A pumping company is only as good as its team. When your customers think of your company, they’ll think of your employees. So if you have a strong team of expert pumpers who are giving their very best to every customer, you’ll position your company for growth.

Unfortunately, many pumping company owners have to admit: Their teams are not always living up to those high expectations of expertise and service.

Training your team is the only way to raise your entire company to the level you want it to operate at. But you’re a pumper, not a trainer, so how do you train your team effectively? And more important, you’re a pumper, not a trainer of trainers, so how do you get the best leaders in your company to train your other team members?

Here’s a training framework that works over and over. Use it to train your team, and then teach it to your leaders so they can train others. This framework will lock new lessons into your team members’ minds and help them become proficient very quickly.

The training framework

Step 1. Explain – Explain the concept and describe what you are about to do. Explain why you’re going to do it and what the ideal outcome is going to be.

Step 2. Demonstrate – Do the work that you just described. If appropriate, explain what you are doing as you go so that the employee can hear your thought process and see your actions.

Step 3. Demonstrate to me – Have the employee do the same thing back to you, showing you what they would do.

Step 4. Teach me – Have the employee teach you how to do the work they’ve just been taught. In other words, they pretend to be the expert and you pretend to be the new person, and you listen as they teach and demonstrate.

Step 5. Teach others – Have the employee teach others how to do the work.

Here’s an example of how you might take a new team member through those steps: Bring them to a customer’s house and walk them through the very first things you do when troubleshooting a problem. Then have them watch you fix the problem. At the next service call, have them do the work, employing the same troubleshooting method you’ve just taught them. At the service call following that one, they become the teacher and show you how to troubleshoot the problem. You might consider recording video of this to use for training purposes, or conduct an in-person training session for everyone back at the office.

Why it works

This training system works really well for a number of reasons:

• It’s simple to implement because it requires no costly training resources
• It’s entirely in the field and focuses on practical application instead of theory
• It’s simple to teach to your team so they can each train employees
• It leverages a little-known secret: that teaching something makes you better at it than simply hearing or doing
• It’s very fast and very effective, so you can rapidly get your team to a level of proficiency

Where to use it

Once you’ve tried it, you’ll want to use it all the time. And the good news is that you can. You can apply this training framework in all aspects of your business.

• Use it to train your leaders how to train and lead
• Use it in specific departments — for accountants, HR, outbound sales, marketing, etc.
• Use it in the field to teach your new team members how your company serves your customers
• Use it in the field to train apprentices or techs who aren’t proficient
• Use it to teach both soft skills (like rapport-building and selling) as well as technical plumbing skills

Final word

When you use this powerful training framework in your business, you will develop a team of highly proficient employees who can quickly become skilled in any areas you want to teach them. Learn the framework, try it out, then embed it into your culture and watch your company grow.

About the author
Mike Agugliaro is the co-founder of New Jersey-based home service company, Gold Medal Service, which provides residential plumbing, heating, air conditioning and electrical services. As a business coach, Agugliaro takes from his own experience to regularly lead national speeches, podcasts, webinars and seminars on behalf of his other business, CEO Warrior, and has published two business books with a third currently in production.