Aug 25, 2015

By Dan Cassara, President & CEO of DKI Ventures, LLC

At DKI, we restore homes and businesses in their time of need, and more importantly, we are considered the very best this industry has to offer. Last month, DKI completed an incredibly successful marketing event that invites local business development professionals from DKI companies across the country to come together and learn, develop and inspire each other to achieve greater success.  During the recent summit, we began with introductions of which the attendees went around the room introducing themselves, their companies, and what makes them different in their respective marketplaces.

Each year we do this exercise and responses vary based on a number of things, such as what part of the country they are from, how long they have been at their respective companies, and most importantly, how long they have been in the industry.

The responses are often fairly consistent until you get a new attendee who is not only new to their position at a DKI company, but new to the industry altogether.  When that person emerges, it is like a breath of fresh air.  Why?  Because they are in this business to do what many professionals in this field have done when they entered this business – Help restore lives.

You see, in an industry that truly restores the lives of hundreds of thousands of people per year, we often get caught up in quotas, whether or not we are planning a busy storm season, when our next big commercial loss will arrive or when we will receive our next claim.  We are business people with families to feed and roofs to keep over your heads, and that need requires contractors to sometimes see their chosen profession in a very different way.  What is so refreshing about new DKI Member Company employees is the fact that their passion for charity and giving back is what drives them to come work for our great companies, and is the guiding principle that gets them into this business to begin with.  I have yet to ever hear someone say that they entered this business because they heard they would make a great living or that the idea of drying homes was incredibly exciting.

Back to that recent event: I remember a specific moment when a new DKI Member Company employee stood up to introduce herself. She said her name, her company name, and then described her company as a place that allows her to help others and to restore peace of mind.  I was so taken by that moment that I felt compelled to stop her and tell her to never forget what got her here, and to use that motivation to guide her for many years to come.

As we continue to evolve as an industry, and as the art of restoring properties can, like many industries, become commoditized, it is easy to become cynical and jaded and, ultimately, deliver a customer experience that feels rushed, impersonal, and routine to that home and business owner. What we forget sometimes, is that to that home or business owner, we, at that moment, are the best thing that has happened to them all day. I employ you not to take that for granted in any way.  The fact that you have been selected, and the fact that you have the opportunity to make a difference should continue to be the reason you do what you do each and every day.

So as you go out into the world and arrive at your next job site, remember why you are in this business, how you have been given the privilege to help people when times are at their toughest, and that regardless of the politics of it all, we are the industry’s largest, the industry’s finest, and we are DKI – Here to restore lives, one home at a time.