Imagine you are flying over the Pacific Ocean and the captain comes on the PA system. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that all our instruments are out. I have no idea where we are headed, how much fuel we have or what height we…
I guess you’ve noticed, finding a good people to add to your team isn’t easy right now, especially if you are in Auckland or Christchurch. I hear this complaint regularly from the owners of construction companies I talk to and that they either have low or no response to their ads, or that the calibre of…
A recent study for the construction industry by Hinge, a US based branding and marketing firm, found that buyers listed good reputation as the most important criteria for purchasing, and the good news is that most sellers already recognize this fact. www.hingemarketing.com They also asked buyers about the best way to market to them (Figure 1).…
The customer is always right. Correct? Wrong! The RIGHT customer is always right for your business. Unfortunately most of us don’t know who the right customers are for our business. So we take on board anyone who has a heart beat, without ever identifying the right customer profile for our business. But who is the…
You have a great sales person. They close a high percentage of deals and you rely on them to keep your production machine fed. Your company literature, website and other staff talk about core vales of “honesty” and “integrity”. Your star sales person uses bribes and back-handers to land some of the deals. What do you…
I was watching a BBC documentary the other day on reductions in the death and serious incidents rates in surgery and it struck me how the key idea was very applicable to construction. That idea? Simple checklists. The program featured a top surgeon, Dr Atul Gawande from the US who was asked to investigate the death/serious incident…
Your “purple cow” is also known as your unique selling position, or USP. It is a sentence or phrase that explains what makes you special. It gives your prospects a reason to do business with you rather than your competitors. A good USP that is properly used makes your marketing a lot more effective, because…
One of my Facebook followers in the South Island had this video on his Facebook page. Thought it was definitely worth sharing!! Anything else tradies never say?
Do you understand your responsibilities and liabilities as a company director? Are you aware of the potential jail time if found guilty of (seriously) breaching those duties? There are some 600,000 limited companies in New Zealand, all of which have at least one director ultimately responsible for the conduct of the company. Not many I…
I was interested to read the recent BRANZ report on small construction firms in NZ. A lot of interesting stuff in there. One statistic I found particularly interesting was a possible source of easy additional profit for construction company owners. That statistic is the number of hours that owners and employees waste each week. Just looking…