Contractor Tip of the Month
Getting Things Done | September Contract Tip of the Month
Have you ever wondered how people who put in 60-plus hours a week at work still find time to coach their kid’s baseball team, mow their lawn, and keep their houses neat? Yet, others who work significantly fewer hours, cannot seem to find the time to remove their garbage cans from the curb after trash pickup or cut their grass, let alone offer time to help someone else. There’s an old proverb that says, “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” It seems to me these busy folks can accomplish so much because they have trained themselves to be productive and efficient with their time. They are the people you can rely on because they are motivated to get things done. A common characteristic of motivated people is they are usually highly organized.... Read More
Contractor Tip of the Month
Q & A from “Asking the Right Questions to the Right Audience”
Last month I wrote about “Asking the Right Questions to the Right Audience.” I shared the questions my contractor friend posed when he reached out to me for business advice. They were great questions and I believe others may find my thoughts, experiences, and insights valuable. Q: What is the greatest lesson you have ever learned? A: This advice came early in my business career from the late John Stillwell, a general contractor and mentor who become my biggest customer at the time. He had offered me a $250,000 labor contract to lay the block on a Walmart. Thinking the job was too big, I told him I had planned to do a smaller job just down the road with a slightly higher margin. When he quizzed me as to why I wouldn’t even give the big job a... Read More
Contractor Tip of the Month
Asking the Right Questions to the Right Audience
You've decided it's time to sell your pickup truck. Simply parking it in your front yard and hoping for the best is not going to cut it. That's not the most efficient means of communicating its availability for sale. You are going to need a sign, but not just any sign. A “No Trespassing” sign will not do the trick, nor will a “Road Work Ahead” sign. If you're looking for a buyer, you need to make sure that the passing traffic can plainly see that this truck is “For Sale.” Those two little words convey a very important question to everyone who reads it. It asks, “Are you in the market for a truck?” Now you have the right question, but are you asking the right audience? I have no idea how many people pass by your yard each day, but I bet only a... Read More
Contractor Tip of the Month
Never Give Up on Your Dream
A contractor recently called me for advice. He had suffered a major financial setback caused by some illegal actions of his former chief financial officer. He had lost lots of money and was so desperate that he was thinking of giving up on his dream of building a successful construction business. He was looking for some hope and help. So, he asked me if I had ever experienced hard times and thought about giving up on my dreams. I think he was surprised by my answer. I replied, “Did I ever think about giving up? Hell yes, and more than once.” Then, as I always do, I shared some experiences where I had to respond to incredibly challenging conditions. First, I described the challenges we overcame to bring Grout Hog to the masonry industry. I came up with... Read More
Contractor Tip of the Month
Q&A: How to Keep Moving to Success
My goal in writing has always been to share my insights about business and to not focus on me. But maybe I opened a can of worms last month when I gave away the secret of my success: reaching out to someone you respect to learn some of their secrets. A contractor friend recently emailed me for advice. He is successful in business, so I was surprised he reached out. He told me he has used my success for inspiration. He wrote: “I grew up in a broken-down home, part of a family that didn’t push me and offered little encouragement. As you can imagine, I had nothing to look forward to and just existed on food stamps for four years before I went into the Army. So, when I started contracting, I looked to you for an example of how to manage my business.” Today... Read More
Contractor Tip of the Month
The King of the Mountain Doesn’t Get to Stay on Top Very Long
Do you remember when you were a kid playing King of the Mountain or something similar? The name of this childhood game varies, but the rules are pretty much the same everywhere. Everyone starts at the bottom of a hill, then upon a signal, everyone races to the top. However, getting to the top first does not guarantee victory. The winner is the kid who stays on top even when the others try to push or pull the “king” down. And when the king goes down, someone else moves into the top spot and tries to protect that turf. The winner is the “king” who manages to stay at the top when everyone else eventually gives up. I played King of the Mountain often with my brothers and neighborhood friends who would stop by our house. I did not win a lot at first, but... Read More
Contractor Tip of the Month
When You Do the Thing You Fear to Do, You Will Have the Power to Do It and More! | December 2020 Contractor Tip of the Month
Last week I took a short drive in the country near my childhood home. With so much happening around us right now, I needed some woods time to help me collect my thoughts. Without realizing it, I was driving down a narrow, ragged drive off a poorly maintained gravel road to the Ava Maria Graveyard. I got out of my car and walked through the graveyard. This allowed me to meditate on where I am now in my career and all the fears I experienced along the way. When I started my business 36 years ago, I was broke, not poor. I believe that being broke is a temporary situation while being poor is a state of mind. So I was just broke and knew I had to do something to fix the situation. But fixing the situation by trying to become wealthy was a scary position for me. We... Read More
Contractor Tip of the Month
Being Happy Where We Are Right Now Will Help Us to Get Where We Are Going
In a meeting today, one of my business coaches asked me, “What do you want that you don’t have?” From somewhere out of the blue, I said, “I want to be happy where I am right now.” When he asked why, I told him it relieves stress from me demanding myself to do more, more, and more. It makes me wonder why I still live with regrets of things I have done in the past. Am I slapping myself over and over again, saying I never should have done that in the past? If so, is it doing me any good? If your child got in trouble for fighting at school, and you smack him and say, “I told you not to hit anyone,” are you teaching him anything about not hitting someone? I don’t think so. So why do we smack ourselves, then tell ourselves not to do it again? One... Read More
Contractor Tip of the Month
Good Performers Propose Answers and Provide a Path Forward
To succeed in business, you must surround yourself with people who can get things done quickly and efficiently. Ask yourself this question: Are your people coming to you with solutions, or giving you a situation and asking you what to do next? One thing is for sure. Good performers do not try to explain why a project may not be a good fit for them or why they need more experience and knowledge before they begin. They do not make excuses. Good performers just get started and figure it out as they go. If your team gives you excuses for why a project cannot start today or finish tomorrow (even though it is within the employees’ job duties), your organization has performance issues. The real challenge is determining what good performance looks like. So, let me... Read More
Contractor Tip of the Month
Surviving Hard Times | September Contractor Tip of the Month
At dinner a couple of weeks ago, my three daughters were expressing how much they had admired a person who had recently died by suicide. Their sadness and story have stuck with me. It also took me back a few years ago when I was helping a friend turn his business around. My friend asked for help on overcoming depression. I felt I gave him good advice that would help him through his situation. However, two weeks after my visit, he died by suicide. I always wished I could have done more. Therefore, I felt compelled to write a tip about what carried me through some hard times of my own. After coming off our three most profitable years in the history of our four companies, we were expanding greatly in 2007. I invested in construction office space, a new factory, high... Read More
