Selection of Past Events:
“Dealing with Change Orders: The Delicate Balance between Job Profitability and Customer Service”
Sub Contractors often face the choice of whether to make a small change gratis in the name of customer service versus ensuring a change is properly documented and signed off on by all relevant parties. The most profitable sub contractors walk a fine line between being perceived and ‘change ordering their way to profitability’ versus being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous general contractor, architect or consulting engineer. This 1 hour seminar will focus on best practice techniques in the area of dealing with changes to the original job specs.
· Developing a process for determining when a change order is required versus when to complete a small change in an effort to build a strong relationship moving forward.
· Dealing with Change Orders in an efficient and effective manner.
· Dealing with the potential trade-offs between job profitability and customer service.
* All profits will be donated to GVCA’s Conestoga College Building Fund on behalf of Management Research & Solutions*
CTMA Toronto Chapter Tour & Dinner Meeting
Three Kinds of Estimating Error and What to Do About It
David will explain how you can improve your pre-tax profit by 2 – 5% using an integrated approach that addresses the causes of estimating errors such as quality errors, rate errors, and errors of omission.
Ontario General Contractors Association Construction Symposium 2011:
The Winners Curse: “Whoever makes the biggest mistake wins the job.” Avoid the Price Game Mindset & Establish Profitable Bidding Habits
Buildex 2009
How to Optimize in Tough Times 2009
Outsiders have little appreciation for how difficult is to profitably grow a construction or contracting business. Sure, it is pretty manageable if you are able to be at every job site to directly oversee the work, but as you continue to get further and further removed from wearing a tool belt, it becomes exponentially more difficult to bring jobs in on time and on budget. While many business leaders are masters of their trade, they usually have lots of questions about how their most profitable competitors avoid nasty surprises like:
- Missing out on converting verbal change orders into cash in the bank
- Holdbacks not released because of punch lists being dragged out
- Time wasted daily due to poor staging of materials or scheduling of equipment
- Cost overruns on manpower and materials that always seem to appear when a project is nearly done
At the end of the seminar you will have the tools to immediately to improve your bottom line.
Recruitment, Retention and Motivation: How to Get and Keep The Best
A good definition of management is the ability to get things done efficiently through other people in the same manner that you would do it yourself. Contraction in the labour market, however, has caused many companies to experience a high turnover rate, perceived favoritism, low morale, and as a result, low productivity. What we sometimes hear…
- There just aren’t enough good people to go around.
- My people keep making the same mistakes.
- I do things that other people should be doing.
- I seem to keep hiring the wrong person for that position.
- There’s no loyalty among workers in my business…they’ll leave for an extra buck an hour.
- I’ve got one great producer, but the rest are just here for a pay check.
Attracting and training the right people, however, will increase confidence, increase morale and greatly decrease cost through lost time, equipment damage and rework.
