All How-To Topics
FPR
Fernando Pages Ruiz, Buenos Aires, ARcontributor
Gender: Male
Contributions
Self-Taught MBA: The Real Value of Experience
In the end, the hard-won soft skills are more solid assets than the technical skills that got you started in business
Self-Taught MBA: The Little Lumberyard that Could
Meek’s Lumber & Hardware does not have some of the advantages of a national chain, but it competes by providing what a megaenterprise cannot: heart, and lower prices. This small lumberyard chain has set up a responsive, contractor-focused alliance with its customers to build up sales through the success of their contractors.
Self-Taught MBA: Make Your Digital Devices Work Harder and Smarter
Builder and business owner Sergio Grado recommends his go-to desktop, tablet, and smart-phone apps for finance, construction, and more
A Talk With The Home Depot's Vice President of Pro Business
The market view from The Home Depot’s national perspective and how the chain has changed to serve its contractor clients better. Plus, an introduction to The Home Depot’s free online estimating program and aerial job-site maps—you’ll never get up on a roof to measure it again.
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A Conversation with Tedd Benson About the Road from Fine Carpenter to Fine Businessman
Tedd Benson, one of the most celebrated homebuilders in America, has been a leader in reintroducing the art of timber framing, and has continued to develop it using modern technology to create structures of lasting beauty and high efficiency. He also built a successful business, stalwart enough to sail through the Great Recession and expand. I recently had the opportunity talk with Tedd Benson and learn about his background, his business, and his plans for the future.
Self-Taught MBA: Are You Ready for Building Information Modeling?
Building information modeling (BIM) is the next evolution of CAD, involving the five-dimensional generation and management of digital plans. This post, written by my colleague Kristin Dispenza, introduces a new product specifically for small firms.
Self-Taught MBA: Getting Intimate with Social Marketing
In this second half of a two-part social-media primer, I'll discuss using LinkedIn, a professional’s platform that can help you stay abreast of industry trends, build credibility, and engage in business-to-business dialog with prospective clients.
Self-Taught MBA: Getting Social With Guerrilla Marketing
Get started with social media even if you’re not interested. It’s free and easy to learn, and it offers the best guerrilla-marketing opportunity in history. Here’s a builders' primer, the first of two installments.
Digital Toolbox: Getting an Education Without Leaving the Job Site
New contributor Sergio Grado provides accessible and practical advice on how to keep growing your knowledge base even when you have no time to spend on furthering your education.
Self Taught MBA: Learning to Walk Again: Life Lessons From a Professional Negotiator
Mike Walker lived the rise and fall of the real-estate market as a broker and developer, but really learned his trade on the way down. Nowadays, Walker teaches effective negotiation strategies and skills in 14 cities, and almost as many states. He talks about how he learned so much about negotiating and what he believes are the negotiator’s top three strategies.
Self Taught MBA: Empowering Homeowners at ArmchairBuilder.com
Building a business by empowering homeowners, ArmchairBuilder.com provides DIY support online, internationally and for free. How does entrepreneur Michael Luckado make money?
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Self-Taught MBA: Developing Executive Thinking
The manager focuses on doing things right; the executive focuses on the right thing to do. The manager asks how and when; the executive asks what and why.
Self Taught MBA: Going to Where the Going Is Good, Part 4
Head for the equator: Continuing to explore promising building business niches, here’s the last profile illustrating how good fortune sometimes comes through relocating. In this case, it’s the story of a southbound immigration: A successful Midwestern developer dodged the recession and found continued growth and prosperity in Ecuador.
Self Taught MBA: Going to Where the Going Is Good, Part 3
Continuing to explore promising building business strategies, here’s a third profile illustrating how good fortune sometimes comes through relocating. In this case, it’s a story that has played out millions of times in the United States, and one at the core our democracy, since most of us are or descend from someone who came to America for a better life.
Self Taught MBA: Going to Where the Going is Good, Part 2
Continuing with our exploration of construction-business niches, here’s the second of two profiles illustrating how some builders find good fortune by relocating. Determined to survive the downturn, this Montana developer discovered black gold in a mobile-home park.
Self Taught MBA: Going to Where the Going is Good, Part 1
We have talked about strategies to develop a business niche that works in today’s challenging environment. But there’s another strategy, and that’s to go the business climate is sunny.
Self Taught MBA: From Single to Multifamily Builder
The transition from single family to small multifamily builder presents fewer challenges than from homebuilder to remodeler. You use the same designers, the same subs, and even the same mindset. Now that the multifamily market is booming, perhaps there's an opportunity for you.
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Find Your Niche and Own It
With the reshuffling of the construction industry, some contractors have become subs, some bosses have cinched on the tool belt, others moved into other industries, but some builders have found productive niches and stuck with them though think and thin. The next few posts will explore alternatives to the, we’ll do anything that requires a hammer approach and “no job too big or small.”
Self-Taught MBA: A Real-Estate Lawyer's Advice, Part 2
With a practice focused on real-estate, business, and bankruptcy law, attorney Nancy Loftis has counseled clients big and small through boom and bust cycles since 1982. She has seen success and failure firsthand, and observed what works and does not. Part 2 of our conversation: Consulting services, road hazards, and the definition of success during times of famine.
Self-Taught MBA: A Real-Estate Lawyer's Advice, Part 1
With a practice focused on real-estate, business, and bankruptcy law, attorney Nancy Loftis has counseled clients big and small through boom and bust cycles since 1982. She has seen success and failure firsthand, and observed what works and does not. Her honest, disinterested take on what it takes to make it in construction and real-estate might provide us a refreshingly realistic look at the ingredients of success.
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Self-taught MBA: Arming the Insurgency
You can build name recognition, credibility and a customer following using your local paper, television and radio to tell your story effectively and for free.
Self Taught MBA: Decoding Your Sales Factor
To create an effective marketing scheme and know it’s working, you have to aim for specific results, the specific number of leads required to keep your business running without down time. This is how to figure it out: the sales conversion factor.
David Gerstel's take on the Benshoof Interview
I prefer a somewhat different approach. The kind of business planning Benshoof he favors seems to me a bit too tidy for the turbulent realities of the construction world.
The Self Taught MBA: A Conversation with Mike Benshoof, MD for the Ailing Builder
“So you want to know, if you have a real business? Ask yourself if you can take off for a month or more and the operation runs just fine without you. If not, you don’t have a business—you have a job. I can fix that…” says Mike Benshoof.
Self Taught MBA: Strategic Planning, Part 3 - Organizing a Strategic Planning Session
Here's how to embark on a strategic planning session, run a business, and make it home in time for dinner.
Self Taught MBA: Strategic Planning, Part 2 - The ABCs of Strategic Planning
It's more critical than ever to have a plan of how you will deal with this tough economy. Strategic planning focuses on redefining high-level priorities and setting a course for the year ahead.
The Self Taught MBA: Business and Strategic Planning, Part 1 - Best Laid Plans
You may not have started your business with a formal plan, but writing one now may help you achieve your goals--now that you're old enough to think ahead!
The Self Taught MBA: The Harvard Home Builder Story
A new book from researchers at Harvard University shows that American home builders were immensely profitable during the housing boom, but did little to improve the efficiency of their operations.
The Self Taught MBA: David Gerstel on Running a Successful Construction Company
You Don’t Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of your Pants
Self-Taught MBA: Inspired Reading
Helpful business books categorized by the eight divisions of business management.
Self-Taught MBA: You Can't Be a Successful Builder Without Management Skills
Businesses do not have a tangible structure, like the frame of a house, but every business has a framework nonetheless. The purpose of management is to keep that framework functioning effectively.
The Self-Taught MBA
About 30 years ago, I read a Fine Homebuilding article that changed my career. I came upon it while building my second house. By then, I owned a sturdy Ford truck and a garage full of tools, and I...
Do You Remeber Your First Issue?
Do you remember your first issue of Fine Homebuilding Magazine?
A Few Inspiring Products Amidst the new Normal at IBS
Sitting at the airport bar, having just left the International Builders Show, waiting for a delayed flight, it's time to muse on the International Builder’s Bash in Orlando.
¡Viva Verde!
For green building to survive it has to become bilingual.
Ready or Not
The Suddenly it's Here and Now Future of Energy Remodeling
Haiti InnoVida Update
Short movie shows how these homes go together.
Have You Considered Vinyl Siding, Lately?
Considering advances in product quality, energy efficiency, and improved manufacturing, it pays to take a second (or third) look at vinyl siding.
IBS 2010: Green Builder Donates 1,000 Homes to Haitians
New building technology firm, InnoVida™, donates 1,000 homes to Haiti using Fiber Composite Structural Insulated panels introduced at IBS.
IBS 2010: Last Tango in Vegas
A veteran's take on this year's International Builders' Show: Things can't get any worse
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New on Fine Homebuilding
Slate Fireplace In The Style Of Rookwood Pottery
glassgirl6 | May 21st, 2013
Cherry Fireplace Surround and Overmantle
TheTimberTailor | May 21st, 2013
Great Room and Outdoor Fireplace in the Distance
randyseiber | May 20th, 2013
Recent comments
Re: Self-Taught MBA: The Real Value of Experience
Marleyjune, thanks for the correction, dude, it's fixed! And Renzo, thanks for the comments.
posted: 8:28 am on May 18thRe: Self-Taught MBA: Are You Ready for Building Information Modeling?
Great observations db5 -- I am very glad you wrote.
posted: 5:31 pm on February 19thI forwarded you comments to Kristin Dispenza, the architectural journalist that contributed this post, and she went straight to the top in the quest to reply to your questions: Someone at the highest level of Autodesk is working on getting you specific answers, and Kristine will post them here as soon as she hears back.
Stay tuned!
Re: Self-Taught MBA: Getting Intimate with Social Marketing
Do take a look at Michael Chandler's comment on my last post about Facebook. I believe he nails it. The "tweenyness" of it all if a lot like social chit-chat (I know, I hate it to), but every good salesperson knows the value of engaging potential customers (or people in general) in informal ways that build familiarity and trust. And for guys like you and me,a few minutes of online tweenyness a day is a lot less taxiing than chit-chatting in person.
posted: 7:56 pm on January 30thRe: Self-Taught MBA: Getting Social With Guerrilla Marketing
DancingDan, I had dinner with two builders last night, one uses Facebook to promote his business, the other does not. I hope to get Mike Chandler to post here explaining how and why he believes Facebook helps him get to know his clients and keep in touch with them after the job is done. Regarding your point on sloppy writing, I know what you mean. We may have won speed and quantity in communication, but lost a great deal in thoughtful dialog and careful prose.
posted: 3:53 pm on January 25thRe: Self-Taught MBA: Getting Social With Guerrilla Marketing
DancingDan, I had dinner with two builders last night, one uses Facebook to promote his business, the other does not. I hope to get Mike Chandler to post here explaining how and why he believes Facebook helps him get to know his clients and keep in touch with them after the job is done. Regarding your point on sloppy writing, I know what you mean. We may have won speed and quantity in communication, but lost a great deal in thoughtful dialog and careful prose.
posted: 3:52 pm on January 25thRe: Self-Taught MBA: Getting Social With Guerrilla Marketing
DancingDan, I had dinner with two builders last night, one uses Facebook to promote his business, the other does not. I hope to get Mike Chandler to post here explaining how and why he believes Facebook helps him get to know his clients and keep in touch with them after the job is done. Regarding your point on sloppy writing, I know what you mean. We may have won speed and quantity in communication, but lost a great deal in thoughtful dialog and careful prose.
posted: 3:52 pm on January 25thRe: The Self Taught MBA: A Conversation with Mike Benshoof, MD for the Ailing Builder
That's a very good idea, Michaelthemobileguy, and I will take you up on it. Stay tuned!
posted: 6:54 pm on May 31stRe: Self Taught MBA: Strategic Planning, Part 2 - The ABCs of Strategic Planning
Thanks for the comment, Michael the Mobile Guy. I appreciate your insight that businesses difficulties often mirror personal ones,change is always a challenge and we are reluctant to submit.
posted: 8:21 am on May 15thRe: The Self Taught MBA: Business and Strategic Planning, Part 1 - Best Laid Plans
Yes indeed, user-256540, you're correct, and stay tuned, because this is precisely the direction we will follow in the next three chapters of the business plan discussion. Please do add your comments, as it is obvious you are knowledgeable and will have valuable advice. Thank you!
posted: 12:30 pm on April 21stRe: The Self Taught MBA: The Harvard Home Builder Story
Thanks Ktkcad! point taken and error corrected.Blogs, unlike articles, don't go through an editing process, mixed blessing. Appreciate you reading and taking the time to write a comment.
posted: 3:34 pm on March 16thRe: The Self Taught MBA: David Gerstel on Running a Successful Construction Company
Do check out David's latest book,The Considerate House, while not about business, it is a business book in that David shares the highly personal experience of a culminating opus, the project that sums up and expresses through the medium of concrete and lumber, one builder's lifetime in business, craft and personal development. Your business is more than money, it's you and the way you live.
posted: 9:07 pm on February 20thRe: Self-Taught MBA: Inspired Reading
Indeed, Gorilla Marketing, actually "Guerilla Marketing," by Jay Conrad Levinson has become a classic, and I have applied its methods promoting in my work. The word "guerilla" in the title is Spanish, and means "small war," referring to the tactics of guerilleros, or the efforts of the informal, small bands of fighters typical of an armed insurrection.
posted: 7:48 am on February 2ndRe: Self-Taught MBA: You Can't Be a Successful Builder Without Management Skills
Yes indeed, figuring out how to have a business AND a life can be a formidable challenge. I should confess, that although I know the answer, I never managed to put it in practice. Namely, this requires two things: delegating and training. You have to be willing to give up some hands-on management to others, while making sure whomever you entrust is qualified and understands your business philosophy. My mistake was always hiring helpers instead of executives, a bookkeeper instead of a CFO, so even with many employees I had to get involved in running practically all the daily operations. For one, it's more difficult to hire qualified people during boom times because they come with a heavy price tag. It's easier now.
posted: 7:18 pm on January 13thI do know several effective businesses owners personally, who live for, through, and just about consumed by their business. I will try to find a few that have a full, personal life supported by their enterprise, and ask, "How do you do it?
Re: Uptick Expected in Lead-Paint Rule Enforcement
Lead once poisoned nearly 2 million kids a year in the late 1980s, now it’s down to about 450,000, still too many. It's not fear of fines that should motivate the remodeler to comply with lead safety rules any more than you should drive sober this season simply to avoid fines and incarceration. It's the human lives on the receiving end of lead paint dust and the victims of DUI--my son having been one last year. Drive safely this holiday, don't get behind the wheal with a buzz, or worst--and make it your New Year's resolution to never scrape, cut or sand windows and trim (and sometimes walls) in any home built before 1978 without using appropriate lead testing and dust mitigation strategies, even if a candidate like Newt won and scrapped the EPA entirely, the lead-safe approach is the right approach. Sober and lead safe, always.
posted: 2:23 pm on December 23rdRe: The Self-Taught MBA
I hope you will all weigh in, especially Penny, who comes to homebuilding with an MBA in her nail pouch. Later today I have a conversation scheduled with David Gerstel, I will ask him what has changed since the latest iteration of book in 2002, and how much has stayed the same. You will get eavesdrop on this parley very soon.
posted: 1:57 pm on December 20thFPR
Re: How to Keep Dangerous Garage Fumes Out of the House
I the PATH Concept House I built in 2007 we were working with the EPA on indoor airquality. We won the 2008 Green Demonstration Home of the year with NHAB. We installed two fans in the attached garage, they exhausted the garage to the outdoors for about 20 minutes each time the garage doors opened.
posted: 8:56 am on April 11thFernando Pages Ruiz
Re: A Net-Zero-Energy Home for $180,000
Let me think... something original, but truly reflective. I got it: WoW!
posted: 12:03 am on March 15thLove to see a special edition on nothing but this higher level of inspirational project. Beats the usual Niemen Marcus type ooooo... and ahhhhh.., definitely prefer the more uncontrollable, WoW! As in what? Or watt?
It's really nice to see your photo and read your words. I am glad you did not disappear. You're the best editor in cheese I even knew. And Brian has remained appropriately humble in stepping into your shoes, although I can already tell he's slowly making the job is own and the magazine will be better for letting the younger men take the helm, and even the oars.
Tough years here on the reader side of the table, really tough.
Would love to hear about your life AFH.
Fernando Pagés
402 610-0589