How to Simplify A Complicated Business System
Focusing on One Shovel Full of the Mountain at A Time With my years of construction experience, I tend to view things from a building perspective. The things needed to build a good structure are the same for building a good business. These things are: • Purpose – The why, the reason for building […]
Move the Mountain One Shovel Full at A Time
The Size of Your Shovel Is Not Important I had a conversation with Brett at Engineered Door Products earlier this week about how busy he was. He told me how he was working late into the evening and coming in early of a morning in an effort to keep up. I could feel his frustration. […]
How to Dream Big in A Small Space
The Strength of More Than One A few weeks ago, I wrote about creating realistic expectations for customers and how important it is for the builder to honestly manage those expectations. In that conversation I spoke about Hannah’s project of building her home using grain bins. This is going to be a dream project for […]
The Value of a Professional Builder
What’s It Worth to Hire A Professional? I was talking with my wife, who’s a realtor, earlier this week. She was telling me about an individual that had been trying to sell their house themselves and not having any luck. Reluctantly they are now considering listing their house with a realtor. Her question was why […]
Honesty Is the Best Policy – I Don’t Care How Hard It Is
How to Create Realistic Expectations for Customers – Part 2 Last week we discussed the importance of communication to creating realistic expectations for customers. This week we will look at three more things that need to be addressed to provide customers with a WOW rather than a woops experience. • Everything […]
How to Create Realistic Expectations for Customers
Expectations Are My Responsibility, “The Buck Stops Here” In March of this year I wrote about the home my architect niece is planning to build, using two grain bins. This project has been in the planning stage for several months and the dreaming/idea stage even longer. She and I discussed how we could both blog […]
How to Live A Well-Balanced Life
Finding and Maintaining the Balance in Everything I initially wrote about Using Core Values as My Life Filter last year. The focus of that post was the importance these CORE VALUES have in providing me with insight to who I am and more importantly, who I aspire to be. In that post I listed […]
How Building Things Is Like Giving Birth
There’s Something Emotionally Fulfilling About Creating I was having a conversation earlier this week with Cheri at Agora Architecture about a project that we are working on. As we visited about the project we both became excited about the new ideas that were developing. I told her that what we’re doing was like giving […]
The History of Labor Day and My Problem with It
Labor and Work…What’s the Difference? Labor Day is one of my three favorite holidays each year. Christmas being my favorite, which is no big surprise. Labor Day and New Year’s Day are tied for the second spot. These two are not typically ranked in most people’s top three. My extended family […]
How Do I Know If I Need A Storm Door?
Reasons for and Against Storm Doors I’ve had the storm door conversation several times recently. It’s a common discussion I’ve had many times. I always ask the why question, when customers are considering the installation of storm doors. Most people assume that having a storm door is just a given…I mean shouldn’t […]