Service Management Tools For Field Work
By William and Patti Feldman Computer Authorities Here are two solutions for contractors active in service work. Both take advantage of evolving technologies....
What's Wrong With This Picture?
By Patrick Linhardt Hydronic Heating Authority THE CALL: On the line was a contractor who has been a oneman shop since his dad retired from the trade....
Service Management Tools For Field Work
Here are two solutions for contractors active in service work. Both take advantage of evolving technologies. Electronic Service Control (www.desco-soft.com,...
Letter To Dean Of College Construction Program
The following is a letter that I recently sent to the dean of a college construction program. I was asked about the school's current curriculum and what...
Estimates For Some Jobs Pulled ... From Thin Air
By H. Kent Craig Project Management Authority It's been a long-standing practice in mechanical contracting to throw numbers out on some jobs that are...
35 years later, your value is still front-page news
By Bob Miodonski Publisher and editorial director The headline over the lead story on the front page of our May issue states that manufacturers should...
Add-ons work like magic
By Matt Michel CEO, Service Roundtable THE EASIEST WAY to boost your company's profitability is to increase add-on sales during service calls. For a profitable...
When bad things happen to good drains
I'VE BEEN CLEANING drains for 36 years; you'd think by now I'd have a pretty good idea of what causes drain lines to clog. In all those years, I've worked...
A matter of grave concern, part 4
I EXPLAINED HOW I believe I contracted Legionnaires' disease in my May column. What I didn't explain was the good news/bad news scenario. ...
No more excuses for not having good Website
A WEBSITE IS the easiest way to show off your company to prospective clients and communicate up-to-date information about your business. If you don't...
What good do employee non-competes do?
IT IS THE UNUSUAL employer that would not want to restrict the ability of its employees to leave the firm and go into competition with it. Beyond just...
How the IRS clipped the Yankee Clipper
IT'S JUNE, SO let's talk baseball. Unfortunately, this is a story about a strikeout. Joe DiMaggio, unquestionably one of the great baseball legends of...
Plant seeds to harvest next generation of PMs
I SAW A help-wanted ad in the 1980s that I remember to this day. With precious little exaggeration and a ton of implied irony, this company said it was...
Plumbing marketing tips from my accountant
OVERLY ORGANIZED, rigidly restrained accountant leaned over the lunch table as he spoke. "I don't know how to tell you this, but the plumbing at our office...
Learn to learn as an organization
IN HIS BOOK "The Fifth Discipline," Peter Senge suggests that companies become learning organizations. He defined a learning organization as an "organization...
Whats on Your White Board?
By Mark Matteson When Jeff Bezos was a college student at Princeton, he slept at the Math and Computer lab, literally. As a result he enjoyed a 4.3 GPA....
How Many Days Forward Could You Live If You Stopped Working Today?
That is a line from my newest book, Freedom From Fear FOREVER (www.ffffbook.com). It was a rock in my shoe for months until I did something about it!...
Get serious about customer complaints
HOW DO YOU HANDLE customer complaints? Most contractors think they do a good job of resolving them. But when asked, "How do you know?" most owners/ CEOs...
Dealing with clogs in small-diameter drains
WHEN I WAS a young lad first entering the trades, we had no power tools for cleaning small-diameter drain lines. We used hand-tops, which could give a...
A matter of grave concern, part 3
I STATED IN last month's column (pg. 42) that I had contracted Legionnaires' disease and promised to explain exactly how that happened. I maintain a weekend...
Package automates entire design process
DESIGN-BUILD 6.0 (Carmel Software, www.carmelsoft.com, 800/339-6030) is a suite of five software programs that automate the entire HVAC design-build process....
Who are you working for?
GETTING NEW BUSINESS is always a challenge, so when the phone rings and you are asked to work for a new customer, your first instinct is generally not...
Outcome, not output, is what matters
Project management authority THERE ARE THREE types of people in this world: those who have a basic grasp of math and those who don't. Forty percent of...
Close the sale or open the door for competitors
DON'T YOU HATE that? You run ads, get the call, set the appointment, run the lead, price the job, present the offer and your prospect needs to "think...
Industrial Strength Succession Planning'
RAISE YOUR HAND if you are the owner (or part owner) of a successful family business and someday you want your kids to step into your shoes. Let's be...
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