An electrical company scales up revenue by 150% in four years by using gamification

By Verne Harnish

Trilect, an Auckland, New Zealand-based electrical company, grew from $14 million to $35 million in annual revenue in four years by applying the Scaling Up platform and using gamification to make high performance fun.

To keep the company’s 110-person team inspired, Managing Director Peter McInally will be bringing everyone from its six offices together this year for its annual conference and awards ceremony. The event will take place at Auckland’s Eden Park Stadium, home to the All Blacks national rugby union team, where the Trilect name will be emblazoned on the big screens. The event will feature an overview of the company’s strategic direction for the next 12 months, top keynote speakers and a formal dinner to recognize five outstanding employees.

“It will blow everyone’s mind, because electrical companies don’t do this,” McInally says. He anticipates it will cost the company $150,000, which he considers well worth it. “We know we’ll get three times back next year, because everyone will be on board and trying to drive the company,” he says.

Scaling Up Certified Coach Adrian Pickstock, Managing Partner at Quad Consulting, began working with Trilect in 2021. “It’s been brilliant to see how the company has moved through the Scaling Up methodology with amazing results,” says Pickstock.

Gamifying excellence

A key element of Trilect’s success has been using gamification to bring greater accountability to the team. Trilect uses a job tracking software called Simpro to gamify high performance. It uses “tags” to award team members points and a monthly score for doing the right things, such as writing up their notes during a client visit, so these notes are immediately available if the team needs to access them. This data helps to identify candidates for the company’s annual awards.

The company displays the names of the top five and bottom five performers for each tag on a touch screen monthly, inspiring a spirit of friendly competition. “No one wants to be in the bottom five for more than a month in a row, so they figure it out pretty quickly,” McInally says.

Strengthening a culture

McInally founded Trilect Electrical in 1997 as a small trade business. As it grew, the team developed specialties in gate automation, access control, security and solar installations.

When McInally started working with Pickstock, he and his leadership team recognized the need to build a stronger culture, with the right people in the right seats on the “train.”

At the time, he saw that a cluster of about eight “D players” was undermining the company culture through negative behavior. The company parted ways with them over two years. “Some of these D players were highly skilled people, but toxic,” he says. “Since they’re gone, the whole culture has improved, because people aren’t getting dragged down.”

As the company grew from 70 to 110 employees and 30 to 40 regular contractors, it also strengthened its senior leadership team, now comprising six individuals. Two existing employees stepped up to take on bigger roles, two were hired, and two left the company.

Meanwhile, the company expanded its middle management team from two to 12 people, freeing the senior team to focus on strategy. “We made the call that every single person on the leadership team really needed to replace themselves so that they could work on the business, not in it,” says McInally.

Creative onboarding

Trilect also developed induction kits for new hires that include the company’s flags, a flow map for the organization and its core values—operational efficiency, pride and accountability—and an explanation of the Trilect Electric Train concept, which symbolizes everyone getting on board and moving in the same direction. “This helps us understand who we are, why we’re doing it and how we’re to get there,” says McInally.

Prioritizing “core clients”

As part of its strategic work with Pickstock, Trilect Electrical set a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) of attracting 20 “core clients” nationally over 10 years.

The company looks for “key clients” in the main areas it serves: (1) electrical work, (2) gate automation, access control and security and (3) solar. “A core client to us is someone who will work across the board—they use us for electrical, gates, and solar,” says McInally. A client must align with the company’s core values and spend $5,000 or more per month across the multiple services it offers.

Trilect has used tools such as the Process Accountability Chart (PACe), rocks, 13-week sprints and consistent meeting rhythms to reduce drama and improve execution. The firm implemented daily huddles throughout its team using Microsoft Teams, as well as weekly 2- to 4-hour meetings focused on strategy, along with monthly strategic meetings for future planning.

90% efficiency

Trilect’s current quarterly theme is 90% efficiency across the organization, something that Simpro helps to track. That makes team members aware that if they take more than one hour of downtime, or 10% of their day in a typical nine-hour day, they’ve gone below that 90%. The company has repeated the theme for nearly a year.

As the company has focused on pursuing its BHAG through strong execution, it has strengthened its cash position. “It has gotten better and better, so we can actually do things like the conferences,” says McInally.

Even better, with its team aligned, the company seems well-positioned to achieve and exceed its BHAG.