Look in the mirror. Ask the person staring back at you “Am I controlling my profitability or are my clients and competition controlling it?”

Your answer reveals the likelihood of reaching your desired financial and personal goals. If you approach your business with confidence, commitment, and determination to control the profitability of the projects you choose to work on then you will in all likelihood be successful and profitable. If you believe that you have to take what is given to you, that you have to compete against under-priced competition and work for disorganized clients then you’re going to end up scraping out a living…at best.

Unfortunately, we rarely meet a contractor who believes, truly believes, that he controls his destiny.  Most contractors feel that they have to accept the low-price take-it-or-leave-it offers their clients extend. They feel they have to accept the poor sequencing and never-ending hurry up and wait demands placed on their field crews by the onsite project leadership.

You don’t have to be passive. If you step up, stand your ground, push back, learn to sell, and know when to walk away from poor opportunities you can make a lot of money in the construction industry.  If not, your business’ end is just as certain as death and taxes.

While describing the type of business he didn’t want to be,  my client threw out an abbreviation that I thought was golden: AFAB

Anything For A Buck

He understood that his recent pattern of doing anything for a buck (AFAB) was re-enforcing several poor habits among his team – himself included. It was teaching them to act like typical me-too contractors who fight clients and designers every step of the way over every little cost add as he had no other choice due to the manner in which the jobs ended up in their hands (by being the low bidder).

All the result of AFAB.

Companies that grow do not pursue AFAB. They identify profitable niches and customers they can excel with and build their businesses around those customers.

That’s what my client is working towards and that’s what you should be working towards too!

This blog goes out to the thousands of contractors across America who are union.

They know you.

They know your team.

They know your strengths and weaknesses.

They know your team’s strengths and weaknesses.

They know whether they want to work for you.

They know whether they want to work for your competition.

They know which brother foremen work hard and perform well…and which ones don’t.

You clients don’t know. Your competitors don’t know. You might not even know.

The union workers know.

This was brought to my attention yesterday while visiting with a union fitter. I asked him about a company that competes against the one he works for. The fitter gave me an ear full about the company’s owner, its project managers, and its current top foremen.

Mind you, this man has never worked for that company but he had knowledge about the competitor’s performance capability that was stunning. The conversation reminded me of a handful of conversations I had awhile back during my time on a large construction project. These union guys are like corporate spies.

Here’s the moral of the story:

If you’re union and you want to be the best – the lowest cost, most productive, etc – you best become an employer-of-choice. You best become the company that the hard-working, well-organized, success-driven foremen and superintendents are dying to work for.

If you become know as an incompetent, uncaring, or simply greedy owner, you will struggle to build a championship team. The great foremen and superintendents will choose not to work for you no matter what you offer them.

It’s as simple as that: be employee-focused or be ready to put up with ongoing performance headaches.

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

Merry Christmas

Well Ron perhaps we can cause some real interaction with this topic. I too will go with the leader! See we are in agreement again. However the question you raised is who has the MOST IMPACT?

In a successful organization I unequivocally believe that leader(s) have the most impact. It is the leaders responsibility to make sure the organization hires the right people. In the event that a poor hiring choice was made the leader is also accountable to determine if the newbie can adapt to their new environment in a reasonably short period of time. If not making a decisive decision to remove this person from the “bus” before cultural damage can take place is a necessity.

Another question is what is the definition of a leader? Is it the owner, an upper manager or any individual in the organization.

I would assert that their are leaders that are appointed by title and others that step up to the plate and take a leadership position. Which is what Ron is pointing out to our readership in his preceding post.

An excellent leader will develop players that will step up to plate on a daily basis. Leaders who may not be empowered to hire and fire can still spread  positive culture and when necessary inform the powers that be that the organization has a problem employee on its hands. This will probably will not come as a surprise but presenting examples along with good documentation makes it easier to remove the problem.

Now it’s time for you to chime in with your thoughts on the subject.

Happy Holidays.

Guy and Ron

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Good morning (at least for me it’s morning).

Something caught my eye while drinking my coffee and surfing the internet. Something that Guy and I will research and argue about ’til the cows come home but something you might want to chew on.

The question raised is “Who has the most impact on group success? The leader or someone else?”  I will go with leader, only because the leader gets to choose his or her worst employee. However, on a daily basis, I suspect the worst employee has the greatest impact on group success.

What got me thinking about this was something Henry Abbott mentioned in an article posted this morning.

Another part of the story mentions that in some research, across many industries, the best predictor of a team’s success came from assessing the worst person on the team. As in, that person has a bigger effect than the leader or an average player.

Now, there’s something to consider. Your business’ success may be more affected by the quality of your worst employee than by the quality of your leadership skills.

Although the author is referring to a sports team, the observation probably holds true for a business. The weak link, non-performing, lazy employee is going to drag everyone down.  The negative pull will be stronger than the positive pull of the leader.

Taking this thought further, the observation supports why Guy and I preach the need for creating a company culture that rejects poor performers. A culture where mutual accountability is found in every corner. A culture where the leader isn’t the only one who steps up and confronts employees who aren’t behaving correctly, working hard, and pulling for each other.

Stay tuned. I’m sure we’ll have more on this soon.

We pray you and your family have a safe and happy holiday week.

Your friends,

Ron & Guy

You know when you’re listening to someone or reading something how a word will really grab your attention in a new way? A word that is very familiar to you but suddenly hits you with a new meaning or insight?

That happened to me the other day.

In this case, the word that made me go “hmmmm” was TALENT.

I hear the words ABILITY and SKILL used frequently.  When I heard a talk radio guy mention that a well known public figure had a TALENT, I thought eureka! That’s a great way to phrase a person’s natural gifts. They are TALENTS.

When you hear that someone does or does not have a certain talent, you know what that means, right? It means the related task will be really easy or really hard for the individual to perform.

It made me think about the difficulties of running a business by yourself. The wide range of talents required to run a business effectively is almost mind boggling.

That wide range really points out the difficulties of being the one and only rock of your business. It explains why all great businesses, no matter how large or small, are built on a high performance team. Sure, they are inspired, lead, and driven by the top dog. But, it takes a team to pull it off because rare is the person who was born with all the talents necessary to run smoothly something as complex as a business.

If you’ve been thinking that maybe you need to find some additional players to help you with your business, you’re probably right. It’s highly unlikely that you possess all the talents necessary to achieve your business goals all by yourself.

Wishing you the best of luck with your business.

Ron & Guy,
The Contractor’s Business Coach

Are you like most of adults who wish they had followed more of their parents’ advice?

It’s usually “Dang. Dad was right about that.”

That’s really a hard part of growing up. Accepting that we can learn from others’ mistakes, especially our parents’.

And note that I said mistakes, not successes.

Let’s face it, everyone learns best from mistakes, whether our own or someone else’s.

Yet, we all try to pattern success. Why is it so hard to pattern success? Why is it so hard to replicate another contractor’s approach?

Well, the approach we are trying to following almost always resulted from the combination of many factors coming together almost magically. Typically, our situation is different enough that the EXACT same approach will not work for us.

You have noticed that, right? No matter how much you try to follow the approach of a contractor peer, you rarely get the same results?

So, who should you turn to when trying to fix a problem that is (1) costing you money, (2) distracting you from the core tasks of growing your business, and (3) you’ve tried to solve multiple times unsuccessfully?

A. Yourself?

B. Your peers?

C. A professional?

The proper choice depends on your situation…but rarely is “A” the easiest choice.

Not to say you will not eventually solve the problem by yourself, but it may cost you a lot of money and headache along the way just for the benefit of “saving face.”

Choice “B” has worked well for many contractors when they could find someone in their trade who serves the same type of customers, is willing to truly share their secrets, and truly understands why their approach worked and how to adapt it to other situations. Peers who meet all three conditions are very hard to find.

Choice “C” is, quite honestly, the easiest path.

Find a professional who knows which basic solution will work best in your company and who knows how to customize the solution for your exact situation (including customer tendencies, employee personalities, and your personal skills and makeup).

Most consultants who have been around for awhile, have rolled out their solutions into several firms and have learned what works and what doesn’t work…and why.

So, if you are struggling to grow your business and continuing to fight the same fires, which path are you going to choose?

The easy way or the hard way?

Until we next chat – best of luck with your business,

Ron Roberts,
The Contractor’s Business Coach

A couple of months ago, I attended the annual trade show that many of my former employer’s clients go to. It was great to visit with several old friends and meet several new ones. It also brought Guy Gruenberg (Grow Consulting) and I together which is something you will be hearing more about in the near future.

Several of these individuals are avid readers of my newsletter (thank you for the support). Each mentioned he or she was surprised at the frequent focus on sales, marketing, and people management. I was surprised they were surprised. So, being the curious sort, I asked why they were surprised.

They were under the impression my only expertise was data analysis and performance review systems. That perception cracked me up but it did make sense.
The owners of my the consulting practice were SUPERIOR speakers. I mean these two gentlemen were about the best in the industry. Before starting the consulting practice, both had carved out highly successful livings traveling the country delivering seminars. Both were featured speakers at the World of Concrete for years. Both tended to focus on and speak about leadership and management.

So, being the engineer I am, it only made sense for me to slide into the data analysis and system design role while working for them. I was brought on board to balance out the team. And it worked quite well.

It also left our clients with the perception that numbers were my primary interest, focus, and skill.

That is the danger of perception. It can lead you to draw an incomplete picture of your staff’s capabilities and cause you to overlook one of the greatest resources for competitive advantage…the people who are already working for you.

Many of your workers could probably excel at several different types of tasks and in several different roles. Just because a worker is great at one role doesn’t mean he can’t be great at a completely different one.

Be careful making a final judgment on one of your employee’s skills and abilities when you have only seen him in one job. Frequently, employees are either miscast in the wrong role or they are capable of performing many roles equally well. Moving them to a new job often reveals starting new results and alters your perception of the talent you have working right under your nose.