12 Steps for Developing and Driving Stronger Business Strategies

Benjamin Franklin is credited with saying, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” The purpose of business planning is to set overall goals for your business and to develop a strategy to achieve them. This includes implementing deducting and balancing approaches, making decisions, setting a destination or direction, and action planning. However, many construction companies have no long-term plan, with some even touting, “We just bid and pray.”

Securing Better Bonding

For contractors, securing bonding is the lifeblood of their businesses, but it comes with challenges that range from having the necessary working capital to demonstrating a track record of success. Find out how to overcome these challenges, ensuring your construction business is in a good position to attract a surety, and, in turn, profitable projects. 

Reach Out

Not too long ago, as I was traveling home on a Friday evening, I found myself at an escalator in the Chicago airport. It was one of those long steep ones that takes you down to travel under the tarmac to the next concourse, and I noticed no one was traveling down. As I approached, I realized the situation. There was an elderly woman with a baby strapped to her back. She was dressed in clothes that clearly placed her from another country and seemed frozen in fear as she looked down that long escalator. She may have never been on escalator before.

If I had faced a similar situation years ago, I might have let someone else help. I have since realized that we all need a hand at times to take leap of faith, or in this case ride down about 100 feet under the airport runway. This time was different. I reached out, held her arm and said, “Let’s go.” While she had no understanding of what I said, I must have established a little trust because we rode down together. On the other end, going back up, she got on with ease, and about half way up looked back at me. I gave her a thumbs up and she smiled. While we spoke different languages, we connected that evening.

Maybe we all could do a bit better job, me included, offering a reassuring hand and a smile as we travel these trails. Who knows? The roles might be reversed one evening.

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5 Things To Consider When Hiring New Talent

Throughout your business life, especially as a chief executive officer (CEO), president or business owner of a company in the construction industry, you will be hiring people to work for you. In fact, you may sometimes observe you are in a constant cycle of hiring people to properly staff and grow your company. There are many factors to think about when hiring, depending on the circumstance and the job position to be filled.

Understanding the Profile of a Fraudster

“I didn’t think fraud would happen to me—I have the best employees,” is a phrase I hear all too often when I meet a new client. Unfortunately, fraud is a real and ever-present threat to business.

Why You Should Have a Plan for Properly Dealing with ICE Inspections

You’ve seen the news coverage—another day, another highly visible immigration raid on a business. All politics aside, there is no denying the federal government is making a big, loud statement that it will continue to come down hard on the companies that flout hiring rules. A very different sort of enforcement action that tends to fly below the radar, but still can be intimidating and costly is an inspection of your hiring records by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Looking Forward in Workforce Development

I recently had the opportunity to listen to Raphael Bostic of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta speak at the Civil Rights Institute. My takeaways from that afternoon were primarily focused on workforce development in current times.

As a business community, there is a need to ensure students have an eye toward the workplace, understanding which opportunities are likely to prevail. Communication with community colleges and technical schools is key, so that relevant skills are being taught, with an eye towards the future.

As local communities, we need to connect. This means economic linkages with things like transportation, but also as strong networks of people who are sharing opportunities and high-quality employment.

As participants in the financial community, we need to lean into our bankers. These professionals have local relationships that can be a real asset in funding individuals who have good ideas and want to spark economic activity and employment growth.

Overall, the key is to figure out what what kind of skills will be needed for the jobs of tomorrow, and set our sites there.

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