Your billable resources are hitting your projections fairly consistently. Your team is operating well and people are generally happy. You are incredibly busy, so everything must be okay, right?

Wrong. There is a hidden financial catastrophe occurring. Chris Pickard and the team at Xylotek, the top scoring Canadian company in a survey, were not thinking there was an emergency last spring when we started working together. They just wanted to put some talent management systems in place and become better leaders.

Chris signed-up for our Intentional Leadership coaching program. We have worked together for a few months focusing on implementing the core systems of fully engaging Xylotek employees. The management team, particularly Chris and Jenn, have diligently moved ahead with some of our ideas.

Could their workplace be experiencing a financial emergency? It depends on your perspective. They have had plenty of work this year. In July, with a similar workload yet now with some of our proven talent management processes and a new twist on compensation, the company increased their billable hours in one month by 270 hours.

270 hours x $150 per hour billing rate = $40,500 (Canadian). IN ONE MONTH... and potentially every month thereafter.

Now if you were losing that much potential gross profit, would you call it an emergency?

Yes. You are busy. You always will be. So why not adjust your priorities so your company does not forfeit its true profit potential?

MEETING IDEAS

EMERGENCY is about deciding to be the best you can be. It is comprehending how much money you are losing every month because you refuse to accept THE FACT that you are primarily in the PEOPLE BUSINESS. You are not primarily an IT company, solution provider, VAR, insurance firm, lawyer, janitorial firm or whatever. You are in the PEOPLE BUSINESS.

Focus on your systems for hiring, managing, developing and retaining great people and the rest of your business will succeed. Here are two quick ways to assess just a fraction of the losses your company is experiencing due to inconsistent leadership:

1. We estimate it costs you 10 minutes a day per employee to manage people who are not fully engaged and thinking like owners. Losing 10 minutes daily means you are losing a distracted, stressed and frustrated 40.83 hours a year per employee.

Do the math: The number of employees in your organization multiplied times 40.83 hours is the time you lose each year due to not having your employees fully engaged. (The actual number is probably much higher.)

2. We estimate it costs you $50-$200 a day in lost gross profit when your people are not fully engaged and thinking like owners. Be conservative and just estimate $50 a day. A passionate owner who is in sales can close $50 more in gross profit daily. A billable resource who thinks like an owner can bill 20-30 minutes more a day. (See the Xylotek example above - your billable resources often can do much more than this.) Losing $50 daily in gross profit means you are losing $12,250 a year per employee.

Do the math: The number of employees in your organization multiplied times $12,250 is the money you lose each year due to not having your employees fully engaged. (The actual number is probably much higher.)

3. Now multiply both of those numbers times ten. This number is either your loss over the last ten years or your loss this year through 2019. If your company grows then the number is even higher.