Automation Alley was established in 1998 to bring together Southeast Michigan businesses, educators and government officials. Its goal is to accelerate commercialization of new technologies and services for its 680 member organizations. In the fall of 2004, Automation Alley opened its new 11,000-square-foot headquarters in the Detroit suburb of Troy, Mich. Housing a Technology Center, International Business Center and the Great Lakes Interactive Marketing Association, the structure is visited by over 500 business owners, facility managers and residential consumers every month.
It’s a crazy and difficult spot to be in - leading your friends, relatives and countrymen while all the while trying to be loyal to your company and company ownership. I mean, how do you choose your loyalties in this situation?
A roofer relies on his work truck to be a mobile office, toolbox, taxi, billboard, waste hauler, tow vehicle and lunchroom - sometimes simultaneously. The challenge for contractors is to maximize the functionality and reliability of their company vehicles while minimizing costs.
Managing people has always been a challenging issue, and many believe young people today are spoiled and don’t want to work. This is not a new opinion, and the following quote sheds some light on how others have felt:
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
The third annual Roofing Contractor Best of Success Conference was bigger and better than ever. Attendance figures for the event have risen every year, and at this year’s event more than 200 elite contractors joined manufacturer sponsors and industry executives for the two-day educational conference. The meeting room at Pointe South Mountain Resort in Phoenix was filled to capacity as contractors eager to improve their business practices and bolster their bottom lines participated in educational seminars and panel discussions led by industry experts, including top-flight commercial and residential roofing contractors.
Roofing companies all know how to put a new roof on a home, but if everyone knows the basics of the industry, why do so many companies fail each year? Few companies fail because they don’t know the technical aspects of the industry, but many a roofer has gone under because they couldn’t get the calls they needed.
The rewards of operating a contracting business in a hurricane zone are tempered by the risk becoming your own client. As the president of New Orleans-based Carriere-Stumm Inc., roofing contractor Rob Stumm Jr. is a veteran of both ends of the business. His presentation on preparing a company to survive a natural disaster focused on the harsh lessons he learned during the hurricane season of 2005. The emergency preparations he employs could benefit any business vulnerable to storm, fire, flood or theft.
An underlying benefit of Best of Success is that the conference serves as a forum for non-competing contractors to share business practices that generate real-world results. Brett Hall’s presentation titled “The Marketing Matrix” personified this theme. Hall, the president of Joe Hall Roofing Inc. in Arlington, Texas, demonstrated some of the strategies that have helped his company prosper in a very competitive local market.
The session titled “Recruiting, Training and Retaining Employees” was led by Ken Kelly, president of Kelly Roofing, Naples, Fla., and Paul Brockman of Roof Maintenance, Nashville, Tenn. Kelly led off the session by describing his own entry into the family business at 17 after his father was injured in a fall. He recommended that contractors consult Michael Gerber’s book The E-Myth, which describes how typical small businesses get their start and details why many eventually fail.
Ricardo González, founder and CEO of Bilingual America and a Roofing Contractor columnist, provided insights on recruiting, hiring, training and retaining Latino workers in his session titled “Success With Hispanics.” González issued some practical advice designed to help employers improve communication and bridge cultural differences at the office and on the jobsite.
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