7 Reasons to Have a Business Coach

If I were to begin my journey of owning my own construction business again, I would refrain from the believe I had in the beginning of thinking I knew what I was doing. Instead, I would have paid and sought the advice from those who had already experienced what I was going through much sooner than I did.

You see, back then, the Internet wasn’t available so you did much painstaking trial by error by either doing it or wishing you had done it differently … after the fact.

It was by luck that I met a man who had his Doctorate in Business and was intrigued by what I was struggling with. Our offices were close by, and one day we met in the hall and that started the most rewarding episode in my journey. It literally shaved years off my journey and opened my eyes as to what really makes a construction business work.

We took the business apart, piece-by-piece. 

We worked solutions and uncovered what really makes a construction business work.

It was an education because once you know what makes something work, you can use it to optimize the business. Education is the answer to reaching your dreams and true potential.

I’ve taught this business model to many other contractors. I have spoken with many contractors as well. Some ‘burned through’ tons of cash trying it their way with poor results. Partly because they believed they could develop it themselves and for years never believed a business coach could put them on the high road to success.

This group of people who try to solve all their problems themselves on their own, no matter what, miss one important point. If you don’t have the right tools, you can’t fix it. Imagine trying to repair a washing machine with only a spatula and a pen as your tools.

Nevertheless, the effect of a strong attachment to doing it yourself produces the constant struggling with problems that could be easily solved with a business coach, not to mentioned the ongoing exorbitant cost of the problem not being solved.

Maybe it is an ego problem? However, whatever it is, working on them yourself without some outside eyes who are not attached to your problem can be costly, time consuming, creates more problems, or gets you stuck at a certain point and you cannot go any further. Which draws the conclusion that doing it yourself without help doesn’t work.

Here are seven reasons why working with a business coach will be more effective than trying to do it yourself, reading a book, consulting with people who do not have a grasp on your business, or even attending a seminar.

1.    Taking the first step. Just by acting to setting up a meeting with a business coach is very meaningful. It gives you the message that the problem is meaningful to you. The action is also a turning point in your career as the owner of your own construction business. It shows you care about your business, it means you recognize and can identify the problem, and you’re willing to confront it so it can be solved.

2.    The Commitment Effect. Nothing in this world is free. Committing to coaching requires you to pay a fee. The process also takes time. Moreover, as you work with your coach in solving your problem, you are engaging with another person who sees the problem from a different view. The synergy in this increases the possibilities of solving the problem and revealing interconnecting problems that need your attention as well. The effect makes people more willing to keep their declarations and do their “homework” more carefully.

3.    Stronger Concentration. Two things that hamper a human is concentration and comprehension. Have you ever read a book or listen to someone speak and found yourself drifting away? This happens in business as well but more so when you are working it alone, one’s vulnerability to distractions is higher when working it alone. It is easy to get distracted or off-course, whereas a business coach keeps you focused and on course.

4.    Knowledge. The business coach most likely has much deeper and broader knowledge on solving the problem, and the experience of solving the same exact problem for others is saving you time and money.

5.    Taking Your Blinders Off. The real caveat of having a business coach is that they can help you uncover the problems you don’t see or unaware of. The business coach can help you put together the unconnected details into one larger picture, and can point out the underworking or missing parts of a system in your business (for example, perhaps you always intentionally ignore the real reasons you don’t have cash flow). For example, I take my new clients through 22 question business evaluation that reveals the deficiencies in their business.

6.    Concentrating precisely on your needs and moving from theory to application. It is one thing to listen or read about doing something VS doing it. Let me use this example. You attend a seminar or read a book on marketing. During that listening or reading process, almost everyone ‘thinks’ they know the basic principles, such as finding your perfect customer, communicating the benefits of working with you, or closing the deal. However, when it comes to applying these principles in practice, many people can’t do it. This is because logical understanding is something completely different from applying knowledge in real life. A business coach helps you bridge this gap.

7.    Implementation. The true benefit of coaching is not only uncovering the problems, or presenting the solution, but creating in the business owner the will to implement it in their business. This means creating a new habit. The result of a business coach showing you how to set up the process is all well and good. Teaching it to the business owner so that he understands it is another positive factor. However, getting the business owner to implement it and monitor it on a regular basis is entirely another issue. If a person has a bad habit of not doing it, that means the business coach must rewire the owner into creating the good habit of doing it on a regular basis. Implementation is the key. It takes time and patience but a good business coach is experienced is helping you accomplish it.

Too many business owners struggle with the same problems year in and year out. The result is costly and destructive. Even worse is the business owner who finds their excuse to ignore it. Their excuses range from; ‘it costs too much’, ‘they can’t afford it’, ‘this is the way business is’, ‘I can solve it myself’, or ‘their business is different’.

When you are absorbed in your problems, you can forget your strengths. Your skills, positive circumstances, and past situations are taken over by a black hole of chaotic thoughts and emotions.

Your ability to work and solve your business problems becomes cloudy, and like being in a fog you can’t find your way out.

When faced with heavy issues that may shake your outlook or working on a problem that may trigger overwhelming emotions, you can lose control.

Sometimes the support from a business coach is just about support, sometimes it’s about pointing you in the right direction or helping you work the solution and encouraging you to follow through. And sometimes it is more complicated.

I have seen massive changes in business owners who have sought my help, worked with me and developed the good habit. They have made more money, assembled a dynamic team, and found more free time for themselves to spend with family, friends, or other pursuits.

Clients who have coaches start to think and act in a constructive, positive manner as they implement the skills they are learning from their business coach. Instead of reacting, they become process-oriented.

Unfortunately, business skills are usually left by the wayside for many business owners. Instead, they focus on building their construction skills to improve their business, all the while ignoring the real problem, their business skills.

Contractors don’t fail or struggle for a lack of business skills, they fail or struggle for a lack of business skills.

If you are ready to roll up your sleeves and work on your business, not in it. Click the link below and let’s talk.

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How to Close More Deals

In this segment, we are going to discuss a very hot topic. How to close more deals.

This will be a four-part series, so keep coming back for more valuable information.

Now, let's get started.

Being a successful contractor requires two parallel mind setting processes. Getting Sales, and getting them at a price that makes you money (see my eBook – “How to Calculate Your Money-Making Markup!”).

One does not work without the other.

Now here is the problem.

Too many contractors are following a single and dangerous mindset. Getting the job.

Unfortunately, this throws them into the coliseum of rabid dogs who are also fighting to get the job.

The result?

Low pricing! 

The real question you need to ask yourself is this.

Are you selling low price or … are you selling value?

If you are selling low price, you really don’t care about making money. Instead, you just want the job and hope for the best.

However …

If you know you provide vale and a uniqueness with your service that the prospective client cannot get from the competition, you need to develop an approach that will accomplish just that. I cover this in more detail in my book: “How to Market & Sell Your Construction Services like Magic!”

In the next three blog articles I will lead you through the steps one at a time.

I am not going to discuss marketing or developing your promotional materials. If you want more on that, you can get my eBook: “The Contractor’s Magical Marketing Tool Belt!” which is loaded which is loaded with examples and information.

In this blog, I am going to discuss the first step. The one you must accomplish first.

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Qualifying Leads

This starts the minute you have first contact with the prospective client. The cornerstone in this system consists of two things:

1.      The questions you ask

2.      The record of the answers.

By designing the questions, your goal is to uncover enough information to validate the value of expending your time with this prospective client. You are trying to uncover whether they are serious, or fit your needs.

Let me give you an example.

I had a high-end roofing contractor who only did slate roofs. To make it even better, he only worked in three specific towns. His qualifying questions was: “In which town is the home located?” If you didn’t live in one of his three towns, you weren’t one of his customers.

Another contractor did high-end kitchens. His average job size was $150k. This made his qualifying question simple. “How much do you expect to spend?”

In my own construction business, my best customers were waterfront facilities. That made my niche and qualifying customer question very easy. “Is this a waterfront facility, and if so, on what body of water is it located?”

Once you have qualified the client as an ideal prospective customer, you can move onto the next series of questions that allow you to drill down for more information on your qualifying sheet.

Qualifying Lead Sheet

Today we have different forms of media that we can keep and track information. It can be on paper, spreadsheet or a good CRM software.

How you keep it doesn’t matter, it is just important to keep it.

The qualifying lead sheet stays in the process for the customer from initial contact, to sales person, to estimator, to job supervisor. It has all the pertinent information gathered on the client from their first call to the end of the job.

By having this information and correlating it, you can develop the profile of your best customers from the psychographics, demographics and geographic. This will help also reduce your advertising costs and focus your marketing dollars with accuracy.

This is important.

When you qualifying your prospective clients, you will reduce the wasted time on clients who will never buy from you, and increase your capture rate. All at higher dollars!

Next week I will talk a little more on the type of drill-down questions you need to ask. Until then, happy hunting!

Seven Signs Your Business Is In Trouble

Understanding more about the financial performance of your company will help you see trends as they are developing and not wait until a crisis. Some problems are acute—they happen suddenly—and some are chronic—they go on for years, and you learn to live with them. Here are seven situations that should put up red flags.

1.   Little or No Revenue Growth.

Early-stage companies normally experience substantial growth as customers find you and your market enthusiastically. Then there is a leveling-off period when growth seems to slow and then stop. It may work to spend a short period at that plateau while you allow your business systems to grow to handle the volume. But then you must look at ways to get back on the growth path.

The reasons not to do so are understandable. You may be working 50 - 60 hours a week just to handle what you have and there is little time to find new clients, even if you thought you could handle their business. However, growth is a necessity—because even with a reasonable level of inflation, flat revenues sincerely means a loss of revenues in terms of much needed dollars.

And, as you know, the costs to operate your business never go down. Rent, utilities, phone, and even postage is always going up. Wages also ... including your own. As your employees become more experienced, you will want to pay them commensurate with their contributions, so raises are understandable, in benefits as well as salary. You may have increased insurance and added vacation time. All of this has a cost. And you need to replace and update equipment as well.

So what effect does flat growth have with this scenario? It lowers your profit. Costs become a greater percentage of revenue and ultimately profits become smaller. It may begin to create a serious cash squeeze and imperil your ability to pay debts and keep up with needed equipment purchases or repair.

2.   Deteriorating Capital Base

Periods of flat growth in revenue can cause a negative cash flow. You need a steady stream of profit to allow cash to pay principal debt service and allow for reinvestment in brand new technology, equipment, or unknown project development.

After a fairly short time, you will find yourself in a double bind. You aren't generating enough cash to fund any meaningful growth, and this lack of profits may prevent you from borrowing to fund it as well.

If you have gotten to this point, chances are your alternatives are few. One may be to look to outside investors for funds, although this is typically difficult for construction companies since the risk is known to be far too great, and you may have to give up a good bit of control to get the capital you need. The other possibility is to sell off assets to raise cash. This may be a dangerous strategy, without considerable thought. You don't want to sell something you will need later.  

Selling jobs to cheap or at a loss will affect profits as well as solvency.

3. Equipment Failures That Threaten Productivity

Not having positive cash flow will not just jeopardize growth; it will also affect current operations. If your equipment is not operating properly, your production may be slower, or quality not what you need or expect. In addition, total breakdowns will stop production and cause employees to stand around not accomplishing any work. This will raise your direct costs and lower profits even further.

4.   Poor Employee Morale

Look around at your employees and give close consideration to what you see. Are they angry, disillusioned, or confused? Are they short of materials, tools, jobs, or ... working on substandard equipment, or always fending off threatening phone calls by disgruntled customers? Are you communicating with them?

Surely you know that having good employees is a contributing factor in the growth and success of your venture. So it makes sense that when (and if) they feel negative, this will have the opposite effect. The most immediate result will be diminished productivity. People who don't care, show it. They take more time off and seldom think of ways to accomplish the task at hand quicker or efficiently. If wages are frozen or bonuses missed, the attitude becomes "What's the use?" And your job becomes tougher because the need to communicate becomes more urgent.

And remember as well, your employees are often the public face of your company. If they have gripes, that's where they may air them. I still remember traveling on Delta Airlines in the midst of its most difficult times. All you heard from employees were complaints and dissatisfaction. It made the trip uncomfortable and forced me, a fairly frequent flyer, to look at other airlines. I wasn't the only one, and the loss of business further hurt the weakened airline.

There are not merely business reasons to care about the concerns of workers. There are human reasons as well, and you want to keep a sense of community in your company.

5.   Unpaid Taxes

No business owner sets out to get into trouble with the tax collector. Most of us have enough sense to know how painful that can be. However, it may start accidentally and grow quickly. It often starts with a single payroll when the money isn't fully available. Paychecks are issued with the expectation that withheld taxes will be covered as soon as customers begin to pay outstanding invoices. Even so, by the time these payments are received, other bills have to be paid or another payroll is coming up. Before you know it, taxes are owed and the money just isn't there. Now you are in dangerous territory.

First of all, many taxing bodies have the power to collect that exceeds those of ordinary creditors. They can make a demand for payment, file a lien, and execute a levy on your bank or even your customers in record time. They are effective collectors.

Second, the financial burden grows very quickly, particularly if unpaid returns are not filed. For federal taxes, there are penalties both for failure to file and for failure to pay—5% per month. So, in the end, you won't just be paying the tax, you will be paying back the tax plus penalty and interest.

Another consideration is the possibility of personal liability. If you are the responsible officer, that is, the one who makes the financial decisions, an assessment can be made against you as well as your company. Then the collection actions will be aimed at your assets.

And if all this weren't enough to motivate, there is also the matter of criminal prosecution. It is unlikely for payroll taxes, but it is far more frequent for not remitting sales tax. That is often charged as theft, as the money belongs to the state, not your company. If your business has found itself in this kind of trouble, see a professional as soon as you can. This is one problem you can't ignore!

6.   Failure or Closing of a Major Customer

Most new businesses are warned about becoming dependent on a single customer or even a few. That is easy in theory, but often difficult in practice. When a customer offers you a lot of business, it isn't easy to turn it down. If you are in an industry where there are only a few players of any size, this may be your reality.

If it is and one of these major customers cut back operations, files for reorganization, or closes, your entire business may be jeopardized. So pay attention to what is happening within the industry as well as with your customers.

If payments get slower, take some action. If the company is big enough, the accounting side does not talk to the purchasing side, so you won't lose the business. Anyway, if you're not going to get paid, you don't want the sale. I had a client who was a small electrical contractor who allowed a major Fortune 100 companies to get so far behind that my client had to file bankruptcy. Minimize your exposure.

If orders slow down, don’t wait until they stop: Get out and look for new business. At the same time, keep your lines of communication up with your customer. These are the times when you have to work hard just to stay even.

7. New Technology Creating Pricing Pressure

The landscape of America is full of rusted plants, some of which are still partially in operation. It's impossible to believe that they could be efficient. Jobs that were done by workers are now being done by robots. Planning production is done by computer. Inventory and shipping are managed by scanners. The years bring new technology: If older companies cannot afford to keep up, they are likely unable to compete.

Labor-intensive businesses must be able to avail themselves of labor-saving devices. Pricing pressures come from those domestic companies that can afford to do so in addition to the offshore operations that use low-cost labor. Staying in business without currently, a profit makes little sense.

These are not the only serious problems a company can run into. I could write a book about the perils of the construction companies, their overuse of running their business by the seat of their pants and under use of business models. Regardless of how new an idea is and how clever the folks that thought it up; business was now and will always be about revenue exceeding costs and creating profit. This is not a theory; it is a reality, and you must have a stream of income.

The latest and greatest idea may come and go, but at the end of the day, it's hard work and good dealings that secure the future for most businesses.

Need help? Don't wait until it is too late! Come visit us at: www.contractorcoaching.com/

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If I Had To Start My Business Again (Step by Step)

Often.. I've wondered...

What would I do if I lost EVERYTHING and had to start my business again?
 
We'll here's what I'd do:

CLICK HERE - Find Exactly How I would Do It!

Inside you'll learn step by step how.

The Problem with Promises

We've all experienced that client or customer who tells you they're going to give you a job ... or maybe the next one.

The problem is that too many business owners start seeing the money as theirs, like they already have it in their hands.

 Even worse, some in spite of not having it but believing it is theirs, start spending it.

 They call it "gearing up" for the promised work.

 The truth is, until you have actually got the money in your hands, you don't have it!

I run into this quite often with owners of construction companies. Someone promised them the work, got them all involved, suck all their good ideas out of their minds, and move on to someone else.

These so-called prospective customers are bottom-feeders. You need to figure out their approach and avoid them like the plague, or develop a system to stop their flagrant use of your precious time.

I suggest entering into a limited contract to hire you as their consultant. You can also start making them pay for your estimate. To sweeten the pot, offer to credit it off of your contract for the work.

Whatever you do, stop spending money you haven't earned yet.

The Danger of Doing Nothing

One of the most common obstacles I run into with potential clients that seek my coaching services to help them with their business, is their hesitation to take action.

It is not unusual to see an owner of a contracting business, frozen in their tracks with fear when business takes a turn for the worse. What most do not realize is that due to their lack of mastery of their business skills, their business was doomed before the economy turned on them.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not implying that all is lost. In fact, my recent review of my coaching clients that came to me six-months ago demonstrated the power of getting help.

Let me explain.

The clients who started with me back then, religiously follow up and implemented the changes I worked with them, have shown HUGE gains. For all practical purposes, I'll focus on the smaller volume clients. Those doing under $200K in Sales in that time period. We made big changes in their pricing model, marketing, business strategy and financial control. All have seen an increase in Sales, been able to take a weekly salary, and showing a Net Profit for the six-months ending in the 21 to 23 percent range. That means around $21,00 or more after paying themselves a reasonable weekly wage. All within six-months!

Yet, many others, due to their lack of taking action, have not been able to achieve similar results, or anything close.

You see, getting help does HELP! Doing nothing, gets you NOTHING!

Getting the right coaching help to improve your business, make money and sell your products or services, is the right thing to do.

Without it, you keep yourself on a path of nothing.

So, instead of doing nothing, or trying to figure out the right strategy when you have no clue what to do, the best strategy is to get expert advice. Advice from someone who has seen your predicament before, and knows the correct path to turn things around.

What you need is the best strategy, that powerful one that layers all the proven strategies one on top of each other in a synergistic model to produce the best result possible for you and your business.

Don't be that frozen deer standing in the road staring into the oncoming lights of the inevitable. Get help now, not later.

Because the outcome of doing nothing is predictable.

Ready to talk? Click on the link below and we'll set up an appointment.

>>>Henry! I'm ready to do something. Let's talk!<<<