Attention AOL emailers:

AOL is de-listing YOU from my newsletter AUTOMATICALLY!

This morning I noticed that a HUGE amount of new readers had de-listed after receiving one newsletter. It put me in panic mode. What did I write that hacked off everyone so badly?

I was getting ready to email each of these new subscribers individually to find out what I had done and then noticed 95% of the de-listed emails were AOL accounts.

I dug around a little more and discovered AOL has unsubscribed EVERY AOL newsletter reader. How nice of them to take care of their customers that way. Automatically taking them off of a mailing list for something they double-opted in for.

I pay for and use an email delivery service to avoid this very problem. It’s not like the newsletters are filled with SPAM warning signs. This service warns me before I que up the newsletter whether I’ve written it in a way that will alarm the SPAM filters.

Hopefully, that service will get this AOL problem resolved and will re-subscribe everyone that was automatically unsubscribed. They will probably succeed getting back on AOL’s approved list but I’m not very hopeful they will let me re-activate the subscribers AOL unsubscribed.

If you are an AOL emailer and would like to receive the newsletter, get either a Gmail account (google mail) or a Yahoo Mail account and re-sign up. I have accounts on both and the newsletters arrive without hitch.

AOL’s Big Brother move is very disappointing as a large percentage of the newsletter members signed up under AOL email addresses and can’t receive the newsletters.

2-24-09 Update

I’ve got to hand it to AOL and Aweber. Yesterday, their customer support groups really took the bull by the horns and got to the bottom of the problem. It’s a valuable lesson for all who use the internet to market their business.

One single link, a friend’s, that I always included at the end of the newsletter has been blackballed by AOL.

(Honestly, I suspect it has something to do with a legal war my friend is in the middle of. The other party has done some amazingly unethical things to stop my friend’s lawsuit from moving forwards. Getting AOL to blacklist his site wouldn’t even be in the top 10 of the tricks they’ve pulled.)

Anyway, if Aweber lives up to it’s word, it will be re-instating all of the AOL members it took it upon itself to de-list. I’ve done everything they’ve asked me to so far. Now it’s up to them.

This gives me an opportunity to remind you that when you don’t investigate an apparent problem, such as a sudden increase or decrease in crew production, you’re bound to be missing a serious problem that may have a very simple solution.

While arguing with a union boilermaker friend of mine the other day, something he and I enjoy doing, our conversation swung over to a serious quality incident we were both aware of. I am not a liberty to share the details but suffice it to say the problem was caused by a crew feeling pressure to work faster. This brought to mind a very important point.

Every task involves three variables: the resulting outcome, the time it takes, and the procedure used. Let me translate that into construction language.

Every construction activity involves quality, speed, and safety. You only get to control two of the three.

In our situation, the construction crew felt they had to work safely and felt they needed to work rapidly, so they skimped on the quality…which created a structural problem.

Why am I bringing this up? Because so many of us pay lip service to safety but our actions scream QUALITY and PRODUCTIVITY. When we stress those two variables over and over again, we de-emphasize safety.

This is one of the reasons I implore my clients to tell their crews “Go at your usual pace. Just hit the production numbers you always do. Just don’t be worse.”

Yes, that is saying productivity, but it’s really whispering it. It leaves room for my clients to scream QUALITY and SAFETY. The same applies to you and your crews. That’s the only way your people will work safely while keeping your customers will be happy with the end result.

To all:

Does anyone have a good resource for CPM scheduling,
ie recomended books, websites, or other?

Thank You

John Vesnaver

P.S. Post your answers as a response to this entry.

Been a little under the weather and swamped with writing assignments but just got inspired to share something with you. Hopefully, you will find it thought provoking and worth your time.

I just finished with the second module of a coaching program I’m taking – yes, even coaches need to keep learning. The module stressed the importance of knowing your strengths and building your business around them.

Each of us has unique strengths. Characteristics that set us apart. Talents that allow us to do certain things naturally, almost without effort. Few of us really know what our strengths are. Do you know yours? You need to.

That knowledge plays into your business’ evolution.  Give me a few minutes to explain how my strengths play into my business’ future, and I think you’ll gain a clearer understanding of why you need to know your strengths.

I think my strengths are the ability to solve complex problems and the ability to figure out the motives of people. Solutions just pop into my head. I kid you not.

I could tell myself that my engineering training taught me how to solve problems systematically but that wouldn’t be the truth. I’ve always had the ability to understand the dynamics that affect outcomes and come up with approaches that produce the best possible results. This is especially true if people are involved in the problem.

It’s one of the reasons I enjoy helping contractors with their businesses. Few things in life are more complex than running a business and all businesses revolve around people. Helping owners figure out how to solve their pressing business and people problems fall right into my two strengths.

Here’s how this knowledge about myself affects my business.

I am committed to building a business that provides every type of assistance that a contractor might need. Since my strengths are in and of themselves insufficient to do that, I must recruit a team of individuals who possess the strengths I’m missing – the strengths that my business can not achieve it’s goal without.

In all honesty, what I am trying to do with my service is something few most coaches and consultants are willing to do. And one of the reasons is it takes a team of talented people to pull it off..

That’s the message I’m trying to get across to you – and I am probably doing a lousy job of it tonight.

If you are going to build a successful business – one that you can get away from, one that provides you with financial freedom – you must identify your strengths and use a team to fill in around them.

You should be positioned to concentrate your time on what you do best and have your team cover everything else.

Of course the first pressing question is “What are your strengths?”

How about a few tips on how to discover them?

1. Take a Kolbe A Index from www.kolbe.com ($50 +/-)

2. Take some form of DISC or Myers-Briggs communication profile.

3. Identify the tasks that you enjoy doing the most. These are probably tasks you mastered very quickly. That you can perform almost without effort.

4. Ask friends and family what they believe your three greatest strengths are.

By the way, it’s equally important to know what you’re not so good at.

I hate performing the same procedure over and over. I’m horrible at it. It bores me. So, when faced with a task that must be performed repeatedly, I have three options: find someone to do it for me, come up with a technological solution that is quick and painless, or find a way to make a game out of it. In the long run, I will always do better having someone else do it for me. As will you for your weaknesses.

One final piece of advice. Strengthen your strengths and work around your weaknesses. Trying to strengthen a weakness is a huge waste of time. You will never do the task better than someone for whom the task comes naturally.

Next topic: safety and what we do that undermines it.

I wish I had a dollar for every time a contractor called or wrote and told me he is looking to buy a system for his business. The typical question goes something like “Do you have a system you can sell me that will get my business running right?”

The appeal is so obvious. Everyone would like to be able to buy a system they can just insert into their business and magically make their troubles disappear.

It doesn’t work that way.

You can’t take something off the shelf and slide it in your company without customization and communication. At my former consulting firm, the owners and I developed and fine tuned several systems for driving contractor success but each had to be adjusted for our clients’ skills and personalities and for their staffs’ skills and personalities.

The truth of the matter is that people are the systems. You can’t create systems that are independent of the people carrying them out.

Systems only work right when the people carrying out the procedures have mastered the tasks involved and know how to make the right decisions when things get crazy. Which is pretty much every day.

Each business process needs to adhere to certain fundamental truths that govern it’s success but the actual manner in which they are carried out is unique to each company and changes over time as the company’s staff and competitive situation change.

As you’ve probably heard, almost all consultants recommend systematizing your business – thank you Michael Gerber. What we’re all trying to say is that you will never have freedom from the daily grind, nor be able to grow you’re business predictably, if you don’t eventually get everyone competent running the systems that generate leads, close sales, deliver the promised level of service, keep costs down, ensure safety, ensure cash flow, etc.

You need to do that AFTER you figure out how each system should operate. In other words, don’t lock down a system before you’ve got it working correctly.

The problem with most contractors is they don’t know how their business should really function. Even when being in total control of all procedures, they don’t do half of them right. They don’t have their systems figured out.

That’s where a starter kit of systems would come in handy. A starter kit would give you guidelines for how each process should work (for creating job descriptions, estimating, lead generation and so on). You still would have MUCH customization to do, probably all by yourself.

Once you did figure out the systems, you would then be ready to train your employees on their proper execution.

That’s when the real fun begins…and the big profits.

Okay, I get the message.

A handful of newsletter subscribers have emailed me to voice their complaints about the number of emails I’ve sent lately.

So, to protect my relationship with the subscribers I am going to stop sending out questions from readers to the email list. And almost all other non-newsletter emails, too.

Many, many more have responded how much they liked that type of dialog but we have this blog as an option for getting the questions out so use the blog we will.

If you have a question you’d like to get feedback from everyone on, email it to me (ron@filthyrichcontractor.com).  I will post the question on the blog for everyone to read.

An associate called me this morning to let me know that the blog was set to require registration before being allowed to post a comment. Mark told me I could change the setting so, after some hunting around in the admin side, I found the setting.

You may now post comments without joining up.

Have at it!

A small contractor called and needs some help. I didn’t know the answer so I’m throwing it to all of you.

He uses QuickBooks Online. He wants to integrate an online Customer Relationship Managemer into it. He’s looked into www.SalesForce.com and came to the conclusion it wouldn’t let him do what he wants to do.

His two goals are:

1. Online

2. Single entry of information

If you have any suggestions, please either post as a reply to this blog or email me at ron@filthyrichcontractor.com.

We both thank you for your assistance.

After many months of waiting, the blog is finally going live. Hurray!!!

For those of you who’ve been receiving the newsletter – thank you for your support.

I’ve been humbled by the super positive feedback you’ve sent in and the microscopic number of people who have stopped the newsletter. Apparently, the newsletter has been a hit.

Our blog, and I do mean OUR, is to serve a completely separate purpose.

The newsletter’s goal is to spread actionable solutions for common contractor business problems. It is also meant to inspire contractors to build real businesses and give them the confidence they need to step out of their comfort zone.

The goal of this FRC blog is to stimulate a conversation between you, me, and the rest of the readership.

It will be the place to post questions from readers who would like to hear everyone else’s opinion and advice. It will be the place where I throw out things for you to think about. It will be the place to tip each other off to new trends and developments you need to be staying on top of and taking advantage of. It will be the place where guest writers will share their thoughts and advice with you.

It will be the place where I ask your guidance on:

• Future newsletter and report topics.
• Content for books, videos, seminars, etc.
• Additional service offerings

We will have surveys and share the results. We will share great jokes. We will share great successes and tragic failures.

The one thing readers won’t be doing is dogging on each other. Not gonna be allowed.

I am the moderator of this blog. Dog me and my advice all you want. I’m a big boy, can take the criticism, and am here to serve you.

But, one contractor dogging another contractor will not be tolerated. Treat each other with respect.

I encourage you to bookmark this page so that you don’t have to go through the home page to get here.

We will (or do) have a sign-up list for the blog that is separate from the newsletters. That way I can notify you about new blog posts. We may already have this feature, I’m kind of like Alice in Wonderland with this blog. It isn’t helping any that Kelly Olcott and I are recovering from a night hanging with paving contractors at their annual show.

Love to hear your feedback on the newsletters and get your opinions on what we should do with this blog.

Leave a reply and introduce yourself so everyone can get to know each other.

Good luck with your business and have a great day.

Ron