Al Levi is an author, business consultant, and president of The 7-Power Contractor®. He shares how to find, hire and train the best technicians available for your company. 

Hire Willing People

Instead of hiring people for their experience, Al’s philosophy on hiring is to find willing people and provide them with the right skills. That way, you are helping people build a career instead of just offering a job. 

This strategy helps you identify hires that truly want to join your team and are excited about their future with your company.

>“The power of getting willing people to work for you and helping them build a career is life changing not just for your customers, not just for your company, not just for your staff but it’s actually life changing for you. I’ve experienced that myself, so I know that it’s true.”

Train your employees to fit your company’s needs and they will be better at filling that open position than any “magical hire” or experienced veteran.

Always Be Training

Employee training is critical to long-term success. To implement an effective training program, you want to make sure it equips employees with the proper communication skills (with both customers and team members), as well as the technical skills they need to progress. Keep the training clear and objective. This will allow you to see where your new apprentices are thriving and what makes them tick.

Creating an excellent employee training program is the first step, the next is setting yourself apart from the competition. 

Al highlights two things you need to do to own your market and be the best choice out of local contractors:

1. Make more techs.
2. Make more calls.

>“You’ve got to make more techs that can be in more trucks that are great at communication which leads to more sales. Neat and clean operationally. Their trucks are neat and clean, they’re neat and clean, their jobs are neat and clean. They can do the right job and make it work with a minimal amount of callbacks running back to it.”

Your training can be the greatest in the world but if you’re not a good teacher, your training is worthless. If you take your training and teaching seriously, you can create a career not a job and you will have people lining up for a spot in your company.

Make the Investment

Al is also passionate about creating a space for your apprentices to practice. Creating a training center where your apprentices can practice the trade instead of practicing on your paying customers is a valuable way to build experience without jeopardizing business. 

If you don’t have the finances to support the building of a training center, reach out to family, friends and local organizations that may have something to offer your team in terms of material or equipment.

>“[Creating a training centre] is an investment. It’s time, energy and money. Money is not the biggest problem, and even time you can find people to leverage. Most of the training centers I have worked at were built by volunteer labor… The trick is committing the energy to it.”

Putting the right training in place will be a win for your team, for your customers and for your company.

For more information on Al’s business and services, visit 7-Power Contractor.