Monday Motivation: How Preparation Creates Customer Growth

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Every time he needs motivation, Shane Shacklock looks at the quote from Vincent Lombardi he has hanging in his office.

“Winning is not a sometimes thing, it’s an all-the-time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing,” the quote, in part, reads.

Shane Shacklock
Shane Shacklock

Lombardi is a particularly powerful motivator for Shacklock because, as he states, “I hate to lose, so I coach winning habits with my team. That helps drive our success.” Shacklock, like Lombardi, knows some of the biggest keys to success are practice and preparation.

Shacklock is the general manager of TruGreen’s DC West location. After 21 years at the company, Shacklock now manages nearly 100 associates at his branch. Shacklock attacks difficult situations, especially his most challenging day, Monday, with the detailed, focused approach of a great coach like Lombardi. In fact, Shacklock says he follows his schedule “to the letter” to get everything accomplished.

“Success for me for the upcoming week starts on Fridays. I conduct a staff meeting with my management team every Friday, and we lay out what the upcoming week’s priorities are; training, recruiting, customer commitments, production needs, sales, etc.,” Shacklock explains. “We talk through the challenges we are facing and put plans in place to tackle them head-on. By Monday morning the plan is clearly in place and ready to execute.”

That Monday plan is integral for Shacklock as the beginning of the week requires him to reconcile things from the past week, such as payroll, chemical inventory and conference calls. Even with all of this structure, however, the greatest coaches will still face unexpected challenges. Having a solid team has been one of Shacklock’s strongest defenses against these struggles.

“Being meticulous with my time management is the key, however, the demands of the business sometimes gets me off task. I have a great management team around me that I trust to delegate tasks to when needed on Mondays when unexpected challenges arise,” Shacklock says.

This careful planning has proved effective for Shacklock because TruGreen’s customer count has grown 10 percent in the last year, and Shacklock only wants to grow it further. Shacklock is going to achieve this goal by coaching his team of employees the best way he knows how.

“I’m big believer in preparation and process. I tend to over-prepare for everything,” Shacklock states.