I had to go to my grandmothers funeral in Pittsburgh last week. At the airport I had a chance to meet with and made a new friend. Jason Weiss works with Joe Bunta and they have an interesting company that assists in evaluating people for construction positions by utilizing half and full day simulations. They actually take a candidate and put them through real job-like scenarios that could be encountered in stressful work situations.  Granted you may not be in a position to spend a few thousand dollars to screen a candidate before hiring. What is interesting is that the construction industry is attracting this type of HR attention.

Their are many talented individuals in the marketplace if you are in a position to add people to your team. Their are also professional interviewers who are seeking jobs. Unfortunately with this group you really do not who is going to show up to work once you hire them. If you’d like to know more about advanced interview techniques give Ron or I a call. We can help take the mystery out of recruiting and interviewing.

We are often asked about where and when where we are  speaking.  Guy does most of the speaking these days as Ron is tied up with clients and our filthyrichcontractor.com website. We have listed our upcoming schedule below.

If you would like to check regularly for updates we maintan a separate speaking engagement website. We are also available for keynote speeches and speialized topics for you organization or company.

http://contractorcoach.wetpaint.com

One of the advantages that contractors have over retailers is that they can go out and seek work rather than waiting for it to come to them. Don’t get me wrong, Ron and I are strong advocates of the right kind of marketing for lead generation and proper branding.

Many of you know I am not a huge advocate of the “yellow pages” because the leads that normally come from them are price shoppers. In our consulting practices our most successful clients know how to make marketing and sales compliment each other. I have included an email from one of these bright contractor’s, Brian Gann of Gann Aspahlt in Kansas City who is taking marketing his service line to a new level. www.gannasphalt.com

 Take heed to what he learned:

WOW! As you know, I have committed myself to new marketing, including better utilizing our membership with the Chamber of Commerce. We attended yesterdays Business Fair and I can’t express how successful the day was for us. We are already doing site evaluations and estimates for several companies we met yesterday, and have many more leads to follow up on! I also met a person from a local newspaper who was interested in our Missouri Stream Team efforts, and will be helping us with a press release as well as a possible write up. It was a day very well spent! You may want to remind your readers not to wait like I did, before taking advantage of some of the benefits that come with belonging to Their local Chambers.  I can only imagine the opportunities that I have missed by not participating sooner!

So take this as a reminder… Don’t sit back and wait for the phone to ring… Go out there and make things happen!