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Self-Taught MBA: Are You Ready for Building Information Modeling?
4 commentsBuilding 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.
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Self-Taught MBA: Getting Intimate with Social Marketing
3 commentsIn 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.
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Self-Taught MBA: Getting Social With Guerrilla Marketing
7 commentsGet 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.
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Online Reviews Can Hurt Contractors and Homeowners
13 commentsAn unhappy customer pans her renovation contractor on Yelp, and the builder responds with a $750,000 defamation lawsuit. Have you been embroiled in an internet dispute?
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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.
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Self Taught MBA: Empowering Homeowners at ArmchairBuilder.com
1 commentBuilding 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.
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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.
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Self Taught MBA: Going to Where the Going Is Good, Part 3
1 commentContinuing 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.
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Self Taught MBA: Going to Where the Going is Good, Part 2
1 commentContinuing 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.
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Should Builders Provide Free Estimates?
10 commentsPotential customers seem to love them, and why not? But pros are divided, some insisting that providing estimates is part of running a business and others just as adamant that would-be customers should be charged.
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Self Taught MBA: Going to Where the Going is Good, Part 1
3 commentsWe 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.
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Self Taught MBA: From Single to Multifamily Builder
2 commentsThe 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
8 commentsWith 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.”
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Arf, Arf! ??
1 commentDog days of summer prompt this whitetail deer to seek a cool, shady spot to oversee operations in my home shop.
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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.
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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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Puget Sound Woodworking - The Shop
This is the studio for Puget Sound Woodworking, located in downtown Snohomish, Washington. Â It is a small woodworking school and custom woodworking studio. Â The shop was designed in Sketchup by the...
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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.
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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.
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Video Series: Build a Grade-Level Deck
Watch veteran builder Mike Guertin as he builds a new, grade-level deck on the Fine Homebuilding Project House. Mike share... read more
