“So this was where we made a mistake….”
Last week, I had the opportunity to represent our company at an annual peer group meeting put on by Fred and Kelly Haskett of TrueWinds Consulting. It was a great event for a number of reasons, and what really stuck with me was the willingness of everyone there to share their mistakes with their peers.
I’ve been in this industry for most of my adult life so far, and one common occurrence at many industry events is a certain level of boastfulness between companies. It’s not uncommon to hear attendees comparing their gross sales figures or the number of trucks or crews they have out in the field. All of that has a place, and honestly, many industry events are a great opportunity for us all to relax a bit and revel in whatever success we have managed.
Peer groups offer something different. What I saw last week was green industry companies truly trying to help each other, even if they were doing so by recounting their own mistakes. These business owners all knew each other from their ongoing meetings and Zoom calls, so there was no pretense whatsoever when it came to giving feedback or accepting advice. In a word, there was a level of trust that I have rarely seen at larger industry events.
Owning or managing a business can be an insular experience. When you get down to it, owners are responsible to our teams and our bottom line, but there is generally no structure and guidance from above us in the organizational chart. The idea of a peer group is simple but incredibly beneficial: a group of non-competing businesses that are similar in service offerings and size, who meet regularly to compare notes, offer insight and feedback, and challenge each other in the way that a boss might, if we hadn’t all structured our lives to avoid having a boss. (OK, maybe that last part is just me.)
If you’ve found yourself wishing you had someone to talk to to work through big or small questions in your business, I'd strongly encourage you to consider a peer group. I’m sure there are plenty of options out there, but I can vouch for Fred Haskett’s TrueWinds Consulting Group and Marty Grunder’s ACE Groups. I know both these guys personally and would recommend either of them without hesitation. (Now, if only someone would create a peer group for modern hippies that run marketing companies, I’d be set!)