Ever feel like your business and life is out of control?
Does your average day feel like you are putting one fire out after another?
Are you left wondering where the next lead is going to come from?
My grandfather once told me that "you need to be in control at all times and the best way to do that is to never give it away." I think I was 14 at the time and had just started my first business. That stuck with me until this day. He went on to say "Don't make excuses. Ever! You need to find your way through every situation and look for the opportunity that is right under your nose." Every time you make an excuse about your situation or blame something else, you give away control. My wife calls it "giving away your mancard." Same could be said for a woman and a "womancard" phrase should be developed.
So lets talk about control and what that really means for your remodeling business and for your life and the lesson I learned from my grandfather when I was 14. He was a masterful entrepreneur and understood a few key concepts about getting control that all the great successes understand. Our society is filled with excuse makers, doubters, and negativity runs rampant. I don't read the newspaper or watch the news on television because its mostly all fear and negativity. My success depends on those 2 things never creeping into my consciousness, so I don't partake. How about you?
Stop blaming external forces like the economy or a recession. Everytime you blame the economy or the recession on the core reason you are failing you are giving away your control. When you blame something or someone else for your failure you aren't taking responsibility for your situation.
When I hear someone complaining about the economy as to why they are "slow" I ask them one simple question. "If I am a potential client, what is the #1 reason I should hire you vs another company?" They don't have an answer because they haven't even thought about it, which means they aren't differentiating themselves in the market. If they aren't differentiating, I know right then and there that they aren't marketing themselves well, or at all. I am speaking with someone who has no control.
And if they had an answer, the next question would be, "how are you going about "attracting" new business vs chasing it?." Most remodelers chase the next deal but if you are positioned correctly, you should be in the drivers seat with full control over your own destiny. And most of the time, what that looks like is a steady stream of qualified people lining up to do business with you. You are in control. You aren't chasing.
Money Doesn't Disappear. It Moves.
Money rarely just completely stops flowing out of a remodeling sector, nor does it disappear. It simply changes hands or moves. In a recession, the middle class might cut back on remodeling their kitchen, but the affluent rarely do. Is that a market opportunity or should we just go back to complaining? You need to see opportunity in everything.
The best year I ever had in the remodeling business was the year that real estate and the economy took a nose dive. Competitors went out of business or sat idoly...but we kept marketing and positioning our uniqueness and had a really strong year. I had just discovered the power of building a killer USP and guarantee that crushed anything my competitors were offering. I was looking for opportunity when everyone else was watching the news and feeling sorry for themselves.
And if the middle class cuts back on installing their dream kitchen, they still might go for something a step below their dream, especially if you can make it easy on them by lining up the financing or providing attractive payment terms. Can you create a targeted marketing campaign to the middle class market offering a streamlined kitchen package with easy terms that make them say YES? You bet you can. Control and Action.
Very few people have control in their business (and life) and even less take action. There is a lot of money to be made in every remodeling market, but people need to know you exist and what you can do for them that is different from every other contractor. If you can't guarantee anything and don't do anything special or unique, its probably time you did something else.
Need more help growing your remodeling business? Take advantage of all the FREE resources I have on www.RyanPaulAdams.com and my download my "3 Killer Ways to Grow Your Remodeling Business" today.
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