Every business experiences slow periods when the market for their goods or services lessens and sales drop. Construction business owners like you might be tempted to view downtimes as unproductive or wasted, but there are ways you can make the most of your business during these seasons.

Here are five ways to ensure this time isn't wasted:

1. Take a good look at your business

When things are busy, it gets easy to fall into a habit of taking care of day-to-day tasks and forgetting your overall business picture. However, slower times are an excellent opportunity to step back from the daily grind and ask yourself if your business is still moving towards its goals, what opportunities or challenges are on the horizon, and whether it's time to try something new.

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Topics: Construction Bookkeeping And Accounting, Construction Company Cash Flow, Contractor Tips

Online reviews are an essential marketing tool for many small businesses, especially for service-based businesses like yours. They give potential customers and clients a chance to see how effective your goods or services are, how responsive you are to your clients, and what other people's experiences of your business have been. As a result, the vast majority of people check online reviews before making a purchasing decision.

 

When reviews are great, that's a fantastic thing. But, unfortunately, it's when you get negative reviews that you have to adjust. You can't please all customers all the time.

 

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Topics: Construction Company, Contractor Tips, How To Handle Negative Reviews

Sales are about addressing your customers' needs and problems. By understanding the issues clients face, you can show them how your service solves their problems. 

Here are some tips for asking the right sales questions to better understand and help your customers. 

1. Don't jump into sales questions right away.

Sales aren't just about making a sale, although that's certainly part of it. Instead, sales are about building relationships. That's how you make a sale today and encourage repeat business tomorrow. 

When you start asking questions, don't begin by asking questions about the sale specifically. Instead, ask questions that develop a relationship and give you a chance to get to know the client better. 

For example, ask questions about their long- and short-term goals. After that, move into questions about the issues they face and what solutions they currently use. Then, find out what does and does not work about those solutions. That will help you understand your potential customer, which allows you to meet their needs right now and anticipate future needs.

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Topics: Increasing sales, Systems And Processes, Contractor Marketing, Contractor Tips

Emergencies can happen in the blink of an eye. Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, and social media are all in the cloud. When disaster strikes, flood, fire, theft, earthquake, or a lousy bookkeeper deliberately destroying business records or computer crash, you are protected against data loss by these online programs. Buy another computer, set it up, and you are back in business.

 

What about your bookkeeping records? Your customer list? Who owes you money? Who you owe money to? Payroll? Employee advances and loans?

 

Job deposits, sales tax reports due, the list goes on. You never realize how much you depend on your Construction Accounting System until it is gone forever!

 

What about your contracts, bids, other hard copies of documents you use to operate and grow your construction company?

 

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Topics: Cloud Based Bookkeeping Services, Construction Bookkeeping And Accounting, Systems And Processes, QuickBooks Desktop Cloud, QuickBooks For Contractors Cloud, Contractor Tips

For most construction businesses, increasing sales during this time will be very beneficial and may provide some much-needed cash flow relief. 

 

Local search engine optimization (SEO) is an integral part of any online marketing strategy for traditional businesses which serve a specific geographical area.

 

Local SEO works in much the same way as standard SEO, although some significant differences are considered. Taking the time and trouble to optimize your website for local is essential since about a fifth of desktop queries and more than half of mobile searches have local intent. 

 

To capitalize on this fact, you'll need to make sure that your website appears in local searches. Fortunately, local SEO is somewhat more straightforward than regular SEO, which is significant because it is less competitive.

 

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Topics: Pay Applications, Systems And Processes, Contractor Operating Tips, payment issues

The success of any business, large or small, depends considerably on nurturing an efficient, productive workplace.

 

While improving employee productivity should always be a priority when the ultimate goal is a sustainable and profitable business, the process is easier said than done.

 

Being a better construction business owner is not just about the habits you practice in front of others. It is often about the habits you practice behind closed doors that make you an easy person to follow.

 

Whether you work alone or managing a group of people, practicing accountability matters. Accountability is a touchy subject that can make many people feel uncomfortable, but it protects you as a leader and can exponentially increase the level of influence you have over a corporation or group of followers. 

 

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Topics: Systems And Processes, Construction Project Managment, Project Management, Contractor Operating Tips, accountability, Construction Accountability

Billing schemes. Skimming. Check-tampering. Employee fraud is a real risk for businesses with fewer than 100 employees. In fact, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, small businesses lose almost twice as much per scheme to occupational fraud.

If you Google Search "Construction Bookkeeper Embezzlement," you will see thousands of hits, and most of the problems construction companies suffered could have been avoided if the owner had known about and followed a few simple guidelines.

Unfortunately, until a contractor has gotten to know us, they tend to think of us as just another contractor's bookkeeping service. This means some contractors think we are crazy to suggest that any trusted employee, especially an in-house bookkeeper, would steal money from their company, and so they ignore us until it was too late.

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Topics: The Contractors Account, Bookkeeper Embezzlement, Embezzlement, Systems And Processes, Contractor Bookkeeper Embezzlement, Construction Bookkeeper Embezzlement, Contractor Tips, Employee Fraud

You started your contracting company to have fun, be your own boss and do the work you love. Now you are overwhelmed with paperwork, and the fun is gone!

 

One of the biggest struggles construction business owners deal with is the overwhelming amount of paper they have to organize as part of their everyday tasks. Invoices, receipts, bills, contracts, client records, pay applications, insurances, licenses - are just among the few in the seem to be never-ending "etc."

 

Keeping essential documents is necessary. Most contractors go from one extreme to the other. One extreme is saving everything for decades, and the other is tossing everything out.

 

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Topics: The Contractors Account, Contractors Bookkeeping Paperwork, Construction Bookkeeping And Accounting, Systems And Processes, Contractor Tips

Some construction business owners find themselves in the difficult position of running a business that appears to be profitable but still having no money in the bank. It's a critical situation to address. After all, a lack of adequate cash flow is one of the leading causes of small construction business failure. 

 

Here are three reasons why profitable construction businesses have little money in the bank and what company owners can do to handle these tricky situations. 

 

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Topics: Construction Bookkeeping And Accounting, Systems And Processes, Contractor Cash Flow Problems, Construction Company Cash Flow, Contractor Tips

All construction contractors have experienced bad debt's financial pain, which is defined as a customer who refuses to pay no matter what you do.

We've been there before, and it will probably happen again in the future. Owning and operating any business, including accounting, means sometimes you provide goods and services and not get paid.

Knowing The Answers Helps

"If you know the answers, the questions will not bother you" - Randalism.

When you sat for an exam or a school test and knew the material forwards and backward, it was fast and easy. The exams and tests for the classes you struggled with were the opposite.

In your construction company, it is the same; you need the answers to develop understanding, which helps us all let go of the past and move forward.

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Topics: Pay Applications, Systems And Processes, Contractor Operating Tips, payment issues