by Jim Hinshaw
I recently had a trip where I spent a significant amount of time with Ron Strelke, the owner of Force Home Services in the Dallas area, he shared an amazing story of a unique legacy. I had been on his website and noticed he had photos of all his employees, in every division of all his company. After scrolling thru them all, there were two other photos, with dates above their names. Those dates were the years they had joined them, and the date they had passed away.
I asked about those two photos, they were employees who had made a difference in the business, and they wanted to memorialize them in a special way. One of those photos was of Zach, an installer. He was in the National Guard as well, served several tours overseas. He did an excellent job, installing systems for customers that many said just couldn’t be done. He will be missed.
The next was Lisa, she was amazing. She joined Force Home Services as a CSR, helping customers with hvac or plumbing problems. She was a caring, compassionate person who got to know the clients on a first name basis and followed up when needed to be sure they got excellent service. Here are the notes on their website:
As the first point of contact for our customers, Lisa’s mannerism made them feel comfortable in what could be considered a stressful environment. They consistently described her as kind, patient, friendly and helpful. The local Denton County Charitable organizations knew Lisa’s passion for serving the less fortunate and figuring out a way to help. A list of her most passionate organizations are shown on our “Gives Back” page.
Lisa, you made us all want to dream a little bigger. Your love and compassion for others made a mark on our hearts that can never be erased. Your spiritual leadership and motivation helped transform Force Home Services into the company we are today.
Even though you are gone we will continue to honor the best and most beautiful parts of you by continuing your passion for serving others.
A legacy is something that a person leaves behind to be remembered by. Something they have touched in some way that when people see it, they are still there. Lisa, this will be the place we can visit to remember and honor your legacy of love, giving and respect.
When she passed in December 2019, the company sent out a note to all the maintenance agreement customers, letting them know she was gone. Almost 100% of those customers texted, called or wrote back saying what a positive influence she had been. Ron Strelke was touched by how many lives she had touched, decided to honor her memory. He made a decision to give to a charity she loved, on his website you can see the many organizations she was involved in. Ron does maintenance agreements, he set aside about $20,000 of his maintenance agreement payments to go to her charities each year. Asked the customers who they want that money to go to.
The responses have been overwhelming, the total he gave to charities last year rose to about $60,000, he decided to support many more than he thought, it just made sense. So both of these employees are remembered in a positive way on the website, something I had never seen before.
My question is this: what is your legacy, what will you be remembered for? I realize the day-to-day business can be frustrating, some days you may think you got into the wrong industry. Ron Strelke had no experience in our industry, he bought the company from a church friend. Shortly the key service tech with great experience left him, he had to start over finding good people to be involved. He found such a person in Lisa.
When you go to their website, you can see what the other employees say about the company: a great place to work, the employees look out for each other, this is a family-type organization. Make your company a great place to work, where the employees look out for each other. At the Service Nation, we have lunch together each Thursday. Some weeks it is pizza, may be Chick-Fil-A other days, but the neat thing is that even those who are working from home come in, to have a meal and check up on the team. We have valentine’s day hearts we write messages on to other team members, that is going on now. Matt and David have created a caring atmosphere for the employees, the sort of atmosphere that makes it a place you want to work. Really helps when we are looking to hire a new member, they can sense the feeling of comradery in our building.
So work on the family, when an employee has a situation that is impacting them at work, let them know you are there to help. We still need to have team members who perform well, do the job they have to do, but if they are hurting in some way, be available. Let them know you care.
Thanks for listening, we’ll talk later.
