According to a study by the Centre for Small Enterprises at Massey University, during the next 10 years 64% of business owners intend to exit their businesses. For the North Shore, where I live, that means about 16,000 businesses may come up for sale (or other exit option) during the next 10 years. That’s 130…
DetailsI want to talk to you about one of the least understood, yet vital aspects of marketing. It is the principal that when creating an ad, a brochure, a sales letter, a web page or any other marketing piece you should COMMUNICATE WITH ONE PERSON AT A TIME. The natural thing to do when preparing…
DetailsMost small businesses stay small because the owner does everything. Simple maths means 24 hours x 1 = not very big. 24 x 10 = much bigger. So if you do all the estimates and present the quotes; sign all the contracts, subcontracts, and change orders; make the big site decisions; purchase all materials and…
DetailsYou may be doing lots of quotes and only converting a low percentage of them into paying jobs. If this is the case you may think that your sales technique needs some work and you need to learn some high pressure closing scripts. You know. The ones the car sales guys seem so good at.…
DetailsMany business owners I talk to, knowing what I do, ask me how do they go about systemising their business. Often they are stressed out from covering for staff who aren’t doing the job properly, have forgotten to order materials needed for the day’s work, have been let down by subbies not turning up on time, or a combination of all these….and more! (Sound familiar?) They hear and read about how systems are essential in business to help free up their time, but they are not sure where to start.
I have put together a few thoughts about beginning to systemise a business if you are in a similar position to those business owners I mentioned above.
DetailsI had a great meeting with a client today. We figured there was another $100,000 profit at least that could be added to their bottom line, just by tweaking a few operational practices. It is great when I can work with clients like this. My coaching fee pales into insignificance when compared to the potential…
DetailsNobody likes to loose out on a job, especially in recent times when the work is thinner on the round and you can’t be as picky as you could be 3 or 4 years ago. Nobody likes to loose money also and so how do you combat low ball pricing and secure the job at…
DetailsA lot of people (including me) talk about competitive advantage and how it is vital to the ongoing success of a business. This is very true, but what is the BEST sort of competitive advantage to have and what is plan B if you don’t have one? Without doubt the best competitive advantage to have…
DetailsIt all starts with loosing out on the job you were sure you would get. There does not seem to be so much work out there, so you lower your prices to get the next job, otherwise you won’t have any work for the guys next month. You are now thinking that the only way…
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