Operating a tent rental company is hard work. In the busy times, 12-14 hour days become the norm. Too hot, too cold, too sunny or too rainy are not excuses to slow down or stop. You just have to keep going. Hard work makes it all happen. This is the idea that fueled the growth of Steve’s start-up tent rental company. When he started, he could lead every job we put up. As the company grew, he was able to have multiple jobs going at the same time and travel around to supervise. He would drop by and give the crews instructions to start, then return in a few hours to ensure that they were on track.
He moved from being an owner who did manual labor in his company to an owner who was managing parts of his company and helping out when needed. The company grew, more jobs came, and his days as a manager became longer and longer. He didn’t mind the long hours–in fact, it was exciting because his company was growing. The more it grew, the more hours he put in.
Then something curious started to happen–each night before he went to bed he watched the weather forecast, and although he didn’t understand it at the time, this was the start of a landslide of frustration for the growing company. Watching the daily weather forecast was a symptom of a deeper developing problem. As he looked back, the reason he started to pay such close attention to the weather was that he knew it had the potential to slow down the company’s ability to set up tents. And it meant that at times he would be forced into a very long work day dealing with unforeseen delays, low employee morale and mishaps. If the company was not growing, this wouldn’t have been a big deal, but it was growing and managing a large number of jobs on bad weather days was very stressful.
Fortunately, most days the weather was decent and not a factor. Most days things seemed to go well and overall, keeping up with growth was an exciting time. Success meant that the company was able to buy a bigger building, more trucks and more tents. More people were hired and word of mouth was great advertising and customers were happy. So far, so good!
Fast forward a little. Steve started to notice the results of what he would later call the “15 Day Wall.” When the company was really busy it was expected that the entire team would work for as long and hard as it took to get the job done by the end of the day. Overall motivation wasn’t generally a problem, but after 14 consecutive days of working really hard, the company’s productivity seemed to hit a wall. Day 15 turned into failure day.
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The list of failures was always long and often the same: trucks didn’t get loaded correctly which meant waiting around at the jobsite, tools started to break, employees were calling in sick, the sales people overbooked our inventory, we had to go through the extra steps of sub-renting, and there always seemed to be more dirty tents than clean tents. He also noticed that the interactions with customers were less than friendly, more mistakes were made and often they failed to work as a team. And the more they struggled, the less motivated they became. As the company grew, the “15 Day Wall” became more common and it was a struggled to manage it. As a result, the whole company was suffering.
Now what? Employees going into slow motion is often caused by fatigue and frustration; the only option they often see is to slow up or give up.
As a leader in your company, this is your problem to solve. If you’re growing, you’re not immune to the challenge of keeping your employees motivated. The question is, what are you going to do about it? How about eliminating some of their work by giving them better tools? How about making some of their work gratifying and setting them up for success?
During busy times, tent washing is a vital part of the business. But the problem is that when you get busy, the dirty pile gets larger and your employees get more tired. So your situation is this: business is booming, employees are tired, morale is slipping, customer satisfaction is compromised and somebody, somehow has to get those tent tops cleaned. What’s your next move? Pay overtime? Hire more people? Why not invest the time to find a better way? There is a better way. Countless leaders like you have found it, but it took time.
If your company is growing, you know how exciting and challenging your day to day is. You are not alone. Growing a company is hard work and hard work pays off. Every successful tent rental company across the nation has experienced the hard work, and each one had to change the way they operated and lead their business. Change is mandatory for a growing business. Did you know that over 90% of the tent rental companies above $5M in sales in the USA have a tent washing machine? And companies with 3 -4 employees also have tent washing machines. All these companies are growing and have found that changing the way they wash tents was just one more thing they had to do to take their company to the next level.
Is it time for you to invest in your growing company and give your employees the tools and guidance they need? Consider exploring what a tent washing machine will do for you. Consider that having a machine is like having 3-6 employees who are ready to work 24/7 any time of the year. Do this now and start focusing on growth, your company, and having happy, productive employees. Hopefully by now we’ve provided some good information. What kinds of questions do you have? Call one of the Teeco team to get your answers.
Thanks!
Chandra Tripp
P.S. Check out our “Sampler Pack”!–take advantage of this great introductory offer and try our awesome hand washing products! This offer is only available through this email. We’ll send you our “Sampler Pack” which includes a gallon of our Tent Stain Eliminator—the best spot cleaner on the market, 2 gallons of Tent Fab Cleaner—highly effective for hand washing, and one gallon of teECO Clean—the only hand washing product out there that cleans great and is approved by the EPA. A $110 value for only $79.99—shipping included!! Click here now for the “Sampler Pack” Special Offer!