Contractor Update

Your business phone is a tool. A sales tool. It's important to make the best use of it. For most contractors, it’s your first contact with potential clients. Those first impressions are truly important. Before you ever get a chance to have a project owner sign that contract, you have to build trust and rapport with people over the phone.

Every call is a potential sale and contract. It's important to treat them as such. Many contractors hate to use the phone and answer with a terse or gruff tone. Or worse, simply say, "Hello." Announce your company name, add your name, and ask how you may help the caller. It's simple, polite, and puts the potential client at ease. No matter your professional, it can be an expensive proposition to call your company. Project owners need to feel comfortable that they've made the right decision to call you.

When you meet someone face to face, most people tend to smile at the new person. It is a comforting sign that you are similar and not a threat. Try smiling just before you pick up the phone. It's nearly impossible to be terse or gruff when you're smiling. Try it.

Potential clients are all different. Some are focused on price, some on quality, some are quick and to the point, and some like to comb through every single detail. Slowly. To build a rapport with your caller, you might try to adapt to them. In they are succinct and in a hurry, you might speed up your delivery. If the caller is folksy and full of old time clichés, you should consider returning the favor with a few tall tales of your own. The similarities between phone styles lets the potential client relax and trust they have found the right person for the job.

Converting phone calls into appointments is your ultimate goal. Like your company vehicles, your tools, and your knowledge, your business phone keeps you working. How you answer, how you talk, and how you represent your company can keep you in business for a long time.

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Labels: Sales Advice

This is part of a series called Contractor Accounting 101:

We've discussed two important financial statements for small businesses - the income statement and balance sheet. Another important analytical tool is the Cash Flow Statement. It shows how well your business can pay its bills.

Your Cash Flow Statement indicates money coming in and going out over a period of time. Make sure you look at cash flow every month or at least every quarter. Cash flow can be from normal day-to-day operations, investing or financing activities.

These activities include cash coming in from a completed job, going out for supplies, payments on credit cards, or interest received from a savings account. It can be money in from the sale of equipment or out for the purchase of a showroom. This statement is not a calculation of profit but shows how much money you start with, how much comes in, how much goes out, and how much you're left with at the end of the period.

Say you start January with $25,000. You have $12,000 coming in from sales, $3,000 from what previous customers owe, and $5,000 from the sale of a vehicle. You plan to have $15,000 of cash coming in for January. However, you'll be paying $1,000 in rent, a $500 truck payment, $6,500 in payroll, and $10,000 in products. You'll also have an owner withdrawal of $3,000. You'll have $21,000 in cash going out for the month of January.



Your change of cash will be "- $6,000" ($15,000 cash in subtracted by $21,000 cash out.) Obviously, it's important to maintain positive cash flow. But it shows you'll need additional sales for the month or a cut in expenses (reducing payroll or purchases.) Your ending monthly balance will be $19,000 ($25,000 beg. balance minus $6,000 cash flow change.) That ending balance will be your beginning balance for February.

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Labels: Accounting

Research and Markets has recently done a survey of 800 plus people who have had their kitchens remodeled. We thought it would be useful information for any contractors and companies out there who do kitchen renovation projects or who are kitchen designers.

Their study compiled data on the homeowner lifestyles, product shopping and purchasing patterns, kitchen remodeling details, media consumption, market segments, and trends in consumer tastes and preferences.

ConstructionDeal.com wants you to be informed. A knowledgeable remodeler will have a sales advantage over their competitors and our goal is to help your business succeed:

What People Do in their Kitchens

- The American kitchen is widely considered the 'hub' of the home. But what exactly are people doing in there? And how do the activities that take place in the kitchen impact design and the products that are purchased to go into the kitchen?

While the kitchen certainly remains the hub of the American home, it continues to evolve from being a strictly functional place in the home for preparing meals. Almost a third of American consumers now see their kitchen as a place where a variety of activities take place. Increasingly, people socialize, take medicines, manage their household, and care for pets in their kitchen.

- Busy lifestyles prevent the vast majority of people from preparing all of their meals at home every day. Only a third of Americans fix breakfast at home every day. Yet nearly three quarters frequently prepare dinner at home (5+ times a week).

- While the microwave has become as essential tool in the kitchen, the majority use it for the main dish for dinner two days a week or less frequently and dinner is rarely prepared from scratch.

- With cookbooks appearing on the best-seller list, viewership of cooking shows soaring and celebrity chefs becoming mainstream stars, it’s not surprising that more than seven out of ten consumers try a new recipe at least once a month.

The 'Ideal' Kitchen

- People describe their 'ideal' kitchen as "organized", "comfortable", "open", "warm", "family", "light", "happy" and "homey" - key words to use in designing products and marketing them.

- The number one appliance upgrade desired in an 'ideal' kitchen is a cooktop that features a built-in grill, wok, griddle or rotisserie attachment. Also strongly desired are commercial-grade appliances, a larger dishwasher to accommodate a wide variety of dishes, and a double oven.

Men may see appliance purchases as status symbols while women tend to see them with a more functional perspective.

- Innovative technologies in the kitchen with streamlined designs are becoming more mainstream though clearly are still not as hot as more functional products.

Cutting-edge technologies (TV screens built into appliances) have a much stronger appeal among men than women.

- The popularity of kitchen islands continues with the number one design feature on the wish list of survey participants being a central island cooktop.

- When asked which one item they would be willing to splurge on if they were changing their kitchen now, the top products mentioned were cabinets, range/oven/cooktop, countertops, refrigerator, island and flooring.

Kitchen Remodelers

- One in five households have remodeled or made improvements to their kitchen in the past 12 months.

- People describe their kitchen before the remodel or improvement as 'boring', 'cluttered', 'dark' and 'confining'.

- Clearly, the key driver behind kitchen remodels is that the current kitchen is 'out of date'.

- Designers or architects play a role in about one in five kitchen remodeling projects. As income increases, so does the likelihood of using a designer or architect for a kitchen remodeling project.

If remodelers had it to do over again, 50 percent more say they would use a designer or architect for their kitchen remodeling project.

- Close to two thirds of kitchen remodelers hired outside help to do at least some of the labor on their recent kitchen remodel.

- Some DIYers express a change of heart when it comes to how they would handle the labor next time – more would hire outside help for at least some of the project and fewer would do all the work themselves.

The main reason people choose to do all the labor on kitchen projects themselves is because they enjoy the process. The main reasons they choose to hire out all the labor are lack of time and skills needed.

- More than seven in ten remodelers purchased one or more appliances for their recent remodel or improvement. Virtually all remodelers purchased one or more of the design elements listed in the survey. Four in ten bought furniture and/or electronics for their kitchen remodel. Accessories, such as storage/organization features and cookware, were purchased by six in ten.

- Most all kitchen improvement projects produce a few surprises for the homeowner. The most frequently mentioned are how long the project took to complete and how much it cost.

- Stores, along with magazines, books and catalogs are mentioned most frequently as providing the best ideas for kitchen remodeling projects.

- More than three out of ten remodelers said they would spend more money on a kitchen remodel if they had to do it over, while only seven percent said they would spend less.

Looking at those who would spend more, the key things they would do differently next time are upgrade the cabinets and increase the size of the kitchen.

Labels: Small Business Advice