QUIKRETE Builds Home for Saltwater Crocodile

The Toledo Zoo recently welcomed the largest saltwater crocodile in North America to its animal family that includes hundreds of mammals, amphibians, aquatic creatures, reptiles, insects and spiders, and birds. Transported from Australia, the 17-foot crocodile required a spacious and ecologically friendly home at the Toledo Zoo, so A.A. Boos &Sons and Great Lakes Concrete Restoration turned to QUIKRETE, a manufacturer of packaged cement mixes for the construction and home improvement markets, to help renovate an existing solarium into the ideal crocodile habitat.

Great Lakes Concrete Restoration applied more than 50 3,000-pound bulk bags of QUIKRETE Shotcrete MS over a rebar frame in the 80,000-gallon solarium pool before Graphite Design sculpted the material into a landscape that reflected the crocodile’s native Australian environment. The shotcrete surface was finished with a concrete stain to maximize the authenticity of this unique and highly anticipated zoo exhibit, which opened on May 24.

Fourth International Holcim Awards

Entries are open in Holcim's $2 million sustainable construction competition. The regional phase of the International Holcim Awards is open for entries. It seeks leading projects from industry professionals and spirited ideas from the “Next Generation” that contribute to sustainability within architecture, building, civil engineering, landscape and urban design, as well as construction materials and technologies. This fourth cycle of the competition offers prize money of $2 million. Online registration is possible until March 24, 2014, at www.holcimawards.org.

Independent jury panels of renowned architects and academics evaluate qualified entries against the five “target issues” for sustainable construction which cover economic, social and environmental performance as well as contextual/aesthetic impact, and innovation/transferability. The juries are headed by Jean-Philippe Vassal (for competition region Europe), Toshiko Mori (North America), Bruno Stagno (Latin America), Howayda Al-Harithy (Africa Middle East) and Rahul Mehrotra (Asia Pacific). Full list of jury members at www.holcimawards.org/juries.

Masons: Hard Times Build Character, Develop Survival Skills

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all we had to do to build a successful business is work hard? While I do believe that the harder you work, the luckier you will get, every business and its people will encounter plenty of hard times along the way. Although it doesn’t feel like it at the time, those challenges are all part of the game of business and exactly what the doctor ordered to build the character and survival skills you need to survive long term.

Have you ever had an employee come to work for your company with the idea that, because you have been in business so long, you are flush with cash, and your company just sails along through beautiful waters? Then, once he finds out how tough you have to dig every day to survive, he wonders what he got himself into. 

Some just can’t endure the rough times and will run like scared rabbits for the door! Luckily, others stay, even in the hardest of times. I guess some people don’t believe there are actual day-to-day struggles a business faces that may cause it to fail. Well, these people are living in a different world than the one that my companies compete in! In my world, I need and look for survivors.

We brought in a CFO who left a really good job to join our team in 2008. Wow, was timing bad for him! As soon as he arrived, the bottom dropped out of the construction market, which every company I own was centered around. With his understanding of numbers, I am sure he could see that we were bleeding like a pig with his throat cut. I often worried that he may throw up his hands, say “uncle,” and leave, because this guy had not had a chance to experience any good times with us.

During his first three years, we had to make tremendous changes and cuts, some I never thought I would do, but it was all about mere survival. During that time, he never wavered though, worked even harder to prove to the financial people that our company would survive when others in our industry weren’t, and I’m sure he lost some sleep (but probably not as much as I did). 

Things are a little better now, but not without the help of him and the rest of the management team who stood by my side. If I would not have experienced it firsthand, I would never believe the character this has built into my CFO and the managers who dug in their heels and stayed the course with me. And, the best part of all, I believe they are now equipped with survival skills.

The only way a football team has a winning season is through tremendous pain during training and daily workouts. For great employees, managers and owners, these painful daily workouts are no different than athletes. They are just more mental than physical effort to get through the painful times. In either case, those that work the hardest, and can endure the most pain, will obtain character and survival skills it takes to develop a winning team. 

  

When you put it all together, it makes sense that most businesses don’t survive long term. According to the Small Business Administration, only one-third of family-owned businesses survive the transition from the first to the second generation. If you happen to survive that phase, according to the Family Firm Institute, only 12 percent of family-owned businesses stay viable into the third generation, and only 3 percent are alive at the fourth-generation level and beyond. 

I believe a large part of these slim success rates is due to the successors not having to endure the hard times that Dad or Grandpa did. Therefore, due to the blood, sweat and tears already shed, along with the equity already being in place, when hard times come, the successors don’t know what to do as they didn’t personally have to work through the lean years to learn true survival skills.

So, remember this, your business needs those who believe in you, regardless of how hard times get. If they don’t want to deal with the hard times that are present daily or sure to be coming, then you are alone. You just don’t know it yet. Search within your organization (and outside it, if they are not within) to find not only the best qualified people to help you succeed, but those that believe in you regardless of how hard things seem during those daily workouts. These people will build character and develop the survival skills it takes for a company to survive long term.

Damian Lang operates four companies in Southeast Ohio, including a masonry contracting firm. He is the inventor of many labor-saving masonry systems and equipment he and his customers throughout the country use. He is also the author of the book “Rewarding and Challenging Employees for Profits in Masonry.” To order a copy of his book, or to network with Damian on these tips or tips you have and would like published, contact him at dlang@langmasonry.com or 740-749-3512.

All rights reserved, ©2013 Damian Lang, President of Lang Masonry Contractors, Inc., and EZ Grout Corp.

Masons: Use Your Bid as Bait

By George Hedley

Does this sound familiar? “It’s impossible to compete in this tight construction market as there’s always too much competition.” “The only way I get any jobs is when we leave too much money on the table.” “I get tired of cutting our bids to beat the competition.” “How can we ever make enough money to survive?”  

I have been hearing these same complaints about the construction business since 1977, when I started my general contracting company. It seems as if nothing changes as contractors continue to compete against low-price competitors.

Bid like you fish

Before you go fishing, you need the right bait to lure the fish to bite. Think of your bid as tasty bait customers will want to bite, so you can land a juicy contract. When you fish, your goal is to catch either the big one or lots of fish. So you look for the secret fishing holes where they bite.

When looking for profitable projects to bid to, you must seek opportunities that will give you the best chance to make the most money. When you finally catch a fish, you can reel it in, weigh it, and decide if you want to keep it. After you submit a bid and get the call to cut your bid or match a better price to get the job, it is your choice to accept that offer as well.

When you go fishing and they aren’t biting, what do you do? You try different fishing techniques, change your bait, or move on to another fishing hole. But stubborn contractors don’t look elsewhere when they don’t land enough contracts. Most contractors just keep bidding to the same customers over and over, using the same bait and proposal strategies as they’ve always used.

Contractors often think if they bid enough the same way, eventually they’ll get their share. This effort won’t get you the positive results you want. Like fishing, you must change your estimating and bidding strategies to get the big ones to bite more often.

Bid-hit ratio

Bid-hit ratio is the rate at which you successfully bid or propose on projects. For example, a 5-to-1 bid-hit ratio states for every five jobs you bid or propose on, you are awarded only one. In a survey I conducted of more than 2,000 construction general contractors, subcontractors and design-build companies, less than 10 percent know and track their bid-hit ratios.

Do you know what yours is? In order to determine how many jobs to bid, what type of jobs to go after, and which customers give you a higher percentage of their work, you must know your bid-hit ratio for these different categories. Track it by types of projects, customers, job type, job size, and project location. As you study your bid-hit ratio trends, you'll find certain customers give you more work than others, and you'll find you do better with certain kinds of jobs.

Offer what customers want

Think about what you include in your typical proposal or bid: price, terms, scope of work, specification section number, inclusions, exclusions, a list of the plans and specifications, and payment provisions. These facts and figures don’t take into consideration what your customer really wants. Sure, he wants a low price based on an "apples-to-apples" scope of work, but what else?

Customers may value these things more than price:

Ability and experience: understanding the plans and specifications, reputation for excessive change orders, in-house design and value engineering, and experience in similar projects

Customer service:  trust with a delicate customer, service department, flexibility and response time

Solid workforce: properly trained professional field crews, foremen who can make decisions, large-enough crews, ability to make the schedule, and quality workmanship

   

Image: great safety record, maintain clean jobsite, jobsite image and uniforms

Financial security: financial strength and bonding capacity, payment schedule and need for cash.

Every project has unique requirements, which often are more important than price. Before you start working on an estimate for a customer, Always ask the decision maker what’s important on this job. Then, custom design your bid proposal accordingly. Highlight the differentiating factors, and make it clear that their priorities are the same as yours.

Use your bid as bait!

Remember your bid is bait to go fishing for a contract. The main purpose for your bid is act as bait to get a meeting with your customer. At this meeting, you can discuss the project in depth, review how you can help your customer meet goals, explain why you are the best choice, review pricing options, get a second chance to be the selected contractor, and get last look.

George Hedley works with contractors to build profitable growing companies. He is a professional business coach, popular speaker and best-selling author of “Get Your Business to Work!” available online at www.HardhatPresentations.com. To sign-up for his free e-newsletter, join his next webinar, be part of a BIZCOACH program, or get a $100 discount coupon for online classes at www.HardhatBizSchool.com, email GH@HardhatPresentations.com.

George Hedley           

HARDHAT Presentations, 800-851-8553  

Realizing the Benefits of Equipment Rental

By Tom Hubbell

Equipment rental revenues continued to outpace gross domestic product (GDP) by nearly four times in early-2013, and strong growth is expected for the industry through 2017. As many business owners and home improvement enthusiasts are trying to do more with less, they are turning to equipment rental. This ensures that they get the right equipment, for the right job, at the right time and, therefore, reduce overall costs and increase profits.

Many factors should be consideration when making a rent-versus-buy decision. How often will I use the equipment? Are there enough projects in the pipeline to justify the capital expenditure? Can I get financing and at what cost? Do I have the ability and staff to maintain the equipment? What’s the real total cost of ownership?

For construction professionals, equipment rental has become a way of doing business. Construction professionals know to rent equipment for specialized projects or to expand their fleets during peak times to maximize efficiency. For home owners and do-it-yourself enthusiasts, a variety of popular home remodeling television shows have brought equipment rental to the forefront as a viable solution to reap professional results.

Regardless of your wants and needs, renting equipment makes good business and economic sense for many reasons.

Eliminate the cost of ownership

Owning equipment can be a risky venture for construction professionals, particularly in today’s uncertain economy and tight credit market. Conserving capital is a core benefit of opting to rent equipment for a job. It eliminates dollars that might be tied up in fleet, and allows the money to be used elsewhere in your business.

In addition to the capital outlay, many extra costs come with owning equipment. Operating costs like continual maintenance, repair, safety inspections, fuel, transportation and storage make the total cost of the equipment unpredictable, and those costs will tend to increase during the life of equipment. Factoring in depreciation, taxes, insurances, permits and maintenance labor adds even more to the total cost of ownership.

Equipment utilization is a key factor in total ownership cost. If equipment isn’t used used frequently enough, the return on the capital investment will take many years to recover. Another trap is utilizing a purchased piece of equipment to “make do” versus having the exact piece of equipment you need for the job. Rental provides you with the right piece of equipment at the right time to increase efficiency and speed. 

Routine maintenance also carries a cost – not only with necessary materials such as oil and spare parts – but also additional staff time. Having maintenance professionals on staff to address equipment issues and ensuring that they are properly trained on a variety of equipment can be costly. 

Insurance costs also increase when new equipment is added to a fleet, adding to the rising total cost of ownership. Newer equipment is at a higher risk for theft, making premiums to cover the units higher than covering aged units. Warranties also can be an expensive proposition as equipment may need to be transported back to the manufacturer for repairs or service.

But that’s not all. Increased overhead costs are associated with buying new equipment. For instance, new equipment needs to have a storage place when not in use. This may involve having to build a new facility to house the units, often a costly undertaking. Transporting equipment is another consideration. New units may require new modes of transportation to the jobsite, and that could be an additional expense.

Availability of equipment

When renting equipment, construction professionals have access to the latest equipment available on the market. Rental companies replace their core construction fleets more frequently to ensure they have the latest equipment. As a result, rented construction equipment typically is equipped with newer technology and the latest safety features and codes.

Not only do rental companies carry the latest equipment, but also they carry a wide variety of products that help get the job done every step of the way. They also may carry different makes and models of equipment to provide construction professionals a selection, should they prefer a particular manufacturer.

Fleet flexibility is yet another benefit that equipment rental offers. It’s not an easy job to predict when projects will be awarded and how multiple project schedules will mesh when managing a construction business. Supplementing a core fleet with rental is a way to grow the number of projects and capture new business, while conserving capital.

Your local rental store can help secure the right equipment for the job, on short notice and deliver it to the jobsite. Many rental stores also provide round-the-clock support to keep your project on schedule and increase productivity.

Save time and hassle

The overall capital expenditure process can consume a great deal of time. When you consider the time commitment to research equipment; review manufacturer specifications to ensure that the equipment meets your goals; draw up a pricing proposal; and find the right financial institution to partner with, you could spend weeks of valuable time. A phone call to your local rental store will secure the right equipment for your job within minutes.

From time to time, equipment breaks down and, when it does, it can be a real hassle. Rental companies work hard to eliminate that issue for contractors. They maintain equipment to manufacturer standards and perform regular and systematic maintenance to keep units rental ready. Transporting a replacement piece of equipment to your jobsite also ensures that construction professionals can maximize their time working and minimize downtime.

Finding a rental partner

Thousands of American Rental Association (ARA) member rental stores are located across the country, and finding the one with the right equipment is simple. A quick visit to RentalHQ.com, a rental store locator, will help construction professionals find the nearest rental store.

Tom Hubbell is VP, marketing and communications for the American Rental Association.