Here in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, it appears the rain will never stop. Enough already! I have work to do, fence lines to clean and build, a machine shed that needs to be built, my tractor to drive.
Ever had that feeling? You want to be outside doing something creative and you are stuck inside doing [...]
Prior to a recent webinar, Dan Baumann and I conducted a brief survey.
One of the questions we asked was whether participants had cut their markup / margin to try and attract more work. About 74% of the respondents said they had not cut their prices, 26% said they had. Oh my!
We assume that the contractors [...]
One of our coaching clients recently asked how much lag time others are experiencing between the start of a marketing campaign and leads coming in the door.
As best I can tell, when you start some serious advertising, it takes three to five weeks for the phone to start ringing. There are exceptions of course, both [...]
Advertising is key to getting your phone to ring – if you don’t advertise, they won’t know you are able and willing to do their work.
But how can you know where to spend your advertising dollars, and much should you spend?
Michael and Dan will lead another free webinar this Saturday, April 26 on the subject [...]
Continue reading: Webinar on Advertising – Join Us (it's free)
The construction industry lost a great man this week – and I lost a good friend.
Sonny Lykos was an amazing man. He had a great ability to solve problems, an uncanny instinct for finding and solving problems in a business, learned in the school of hard knocks. He wasn’t afraid to take a stand, even [...]
The ancient Chinese philosopher Confucius said, “The man who chases two rabbits catches neither.”
I hardly rate myself a philosopher, ancient as I am. But I do know that his wisdom applies to contractors that try to do all things for all people.
Pick the top two or three things you do and pass on all the [...]
Continue reading: Focus Your Construction Business on the Profitable Jobs
I am reading a book titled “Never Give In” by Stephen Mansfield about Sir Winston Churchill, one of my heroes.
On page 118 he says, “But life is change, and true success in any field is largely a matter of learning how to anticipate change, how to harness it, and how to ride its power into [...]
Continue reading: Construction Businesses Must Change as the World Changes
A few weeks ago, Michael was at the JLC Live Conference in Providence, RI, and demonstrated for a class the latest tool – a Flip Video.
This video camera is awesome. It costs less than $150, weighs 5 ounces and fits in your pocket. This is a short list of possible uses:
Record the job site on [...]
