This video provides some history, perspective, and observations about how we decided to start publishing The Design and Construction Report, the electronic publication which will report on the results of the Best Construction Blogs and Forums Competition (you can vote for your favorites until Feb. 28.)

You can participate in this (and other) publications, in three ways.

1. Editorially: Clearly, if you had entered your blog and/or forum in the competition by the deadline (Dec. 31) and you are successful, you will receive free publicity. You can also figure out the interests of the editor and readers and suggest story ideas which serve the interests of readers more than your own business. The challenge with editorial publicity is that the editor, not you, decides what is important and what to use. If you are skilled at media relations and/or know how to hire the right experts to guide you, this is the most effective route to publicity in our publication, or any other media, for that matter.

2. Sponsored feature (supplier sponsorship): This model works if your business is large and well enough established that your suppliers will help in the costs.  You provide the references and your suppliers will pay for supporting advertising.  This model of publicity is associated with co-op marketing principals.  As a rule, your business (or project) needs to have annual sales volume of at least $3 million for this model to work.

3.  You sponsor the feature. The fee is $1,500 (but we may be able to reduce it somewhat with some supplier support — see 2 above).  This will give you a professionally-written, three or four page feature, written to highlight your business in the best possible manner.  You can embed video and hyperlinks into your feature.  We’ll provide you  printed copies for your own marketing.  Most importantly, we’ll give you individualized consulting so you can parlay your feature into publicity in other media to help your business grow even more.  This is a wise investment if your business is generating at least $250,000 annually or you have sufficient start-up capitalization to justify it.

If you are interested in any of these options, please feel free to call me at 888-432-3555 ext 224 or email buckshon@cnrgp.com.

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In both Canada and the U.S. some troubling government regulations and tax policy changes are causing grave concern for the renovation/remodeling industry.

In Canada (at least in Ontario and British Columbia, two of the largest provinces), the issue is the Harmonized Sales Tax, or HST.  The HST completes the transition for transaction-based taxation to a European-style Value Added Tax; where the ultimate consumer pays the 100 per cent of the tax, while all taxes on business inputs are credited.  The tax, to be effective, needs to be on a wide variety of goods and services — including many exempt from the former provincial retail sales tax, so the “cost” of a renovation project is about to jump 8 per cent to 13 per cent.  (The real picture is much more complex, of course, as renovation contractors can claim many input and working tax credits on materials, supplies, and other business services, so if you believe the government officials, the true net additional cost is about two to three per cent, maybe.)

In the U.S., meanwhile, remodelling contractors are facing the real challenge of new Environmental Protection Administration lead abatement rules, which will create major, significant additional costs for work on many older houses.  The new rules appear to be cumbersome, expensive to follow, and difficult to decipher.  Mark Paskall at the Contractor Coaching Partnership writes about his first-hand experience in preparing to comply with the new rules, and it is scary.

Industry leaders on both sides of the border fear these regulations and tax policy changes will drive the underground economy; the world of cheaters, hacks, and people who work for cash without insurance, ethics, or any form of regulation.  And these risks are real.  It seems when taxation or regulation reach a certain level, the temptation is to throw the rules out the window and Government obtains diminishing returns.

But is cheating really the way to go?  We’ve seen plenty of examples of how business and financial leaders formerly at the top of the pecking order have been brought down to earth — or more bluntly, been put in jail — for criminal violations of trust and integrity.

I wish I could wave a magic wand and suggest simple answers.  The Canadian tax changes actually will create a much fairer and ultimately more balanced system, one which encourages smart investment and savings, and generally good and visible business practices (you certainly cannot obtain the input tax credits, invisible to consumers, unless your business is properly registered and pays the intermediate taxes.)  The tax system is much like our health care system, which causes grave anxiety among Americans, but actually reduces business risk and cost in Canada to such a great extent that entrpeneurs here — despite the mythology — are much better placed for start-ups and operations than south of the border.)

The new EPA rules in the U.S. will, I think, create real opportunities for remodeling contractors who study them carefully, plan their compliance strategies, and develop internal systems and working processes to reduce costs while observing the rules.  The sooner you learn and understand the rules, the better you will be able to adjust your processes to “work the system” and develop effective consumer-oriented marketing resources to explain why they are in place and the risks in hiring non-compliant contractors.

But we aren’t all angels, and sometimes we need to cheat, or at least bend the rules, to survive, don’t we?

I’m certainly won’t suggest that I have an outlook of moral or business perfection, but hope readers here will appreciate that solid marketing strategies can, to a great degree, overcome the struggle against hacks and cheaters, by allowing you to legitimately encourage consumers or other businesses to pay more for your services/products than the competition; while ensuring you have the business and sales volume you need to survive and thrive.  Marketing is only part of the picture, of course.  You need solid internal business processes, the ability to hire and manage your employees and sub-trades, and plenty of skill in your trade or profession.

You can learn more at the Webinar on Feb. 16, Taking Your Construction Business to the Next Level, with Bill Caswell.

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Here are two questions to put your mind to work:

1. Which works best:   An inbound  call from someone out of the blue, who has heard good things about you and wants you to proceed with a project; or paying a canvasser or outbound seller to attract sales for you?
2. Referred leads from satisfied (enthusiastic) clients or a flyer advertising campaign to 10,000 people?

For most readers here, you will probably answer “yes” to the first option in each question, and I admit even people like me — who are professional marketers and understand the basics — feel the same way.  We love it when people call us, because of referrals or connections, and enthusiastically request our services, and we hate spending a small (or sometimes) large fortune on paid advertising or sales efforts which fail (and it seems, alas, that most paid advertising just doesn’t work that well, when you first start doing it.)

But there is a deeper issue underlying the story here, and this big difference separates the people who truly succeed and grow in business, and those who just get by.

Of course you should do everything you can to encourage, develop and enhance your client experience and your inbound lead development, especially if you are marketing professional services or even openly bid public works services (because if you think the low bid really wins the job, you are only partially right in some markets, and totally wrong, in others).  But you should be sure to systematize and measure these efforts and if you wish to enhance them, allocate a budget and build the work/initiative into your business planning process and annual planning cycle (and yes, these standards of effective business management are necessary.  I tried to defy them for several years, ultimately at great expense.)

But if you really want to grow, and you want to gain true control of your business, especially if you ware working with consumers or the retail market, you will need to begin thinking about paid advertising and you will want to develop a formula/technique that allows you to control your leads flow, rather than rely on those wonderful inbound calls.  This is not a simple thing to do because you must not just blindly follow the advice of the first person who knocks on your door selling advertising or media services.  You need to think and plan your strategy carefully.

Methods to do this:

• Check with your current clients (the ones you enjoy working with the most).  Find out what media they watch, what community activities they support, which associations and organizations they respect.
• Seek out independent consulting either peer based through your trade associations, Internet forums like remodelcrazy.com or contractortalk.com, or from generalist or specialist consultants with a good reputation (this is the most expensive option, but could be the best if you wish to speed up the process).
• Validate these observations with conversations with your peers and/or non-competitive businesses similar to yours in other, similar markets.
• Then, put the budget in your plan and make it happen.

(But I admit, with all this lofty thinking, you will still jump through the hoops with joy — and you will find your plans shifting — when you receive the treasured in-bound call from someone who has heard great things about you, or seen your product and simply wants some of it.)

P.S.  Thanks to everyone who has voted for their favorite cover for the book.  I’ll leave the competition open another two weeks (the cover appearing here is the final of five choices), as we prepare the galleys and index — and share the results with you next week.  If you wish to vote, you can cast your ballot here.

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Have you ever experienced the blinding flash of a major insight?  If you have, the experience is profound and highly personal — and it changes your life permanently.  Although I’m not an expert on psychotherapy, the idea of some non-medicinal treatments is to help patients catch the truths which the therapist (and perhaps society as a whole) clearly recognize but the patient cannot seem to visualize.  Of course, drugs may also help out in the insight-discovering process — at some risk to the user.  Certainly, I discovered my major insight (at 26 years old) in a  night of drinking that probably set a personal binge record.

I’ve also noticed that, in my case, the major insight is something like an earthquake.  Significant hidden precursors occur that might become more obvious (in hindsight) as the actual insight approaches, and several aftershocks take place, most prominent right at the time of the major insight, but sometimes following years later (these might be seen as minor insights.)

I also sense that many insights correlate with religious awakenings, often the discovery or reconnection with your faith.  (I appreciated my faith in G-d that evening.)  There is a fine line of course between religious faith, and (more dangerously) cult-like behaviour.

Great motivational speakers (and perhaps religious/cult leaders) have the ability to break through at least to some of their followers to encourage/induce insights.  Undoubtedly, if you can capture/bottle/communicate your insights effectively, you’ll be truly effective at marketing.

But how do you do this when you are out there marketing drywall, or LEED-based engineering consulting?  I doubt few people you wish to do business want you to force your insights down their throats, especially if they are religious-based (though of course you can certainly market within your own relgiiou or community group).

The answer, I think, is to return to the source of your insight, which most likely correlates with your core life purpose, passion, and values.  When you are fortunate enough to be working so deeply and so well at the activity you love doing — to the point that time and money don’t really matter– your current and potential clients will discover you and you will most likely use the most effective marketing methods to reach them.

You will find many marketing options available to you.  I advocate that your best options are the ones that bring you closer to your inner values and strengths — and you’ll know when and how to use the more difficult marketing methods  (for business survival or initial growth) when your underlying purpose in business and life is strong enough.

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I’d like to say that I generally use my time wisely, effectively and to the highest value. But that may be wishful thinking.  Others get things done much more effectively and productively, so the last thing that I should do is present myself as an authority on the topic.

But as I write this blog entry at 5 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010, some thoughts come to mind.  The single greatest reason I hear from people about why they don’t Blog or work on social media projects is they lack the time for these initiatives.  And they are right, for one of two likely reasons.  They don’t enjoy using the time for this sort of activity, or they don’t appreciate it or have the habit of using it effectively.

And I am the last person to judge or tell you you “should” do this sort of thing because, after all, you might prefer to sleep at 5 a.m.

We all need time for different things, and sometimes supposedly unproductive time is the most valuable.  The hours you spend joking around or simply relaxing with your family (or friends) serve much useful purpose, if you dare call it that.

One of our employees has a developing personal business, and a personal relationship.  When we contracted with him, I realized he might be trying to pack far more than 100 hours of “work time” into each week, and realized something might give.  So we devised his employment contract with controls — if he sells enough stuff that he would effectively work on commission, he is free to work when and where he wishes.  If he doesn’t, he is also free — but he will need to deduct hours from his compensation guarantee.  (And I wrote the contract to allow varying levels of control, to give him as much flexibility as he needs, without expecting the company to pay for his sleep time.)

In effect, I also have my own personal contract.  If something is enjoyable, fun, and rewarding, it gets time, even if the time might be better spent on something more useful.

If things are getting edgy, if we aren’t meeting our business needs and the only way to achieve the results we need is to roll up my sleeves and do work I distaste, I will do it, as long as necessary, but generally for brief times, until the problems are corrected.  If the effort requires longer, more consistent results, two things can happen:  I can be fortunate enough to develop a new habit and begin liking what I had distasted previously, or I must find a solution that will get me out of the mess, as quickly as possible.

The former will generally happen if the activity reflects my values, personality, and interests.  So I now exercise for an hour at the gym five to six days a week, a tremendously time-consuming activity but one that probably causes me to be one of the fittest 56-year-olds around (and of course the exercise gives me more energy the rest of the day.)  And it is easy for me to spend 30 to 60 minutes a day blogging because, after all, I have always been a writer and journalist.

The latter solution to distasteful tasks — getting out of the problem by dumping the work or trying to delegate it — takes me into dangerous territory.  If I detest direct selling and formal networking activities, the temptation is to get others to do the work for me, and at least once a not-too-great sales rep conned me into an income guarantee for doing some work I really wanted to offload.  (Now we use more disciplined screening and evaluation tools to avoid that sort of mistake, most of the time.)

Generally, I think we can get the most out of our time by doing what we love doing as well as we can, as often as we can.  We just need to validate this time with our values, priorities, and needs — and maybe (if time management is proving to be  a problem for you) some solid consulting and coaching on priorities and time management.

P.S. At right is another of the  possible covers of the new Construction Marketing Ideas book — the survey will only take a second to complete.  Some readers have told me they have been unable to vote online because the survey software thinks they’ve voted before, perhaps for another Construction Marketing Ideas survey.  If that happens, you can simply email me at buckshon@cnrgp.com with your vote A to E.  Thanks!

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Yesterday, following a newsletter posting, several Michael Stone supporters cast ballots in his favor, propelling his “Markup and Profit” blog to a solid third spot in the competition.  (They also provided some of the most enthusiastic testimonials I’ve seen since the start of the competition.)

Today, I figured out how to embed the live results from the database on this site.  The first chart is for the Best Blog competition, the second shows the numbers for the Best Forum. You can click directly from the report to view the blogs and forums.

The contest concludes on February 28. You can vote from this link.

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The latest issue of the Construction Marketing Ideas newsletter should reach a few thousand readers this morning.  I write blog entries every day, and in a few weeks, will publish my first book: Construction Marketing Ideas:  Practical Strategies and Resources to Attract and Retain Clients for your Architectural, Engineering or Construction Business.

Why all this writing?

The motivation relates to marketing principals; writing can be one of the most effective methods of building your reputation and brand, especially if you provide a professional or technical service.  As readers grow to know and trust you, they are more inclined to do business with you.   Writing leads to other communication, including speaking engagements, enhanced Internet presence (search engines like lots of original material) and confidence.

Of course, it helps (for me) that I’ve been a writer and journalist all my adult life — this stuff comes naturally to me and I enjoy it.  One basic rule of success in any endeavor is to work at things you enjoy, which you do exceptionally well.

So, if you aren’t a writer at heart, should you write?

The answer is probably “yes” if your budget is high enough to afford a ghost writer or support person to help out — but you can keep the costs for these services low by working with journalism students or even online sources such as elance.com.   Systematic and planned writing and blogging will certainly be less expensive than much conventional paid advertising.  Note that you cannot simply delegate the writing to your “ghost” and forget about it.  Your thoughts need to come through and be expressed in the communications — you really need to be involved in the process to achieve success.

P.S.  You can help out with the voting for the cover of the new Construction Marketing Ideas book — the survey will only take a second to complete.  Some readers have told me they have been unable to vote online because the survey software thinks they’ve voted before, perhaps for another Construction Marketing Ideas survey.  If that happens, you can simply email me at buckshon@cnrgp.com with your vote A to E.  Thanks!

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This week, we’re evaluating a candidate in the Washington, D.C. area to be our publisher/representative for The Design and Construction Report. A couple of other candidates who have successfully the passed initial evaluation are waiting in the wings, and if necessary we can repost the career opportunity on Craig’s List.

The person we are evaluating, and anyone to follow if he is not successful, has a daunting challenge.  He needs to bring in meaningful sales within just a couple of weeks, in an environment where most of the likely and potentially suitable purchasers will be skeptical if he tries anything approaching a conventional sales “pitch”.

Ironically, once hired, the successful candidate will find things much easier.  We can set a modest actual sales quota for the early going, allowing the representative to take a patient and respectful attitude and build truly meaningful relationships within the community.

Now, however, he has to bring in the business.  He will need to be imaginative, persuasive, and able to discover the needle in the haystack — the potential client ready to make a quick decision, who qualifies for our services, and who really will benefit from them.

In our experience, candidates who reach this stage have a 50/50 chance of success.

Great sales representatives (or in the professional fields of architecture and engineering, rainmakers) can truly build your business.  You can often substitute effective marketing for sales ability; if your brand, reputation, and relationships within the community are strong enough, you won’t need to sell very much — potential clients will arrive at your door with little resistance, and your selling effort mainly will be to systematize and co-ordinate your referral and repeat business management process (and yes, you should do this rather than ‘rely’ on unsolicited inbound calls.)

Of course, your business will most successful if you can properly integrate successful marketing and sales — marketing to develop qualified leads, and salespeople who will convert your marketing leads to profitable orders, while enhancing your community relationships, reputation, and brand.

I cover these issues in greater depth in the upcoming Construction Marketing Ideas book — and this week, I will post each day one of the five candidates for the book’s cover.  You can vote for your favorite cover design here.

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We’re in the final editing and proofing stage for the new Construction Marketing Ideas book.  As I catch typos and prepare to send the book to the indexing and final proofreading, you can help with an important decision — the book cover choice.

Our designer has devised five cover variations, and you can vote on which one you prefer.  Just click on your favorite image, and you’ll be directed to a survey form where you will be able to confirm your choice and if you wish, learn about the results.

You can also request while voting three free chapters by email, or (with a small deposit) preorder the book and receive a significant discount.

But you don’t need to identify yourself or purchase anything to vote for your favorite cover.

Here they are:

Choice A

Choice B

Choice C

Choice D

Choice E

For more information about the book, and to order either free sample chapters or pre-order the entire book, you can go to this link.

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