Periodically I get calls from market researchers asking for industry statistics or for me to explain our industry’s lay of the land. One of them recently asked the question, “What are contractors like?” My initial response was to ask a question in return: “Which type of contractor?” Then I explained that the industry harbors different kind of work specialists, each with different characteristics and concerns. Later, in reflecting back on this conversation, I asked myself whether there might be some unifying characteristics among all of these different market sectors.
Here we are years beyond a pair of horrible hurricane seasons (2004 and 2005), and the fallout continues to take shape. Our good friends in Florida have been hit with a new rule that has many residential reroofing contractors in a real pickle. In spite of common sense and efforts by roofing and other contractors in the state, it seems that the insurance lobby prevailed on the Florida legislature to cook up a “windstorm loss mitigation” statute.
As this issue of Roofing Contractor hits the street, we find ourselves in the middle of the college football season. What’s that got to do with your roof-contracting business? Not much, but a few parallels do come to mind.
Here’s a scary statistic for every business owner: “The average organization loses 15 percent to 35 percent of its customers each year, primarily due to poor service.”
In last month’s article, “Safety Training That Works with Latinos,” we set a base of understanding. We learned what training is and what it does, and we learned some important factors to consider when teach-ing safety to Latino laborers.
In this article, I want to move into more specifics regarding safety training with Latinos. There are three very specific concepts you must understand and implement if you are to have high levels of success in training safety with Latino employees.
Every year in the United States, chemical and thermal burns account for an estimated 700,000 emergency room visits, with more than 45,000 patients requiring extended hospitalizations for treatment such as skin grafts.
This year marks my 20th year in the roofing industry. In this time span, I have seen many significant changes in all sectors of the industry: contracting, manufacturing and consulting. As we close out 2007, I thought I would take a moment to reflect on some of these changes and provide a technical perspective on how these changes will affect the future of the industry.
Few things can be more annoying than running a dead-end sales call. Yet, if we do not visit the customer, how will we know if the lead has a chance to turn into a good job? There is no magic rule for qualifying leads, but applying some simple logic can help improve the odds in your favor.
The January 1990 issue of Plumbing & Mechanical magazine had a cover story titled “The Manpower Crisis,” written by me. It featured interviews with apprenticeship recruiters and other industry experts addressing a skilled labor shortage that had already started to rear its head. Demographic and social trends indicated the problem would only worsen in years to come.
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