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!

While glancing through my bookcase the other day looking for my go-to resource for proposal writing, my eyes came across a book whose message you might find interesting…and useful.  The book is Blink: the Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.

In Blink, Gladwell  explains that your subconscious mind is far smarter than your conscious mind.

Remember know how you’ve always been told that the first answer that comes to mind on a multiple choice test is usually the right one. That’s your subconscious at work. Here’s another familiar example.

You wake up in the middle of the night, or you’re in the middle of a shower, when a sudden “Ah Ha!” hits you. Something you’ve been trying to figure out for awhile, couldn’t, and the answer just flashed into your mind.

That’s your subconscious at work.

In Blink, Gladwell explains how the process works. We won’t go into that.

What’s valuable about his message is that you can actually put your subconscious to work. Purposefully. Skillfully.

I had read about the process several years ago from an online financial commentator, Jim Sinclair.  This commentator’s father happened to have been the business partner of the most famous Wall Street trader of all time, a man named Jesse Livermore.

Sinclair explained that both his father and Livermore would study and study, cramming their mind full of information. Then they would completely shut off their thoughts about it. They would push all of the information into their subconscious and let it work on it while they were completely unaware of it.  At some point in time, the correct answer would pop back into their thoughts. Somehow, those two men knew to trust the answer although they had no idea how they reached the decision.

Blink explains how the mind does that, and far more importantly, why you should trust your subconscious instinct instead of your conscious logical reasoning.

So the next time you need to make an important decision, cram your head full of as much information about the decision as you can – then forget about it until it reappears to you.

Crazy, right?

Apparently, it works.

Hoping the best for you.

Ron & Guy,

The Contractor’s Business Coach

If you, or someone in your office, is running QuickBooks and doesn’t know how to get it to produce the reports you need to run your business profitably, boy have I found someone you need to call!

Need QuickBooks Help?

Pam Newman – 816-304-4398

I visited with Pam Friday and have to tell you, she is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!

If you’ve been following us for very long - reading our frequent complaints about the lack of solid support for contractors from the accounting community – you’ll know how thrilled we are to find someone who:

1. Totally understands contractors (she used to be one).

2. Totally understands the management reports business owners need.

3. Totally understands how to make QuickBooks sing and dance.

Pam has a fabulous personality.  A great pleasure to visit with. She’s not one of those dry, boring, accounting types.

She is remarkedly well educated (accounting degree and MBA). She is certified. And most importantly, she is down to earth.

She knows the type of information business owners should be looking at weekly and monthly.  As she was reciting her recommended list of managerial reports , I was grinning from ear to ear.

It was as if she had bugged conversations between Guy and I from weeks and months back. Wow!

To get ahold of Pam, you can call her at 816.304.4398; email her at pam@rppc.net; or browser her site at www.rppc.net.

Pam provides both consulting and training services. In person or via the telephone and internet (just like we do).

We hope Pam becomes a close member of our Contractor’s Business Coach team in the near future but don’t wait for that negotiation to complete. If you need help, call her now before we raise her rates. Seriously, she is WAY too cheap.

As always, keep beating the bushes and wishing you the best.

Ron & Guy