Category Archives: Strategic Planning

[VIDEO] Overcoming Customer Objections

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When thinking through how to overcome customer objections, its important to remember that objections are normal! No one wants to spend more money than they have to, or make investments in areas that they can’t personally see as being necessary. However, this can be overcome with planning and strategy. Today’s leading contractors are able to find customer “hot buttons” and cracks in their own business strategy to find ways to push back against customer objections without alienating key clients.

In just 2 minutes, learn five tools you can use to overcoming objections from customers!

REMEMBER: You can watch all of our 2 Minute Drill series at videos.pinnacledg.com, and you can download the Pinnacle Development Group App to watch your training videos on any iOS, Android, or Windows device.

 

 

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Working With Mediocrity

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Mediocrity and the construction industry don’t go together very well. No contractor I know will ever admit to purposely recruit mediocre workers.  Yet, many of the same contractors do admit to having a great many workers who are far from excellent or highly motivated to learn.  Welcome to the reality, the nightmare really, of working with mediocrity.

silhouette engineer looking Loaders and trucks in a building site over Blurred construction worker on construction site

 

The definition of mediocrity is quite interesting.  You will find several definitions, including:

“The quality of something that is not very good;

a person who does not have the special ability to do something well.”

For contractors who sell quality, “best in class,” and No Bad Job projects, the reality of employing workers who are, quite honestly, not very good or who do not have the special ability to do something well, the future can be quite depressing.  Where is a contractor to find workers who are better than mediocre?

Not sure if I can add a whole lot more to where to find more productive workers than what I’ve written in past articles through the years.  However, what I do think is worth addressing is more focused on how to deal with those employees who you might consider to be more mediocre in their work habits, performance, and results.

There are no secrets here or any magic pills to ask your workers to take to move them up a notch or two on the performance ladder of effort.  But, there are several actions you can take to insure that you are bringing out the best that is possible from those workers who may be performance challenged.

  1. Spend Additional Time Spelling Out Daily Expectations

Setting out the weeks schedule might work for your best performers but for the mediocre worker, a daily dose of “what we are going to do today” cannot be overemphasized.

  1. Turn Follow-up a Quarterly Habit

If you quarter up your day you will find that there are about four 90-120 minute sections of time.  Each “quarter” should engage your touring your work areas to insure that workers, especially your known mediocre workers, are doing what they were assigned to do.

  1. Build on Every Positive Demonstration of Productive Movement

Sounds crazy but you will need to reaffirm each and every positive effort put forth by those who do not quite hold the bar of performance excellence as high.  Such positive reinforcement can go a long way to winning these folks over to putting out more effort.

  1. Keep the Bar Raised on Needed Productivity, Quality, & Commitment to Excellence

Don’t allow the workers who are mediocre to subtly dictate to you that some days will not be great.  You might shoot for greatness every day and on every project.  Let your guard down just a little here and you will have a project go south on your faster than you can shake a stick.

  1. Don’t Settle for Less than Needed Results

OK, let’s face it, not everything that even our best workers do is perfect…every time.  However, when the results are not quite there and reworking it will not cost you too much…do the rework to insure that your workers realize the seriousness of doing things right the first time.  There is an old adage that goes something like, “Perfection is the enemy of effectiveness.”  While true, you want to lead, mold, and maintain perfection in following important processes and procedures.

  1. Engage Your Customers to Give Workers Feedback on Their Results

Often, what a customer might say can have more impact on workers than anything an owner might try to communicate.  The boss can discuss how important quality is all day and not raise an eye lid from their workers; have a customer say the same thing and suddenly the workers are knocking themselves out trying to meet the customer’s expectations.

  1. Engage More of Your Mediocre Workers in Job Reviews & Best Practices Learned

Because many mediocre workers often display low interest in getting better, contractors will naturally focus more improvement discussions on workers who appear to care about quality and getting better.  This can be a huge mistake, as often the mediocre folks need to be brought into discussions about getting better.  The effort will encourage them to feel like they are part of something that includes and welcomes them and their ideas.  Remember, it’s this group of mediocre workers that have often been forgotten by leaders who were more interested in working with those who clearly demonstrate their interest to be better.

  1. Engage Your Mediocre Workers Face to Face

It is very common for the mediocre workers to feel like they are just a number.  For many, this is a comfortable existence that doesn’t single out or make an example of.  However, by pushing past this and actually engaging your mediocre workers, face to face, you are challenging them to listen, to step up, to do something beyond just showing up to work and moving through the motions.  This effort will “arm twist” your worker to respond and to react to your proactive effort.

OK, while I know that for many workers of mediocrity, not one of the eight suggestions just listed may have the desired result, the effort may still connect with some of your workers.  Sure, you can terminate the mediocre employees but you might be surprised about how many that might actually include.

Rather than get all worked up and frustrated about what is not happening it’s very important that you go on offense in playing this game.  Influencing our workers has never been a defensive strategy but instead one that “takes the game to them.”

We all employ mediocre workers.  In fact, some of our best mediocre workers have been with us for five, ten, fifteen or more years.  So, instead of complaining about them, let’s engage them by integrating some or all of the efforts listed earlier.  What do you have to lose?

Here’s to working with mediocrity…and maybe, just maybe, learning to win!

Brad Humphrey

The Contractor’s Best Friend™

For more information about Brad and his organization, go to www.pinnacledg.com  Sign up now with Brad’s company App and keep the educational process rolling in your company.

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Startup Contractors: How Innovative Construction Workers Can Win

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OK, seriously, creating a startup company is taking a huge risk.  I love new business startups, and the owners who start them.  Over the years, I have supported many such new companies, especially new construction companies, but I also realize that starting any business is often begun on some less than ideal facts.

After conducting many educational sessions at a few construction industry conferences, I was amazed how many new startup owners were attending.  Many of them were searching for answers to strengthen their leadership, their firm’s sales and profitability, and the proverbial search of the “holy grail” of workers.  Let me share a few insights that I shared with these new and young owners.

Prepare for the Worst; Plan for the Best

Old advice that fits more contractors today than ever.  I have found three keys to success missing from many new start-ups.

  • Under Capitalized – honestly, the owner simply doesn’t have enough money to keep their dreams a float till they obtain enough work.
  • No Business Plan – even the older seasoned business owner needs a business plan for a startup company. You just can’t run a successful contracting business for long without one.
  • Focus on Sales OVER Quality – hate to say the obvious but you can sell all the work you want but if you have no workers who can complete great work…the right way…the first time…you got nothing but problems coming your way.

Obviously there are many other things that can throw a wrench into the dreams and hard work of a new contractor but my goal isn’t to write a book on such things (at least not yet!).

Now, let me share some wisdom from many of the best startup contractors I’ve had the privilege to either work with, listen to, or read about.

startupNew Contractors Startup Starting Five

  1. Insure you have capital to carry you for 2-3 years.
  2. Develop a business plan that reflects growth objectives for markets served and expansion steps for adding employees, equipment, etc.
  3. Have a marketing plan.
  4. Hire wise & solid players.
  5. Set weekly, monthly, & quarterly goals.

OK, again, there are at least another one-hundred things to be done by the new owner but this list of five will get you headed in the right direction.  Let me expand each point with some greater clarity.

  1. Insure you have capital to carry your startup for 2-3 years.

Either flush out your retirement money, borrow from relatives, or line up some credit with a banker (be willing to mortgage your life) but shoot to have 2-3 years in available money to pay wages, rent equipment, buy materials, etc. Create a budget and consider what your financial needs will be.  Sure, cut to the bone initially, but realize that you will need to pay employees, your family needs to eat, and banks will take your home, or equipment if you fail on payments.

  1. Develop a business plan that reflects growth objectives for markets served and expansion steps for adding employees, equipment, etc.

A business plan is not that difficult to build but is more often missing from new contractors than any other of the four items addressed in this article.  The business plan needs to clearly identify: Where are we going as a company?  What markets are we to pursue?  At what levels of growth will we add workers, equipment, etc.?  Will we leverage production by “sub-contracting” sold work to other contractors?

A business plan is a roadmap of sorts, sometimes needing to be adjusted and edited, but it empowers you with strategies for how to best attack the future.

  1. Have a marketing plan.

A great companion plan that new start-ups need is a market plan.  Combined with a business plan and the contractor has two key weapons to address the future.  The marketing plan should address more clearly what business that the company is in, what markets will they be serving, and what strategies will best gain greater recognition, reputation, and branding.  I always encourage contractors, especially start-ups to determine how they will be selling their wares, products, and services.  Certainly the entire “electronic tool box” opens the door to outlets to spread the news of our company and what we can deliver.  Check all outlets including your own Web-site, Face-book, Linked-In, etc.

  1. Hire wise & solid players.

Now, here we have perhaps the toughest of all the five recommendations to overcome.  Hiring “wise and solid” workers any time can be a herculean effort but with our current transition in the generations, the lack of mechanical minded education in more and more communities, just finding available workers who really want to work can be daunting.  But finding capable workers is still greatly needed and must be pursued aggressively.

Over the years I’ve written about finding, hiring, and retaining workers, so I’ll be brief here.  However, the best thing any new owner can do to find and hire wise and solid “players” is to first create a clear description as to what is needed in the company, specifically related to what is expected in the job including the roles that might be fulfilled and more importantly, the responsibilities that will be completed.

To strengthen this fourth recommendation it is critical for even new company owners to prepare to make “on the job training” and education a major part of their weekly efforts.  Unless you can hire seasoned and proven craftsman, prepare to spend a lot of time teaching, keeping workers  a little late some afternoons to train on a needed technique.  Even consider hiring technical consultants, even retired workers, to assist in the training.  Such an effort early will provide greater returns later.

  1. Set weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals.

This final recommendation is key because it sustains a new contractor to keep his or her vision focused on what is attainable in shorter segments of time.  You need the business and marketing plans, but its’ just as important to have short-term objectives that can be measured and managed on a regular basis for your new company.  Keep the goals clear and important to the upcoming week, month, or quarter, and review the results regularly.  Make such a review part of your weekly meetings with your team of leaders and workers.

Again, creating a construction startup is hard work.  If you do it, have more than just some dream and an emotional hunger…both will die out if that’s all you have.  However, if you are starting a new construction company then determine to be methodical, persistent, and never say “quit.”

Living the life of a successful contractor is only achieved via the extremely hard work known by those who have paid the price.  Work to be the best that you can be…stay away from comparing your success against other contractors.  Seek the best for you, your family, and your new company and enjoy all of the learning experiences you will endure.  Let them form and mold you to be the best that you can be!

Here’s to building your best!

 

Brad Humphrey is the President and Founder of Pinnacle Development Group. For more information on how Pinnacle Development Group can work with you and your organization, contact us at 913-904-4970.

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