Ron Roberts

Ron Roberts, The Contractor's Business Coach, provides business guidance to contractors

Ronroberts 10356803

Ron Roberts, The Contractor's Business Coach, provides business guidance to contractors. To receive a free copy of Ron's report, "The 10 Biggest Mistakes Contractors Make" visit www.FilthyRichContractor.com or contact him at [email protected].

Using Daily Huddles to Keep Your Crews Focused and Productive

So much time and money is wasted when crews are not well organized - here's what you can do to keep everyone on the same page.

During your construction off season, improve how you conduct business. Analyze and refine your business’ systems and processes. Figure out which areas are the weakest and costing you the most money. Question every assumption you’ve been using about why the process has to be done the way it always has been done.

How to Make the Construction Off-season Productive

The three most important off-season activities are redoubling marketing and sales efforts, tweaking estimating and production management assumptions and improving your team

Just because you didn't submit a price to the winning GC prior to the bid doesn't mean you can't after the work has been awarded.

How General Contractors Choose the Winning Sub

Familiarize yourself with the buy-out process many project managers go through and use these steps to make you the most desirable subcontractor for a job

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A Sales Compensation Plan that Supercharges Profits

The single most powerful trick for supercharging your bottom line.

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What Is Your Company's Unique Value Proposition?

Your unique value proposition makes you stand out from the crowd.

Managing Your Construction Business Brand

Knowing your brand will help with sales and marketing as well as business and employee improvements

Generating a solid bottom line in the construction industry is about minimizing errors by managing risk successfully.

How Construction Contractors can Turn Risks into Rewards

Successful risk management can turn what could be a loss into a reward

As the financial benefits of being a monopoly are so incredibly attractive the time, effort and dedication it takes to become one are well worth it.

Why Construction Companies Should Strive to Become a Monopoly

Becoming a monopoly requires creative thinking, innovation and an uncompromising dedication to the goal

One of the best ways to offset staff frustration is to celebrate the wins. When your company wins a large bid, let everyone know. When your team brings a substantial project in on time and in budget, spread the word.

How Celebrating Wins Motivates Your Construction Employees

One of the best ways to offset staff frustration is to celebrate the wins; an upbeat staff works harder and complains less

Owners need to maintain a balance between driving for results and helping their people succeed and grow. To do so requires them to help their people enjoy their jobs, develop their careers, and be effective in their current assignments.

How to Effectively Manage Construction Employees to Drive Profitable Results

Owners need to maintain a balance between driving for results and helping their people succeed and grow

Developing talent is the best approach for staffing your business regardless of what position you are staffing for.

The Value of Developing Young Talent in Construction

A handful of weeks spent mentoring someone on-the-job can have an amazing impact over the long haul

Analyze your historical job cost data and adherence to past schedules. Build detailed project schedules based on past performance. Your master company schedule will suffer far fewer changes - which improves your bottom line.

Keep Your Construction Master Schedule Relatively Unchanged to Preserve Your Bottom Line

Think through and make advanced decisions on how your projects need to be staffed day by day

Invest money in your front office tools and space. Never underestimate the havoc front office inefficiency will have on your field costs and therefore your bottom line.

Improving Your Construction Office Efficiency

Understaffed front offices and insufficient technology are the most common causes of office driven field delays

Positioning for strengths and leveraging each other's strengths is the reason why well balanced teams always out-perform groups of individuals. Apply these truths to your construction business.

Why Construction Contractors Should Focus on Strengths Not Weaknesses

Instead of spending time on development activities that will strength your weaknesses, spend your available development time on becoming even better at the things you already do well

Creating a self-running business is the single most challenging task a business owner will ever face, and to do so one must progress through three stages including figuring out how to be profitable, perfecting key business functions and systematizing the business.

Three Steps to Create a Self-running Construction Company

To build a self-running construction business, contractors must figure out how to be profitable, perfect key business functions and systematize the business

A common mistake made by most people and by most companies competitively is to focus all of their improvement efforts on strengthening their weaknesses. Really smart individuals and companies realize that focusing on their strengths is a much wiser course of action.

Strengthen Your Construction Company's Strengths to Gain Competitive Advantage

Figure out your business's strengths, systematize them and then press that competitive advantage into the marketplace

Work in Progress reports help contractors keep tabs on over- and under-billing. Over-billing leads to running out of billable money prior to your costs-to-complete ending. The reverse is true for under-billing.

Why Construction Work-In-Progress Reports are Essential for Profitability

Accurate WIP reports tell you if jobs are over- or under-billed and cash positive or negative, and warn when you’re headed over budget. Here's how to do it right

Perhaps the biggest problem with using money to motivate desired behavior is that it leads to employees paying a lot of attention to a specific task or goal and does so to the harm of other duties and objectives.

Three Problems with Using Incentives to Motivate Construction Employees

Bribing employees with money to motivate specific behaviors can be a dangerous path for construction contractors

Interviewing for fit is a bit of a learned skill. It requires you to get the interviewee talking openly in a very relaxed manner. You need to ask very open ended questions. You need to share minimal information about the job and your company prior to getting to know the person.

How to Interview Potential Employees to See if They Fit the Job

How to get a potential job candidate to show you if they are a good fit for a construction position before you lay all your cards on the table

Proper job costing, efficient review of scope and accounting for all project costs are three key elements to making sure your construction estimator does not blow a bid.

How to Keep From Blowing Construction Bids

Estimators need to take the time to analyze historical job cost data, carefully review the project scope and properly account for all the costs of a project in order to avoid blowing a construction bid

Profit is the score to watch. If you are legitimately hitting 10% bottom line profit you are winning. If you are overly 10% you are approaching best in class.

Treat Your Business Like a Game

Create an environment that motivates your entire staff by creating excitement about what they are doing and what they are accomplishing

You must treat the high achiever differently than the rest of your staff. You need to create growth opportunities for them. You need to give them the assignments they want.

How to Manage High Achievers

If you keep high achievers focused on the win-win they will produce the win-win

Building a sellable business isn't a sprint, it's a marathon that takes patience, persistence and an unwavering focus on the final goal.

Building a Sellable Business Takes Patience and Persistence

Growing a business involves two internal challenges: figuring out how business systems should work and teaching employees how to follow those systems

It takes multiple people performing the everyday business tasks in order for your business to have work to put in and to get the work in.

It Takes a Team To Build a Business

A team of diverse skills and communication styles will be much more productive than one that is made up of the same type of people