarity

Recently at Knott's Land Care, LLC we rolled out a new work order system for our winter work (come spring, it will be in place for year-round applications). "So what?", "Big Deal" right?

It is a big deal. This system will allow our company to stay in better touch with our staff during a winter weather event, giving us real-time information as to what properties have been, are and will be serviced soon. Still, "So What?". This system runs on smart phones and was created with Free software. We looked at a few different programs that were at least $10,000.00 to roll out.
This program is genius in its simplicity and it was born through collaboration and team work.

Knott's is part of a trade association called the Snow and Ice Management Association (SIMA) http://www.sima.org/ I am an active member, being the Chair of the Membership Committee and a member of the Certification Committee. Through SIMA I have met several great people with whom I keep regular communication. On a few occasions I was discussing work flow with my good friend Michael Merrill, CEO of North Country Snow and Ice Management of Glens Falls, NY. He shared with me how his staff was keeping track of their time on a spread sheet that was accessed via a smart phone. I took the idea and brought it to my staff and communicated my vision of how this could work for Knott's. They ran with it and in a couple of weeks created what we are now rolling out. I, in turn have shared this back with Michael and some other peers in our network.

We have saved each other money, increased internal communication and efficiency and thus are able to provide even better service to our clients. Furthermore, the project has given my staff a new sense of pride, ownership and teamwork; Solidarity.

This is one example of collaboration and team work among and between companies. Was it necessary to share? Absolutely not. Does it improve our companies, staff and industry? Absolutely.

What do I call this activity? Solidarity. Will the application of Solidarity improve your industry and your company? Absolutely.