Experience, wisdom, and the whole nine yards

I began to think about what defines a quality contractor the other day and it led me to start thinking about how you define quality. I would say that quality is obtained when you determine exactly what the client wants in a product or service and afterwards you deliver the equivalent amount of service.

This is where wisdom and experience come in because without a combination of these two you really wouldn't be able to deliver quality. I often hear a lot of "experienced" "floor guys" talk about how long they have been in the business. You'll hear companies talk about how between the two or three owners they have over 40 years of experience. That's nice but if you never educate yourself as a contractor then you really only have one year of experience repeated 40 times.

True professionals are judged on multiple facets in my opinion. A professional is someone who is constantly seeking to improve their service by continuing education, adopting newer and more efficient tools and methods, and shares their knowledge with others for the good of the industry. Additionally I would suggest that a true professional wakes up everyday with a passion to do their job and has an empathy towards the vision of the homeowner and their expectation of service.

Well, well, well this leads us to a rarely mentioned word in the blue collar world called wisdom. Everytime you hear the word wise you probably think about some old man in a rocking chair with a head of grey hair talking about his experiences in life. I would say experience is a component of wisdom but not the whole enchilada. An acuity for the details of a process as related to your past experiences would somewhat make you wise in my book. The only caveat is that the person engaged in this process must be guided in a way so that their observation for detail is governed by honesty and genuine empathy for the customer.

I know this blog may seem somewhat esoteric, but when I look forward to every new day in becoming a more wise hardwood flooring professional I have to think about what rules I adhere to in aiming for continued success. If you find yourself a reader of this blog, then I would like for you to know more about the person behind the company than what I do for a living.