Even though it's difficult to resist the temptation to focus a lot of your energies on what inventory items to add, it's more important to have properly trained staff.
There are plenty of rental companies with equipment-experienced employees. So, how do you stand out from your competitors? One way can be through an effective training program that concentrates on a number of other skills, in addition to product knowledge.
When training, it's important to place a premium on the customer interaction portion of the employee’s responsibilities. Many rental companies are not investing enough in developing the communication skills of their staff. Concise communication coaching can be particularly important. It's wise to train your employees to give customers the appropriate amount of information. Some employees tend to drone on and on - and some are far too brief.
There are also huge benefits in training employees to enhance their verbal as well as their non-verbal communications, including “body language.” It's amazing how slight facial expressions, grooming and posture changes can improve the chances that your message of care, concern and quality will be received by your customers as you intend.
Certainly, all employees who have contact with customers should be trained to become skilled in the most effective rental salesmanship techniques. For example, it's important to have employees become skilled in attempting a trial close. Truly effective training bridges the gap from wishing that employees would attempt to “build the order” and “close the deal” to actually doing so.
Another benefit is that better training programs definitely help with employee retention. If employees feel confident and strong in their duties and are continuously learning new skills, they tend to stay longer. Employee retention is of tremendous importance in today’s economy.
It's very likely that those in a management role are not as well trained as they could be – or should be. For example, many supervisors in rental businesses are untrained in effective delegating techniques. Taking a few haphazard jabs at something this important will not get your company to where you want it to be. Your company should have a comprehensive, unique-to-your-needs effective training system for all employees, including managers.
More efficiency
Another big opportunity for rental companies is to establish more efficient procedures. The need for improved time management skills in the equipment rental industry is immense. There is so much time wasted in many rental companies. You might have noticed this in your own company. I have heard some of you lament: “Why is there always time to re-do something that was done incorrectly, but not enough time to do it right the first time?”
One of the most significant ways to increase a rental company’s profitability is through cutting out wasted time and energy. Some companies that have enjoyed solid growth in their gross income numbers in recent years have noticed that their net numbers are lagging far behind. Often it's the inefficient practices of employees that are the culprits, as unnecessary expenses can devour much of the additional revenue you have worked so hard to earn.
Every employee needs to be trained to make the most effective use of their time. There are many ways employees can become more efficient, but the trainer shouldn’t just point out some ways to do a few tasks more efficiently. Have a system for the training and shoot for consistent implementation.
It's wise to get employees to buy into the importance of becoming more efficient. With some solid preparation and coaching, employees can make an important contribution to the implementation of the efficiency training plan.
In order to have any chance of capturing more efficiency from your team, those who are in a management capacity must have a clear vision of what having a corporate culture of greater employee efficiency looks like. Basic goal-setting and delegation training for managers and other supervisors are likely to help get managers heading in the correct direction. Setting clearly defined company and individual team member goals certainly helps leaders to accomplish much more than they could have ever imagined.
Some managers simply don’t have that key element to success that I will call “a sense of urgency.” That doesn’t mean they can’t learn it, it just means they haven’t learned it yet. But if the role models don’t have this, then it's difficult to expect that your other team members have it.
Employees can become efficiency dynamos when they have the proper work atmosphere, managers have been well-trained in proper goal setting and delegating, and the company has instituted a system where the employee’s performance is able to be tracked and rewarded.
