In April, the Oregon Waste Water Association held its annual conference and as the conference chair I had several opportunities to address attendees. As I spoke with the onsite professionals, George Jones’ “Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes?” came to mind. 

Like many in our industry, I am rapidly joining the silver-haired crowd. I have an AARP card and should I so choose, I could even move into a 55-or-older community. When I purchased our pumping business nearly 17 years ago I liked the fact that I could operate the business by myself yet provide a job for my children during the summer months. 

This “go it alone” approach worked fine until I found myself in my early fifties and undergoing a third shoulder reconstruction surgery. As I faced the reality of the surgery, I realized my ego was writing checks my body couldn’t cash. By now, all my children were off to college and I knew I needed help keeping the business operational while I recuperated. 

Finding good help 

Like many small business owners, finding good help can be a challenge. It can be especially difficult if you’ve operated as a sole proprietor without employees. In our case, I decided to focus my search within one local group of individuals, the home school community. We have a large number of home school families in our area and many of them are our customers. The dedicated and hardworking people in this community shared values similar to our pumping business. 

The search led me to hire Mitchell Padilla, who normally worked with his father in the family’s landscape business. Since that work is seasonal, he was able to commit to help me for the winter months. Mitchell soon found that the diverse job sites and the challenge of troubleshooting onsite problems was something he enjoyed. 

After returning to his family’s business for the summer, Mitchell contacted me the next fall and asked if he could work with us again for the winter. Since it was nice to have two more hands on the job, I hired him back. He found he preferred the pump truck to the dust of landscape work and decided to stay. Mitchell has now been with our company for almost five years. 

Learning breeds growth 

One of the reasons Mitchell wanted to return the second winter was the learning environment I created. From the first day, I used every moment to teach how and why everything worked in septic pumping. This included how to properly and efficiently service a septic tank, how to lay out the most efficient route for the day, how to look at work orders and attached work history to determine how much time each job should take and how to safely and properly operate and drive the tank truck. My company also helped Mitchell get his CDL and taught him safe driving techniques. 

Most importantly, we taught him how to treat our customers. This included explaining our educational materials to customers and making sure they understood the importance of proper system maintenance. We also explained that our reputation and our customers were our most valuable assets. 

After working together every day for more than a year, I felt Mitchell was ready to take the truck out on his own. This may seem like a long training period, but I wanted to be certain that he had the necessary job skills and experience when he went out on his first solo job. Even more important to me was that he had the proper customer service and decision-making skills. 

Mitchell now has complete freedom to make even the financial decisions for jobs. If he arrives at a job and sees that the tank contains chemicals, syringes or any other materials of concern, he can decline the job. If he feels a service discount is warranted, he has complete freedom to give that discount. If he feels that providing a particular service on a no-charge basis would be a good customer service decision, that is his choice to make. 

I told Mitchell the first day he went out that if I felt I could trust him with a $100,000 pump truck with my name on it and 3,000 gallons of septage in the tank, I could trust him to make good financial decisions in the field without checking with me first. I also assured him that even if I disagreed with one of his decisions, I would never go back and charge a customer for a discount he had issued. We might discuss the decision to understand each other’s reasoning, but those discussions are all part of the ongoing training and learning process. 

Freedom gained 

By empowering a new employee to make business decisions for my company, I decreased my stress level and the physical wear and tear on my body. By training and mentoring rather than directing or ordering, I gained the freedom and time to grow my business by spending time scheduling, sending reminders, making new industry contacts and serving on our state organization. 

I was able to devote time to things I love such as service projects like teaching local farmers in Peru how to install a septic system. I also gained the peace of mind knowing that should something happen to me, my business could still provide for my family as well as for my employees and their families. And lastly, I knew my customers would have someone they could turn to and trust for their onsite needs. 

So who is going to fill your shoes? Are you training, mentoring and empowering a young person to carry on your business? If not, start looking for that young person and remember to be a teacher, not just a boss. 

About the Author
Robb Barnes owns and operates King's Pumping Service in Salem, Ore. He has been trained as a science teacher and has served as the national customer service manager for a multimillion dollar manufacturing company. Barnes is past-president of the Oregon Onsite Wastewater Association.