Will You Take A “Leap In The Dark”?

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience.”

I memorized this Henry Miller quote 20 years ago and frequently summons it when hesitation becomes stagnation (i.e. when I recognize it’s time to grow). Similarly, what happens when a construction company finally pushes through their hesitation and chooses to “leap in the dark” and “grow” by investing in GPS-based fleet management and equipment tracking solutions? Will their leap pay off? And how do they do it?

I’ve been directly involved in the GPS telematics industry for 9 years now. In that time, I’ve noticed clear patterns that quickly indicate which customers are likely to accrue the most or least value from their investment.. Perhaps it’s driven by the pervasive project deadlines or the historically challenging and dispersed work environments, but these patterns always seem to be most prominent within the construction industry.

Yesterday, after talking with the president of a local construction contractor in California, I realized my outside perspective from independently observing the habits of hundreds of companies over the last decade could help others illuminate paths to a successful GPS tracking investment.

As such, using an example from one my customers’ experiences I hope to instill confidence that your leap will find stable ground as well.

This construction contractor was experiencing such intense pain around managing maintenance and collecting engine hour data on their dozers, graders, lifts, excavators, and other disperse equipment that they invested in Geoforce. This is a very common pain, and we provide an easy to use common solution.

But what happened after their initial leap is what truly separates this contractor from their peers. They kept “leaping” and continued to explore ways their investment could affect ever expanding areas of their business.

It highlights the successful evolution from initial hesitance toward GPS, to taking the leap to address one challenge (maintenance), to eventually embracing the solution to solve even more challenges across numerous use cases and departments. Lowered insurance payments from faster theft recovery, enhanced safety for their equipment and fleet, getting to bids on time, and improved sales quoting were just a few of the benefits they began to realize after they continued “leaping” forward.

This particular customer also overcame initial staff whispers of “Big Brother” being a bad thing to eventually having each of his employees become trusted partners in the business. Today, each employee has a user login to Geoforce and the ability to leverage the same data and the same solution to help uncover creative and progressive ways to do their jobs better.

All it took was a series of leaps in the dark.