I consistently advocate contractors which “rely” on referrals and repeat business to become much more proactive in attracting this valuable business. You don’t need to wait for your phone to ring — you can use some simple and surprisingly inexpensive resources to attract this vital business. In fact, structured referral and repeat business programs [...]

John Poole, in his Constructonomics Blog, posts some insightful observations of the challenges of starting work as a general contractor in this brutal economy.
Competition, he has discovered, is fierce, and provisions to ensure fairness and openness invite/encourage cheating or manipulation to game the rules. When upwards of 14 businesses bid for the job in [...]

The recently-concluded Winter Olympics, with the rather magical combination of sports, achievement and nationalism all rolled into a two-week extravaganza, remind me of the importance of passion, energy and willpower in achieving our goals.  However, you don’t get there without real and fundamental talent.  Of course, The Olympics are a marketing machine in their own [...]

Last night, Chase sent me and other colleagues this inspirational message, forwarded to him by one of our clients.  The words are not attributed, but a Google search indicates the original source is motivational writer and speaker Keith Cameron Smith, who has written The Top 10 distinctions between Winners and Whiners:
Winners Take Responsibility—Whiners Play the [...]

Yesterday, I pulled together notes for a special advertising feature for a highly successful Ontario sub contractor.  The owner described how the business evolved from an equal partnership among three tradespeople who set out on their own when their former employer closed the business in 1985, to a highly successful multinational business in 2010.
Intriguingly to [...]

Here are some ideas for which I take absolutely no credit.
Adams Hudson writes in his regular newsletter that he is in Washington, “talking to a group of dedicated HVAC professionals who are looking to get leads during this warm winter.”  Of course he is speaking about Washington State on the West Coast, because those of [...]

Recently, someone pitching for a multi-level marketing scheme posted on the LinkedIn.com Construction Marketing Ideas group (you can join by clicking the link on the sidebar), with a seemingly innocent but perhaps important question:  “Have you ever achieved your dreams?”  Initially, I took the message at face value, and answered “Yes”, describing how my early [...]

Tomorrow, Bill Caswell presents his special webinar, Taking Your Construction Business to the Next Level. Bill’s business background is unique — as an engineer he sent rockets into space before starting his own multi-national, successful high technology business with upwards of 300 employees before selling out, and moving on to the next stage in his [...]

In a couple of hours, I’m travelling with Bill Caswell to visit a successful eastern Ontario construction company.  The business has agreed to its employees participating in “Taking your construction business to the next level”, Caswell’s special Webinar next Tuesday (Feb. 16).  In planning for the Webinar, Caswell decided he would be more successful online [...]

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 [...]