|
Foreword
Contractors need Strategic Thinking (Systems
Thinking) as opposed to Tactical Thinking. Instead of focusing on
individual parts, focus on the End Game. Move away from the day-to-day
routines.
Introduction
Focus on work, people, money, time, planning, growth,
management, getting a life.
Chapter One: Richard and Anne
Gerber says whatever is wrong in business tends to be
wrong at home: anger; out of control behaviour; money problems; poor
communications; lack of trust; etc. Richard started a home building
business. It was a major disaster because he was a technician who
couldn't manage the business and couldn't delegate without losing
control.
Chapter Two: Money
Four discrete factors: Income, Profit, Flow, Equity
- Income is what you get paid for doing your job
within the company (your salary, as an employee).
- Profit is what's left over after everything has
been paid. Profit must be intentional, not accidental. Otherwise,
you can't replicate it.
- Flow is what the money does. It flows in and out -
erratically in a small contractor's business. Therefore, managing
the flow is critical so that you maximize the benefit.
- Equity is the value that a third party would place
on the business.
To build equity, you must work on your business by
developing systems that will make it stand out. The better your
business works, the higher the equity. As an employee, you should
develop systems to do tasks most effectively and document those
systems. Replace yourself with someone else and then move onto the next
one and repeat the process.
Chapter Three: The Ethical Story
They hired a home builder to build their Dream Home.
Because they didn't do their due diligence, it was a disaster. Things
kept going wrong, particularly when the builder himself was absent from
the site.
Chapter Four: Planning
Strategic Issues and Technical Issues: Besides a Job
Plan (what you do), a contractor needs a Business Plan (who you are),
and The Completion Plan (how you do it).
Chapter Five: Management
Don't manage people; manage processes/systems.
Chapter Six: People
When you have systems, you can hire people to operate
the systems - just like a franchise operates.
Chapter Seven: Sub-Contractors (or lunatics
hiring other lunatics)
You have to evaluate your sub-contractor needs and
develop a process for recruiting the right subcontractors.
Chapter Eight: Estimating
An estimate is a "rough or approximate
calculation." Make sure you know what you are pricing and what the
realistic costs are in advance.
Chapter Nine: Customers
There are different types of customers: Neutral
(engineers); Tactile (doctors); Experimental (high-tech); Traditional
(accountants). Know your customers and how to handle them. Develop your
USP. Different ones will appeal to different customer types.
Chapter Ten: Growth
Your business needs to grow or die - just like
children.
Chapter Eleven: Change
Fairly basic in thinking but important in execution.
Chapter Twelve: Time
We have to work on our businesses as well as in them.
We never have enough time and must develop processes that will give us
time.
Chapter Thirteen: The Subject of Work
This is the obsessive-compulsive behaviour for
contractors: there's too much or too little. The work you could be
doing and the work you should be doing are the same thing. There is
Strategic Work and Tactical Work.
Tactical is the one we do almost all the time. It's
getting the job done. It's what we do to avoid Strategic Work. The
Tactical Work means:
- You are always reacting to something outside you
- Your business runs you; you don't run it
- Your life runs you; you don't run it.
Strategic works means asking and answering the right
questions:
- Why am I a Contractor?
- What will my business look like when it's done?
- What must it be to compete successfully?
- What are the Key Indicators of my business?
The Tactical questions happen automatically and we
respond to them. The key is to ask the Strategic Questions and to
respond to them. Without Strategic Work there is no design. There is no
"Beginning with the end in mind."
Chapter Fourteen: Santos & the Three Day Kitchen
Santos broke his back and couldn't be a framer
anymore. He got his "team" to search out construction work
that:
- had consistent growth
- did not rise and fall dramatically with the economy
- essentially repeated the same tasks from job to job
- wasn't capital intensive to start or maintain
- could be operated independently of other
contractors
The answer took two and one-half years: Kitchen
remodeling - The Three Day Kitchen. They developed the best system to
remodel a kitchen in three days. They trained a crew and created a
management system to ensure that their system would be used exactly as
planned, every time. It worked.
Chapter Fifteen: Taking Action
The organization of your thoughts is the foundation
for the organization of your business. Learn how
to think about the business, learn to think about priorities. Create a
story about your business. Organize your business so that it breathes
life into your story. The business has to replicate the story.
- Identify the key functions
- Identify the essential processes that link those
functions
- Identify the results you have determined your
business will produce
- Clearly state in writing how each phase will work
- Take it step by step.
Engage your people in the process. You need to know
the process before you engage others in it. It's your business. You
provide the leadership.
Know exactly what you want, what's important to you
and what isn't, what you want the business to be, how you want it to
act and where you want it to go. Be passionate about your story, make
it exciting. Tell it over and over.
Your Business Development Process:
- Be completely clear with your people about the
story of your business.
- Be clear with them about the process your
business must go through in order for your story to become a
reality.
Three steps to succeed:
- Innovation: Continue to find better ways of doing
what you do.
- Quantification: Once that is achieved, quantify
the impact of these improvements on your business
- Orchestration: Once these improvements are
verified, orchestrate this better way of running your business so
that it becomes your standard, to be repeated time and again.
Your vision, your people and your process are all
linked.
|
