Realizing Opportunity

Marilyn Sanford smartPRENEUR Blog Series

In my last smartPRENEUR Blog, I spoke to the low contribution to profit of trade labor in construction.   Additional Billable Time Now let’s take another tack.  Let’s look at what happens if opportunity can be found to add additional billable time.  If we find 5%, a mere 1.25 minutes per hour, it equates to 42 additional billed hours per year!  ...

Lean Six Sigma vs EOS vs OKR’s: What tool is right for my business?

Jason Sayen smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Congratulations!  You started a business, it’s growing and you’re busy.  Now what?  Do you still own a business or do you own a job?  Most owners in the skilled trade industry start out as technicians but quickly have to learn how to run and manage a business.  There are a lot of different skills used to run a business like ...
Career Image

Did You Buy a Job or Build a Career?

Tom Coffin smartPRENEUR Blog Series

What’s the difference between a career and a job you might ask. CAREER The brilliant minds at Merriam-Webster provide this definition of Career. A profession for which one trains and which is undertaken as a permanent calling.  A field for or pursuit of consecutive progressive achievement especially in public, professional, or business life.   JOB Now let’s see how the ...

Sales Foundations, Part 2

Mark Cichowski smartPRENEUR Blog Series

These are a few more of the most common, proven and useful professional techniques you can use in sales. Feature, Advantage, Benefit (FAB) Salespeople tend to “feature dump” when selling. Being the expert in your industry is fantastic. Sometimes that knowledge overwhelms to buyer prospect if the salesperson bombards them with features. An example is, “someone asks you for the time and you ...

The Anatomy of an Hour

Marilyn Sanford smartPRENEUR Blog Series

The Importance of Numbers Years ago, when I was running my CE (Custom Electronics) business, I had a meeting with a builder in my community.   We started to talk about the importance of numbers in our respective firms.   The builder was a leader in his Industry having operated successful and meaningful construction businesses.    We discussed my somewhat ...

Hiring Process

Chris Smith smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Who is your best hire? Have you ever made a bad hire? Have you repeated that mistake? More than once? Making hiring mistakes are costly to both your business and employees. It’s a time suck, money suck, the onboarding is painful, unemployment payout, the morale of your team, shaken confidence in leadership, retention of your existing staff, and all of ...

Why Process Creation & Documentation Is Vital For Your Business

Jason Sayen smartPRENEUR Blog Series

Does your business have written documentation of its processes or are they all stuck in someones head?  Processes are critical in order for a business to function on a daily basis.  When most businesses are started, the processes are built organically by what the owner wants instead of what the business needs. What is a business process? “A business process ...