Walk Through Open Doors

by Jonathan McGaha | 29 July 2015 12:00 am

By Paul Deffenbaugh

There are so many things the owner of a construction company needs to know. Not only must he or she have deep knowledge of construction techniques and skills, but he or she must also understand design and engineering. Plus employee management. Accounting. Process management. Marketing. Sales. The list is seemingly endless.

In my many years in the industry, I have never met a single owner of a contracting company who was superior in every area of knowledge. Many, in fact, were excellent in only one area, and they supplemented by hiring people who were excellent in other areas. After all, you don’t really need to know how to weld to run a metal building erector company. But you do have to know about welding.

If you did need to know about welding (for example, if you wanted to add metal building erecting to your company services), you would go to a book or video or seminar to learn about it. Somebody who knows all about welding could teach you what you need to know. And, more specifically, if you only needed to know what contractors need to know about welding, you might find another contractor to learn from. To learn what we don’t know, we go to people who already know how to do it.

Why, then, do so many contractors think that learning about employee management or sales or marketing or some other business skill is something they can figure out on their own? Why, when faced with a difficult business problem, such as how to improve quality while controlling costs, do they think their situation is unique and only they can figure it out?

I know contractors and others in the construction industry are, by and large, independent souls who are a touch hard headed and obstinate. (You know I’m right.) But still, no one has a head hard enough that he can keep banging it on the door of a problem, especially when somebody has already figured it out and opened the door.

Are you faced with a difficult problem in your company? Stop sitting alone in your office, pick your head up and start looking around for solutions. There are others who have faced the same problem, discovered solutions or work-arounds and are willing to share their information.

I once had a consultant tell me what may have been an apocryphal story about a presenter at a seminar during a trade show who talked about this nifty solution to a problem he faced. The next year at the same trade show, a contractor from that audience approached him and said, “We tried every way we could to get your solution to work, but couldn’t figure it out. How did you do it?” The presenter admitted, “You know, we could never get it to work either.” The contractor slugged the presenter, dropping him like a bad draft pick.

The point? Contractors want solutions that work, and they want them to come from people who experience the same difficulties and frustrations they do. People who know what they are suggesting is workable and will solve the problem.

So, how do you find these people? Here are five things I recommend:

Network with local contractors and suppliers through an association. You’ll be surprised what useful bits of information you pick up at a monthly meeting. Network also with other business people through something such as Rotary Club.
Find a peer group networking opportunity that gathers similar, non-competing companies who are willing to share inside information.
Attend trade shows and seminars to find experts. More than likely, they and other attendees have faced the same problems you have.
Hire a consultant with a track record of working with your type of company and who can offer proven, workable solutions.
Get online and start looking for others who may be talking about the issue you face in a discussion group. Careful, though. Braggadocio is the currency of most online discussion groups, so you have to be wary about what you hear.

No matter what you do though, stop trying to solve the problem yourself. Somebody has already figured it out. No need to bang your head on a door when somebody has already opened it.

Source URL: https://www.metalconstructionnews.com/articles/walk-through-open-doors/