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Top Ten Factors in Running a Successful Construction Contractor Business

It is not easy running a construction business. There are many pitfalls and ways to lose money but if you follow some basic steps you can not only make a living but become very wealthy. Many successful construction contractors have learned there are certain things you absolutely must do right all the time and certain skills you must have or acquire in order to make it in this very competitive industry. In this article I will summarize what it takes to be a successful construction contractor in their order of importance.

Most Important Factor: Hands On Experience

Do not even think about starting a construction contractor business unless you have at least five years of broad (meaning general, not specialized) construction experience. The only exception to this is if you intend on specializing in one area and one area only. We call this a niche. Niche’s can be very profitable, but they can also go away, change or be replaced by technology, new products, changes in the industry or societal changes. The best chance for success in the general contractor business is to gain experience doing everything. This general experience has many benefits. It gives you the ability to identify and hire competent individuals, fire incompetent ones, evaluate good work product and identify poor work product. Probably the most important thing it gives you is the ability to transition from being a technician to being a manager. The best experience comes from small to mid-sized construction companies that require you to be a jack of all trades. Larger companies have a tendency to pigeonhole you into niches. That is fine if your business model is a niche, but if you start a general contractor construction business with skills in only a few niche areas, you will fail unless you hire to your weaknesses.

Second Most Important Factor: Outstanding Accounting System

If you do not have a sound accounting system your construction business will eventually fail. This CPA has witnessed this too many times than I care to recount. Sound accounting systems allow you to evaluate whether or not you make a profit on a job by job basis. Going with gut instinct is dangerous and fraught with risk. A sound accounting system helps you identify those things you do right on each job as well as the mistakes you’ve made. Numbers don’t lie. Unfortunately, my experience has shown me that most construction contractors pay little attention to their system of accounting. There is a fear that proper accounting will set the business owner up for higher taxes. Thus, cash received on a job and cash disbursed go unreported in an effort to avoid tax. What a mistake. I don’t care how great your gut feeling is on each job, if you don’t have an accounting of every penny on each job, you can rest assured you are flying blind and losing money on each job. You will go out of business and your family life will suffer. If you decide to start your own business you need to act like a professional business owner and that means creating a sound accounting system. Failed accounting systems lead to litigation, failure and bankruptcy.

Third Most Important Factor: Effective Management

When you have hands on experience in the industry, forged by many years (at least five years) of working in every facet of the construction business, you are better able to make the transition from technician to manager. Effective management requires that you have sound procedures on many aspects of your business. Well-defined work product processes, along with accompanying task-specific checklists, allows you to drill your workers on every aspect of a task within a job. You should have a work product process with accompanying checklists for just about every major task within a job. This eliminates human error and allows you to make corrections before the task is officially completed. It is a construction company owners #1 management tool. You must develop a process for each job and each task. This process must be in writing and stored in a binder for each job, along with the task checklist. The task checklist should be calendarized. Your jobs binder should include the following:

Tab #1 – A copy of the signed contract and any change orders.

Tab #2 – Budget for the job. Budget for each change order.

Tab #3 – Accounting for income and expenses. The income portion would include the contract bid price, monies received either as deposits or as the stages of the project are completed and monies received for change orders.

Tab #4 – Task List Summary.

Tab #5 – Task #1 Process Summary and Checklist.

Tab #6 – Task #2 Process Summary and Checklist.

etc.

Last Tab – Customer sign off letter on completed work along with standard testimonial letter signed by customer, listing customer’s name and contact information along with permission to use the testimonial in marketing and as a reference for prospective customers. You will transfer copies of each testimonial letter to a separate binder that you will take with you to each prospect. This testimonial binder may be the only thing separating you from your competition. It gives assurance to prospects that you take customer satisfaction very seriously and may be the difference maker. It allows prospects an opportunity to reach out to previous customers in order to obtain references. It also shows the prospect your company is very organized and well run. Lastly, have a picture of the before and after on each job in this binder.

Fourth Most Important Factor: Strong Business Partnerships

A stable of competent subcontractors who have many years of experience working together is crucial to the success of a job. Each job is a team effort and having a strong network of competent individuals/businesses available to you for each job, and who understand your businesses processes, will make each job run much more efficiently. Efficiency and competency = profit on each job.

Fifth Most Important Factor: Project Bidding Process

You can be the most skilled, best managed construction company, with a stable of talented subcontractors and still go out of business if you do not have a strong process in place on bidding for each job. You can lose your shirt if you underbid a job. How does this happen? The most common cause of underbidding is not doing your homework and relying on your gut or unverified estimates rather than a fail safe process of checking and double checking each cost within each task. The devil in any construction job is in the details. The bidding process is very much like your business plan for each job. It must identify every task, every cost and each cost must be checked and double checked before bidding on the job. Where many construction contractors go wrong is in estimating the cost of tasks incorrectly. These incorrect estimates are caused by flawed assumptions on the tasks and the associated costs, which is the result of not accurately verifying and then re-verifying every task and every cost. It is a painstaking process but you must get the bid right. Your assumptions on each task must be vetted not once but at least twice. You know the rule: measure twice cut once. This adage is particularly true in the bidding process.

Sixth Most Important Factor: Marketing

Everyone in the construction business understands the importance of referrals. Most of your prospective customers come by way of referral. But referrals are not enough. What should be part of your marketing tool belt?

1. You should have an active web site that includes customer testimonials front and center.

2. You should join a networking group.

3. You should join a civic organization.

4. You should provide valuable assistance to local community non-profit groups (one or two will suffice nicely).

5. You should have a regular process of bidding jobs that are not referral-based

6. You should have a process for direct mailings very week.

7. You should have business cards, stationary, job site signs.

8. You should advertise in the yellow pages or local newspapers.

9. Customer Testimonial Binder (referenced above).

10. You should have brochures.

Seventh Most Important Factor: Stay Current With Technology and Replace Old Equipment/Tools

You must upgrade your equipment and tools to stay current with technological changes. This will not only improve efficiency but also the quality of each job. You must also replace old equipment and tools in order to get each job completed efficiently and on time. You will know when it is time for new equipment and tools when the old equipment and tools begin breaking down at a rate that causes recurring delays. When equipment/tools breakdown it can cause cost overruns and result in late completions. No matter how good the quality of your work is, missing completion dates harms your reputation.

Eighth Most Important Factor: Hire To Your Weaknesses

No matter how much experience you have and how skilled you may be there are certain things each one of us does well and certain things we do badly. More often than not, the things we do well are the things we enjoy doing and the things we do badly are the things we hate doing. A skilled business owner will hire people who do have strengths in areas the business owner has weaknesses. As an example, one of my clients nearly went out of business because he did not like having to make calls to collect receivables. My advise to him? Hire someone who is expert in collections. He took me up on my advise and eventually, his collections expert, became his partner. His business is thriving now. Hire to your weakness and watch your business boom.

Ninth Most Important Factor: Document Mistakes and Failures

This should be incorporated into your Job Process/Task List Binder. You must learn from your mistakes. Mistakes should not be considered anything other than an experience learned. Document those bad experiences and incorporate them into your job process and task list binder so as to never repeat them again.

Tenth Most Important Factor: Change Orders

Most contracts include language regarding change orders. Change orders are caused by many factors, which is beyond the scope of this article, but let me be clear in saying that you must cost out every change order as if you were costing out the job. You must then process the change order (list each task and assign a date of completion for each task) and attach a task checklist for each new task resulting from the change order. Lastly, you must get the customer to understand and sign off on the change order or you will not collect your full price for the job. Many construction contractors unfortunately do a poor job in addressing change orders. They are reluctant to highlight it with the customer and gloss over it in an effort to avoid confrontation. The reason? The reality of change orders are not addressed up front when you are bidding on the job. Customers only see the price you gave them and that is in the contract. You must address the reality of a change order occurring at the outset of the bidding process and before the contract is signed. If a customer understands from the very beginning that change orders do occur often and that a change order will increase the price of the job, you will be less shy about confronting the customer when it does occur.

The Teacher As Disciplinarian: Ten Ideas That Really Work!

Ten Ideas You Can Try Right Away

“Discipline is not the Enemy of Enthusiasm!”

– Morgan Freeman as Joe Clark

When it comes to Discipline in the schools, there are many well-publicized and well-marketed “systems”. People sometimes get carried away with systems, or programs, structures, textbooks, etc., arguing passionately, for example, that block scheduling is better than traditional scheduling, or integrated math is better than traditional math, or whole language is better than phonics, or this discipline system is better than that discipline system. Similarly, real estate agents will include the name of various school districts in their advertisement for a particular home based on how beautiful the district’s buildings are.

The focus, wrongly, is almost always placed on things, and not people. The truth of the matter is, and I’ll wait while you etch it in stone, my system will do better than your system if my people believe in our system and are passionately committed to its success. So when you hear the arguments, ad nauseum, for this system over that system in the schools, know that it is not the “thing” that caused the success, but the caring and passionate people working within the system.

The rules of golf, my friends, state that you are permitted to have 14 clubs in your bag. In the “golf course” of life in the schools, do you remember the teacher who only had a “driver” in his or her bag?

As we approach the topic of School Discipline, we must begin with the a priori acknowledgement that the American Juvenile Justice System is built on a rehabilitative model. This starts with the understanding that kids- you were a kid too, remember- are not perfect, that they will make mistakes, and that it is our duty as grownups to help them acquire the social skills needed to function as a productive individuals in society. If the Juvenile Justice system is set up this way, then how much more so must the school disciplinary approach be one that attempts to assist young people so that they improve their inappropriate behavior and become productive individuals? Naturally, this means that kids are supposed to get second and third chances, and some attempts at modifying behavior might take several years.

If the people who work in the schools were able to actually “fly the plane” in all respects, there would be no “Zero Tolerance” policies, either, and you would not read about kindergarten kids getting expelled for having a nail file, or because they gave a member of the opposite sex a hug. These coward politicians love to show how tough they are by passing legislation to expel kindergarten kids for hugging somebody or having a pocket knife. Media people, please listen: No real educator would ever come up with a policy like that- even criminals get three strikes- the one strike baseball game was concocted by politicians trying to get votes, not the educators you criticize when this tragedy occurs!

In the Broadway Show Bye Bye Birdie, Paul Lynde, bemoaning the behavior of teenagers “today” (circa 1960) sings in one of the songs this phrase- posed as a question… “Why can’t they be like we were, perfect in every way…what’s the matter with kids today, etc.?” A school I attended as a child had this quote on the wall by John D. Rockefeller… “What I am to be, I am now becoming.” So, everyone listen carefully… The kids you have right now or are going to have when you are out there teaching have not, unlike you, attained to perfection yet!!! However, perhaps through your caring efforts, patience, and rehabilitative strategies, they might get a few steps closer to the target- but they are not there just yet. So you will have discipline problems.

There are still teachers around who make kids stand in the corner and hold a dictionary in their outstretched arms or have someone write the dictionary, or “I must not talk in class” 500 times. We have all heard the horror stories of actions taken by teachers that do nothing but guarantee that the student will continue to do the wrong thing- often with greater enthusiasm. Don’t forget the line from Bye Bye Birdie…they are not perfect yet like you! Remember also that we are not selling a system in this book. You can buy books and take courses. Our purpose in this chapter is to give you a variety of tools- more like 14 clubs for your disciplinary “golf bag” if you will. These are strategies that have a high degree of success and can effect quick change.

PROACTIVE vs. REACTIVE

1. Start With a Positive…

Very few kids are discipline problems the first day of school or the first week of school. You probably already have an idea about the reputation of most of your students because the grapevine has informed you. The kids that have the potential to be problems have parents who usually are also aware that their child is a problem because that same child is a problem at home. So when these parents come to school angry at you the teacher, it’s really a case of misplaced aggression because it is their kid who is driving them over the edge. These same parents have literally cried on the telephone to me when they received good news about their child from the people at school- because it never happened before this. What’s the message for you? While it’s still early in the year- before the problems have manifested themselves, look for something positive that these potential problem individuals are doing and contact the parents to tell them the good thing that their child was doing.

Later, you will need the help of these parents to help change their child’s behavior and they will remember this phone call and view you as a nice person- a fair person- maybe the first person in the school district who has ever said something nice about their child. When you call later, you begin by saying… “Hi Mrs. Smith. This is Mr. Jones from the school. You probably remember that we talked when I called you about the nice thing your daughter was doing in my class.” Mom will say that yes, she remembers you. You then say, “I need your help with something.” Then you explain the discipline problem that her daughter is involved with and ask her if she could get involved at home and perhaps, working together as a team, you and Mom can help the child to improve this problem she is now having. Most of the time, the parents will go out of their way to help you. They will also remind the child that you actually said something nice about them and we want to keep this nice teacher on our side- he’s a friend. This potential problem child may start acting better anyway because he realizes that you also make good comments, not just negative ones like everyone else. This is an example of a teacher being PROACTIVE.

2. The Unknown Time-Out

Although this strategy works best with younger students, used sparingly, it will also be equally effective with high school students. Make a plan with one of the secretaries, the Athletic Director, the Principal in a smaller school, or some other person- perhaps the Librarian, the Nurse, Custodian, etc. You can arrange multiple destinations for the Unknown Time-Out maneuver. When you have one or more particularly difficult students or ones that start well but get mixed up in any of the commotion that occurs in class, you call one of the students up to you desk, hand him a colored envelope that has something in it with the name of the person the envelope is going to on it. You tell the student to take this envelope to the person and wait for a response and then bring the response back.

When the recipient of the envelope sees that particular student or that colored envelope, he or she knows what is going on and tells the student to sit in the waiting area while they get the answer ready. Now they take 10 minutes to prepare the response, give it to the student and tell the student to take it back to you. This student just got a “Time-Out” lasting perhaps 15 minutes without knowing it. This Proactive strategy kept the student from being yelled at again for what would have been his inevitable misbehavior, he has done something that seemed to be responsible, and so you the teacher comment on his reliability and thank him. The anticipated daily problem never occurred in the first place. In this process, the envelope, not the student, can be the indicator, so more than one teacher and additional students can be involved in this process. It is unlikely that the students- even high school students, will ever catch on to this strategy.

3. Inviting the Principal to Provide the Positive

If you had the pleasure to attend a Catholic Elementary School in the mid 50’s, you may remember this- ruefully, I do. The report cards were distributed every 6 weeks, so every 6 weeks, the priest would come into class on a Friday to be involved in the process of handing out the report cards to 65 or so students in the class. As the Priest gave out the report cards, he always added a moment or two of editorializing. To this day, I have bad dreams about him saying… “Daniel. Hmmm. Let’s see…My goodness, I know your Mother…The Poor Woman will be broken-hearted when she sees this awful report card.” Of course, everyone is sitting all prim and proper with their hands folded, but your buddies are looking at you and silently making faces and laughing all the while. All of this had quite the dramatic effect.

What’s the message for you? DON’T INVITE ANYONE IN FOR A NEGATIVE!!! But, invite the principal in and when he is there, publicly acknowledge the student by saying something like… “By the way Dr. Stevens(The Principal) Billy here has been one of my most improved students this report period- he is doing some very nice work!” – Or, “Billy, why don’t you show Dr. Stevens your excellent Social Studies project?” Billy has been doing some excellent work lately Dr. Stevens! The principal knows that this is his cue to congratulate the child and talk more about how nice it is to see students behaving this way, etc. This is another very proactive way to reinforce any positive behavior being shown by a student who does not show it that often.

4. The Sandwich Technique

The Sandwich Technique comes to us from the world of sports psychology and has been an effective tool for modifying behavior and encouraging people for over 30 years. It has application to almost every area of human endeavor- in fact, you can even use it with your spouse. It begins by getting a person’s attention by saying something positive. We say this because, for the most part, whether you are a spouse, an athlete, or a misbehaving child, your ears tend to close when you sense that a negative comment is coming your way- we all tend to tune this stuff out. So we get people’s attention by saying something positive first- the ears perk up. The positive is followed by what we really wanted to say- the criticism or negative and any disciplinary action that might be occurring. It is followed by a final upbeat and positive comment. Thus the negative is the Peanut Butter and Jelly, and the positive in front and at the end are the two pieces of white bread.

We’ll leave it to you how best to apply it in other walks of life, but consider how it can be used in the school setting by looking at the following hypothetical:

Johnny misbehaved in you class again today. He’s actually an intelligent individual who simply is not working to the best of his ability. He has shown flashes of brilliance, but for the most part, is usually at the center of any commotion that goes on in class- he’s been turning in some sloppy work lately as well. Write a script of what you would say to Johnny making sure to apply the Sandwich Technique.

It might go like this: Johnny, you know that I like you- you and I have developed a pretty good friendship over the last couple of months haven’t we? That’s why I am surprised that it is you I have to talk to so much. I have looked at your test scores and I have seen some of your work and it is excellent- you have the ability to be one of my brightest students. Here’s the problem, though…this is the fourth time in a row that you have turned in such sloppy work. So I am going to just keep giving it back to you till you do it correctly, and I don’t care if it takes you a month to do it correctly. You will have to come in after school to redo the work, Also, if you do not change the quality of your work, then I am going to have Mom and Dad come in, and you know what your father said he would do if I call him about you, don’t you? What do you think would be a good way to fix this problem? (Avoiding the Yes-No question)All right. Let’s get back to work, but I want you to know, I think you are a sharp kid, and I was just talking about you in a good way to Dr, Stevens. So let’s start doing the work I know you are capable of. Etc.”

5. Divide and Conquer

In this situation, two students are a constant disruption in class. Take one of the students and treat him in a way that is a little less strident than the other. This can be done by rewarding one of the students for doing something right and making it seem as though he is not the real trouble maker in all of these class problems- it’s the other guy. The second person will not stay too friendly with the first person, and the first person will begin to distance himself from the second person. You say to the first student, “You know Billy, I look at you as one of my better students and I don’t think of you as a troublemaker like some students seem to be in this class. What do you think you could do to improve this problem? (Again, not a yes-no)Following the private discussion, you move Billy making sure to explain to him that you want to get him away from the problems so he can do good work and not be bothered all the time. The partners in crime will not be so friendly with each other after you take this action.

6. The Phone Call From Class

Signal for the misbehaving child to join you in the hallway. Tell the child that you have your cell phone “right here in your hand”, and if you ever see this kind of behavior again, you are going to call his or her Mom at her place of work right here from class and the child is going to have to explain to her Mom the reason why the call is being made. The teacher then asks the student how happy he thinks his Mom is going to be to receive such a phone call from school when she is working? When he replies, “Not very happy”, say, “Right, not very happy, so I expect to see some very quick improvement in your behavior- got that Billy? This is one time where a yes answer is all that is needed. The next day, or for the next few weeks or so, if Billy is acting out, the teacher merely holds the phone up and looks at it and then looks back to Billy. Billy will understand completely. Additionally, can you imagine the effect this will have on the other students, notably potential problem individuals when they find out that someone had to actually call his or her mother from class!

7. The Letter in the Drawer

Let’s say that a child uses foul language in you class. First you tell him that this kind of language is not appropriate for class and that you and he are going to have to talk about this after class. Quietly, without any overreaction and typically after class, although there might be occasion to use this technique within earshot of classmates, you tell the student the following: You are really surprised that a person like him would be speaking like that. You then tell him to write down what he said on a piece of paper. Make sure all of the words and details are included in the writing. Then, with a flourish, you place the writing in a business envelope and put a stamp on it and tell the student that normally, this would go directly into the mail with a phone call to let Mom know it is coming. Also, you dramatically write out a disciplinary referral.

Then you might tell the student that you are going to give him a detention for his behavior, but since you the teacher are such a nice person, you are going to keep this letter and the referral in your desk for mow. If this behavior ever occurs again though, both of these items are being sent along with a second mailing for the additional offense. Then you tell the student that this will stay in your desk till the end of the marking period at which time you will dispose of it if he, the child, continues to behave properly. Like the technique involving the cell phone, if the child is starting to misbehave a few days letter, you can point to the letter or the referral as a silent reminder. The child will get the point and probably appreciate your kindness.

8. Invite Mom to come in

This is a great technique for improving everyone’s behavior because one visit to your class by someone’s Mom who sits right next to her normally misbehaving child for one or more periods and everyone will behave because they will fear that they might be next. Kids would rather have root canal than have Mom come in to sit next to them for an entire period or several periods. The process works like this: You make an effort ahead of time to establish a good working relationship with the Moms of some of your most significant problem individuals. You call Mom and invite her in because Junior is misbehaving. Mom comes to class and sits right next to her child and can remain for one or more days. Nobody wants to endure this humiliation. Do it just once and many of your discipline troubles will be over. The next day after the visitor leaves, the teacher can say… “Well, you saw a parent in here to visit because there were some problems I wanted her to see…who’s next?” Don’t expect any hands!!!

9. Involve the Guidance Counselor

Without fail, you will find guidance counselors more than happy to assist you in dealing with a student experiencing problems because it gives them the opportunity to do what they went to school to learn how to do. This is important to guidance counselors because, in the present national testing zeitgeist, they have all too often become the de facto assessment coordinators for their school. They have less time to actually counsel kids because much of their time is being spent checking bubble sheets, counting booklets, and filling out forms for the state as well as sifting through mountains of paperwork related to special education, for example. As a teacher who sees the same students on a daily basis, you know which students have the most pressing issues related to discipline and which ones would profit most from a visit with the counselor as opposed to a visit with the Principal or Dean of Students. Not every matter needs to go to the principal.

On the other hand, you are out there amidst the masses and you hear various stories about kids regarding things that are happening in their lives. Sometimes you have established enough of a rapport with a student that he or she shares it with you himself. Once a student was talking to me about where she was going for the holidays and matter of factly told me that she and her two sisters are from 3 different fathers and they would be going to see all of the fathers as well as the related grandparents, and even though one of the fathers used to “beat my Mom up”, things are pretty good around the holidays as long as he doesn’t get too drunk, etc. The child acted as though this was completely normal, and although she was a discipline problem now and then, after hearing this story, I looked at her much differently. I realized quickly that this was something that should involve the guidance counselor.

Remember also that kids spend more time around the people in school than the people at home, so you will often know immediately when a kid just does not look right which might be an indicator of sexual abuse, drug use, eating disorders, pregnancy, self abuse, etc. Maybe the grapevine knows about a death, a loss of a job, marital unrest, etc. You are the first line of defense in this process. The counselor has all of the right contacts and phone numbers of professionals that she can bring into the process. When a kid who was never a discipline problem starts to become one, or his work starts to take a negative turn, pay attention and don’t just turn directly to the discipline code page in the student handbook. You and the counselor, working together, can be a great force for changing a kid’s life- and the matter never has to get to the discipline office. Don’t be upset, however, if after the counselor gets involved, he or she is unable to share all information about the child with you. There are some issues with Confidentiality involved, so maybe all you will hear is that “The matter is being taken care of.” That might be all you are able to find out.

10. Careful About Examples

Do you remember the movie Home Alone? In it, Mc Cauley Culkin, the child who was left behind is talking to the old man who used to scare him. They are sitting in a church and the kid tells the old man that a certain third grader got “nailed” when kids found out that he wore dinosaur pajamas. If you are not careful about certain examples you speak about to misbehaving kids, you might get somebody “nailed”. To clarify, if you had brothers or sisters, do you ever remember hearing this from either of your parents, “Why can’t you be more like your brother who always makes the honor roll- he always does all of his work so neatly!

If, as a teacher, you make an example like this by saying, “Why can’t you people in the back turn in neat work like Jimmy here- he is such a wonderful student?”… you may be insuring that poor Jimmy is going to get “Nailed”. The world of kids is difficult enough, don’t put someone in peril because he or she is a model student. You can still have pageantry involving awards, but never expressed in a comparative way as in, “Jimmy got this, but look at you Billy, you only got this!” Your parents did that. It did not necessarily endear you to your brother or sister when the comparison was made.

How to Write an Effective Resume – Top Ten Tips From a Recruiter’s Perspective

Your resume is one of your most important marketing tools. But remember, no matter how great it is, your resume will NOT get you a job. If it if written properly, however, the odds are much greater that you may gain a recruiter’s interest and be invited to interview.

As a Senior Recruiter for both small firms and large corporations, I have reviewed thousands of resumes during my 15+ years of recruiting and HR experience. My experience is that applicants often tend to miss these most important aspects that could make their resume more effective in attracting the attention and interest of recruiters and hiring managers.

Resume purpose: to market and sell your background, skills, accomplishments, and experience to those who have a need for your expertise or a problem that you can solve.

Resume role: to create interest, to show that you indeed have the requisite skills and experience, and to get a recruiter and/or hiring manager interested enough to invite you to interview.

Top Ten Tips for Writing an Effective Resume (from a recruiter’s point of view):

1. You can (and should) have more than one resume! Create a separate resume for the top two to three main areas of your expertise. (For example, one resume for marketing, one for sales, one for engineering). Each resume should highlight specific examples of your accomplishments, skills, and experience from your current and previous roles that directly relate to that particular area of expertise.

2. Two Pages in Length, Max. Condense, condense, condense! Pretend that each word costs you $100 and you will write less, enabling you to fit your most important information on two pages. (Exception: doctors and other published professionals often need a few more pages to list their credentials and published works. But even they should keep it as short as possible). Have someone whose opinion you trust proofread your resume and edit where necessary before sending it out.

3. Choose an Appropriate Format. The best and easiest resume format to review is chronological (starting with most recent job and date and working backwards through your job history). However, a functional resume format is often suggested as an option especially for those who have been out of the job market for a while or who want to change careers. But it can raise red flags that could stop your resume from being reviewed further. Recruiters know that a functional format is often used to hide gaps in employment dates. In addition, details for skills and experience are lumped together into separate functional areas, instead of under each particular job held in the past. In many cases, because of the time and difficulty involved in reading a functional resume, recruiters often pass them over and move on to the next one.

4. Focus Your Attention on The Most Important “Real Estate” on Your Resume: the top half of the front page. Why? Because recruiters today are inundated with resumes, especially in these tough economic times when so many are out of work. Often, recruiters are managing anywhere up to 50+ jobs at one time, with each one having hundreds and hundreds of resume submissions. The average time an experienced recruiter spends initially scanning a resume to determine if it is relevant to the position is approximately 7 to15 seconds. If the top half of your resume does not quickly differentiate and sell you as a viable candidate with recent and relevant skills and experience for the specific job for which you are applying, the recruiter will simply move on to the next one.

5. Develop a Keyword Rich Resume. Be sure to add the main keywords for your skills and experience as well as your industry and organizational keywords all through your resume. Recruiters use various types of search tools in ATS (applicant tracking systems) where they type in main keyword terms for the specific job and position qualifications to search for related resumes. They also conduct similar keyword searches online on major job boards and even some social media sites. Only resumes that contain those keywords will appear in their review box and those are the only resumes that they will scan for consideration. If your main keywords are not in your resume, it is very likely that your resume will not be reviewed, even though you may be very well qualified.

6. Create a Brief Bullet Point Summary. At the top of the front page of your resume, list 5 to 7 bullet point phrases that highlight your most compelling skills, experience, accomplishments, training and education. This summary should be located somewhere within the very top third section of the resume underneath but close to your name and contact information. Critical: avoid “fluff” or trite phrases such as “Good at multitasking” or “Detail oriented”, etc. The reader’s eye should be able to quickly scan the summary section and determine at a glance that your resume is one worth continuing to read through to the end.

7. Quantify and Qualify Your Experience. Recruiters and hiring managers highly value proven accomplishments and results. The more you can quantify or qualify your bullet point statements under each of your position listings, the more strongly you will be perceived as a person of action and results. After each statement, ask yourself, “What did I accomplish?” or “What was the result?”. Try to tie a quantifiable result to the end of each statement if possible, such as, “and as a result, saved the company $X” or “increased revenues by X%”, or “sold the most widgets on the team and was selected as employee of the year”.

8. Focus on Your Most Recent and Relevant Job Information. Recruiters and hiring managers want to know what you have done most recently that is relevant to the position for which they are hiring. Write the bulk of your resume information about your skills, experience and accomplishments for the most recent 5 to 7 years of your job history. Unless your experience past that point is unusually helpful for stating your case, minimize that information to save valuable resume space. Beyond 7 to 10 years of job history, you can just list one or two line entries for each position held. Save the rest of the details of those positions for the application form and interviews.

9. Place Your Key Credentials, Certifications, and Educational Experience Sections In a Conspicuous Place. A bachelors degree should typically be located near the end of the resume under the educational section heading. However, do you have a job-related advanced degree such as an MBA, PhD, or other certifications or credentials that you want to make sure a recruiter or hiring manager sees? Place them toward the top front section of your resume, right before or after the summary section. Why? If you bury them at the end of your resume, they may never be seen. (See Tip #4)

10. List Organizations, Associations and Affiliations of which you are a volunteer or member. Often overlooked, this information can be a great way to show an employer that you stay current with information and contacts in your industry. If you volunteer for positions, especially leadership roles, be sure to list those as well. This information is especially important for those applying for roles in financial services and sales and marketing firms who need to show that they already have an established network. Place this section of information near the end of your resume.

This final tip is a bonus. However, it is THE single most important tip of all in writing an effective resume.

Always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on your resume…always! Never, ever misrepresent what you did or be tempted to tell a “little white lie” on your resume or to a recruiter – period! Be especially careful with job titles and job responsibilities you list. Make sure that the job title and responsibilities you put on your resume can actually be verified if someone were to call your current or former employer or colleagues and ask about you. Untrue and misrepresented statements, no matter how innocent they may seem, are a breach of integrity and can come back to haunt you many years later. You could even be fired as a consequence! It just isn’t worth it.

Use these ten tips to tighten and refine your resume and then you can submit it with confidence!

Ten Ways to Sweeten the Job Or Job Offer

One aspect of meaningful work is being compensated adequately for the work that you do. Whether you are currently in a practice having survived a lay off or negotiating for a new job, you are probably finding that raises are small or nonexistent and offers are lower than what you were used to. Even if you did not get all the money that you wanted, there are other perks that can be negotiated.

Don’t give up what is critical to you but find other ways to make the job more attractive. Now may be the time you actually negotiate work/life balance into your job! A firm needs people who are happy, energetic and enthusiastic to develop the business and do the work. Here are 10 ideas to help you to negotiate a really great offer.

1. Use your strengths. If the job description includes pieces that do not play to your strengths and you can see a way to show that the piece that you do want is important enough to be your primary responsibility, negotiate dropping the less attractive pieces. (You will need to show them that focusing on this piece is important to the company.)

2. New to the firm? Ask for an introduction from the firm leader or someone high enough up in the organization that can transmit power to you. This will make managing a team easier and will help you get the kinds of work you want.

3. Improve your performance through better resources. Ask for more people, more budget for your department/group, or other resources for you and your department/group to help you perform better, faster and more thoroughly.

4. Get customized hours for your situation. Ask for different hours than are normal for the organization. For example: Come in earlier and leave earlier. (This can help with work/life balance)

5. Increase the vacation time or get vacation when you need it. Ask for specific vacation dates (vacation during school vacations) or extra vacation time (4 weeks instead of 3). (This can help with work/life balance)

6. Set an objective that is important to the firm. Determine a time frame in which you could accomplish a key goal and ask for a bonus upon completion.

7. Telecommute from home full time or part time. Ask for the ability to telecommute a certain number of times during the week or month. (This can help with work/life balance)

8. Improve your skills. Think about becoming a “Thought Leader” or “Subject Matter Expert”. Look for possible training in skills where you want to develop expertise or ask for a tuition reimbursement plan if you want to pursue an advanced degree. Get the company to cover memberships to professional associations and subscriptions to professional and business magazines and newspapers.

9. Ask for a specific job title. If your firm puts value on a particular title, ask for that title.

10. If this is a new job for you, ask for a signing bonus. Add a signing bonus to a bonus on completion of the key goal may get you close to the salary you were asking for. Of course next year you’ll drop back to the salary but by then you can be looking for other ways to increase your salary.

Ten Important Things To Keep In Mind Before Starting An Online Business

These ten factors may not necessarily appear in the same order as listed below but certainly, they are vital for the issue at hand.

HERE ARE THE TEN QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF:

1. What type of online business do I want to engage in?

2. What do I have on offer that will be better than my Competitors in my niche?

3. Do I need to prepare a business plan for my business?

4. How much will it cost to set up my business?

5. Is my business online based or BOTH online and offline?

6. Do I need a dedicated website for my business and how much will it cost?

7. How will I market my business whether online or offline?

8. What is the right strategy to use to market my business?

9. Am I getting value for money in advertising my business?

10. Am I reaching the right audience with my advertising?

Having a positive answer for all these questions can only lead you to the next stage of your pursuit of running an online business.

Engage yourself in research into the business you want to get involve in and have a go at it. Take for instance, the Mobile Phone Industry. Statistics have shown the total number of mobile phone users worldwide from 2013 to 2019. For 2017 the number of mobile phone users is forecast to reach 4.77 billion. Customers and potential customers use their mobile phones to browse the internet for Products and Services more than a Laptop or Desktop computer, so it make sense for business owners to utilize this piece of technology for marketing their products and services. This could suggest that there is an opportunity to tap into the mobile app industry to meet the needs of these businesses requiring mobile apps.

Millions of apps for almost anything you can think of, are now in circulation whether for free download or at a cost. You might ask, why don’t I have a slice of the pie and start a mobile app business? The excitement kicks in, but one has to have some kind of knowledge about the whole App design process. This will probably force you to dig deeper into your research on the whole aspect of mobile app development. With this being established, my first question is answered; through study and research, you have made an informed decision to get involved in Mobile App Design and Development. But, what will you be offering that will be better than your Competitors? This is not a simple question to answer, but to say the least, strive to offer quality products and services to customers, and simply make your Products and Services more affordable while maintaining quality.

Starting a business without some kind of a business plan is like driving onto a very long motorway with 1/4 tank of fuel, with the hope that it will take you to the next service exit. The business plan will give you a breakdown of what you need for the business even though success is not guaranteed, as there are a number of opposing factors along the way.

There are a lot of businesses with little or no startup cost as opposed to other businesses with huge startup cost. It also depends on whether your business will both be online and offline. You have to decide if the business you want to indulge in, has minimal startup cost.

To setup an online business, does not have to cost an arm and a leg, if you take the time to do extensive research into the business you want to get into.

If your business is online based, advertising it to the right audience can be a huge task. Finding the right sources to advertise your business, can be quite challenging and risky as this is where you can spend huge sums of money to advertise, but yet get little return on investment if the advertising strategy is wrong.

Advertising a business to a targeted audience involves a number of factors like;

1. Google Indexing

2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

3. Domain Authority (DA)

4. Page Ranking (PR)

5. Back links

6. Social Media

7. Joining Forums

8. Blogging

9. Google AdWords

10. Google Analytics

11. Keywords Research

To do all of these stuff can be demanding and boring, but if you need success in any business, you just have to get on with the task at hand.

Handing over this challenging task to an SEO Expert can be quite expensive. If you put the time and effort in and do your research and utilize the available SEO tools on the Market, believe me, you can bring your online business to life without ‘breaking the bank’.

Ten Reasons Why You Should Start A Business From Home

There are many benefits to working from home and as the recent economic crisis has left many needing to find new employment, now would seem as good a time as any to take the plunge and start a business from home. A home based business can offer you that work-life balance that could have been missing before, as well as giving you more time with family and friends, and the opportunity to leave the rat race far behind.

If you need more convincing then here are ten reasons why you should start a business from home:

A home based business will give you greater personal freedom, allowing you to avoid spending hours every day in traffic or crushed on an over crowded train. A home based business will allow you to take a different kind of driving seat and added to this, no need to answer to anyone else but yourself.

You keep what you earn, so the harder you work the more money you stand to make. Of course the amount you can earn will be related to the type of business you start, however you can decide when to give yourself a raise and just how much all your hard work and effort is worth. Furthermore by working from home you will save money on transport and food costs.

A home based business will give you the opportunity to consider different income based enterprises allowing you to expand into different sectors and increase your earning potential.

You will typically need very little startup capital when you come to start a business from home, making it a less risky alternative to buying into a franchise or other business. Running your business from home is also cheaper than running a business from other premises in a separate location.

A home based business is eligible for several tax deductions including things like utility costs, rents, maintenance, property taxes and insurance.

Working from home means you will have more time to spend with your friends and family which can be especially useful if you have children of school-age. You can also benefit from taking time off when you need to, i.e. for illness, or when you want to, i.e. for a vacation.

There is typically less stress with a home based business as you do not need to juggle your home-life with your work. You will also benefit if a child or family member is sick as you will not need to take time off work to care for them.

One of the biggest advantages to being your own boss is you can take on different roles such as accounts manager, business development, marketing and sales. This will give you the option to gain an insight in to the many aspects of running a business which will give you more credibility in the professional world.

You will find that by running your own business you will become more productive and able to spend more time working rather than travelling or attending meetings. This in turn should give you more energy and focus to devote to your business.

Finally, working from home will give you the opportunity to develop your skills and creative talents. By starting a business from home you have the perfect platform to turn your creative skills, passions or hobbies into a money making business.

Startup Law 101 Series – Ten Essential Legal Tips For Startups at Formation

Here are ten essential legal tips for startup founders.

1. Set up your legal structure early and use cheap stock to avoid tax problems.

No small venture wants to invest too heavily in legal infrastructure at an early stage. If you are a solo founder working out of the garage, save your dollars and focus on development.

If you are a team of founders, though, setting up a legal structure early is important.

First, if members of your team are developing IP, the lack of a structure means that every participant will have individual rights to the IP he develops. A key founder can guard against this by getting everyone to sign “work-for-hire” agreements assigning such rights to that founder, who in turn will assign them over to the corporation once formed. How many founding teams do this. Almost none. Get the entity in place to capture the IP for the company as it is being developed.

Second, how do you get a founding team together without a structure? You can, of course, but it is awkward and you wind up with having to make promises that must be taken on faith about what will or will not be given to members of the team. On the flip side, many a startup has been sued by a founder who claimed that he was promised much more than was granted to him when the company was finally formed. As a team, don’t set yourselves up for this kind of lawsuit. Set the structure early and get things in writing.

If you wait too long to set your structure up, you run into tax traps. Founders normally work for sweat equity and sweat equity is a taxable commodity. If you wait until your first funding event before setting up the structure, you give the IRS a measure by which to put a comparatively large number on the value of your sweat equity and you subject the founders to needless tax risks. Avoid this by setting up early and using cheap stock to position things for the founding team.

Finally, get a competent startup business lawyer to help with or at least review your proposed setup. Do this early on to help flush out problems before they become serious. For example, many founders will moonlight while holding on to full-time jobs through the early startup phase. This often poses no special problems. Sometimes it does, however, and especially if the IP being developed overlaps with IP held by an employer of the moonlighting founder. Use a lawyer to identify and address such problems early on. It is much more costly to sort them out later.

2. Normally, go with a corporation instead of an LLC.

The LLC is a magnificent modern legal invention with a wild popularity that stems from its having become, for sole-member entities (including husband-wife), the modern equivalent of the sole proprietorship with a limited liability cap on it.

When you move beyond sole member LLCs, however, you essentially have a partnership-style structure with a limited liability cap on it.

The partnership-style structure does not lend itself well to common features of a startup. It is a clumsy vehicle for restricted stock and for preferred stock. It does not support the use of incentive stock options. It cannot be used as an investment vehicle for VCs. There are special cases where an LLC makes sense for a startup but these are comparatively few in number (e.g., where special tax allocations make sense, where a profits-only interest is important, where tax pass-through adds value). Work with a lawyer to see if special case applies. If not, go with a corporation.

3. Be cautious about Delaware.

Delaware offers few, if any advantages, for an early-stage startup. The many praises sung for Delaware by business lawyers are justified for large, public companies. For startups, Delaware offers mostly administrative inconvenience.

Some Delaware advantages from the standpoint of an insider group: (1) you can have a sole director constitute the entire board of directors no matter how large and complex the corporate setup, giving a dominant founder a vehicle for keeping everything close the vest (if this is deemed desirable); (2) you can dispense with cumulative voting, giving leverage to insiders who want to keep minority shareholders from having board representation; (3) you can stagger the election of directors if desired.

Delaware also is an efficient state for doing corporate filings, as anyone who has been frustrated by the delays and screw-ups of certain other state agencies can attest.

On the down side — and this is major — Delaware permits preferred shareholders who control the majority of the company’s voting stock to sell or merge the company without requiring the consent of the common stock holders. This can easily lead to downstream founder “wipe outs” via liquidation preferences held by such controlling shareholders.

Also on the down side, early-stage startups incur administrative hassles and extra costs with a Delaware setup. They still have to pay taxes on income derived from their home states. They have to qualify their Delaware corporation as a “foreign corporation” in their home states and pay the extra franchise fees associated with that process. They get franchise tax bills in the tens of thousands of dollars and have to apply for relief under Delaware’s alternative valuation method. None of these items constitutes a crushing problem. Every one is an administrative hassle.

My advice from years of experience working with founders: keep it simple and skip Delaware unless there is some compelling reason to choose it; if there is a good reason, go with Delaware but don’t fool yourself into believing that you have gotten yourself special prize for your early-stage startup.

4. Use restricted stock for founders in most cases.

If a founder gets stock without strings on it, and then walks away from the company, that founder will get a windfall equity grant. There are special exceptions, but the rule for most founders should be to grant them restricted stock, i.e., stock that can be repurchased by the company at cost in the event the founder leaves the company. Restricted stock lies at the heart of the concept of sweat equity for founders. Use it to make sure founders earn their keep.

5. Make timely 83(b) elections.

When restricted stock grants are made, they should almost always be accompanied by 83(b) elections to prevent potentially horrific tax problems from arising downstream for the founders. This special tax election applies to cases where stock is owned but can be forfeited. It must be made within 30 days of the date of grant, signed by the stock recipient and spouse, and filed with the recipient’s tax return for that year.

6. Get technology assignments from everyone who helped develop IP.

When the startup is formed, stock grants should not be made just for cash contributions from founders but also for technology assignments, as applicable to any founder who worked on IP-related matters prior to formation. Don’t leave these hangning loose or allow stock to be issued to founders without capturing all IP rights for the company.

Founders sometimes think they can keep IP in their own hands and license it to the startup. This does not work. At least the company will not normally be fundable in such cases. Exceptions to this are rare.

The IP roundup should include not only founders but all consultants who worked on IP-related matters prior to company formation. Modern startups will sometimes use development companies in places like India to help speed product development prior to company formation. If such companies were paid for this work, and if they did it under work-for-hire contracts, then whoever had the contract with them can assign to the startup the rights already captured under the work-for-hire contracts. If no work-for-hire arrangements were in place, a stock, stock option, or warrant grant should be made, or other legal consideration paid, to the outside company in exchange for the IP rights it holds.

The same is true for every contractor or friend who helped with development locally. Small option grants will ensure that IP rights are rounded up from all relevant parties. These grants should be vested in whole or in part to ensure that proper consideration exists for the IP assignment made by the consultants.

7. Protect the IP going forward.

When the startup is formed, all employees and contractors who continue to work for it should sign confidentiality and invention assignment agreements or work-for-hire contracts as appropriate to ensure that all IP remains with the company.

Such persons should also be paid valid consideration for their efforts. If this is in the form of equity compensation, it should be accompanied by some form of cash compensation as well to avoid tax problems arising from the IRS placing a high value on the stock by using the reasonable value of services as a measure of its value. If cash is a problem, salaries may be deferred as appropriate until first funding.

8. Consider provisional patent filings.

Many startups have IP whose value will largely be lost or compromised once it is disclosed to the others. In such cases, see a good patent lawyer to determine a patent strategy for protecting such IP. If appropriate, file provisional patents. Do this before making key disclosures to investors, etc.

If early disclosures must be made, do this incrementally and only under the terms of non-disclosure agreements. In cases where investors refuse to sign an nda (e.g., with VC firms), don’t reveal your core confidential items until you have the provisional patents on file.

9. Set up equity incentives.

With any true startup, equity incentives are the fuel that keeps a team going. At formation, adopt an equity incentive plan. These plans will give the board of directors a range of incentives, unsually including restricted stock, incentive stock options (ISOs), and non-qualified options (NQOs).

Restricted stock is usually used for founders and very key people. ISOs are used for employees only. NQOs can be used with any employee, consultant, board member, advisory director, or other key person. Each of these tools has differing tax treatment. Use a good professional to advise you on this.

Of course, with all forms of stock and options, federal and state securities laws must be satisfied. Use a good lawyer to do this.

10. Fund the company incrementally.

Resourceful startups will use funding strategies by which they don’t necessarily go for large VC funding right out the gate. Of course, some of the very best startups have needed major VC funding at inception and have achieved tremendous success. Most, however, will get into trouble if they need massive capital infusions right up front and thereby find themselves with few options if such funding is not available or if it is available only on oppressive terms.

The best results for founders come when they have built significant value in the startup before needing to seek major funding. The dilutive hit is much less and they often get much better general terms for their funding.

Conclusion

These tips suggest important legal elements that founders should factor into their broader strategic planning.

As a founder, you should work closely with a good startup business lawyer to implement the steps correctly. Self-help has its place in small companies, but it almost invariably falls short when it comes to the complex setup issues associated with a startup. In this area, get a good startup business lawyer and do it right.