RSS Basics

December 30, 2005

RSS Tools (For The Record)

This is a great overview of RSS and how you can use it to effectively manage information on the web or integrate it into your website.

It Takes More Than Strategy

December 26, 2005

Professional Remodeler magazine recently ran an article about the ranking system made famous by General Electric & Jack Welch and discussed in Jack's latest book, Winning. The premise of the system is that you need to create turnover in the bottom 10% of your workforce every year in order to constantly upgrade the quality of your team. The article presents the point-of-view that this system does not lead to the best organizational performance and that perhaps GE could have done far better without the system.

HousingZone.com - Rank and Yank

Scott makes some great observations and quite honestly he's right. Jack Welch was also right. How can this be? Well, before you jump into any management philosophy you have to realize that no strategy wheter financial, operational or talent-based is a stand-alone "Management Module."

The strategy has to fit the leader AND the culture of the company. This is why you cannot simply bolt-on the latest management strategy to a company. First and foremost the leader has to believe, live and love the strategy, second and also very important is that the culture of the company has to generally fit with the strategy and third the leader has to work like crazy to EXECUTE the strategy which Larry Bossidy discusses in his book Execution.

When you look around at business there are millions of ways to make money and be successful and just as many different management styles. Some are more successful than others but there is not a one-size-fits-all management style. Jack Welch had his - it was very successful. It fit his personality and the company and produced phenominal results.

On the complete opposite end of the scale there is SEMCO run by Ricardo Semler. His book Maverick details how SEMCO is loosly run, its culuture and details about himself.

As a business leader or owner you owe it to yourself and your team to read about and talk to as many different people as possible about different programs and leadership styles and then put them together into something that works for you and your company.

If a consultant comes in and claims to have this "toolkit" of solutions for your business you should simply thank them for their time and then RUN!!

Benchmarking: Setting Standards for the Industry

December 24, 2005

Alan Hanbury Jr. and Professonal Remodeler did a wonderful series on key business metrics and benchmarking. These were geared towards a remodeling contractor but can be easily adapted to any business.

Benchmarking: Setting Standards for the Industry

Overpaid? Sometimes Paid? Owed Pay?

Leading the Way to Profit

Does your company need performance-enhancing help?

Are You Dying to Grow?

The New Rules: Work Smarter by Working Less

Making Sausage

Bring the Business Plan to Life

Secrets to Recruiting "A" Players

There is nothing that will enable your organization to grow faster or be more profitable than to learn to successfully find and recruit "A" players in the industry. This short article provides some good recruiting tips.

HousingZone.com - Secrets to Recruiting "A" Players

Once you have successfully found some potential recruits the next step is making a deal with them through the interview and job offer process. The following two articles provide some great insight including a job offer outline.

The Job Offer & The Job Offer Part II

As you plan your company's strategy keep in mind that Organizational Planning & Alignment is a very crucial piece of your success.

Pulte Homes Handbook For Winning

HousingZone.com - Pulte HomesHandbook for Winning

Lots of good and simple advice applicable to any business and a fantastic overview of how Harley Davidson focuses on details of customer service even at the initial delivery stage to build their image and gain additional customers.

Sarbox Isn't Just For The Big Guys

InformationWeek | Sarbanes-Oxley Act | Snapshot: Private Adopters Are Bigger And Faster Growing | July 4, 2005

I've written about this in the past - Sarbanes-Oxley, Transparency & Your Business (General Thoughts)

This is a follow-up story and survey by PWC showing the number of smaller companies voluntarily complying with Sarbox 404 just to improve their businesses.

There are a lot of measurable benefits towards designing, documenting and auditing the internal financial controls that guarantee the accuracy of your financial reports.

For a small or medium sized company this is really about integrating Operations and Accounting to consistently provide accurate feedback on the health of the business.

Web Application Technology

InformationWeek | Web Applications | Fuel For The Web | July 4, 2005

If you have ever used a web-based application such as Salesforce.com or Netsuite you have begin to see the power of applications delivered over the web but have also noticed the lagging response of web applications versus typical desktop applications.

That is changing with a new suite of tools for web developers. The first major roll-out of a data intensive web application using these tools was Google Maps.

This is a technology you should be looking at as you decide which direction to go when selecting future technology applications for your business.

Searched and Found on the Web

HousingZone.com - Searched and Found on the Web

Creating a beautiful website means nothing if potential customers cannot find you. Remember that there are billions of web pages and a potential customer isn't likely to be searching for your company by name. The article above provides a great overview of search engines and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising.

In addition we recently attended a conference directed solely at Search Engine Strategies and summarized what we learned in a white paper.

If your website was designed a few years ago it may need to be revamped. Information Week had a great article on website content upgrades recently.

OSHA 18001

Quality Digest Magazine

Good article on tying safety with the quality processes of ISO 9001

Simulation Modeling

Quality Digest Magazine

Quality Digest Magazine

Quality Digest Magazine

This series of three short articles gets into the math behind modeling business processes and making decisions. Breaking every process down to this level of detail is the basis of Six Sigma quality control which large organizations have used to reap huge rewards over the last decade.

Smaller businesses often ignore the math behind decisions and rely on "gut" instinct to make management decisions but often even a company with as little as $1M in revenues can benefit from better analysis of their processes.

What if you applied the same basic analysis outlined in Part 3 for an order fulfilment process to your internal processes - getting material and tools to the jobsite or providing submittals to the customer or turning around RFP's?

Landscape Lighting

Design and Installation Guide

Great how-to guide about designing a landscape lighting system. Few things can change the looks of your property more than great outdoor lighting. Just one of those things to add to next year's list of "To-Do's" around the house.

Cool Electrical Product

The new Space Saver EMT connector from Crouse-Hinds can save a lot of headaches for tight installations such as quad outlets in 4-sq. boxes or big disconnect switches for HVAC equipment in handy boxes.

IEC Announces 2005 Electrical Project Management Institute

IEC > IEC ANNOUNCES 2005 ELECTRICAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE

The Independent Electrical Contractors have teamed with Purdue University to offer a structured 80 hour project management course geared specifically towards electrical contractors.

This is a fantastic idea and we are looking at a way to provide a similar structured education for electrical contractors in Califonia through WECA - see our beta test of Project Management Classes starting in January 2006.

Integrated Security & IT

A Two-Person Job - March 2005 Issue @ SecurityInfoWatch.com

All systems are converging on IT - phone systems, video, media and now security.

It makes sense. Security is about managing a variety of data inputs; no different than any other IT application.

Back in 2002 at the ISC West convention there were only a couple of IP based products out there. Today almost every security manufacturer has IP enabled products.

Unfortunately the technology has adapted much faster than the internal political barriers have come down. In a typical organization in 2000 there were several distinct infrastructures including the IT system, telecom, security and building management. Each of these infrastructures had a seperate budget and management.

In the near future all of these will share the same IT infrastructure. This has huge efficiency benefits but there will have to be a lot of organizational changes to match the technical improvements.

We address a lot of these challenges in our latest whitepaper revision on Infrastructure Security - When the Billy Clubs & Hardhats Meet the Bits & Bytes Team.

Planning a Successful Exit Strategy

Planning a Successful Exit Strategy

Running a business with the end in mind is crucial for success. This article focuses on the more tactical pieces of selling a contracting business. It is a good quick read that provides a simple overview of the process.

Related Post: How to Value a Business Before You Buy It

How to Value a Business Before You Buy It

How to Value a Business Before You Buy It :: Contracting Business

You should read this article whether you are planning to buy or sell a business or just want to run a company as efficiently as possible.

The same metrics that make a business valuable to a buyer also make the business run well.

Design your financial systems and reporting to provide rapid feedback on the same key metrics that are used to judge business value.

Teach your team what the metrics are and how their actions affect them.

Share key metrics on a regular basis.

Produce detailed monthly financial statements with a narrative discussing the key metrics, how they have changed and what changes are coming.

Follow these practices and you will be rewarded almost immediately with a company that runs better and a team that feels more involved. Continue down that path for 2-3 years and you will be rewarded with a huge increase in value.

Seven Ways to KNOW Your Competition

Seven Ways to KNOW Your Competition :: Contracting Business

I really enjoy the trade publications for HVAC and Remodeling contractors because their businesses are very focused on sales, customer service and repeat business.

ALL contracting businesses and anyone in the industry can benefit from focusing more on gaining a competitive advantage. One of the first steps in gaining a competitive advantage has to do with getting to know your competition. This article contains great ideas about gaining this knowledge.

Remember that this information isn't only valuable for business owners or sales people. It is just just as valuable for anyone in the industry and if you plan to build your career you should start a file on all companies in the marketplace. You will be amazed at how valuable all the tidbits of information you collect will be after 5-10 years.

Market Share & Customer Service

December 22, 2005

I had a phenominal customer service experience this week with Intuit / QuickBooks and just had to relay it because it has implications for any business. For a client project we had purchased various pieces of the QuickBooks software after consulting with Intuit. When we got down to the implementation we found that two of the licenses needed upgrading. It was a $500 problem on a much bigger project and because we had coordinated the software and hardware requirements I was prepared to make this problem go away for our client even though we were only marginally responsible for this error.

When I called Intuit's customer service and told them the story they quickly understood and they also believed they were marginally responsible and without prompting they upgraded the licenses for us. It was simply handled. I've always believed that if I am responsible in any way I will make it right by the customer because the goodwill generated will outweigh any short-term costs.

It is obvious that Intuit's management feels the same way. There is definately a connection between customer service and market share - Intuit proves it and is the #1 provider of small-business accounting software.

You can contrast this with the customer service at AT&T or Cingular - all the language used is the same "Thank you", "Appreciate your business", etc. but for the simplest of problems you need to escalate through 2-3 levels to get a $20 problem taken care of. It definately sends the wrong message to the customer but unfortunately the cost of entry is very high for certain markets so companies can get by providing poor customer service.

Most likely you don't operate a virtual monopoly so customer service is VERY important to your business. EVERYONE in your company should be trained and have the authority to provide great customer service. Along with the right pricing and quality you will gain market share by providing the best customer service in your industry.

Fighting for the Future of US Manufacturing

Chief Executive, The: Fighting for the future of U.S. manufacturing: American companies need relief and support

This is a fantastic summary listing some key statistics such as how much the general government red tape/compliance costs per manufacturing employee and how much the costs of excessive lawsuits are for the industry. When added up this creates a $10-12 per hour per manufacturing employee increase in costs.

Reducing these costs go a long ways towards increasing the viability of American manufacturing.

Why "Balance" is B.S.

Chief Executive Group | Articles

Fantastic article focused on "Blending" rather than seperating work and personal life. Comments apply not only to owners and CEO's but really to anyone in a senior leadership position.

The Age of Authenticity

The age of authenticity - QR: Editorial - Remodeling, Design, Planning, Contractors, Business

Having a higher purpose is necessary for true, sustainable success in any business. Looking at your market demographics is critical. www.americanlives.com

Surviving Business Failure

Surviving business failure - QR: Featured Articles, Home Improvement

This article quickly summarizes why a business will fail, some key indicators that can't be ignored (cash!) and the fact that it is not the end of the world. You can learn more from failure than from success - and failure makes you a lot stronger if you learn from it. Most successful people have failed at some point in their lives.

Solid and Sustainable (Remodeling Market)

Solid and sustainable - QR: Featured Articles, Home Improvement

Industry research is always positive just to understand the market a little better. This article very solidly explains the outlook for the remodeling market.

You Don't Have To Be Perfect To Be Effective As A Speaker

You don't have to be perfect to be effective as a speaker

Speaking at industry events is a fantastic way to raise the status of your company. Owners and managers are far more effective at this than they usually give themselves credit for. Don't miss this opportunity to promote your company, your industry or political issues specific to your industry just because you think you have to be the perfect speaker - the same goes for writing.

Communication and leadership go hand-in-hand.

Hard Work

December 11, 2005

"We may have invented capitalism, but we took our eye off the ball. Perhaps it is our complacency, but the truth of the matter is that we are being outworked from the boardroom to the factory floor. In my travels overseas, I have seen a hunger for success far greater than what I see at home. If your counterpart anywhere in the world is willing to work harder then you, they win, you lose. This applies whether you are a CEO or a pipe-fitter." - Mike Neiss (TomPeters.com)

Read More: tompeters! management consulting leadership training development project management

I came across this the other day and found it very "on-point" regarding the state of employment, the economy and globalization.

I see way too many people sitting around and blaming others for their problems. It appears that most people have gotten very lazy and would rather spend time complaining about the situation rather than trying to improve themselves and their situation.

Most steps being taken including Project Labor Agreements (PLA's), attempts to unionize the technology industry, union agreements that are out-of-touch with the realities of business and other political moves are all very short-term patches that will do nothing to cure the problem.

These steps will only weaken our position because they delay the American worker's need to innovate and improve themselves.

Here's one thing I have a hard time reconciling in my mind - on one hand I watch the news and it points to this widespread unemployment caused by "X" and on the other hand I've NEVER talked to a business owner or executive who claims to have all the good people they need.

Are both sides right? The answer is yes. Business owners and managers WILL find ways to serve their customers and keep their businesses alive. The problem is the average person is NOT taking responsibility for making sure their skills match the requirements of the businesses.

It's much easier to sit back and expect that a union or the government or the business owner will take care of them.

THIS THOUGHT PROCESS WILL ONLY LEAD TO FAILURE!

The other thing I find amazing is that people are still complaining about this even though we are in an age where information is nearing zero cost. If someone were motivated with an internet connection, bus pass and public library card they could become very productive in almost any field, allowing them to make a very good living.

Sorry for ranting about this so much but this is a serious problem and people do need to start taking personal responsibility rather than expecting someone else to solve their problems.