
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any easier to learn along comes another avenue to enhance your education. While attending trade specific conventions and conferences will always be with us, these tend to be special in that they are normally only once a year, perhaps more for the local chapters of associations. Yet, the need to learn never ends – and it needs to happen more than once or twice a year.
Why don’t you increase your learning opportunities and make time to join us for the first of what will become a regular service in construction education? Our first webinar, scheduled Thursday November 8 at 4:30 CST, is entitled:
Year-End Secrets That Strengthen New Year Start-Up
We’ll discuss for an hour some of the profit-making decisions successful contractors have implemented into their companies, and you’ll have a chance to interact via “live” polling and asking me questions in real time (welcome to the 21st Century, eh?)
Here’s just some of what I’m going to cover. First, we’ll explore how to maximize your last few weeks before shutting things down for the off-season. One of the areas we’ll discuss is how to “seed” new market areas.
While I won’t share all of the insights here, let me share that it is critical for any contractor engaged with a seasonal business to look for ways to lay some new seeds for developing more work in the future. How can a contractor do this?
- Contact all “favored” customers and ask them for their top three referrals. Give the customers who share three referrals a gift coupon for dinner.
- Send your sales/estimators to drop your company information to 10-25 potential customers who match your customer “profiles.” Start this process four to six weeks before the off-season begins (Now!).
Ok, more on this great way to bust out of the blocks strong when the new season begins will be shared during the webinar.
Hey, let’s take a step back for a minute and address one contractor that might be scratching his or her head right now. How about the contractor that isn’t seasonal. Ok, I hear you.
If you’re not a seasonal construction company there is still great value in joining us at the webinar. Even 12-month contractors realize that there are in fact periods of time, throughout the year, where the actual amount of work may be more or less. Some of this is due to weather, or may be focused around the bigger of the holiday times such as Christmas or Thanksgiving. No matter, the choice of seasonal preparations is good “stuff” for all contractors.
Now, let’s move on to the next point that will be addressed in the November 8 webinar.
What do smart contractors do when winding down in the late fall? We’ll spend a lot of our time here focusing on three major items of concern for most contractors:
- The review of equipment needs and the creation of a maintenance schedule
- Assessing whom you’re going to bring back for the new season
- How to review and update work processes
The offseason is the perfect time to do a full review of every work process your crews perform to determine what steps can be eliminated or improved. The “Lean Construction” movement is setting in deeply with many contractors. I know because I’m working with many on moving their field leaders, at all levels, more in line with each other on taking their performance and companies to yet another higher level.
The final area that we’ll address in Year-End Secrets That Strengthen New Year Start-Up includes the following areas.
- How to Analyze Your Year’s Successes and Set-Backs
- Strategic Planning Tips on Market Penetration for the Next Year
- Doing a Complete “Marketing Make-Over” for Next Year
Taking the time to assess where you are succeeding and where you’re challenged is something that all contractors should do on a regular basis, throughout the year. But like most of us, we get so down in the weeds busy as contractors that we are more about getting this week’s jobs in right the first time and making sure we have enough laborers to get the work done that we often put off thinking about what we should be doing better.
Another task that often gets pushed back until we are actually going out to make calls during the new season and that’s doing what I call the “Market Make-Over.” With new technology at our fingertips, and with results that can rival high-cost marketing firms, we should upgrade our pictures, testimonials etc. prior to every new season. There is simply no excuse for not doing this and the payoff is too great to turn down. People like “now” not what you did two, three, or five years ago.
OK, so will you consider joining us for the webinar tomorrow -- Thursday, November 8 at 4:30 p.m. Central Standard Time? Consider a bumper sticker that I saw years ago, and that I now have framed in my office.
“If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!”
This is as true for owners and construction leaders as it is for our employees. Don’t let this webinar opportunity pass you up and lose out on some great insights to turning your fall “wind down” into a money-making preparation for your 2013 season.
Oh, and by the way, did I fail to mention that the webinar is free? There you go! Join us tomorrow for Year-End Secrets That Strengthen New Year Start-Up!
Brad Humphrey
© 2012 Brad Humphrey, Pinnacle Development Group/the Contractor’s Best Friend™
Don't miss tomorrow's FREE webinar! At 4:30 p.m. CST Thursday, Nov. 8, Brad Humphrey will conduct a free webinar "Year-end Secrets that Strengthen the the New Year Start Up." The 60-minute session will cover three topics and provide opportunities for listeners to ask questions. Don't miss it! Click here to register.