Monthly Archives: September 2017

Maintaining good relationship with customers can make you best salesman

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For a salesman, creating a bond with his customer is very crucial. What is more crucial is to maintain that bond. It is not an easy task to set up a relationship in the first place. No one likes salesman. They feel that they get too pushy to sell their stuff and this is why people often try to avoid them. In such a situation, it becomes quite difficult for a salesman to even break the ice. He has to struggle a lot to just have a small chat and to be allowed to talk a bit about what he is selling. People who are into selling heavy equipment have to struggle enormously to just fix an appointment. People who have the authority to take decisions regarding procuring of heavy equipment in a construction company are really hard to get by and therefore it make no sense to meet any other person and talk about the stuff.

To begin is always difficult:-

To fix a meeting with the person in the construction company who can take decision if the company will procure machines or not is in itself a difficult task. However, that is how you begin your job. You have to keep calling them and persuade them to meet at least once so that you get the opportunity to present them your stuffs. They may be using a particular brand but if you have something better to offer, they will definitely give it a try. Once you meet them in person, try not to be pushy. You can speak about your product and let them decide if they want to go ahead with it. If you do not see them buying your product try to call them on occasions like their birthdays or anniversaries. If possible give them some gifts on such occasions. This is how you begin your relationship with your client.

Talk about different machines that you sell:-

It is important that you talk about different heavy equipment that you sell. For this it is imperative that you try and know few things about their business and what types of heavy equipment do they require. Once you have those details with you, it becomes simpler to pitch the products. This shows that you have done your homework and anything that sounds to be beneficial to the client will be always appreciated by them. You have to let them know that you can provide them with any heavy equipment that they require for their business. You have to try to become the sole point of contact between the demand and supply of machines. Do not restrict your focus to just heavy equipment but also its ancillaries.

Maintain this relationship that has been formed on solid grounds:-

Once you have already formed a bonding with your client it is crucial that you do everything to preserve it. Never give your client the opportunity to complain. Always be ready to serve them and be pro-active at all times. Also do offer them discounts on machines. That will only help you in strengthening your bonding.

Make your career by becoming construction equipment mechanic

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When the most important part of the construction business stops working, the company is ready to pay any amount to fix that and get it back to work. Heavy equipment is one such important part and the business owners can’t ever afford to see it not working due to technical reasons. They will pay any price to fix the issue and get the machine up and running. This means that the mechanics are high in demand in the construction industry and anybody who wants to make his career in this business can certainly look upon in becoming a mechanic. So when we talk about heavy equipment it involves all types of heavy machines that are used for construction, mining, forestry and agricultural purpose. This point out to the fact that the mechanics are not only restricted to repairing equipment that are used in construction but also that are used for agriculture and mining purposes.

The scope is immense for the heavy equipment mechanics but they have to do a lot of learning before they can actually reach to the point from where they do not have to worry about their career. That is probably the point where they have already reached the zenith of their career and are working as freelancers having tie ups with big construction and mining companies. So who can become a good mechanic is the real question out for everybody. Anybody who loves heavy equipment and like to fix problems related to heavy machineries can see themselves as ace mechanics. The person should have the zeal and confidence to resolve any kind of issues pertaining to construction equipment can see their place as master mechanics and also people who can sell their skill to the needy can make a good career out of it.

Getting education from a good institute:-

The first step towards becoming an ace mechanic is to join a good institute that touches every aspect of heavy equipment. Their subjects should not only focus on one particular kind of machines but should range from different machines. More or less the intricacies of heavy equipment will be similar to each other and having hands on knowledge will help you to develop your skills and will end up making a fine technician out of you.

Speaking with veterans will further clear your doubts:-

While you are still learning in the institute, you should try and meet some tenured people from the industry who are ready to guide you and clear your doubts. These are experienced men and they will prove to be quite handy when it comes to giving accurate answers of your questions. You can do your bit of research first and only when you do not see any answers, you should approach them.

Take some experience by working with veterans:-

You get to learn a lot when you are working with an experienced guy. He will give you a lot of inputs and will sharpen your skills further. Once you begin working on machines and start fixing them, you will see a lot of confidence in you and will start finding things to be simpler.

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Selling heavy equipment – design a website that matters

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If you have a business and not a website, it means that your business is no longer in existence. From the smallest scale to the mightiest of businesses that we know exits in the US, they all have a website. The smaller businesses may not have an attractive one but they still have one which they can show to people who want to know about them. It is a no brainer that attractive websites are expensive and people with a very meager scale of business will find it hard to pay for it.

Apart from that, the website needs to be maintained and updated for which you have to again shell out good chunk of money. It may not be possible for a small businessman to afford that. Therefore what he can do is design a website that matters to his business. Every time you do not need an extravagant website to display how popular is your business. At times you can even keep low and update stuffs that really matters.

If you have newly started the business of selling heavy equipment you have to shell out some portion of your investment in designing a website. You need the help of a website designer who can get this work done for you. Approach a website designer who has worked for other construction and heavy equipment companies. They will know your requirements and what you want to feed into your website. Apparently, not many firms that deal with selling heavy equipment know what they want to put in their website.

They have a rough idea on what they need but will not be able to explicitly convey it to a website designer who has never worked on one such website. So approaching someone who has already worked for such companies will prove to be quite handy. You have to just tell them your budget and they will do the rest for you.

Check the progress of work at regular intervals:-

Designing a website is not a work that can be done in a couple of days. It at times takes months to do the job. Lots of changes are made while the website is in the process of getting designed and on many occasions changes are also made after it is ready to view. It is also not a one-time affair. You have to keep on changing stuffs in it whenever there is a major change in your business. For instance, due to some reason you have stopped selling heavy equipment of a particular brand, you have to update that on your website as well and vice-versa.

Ensure that the website provides all information about your company:-

Your website should be fully equipped to speak all that you want to convey to others. You can even upload your videos where you can give your message to your viewers. The kind of machines that you sell and at what price they are available to others must be mentioned on the website. More importantly a tab that will spell out your contact details is also important. This will help others to reach you if they seek doing business with you.

Various methods to market your construction business

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We can’t grow our business if we are unable to pervade what we are doing to the mass. People should know about the business you are doing so that they can also directly or indirectly become a part of it. Other than that if only people know about you and your work, they will be able to give you more work or can recommend others to give business to you. End of the day, what matters the most is how soon you can market the name of your brand to others and what method you can take to reach out to millions in no time. With the advent of modern technology it has now become simpler for a person to market his product nationally as well as internationally. He can become a huge brand within months. This does not mean that he can skip the struggle that people normally have to become a known identity. It is just that the process has become simpler than what it was a couple of decades ago.

In order to reach out to large number of people at a time and let them know about your construction business, you can follow the steps mentioned below.

Create a professional website:-

The identity of your business is your website. If someone wants to know more about you and your business they will hit the name of your business on google and from there they will pull out the details that they want to know about you. Your website should be professional but attractive. Try to put all the information that you want people to know. Your existing projects, the projects that you have completed and the ones that you have in hand should be mentioned in there. If you are a start-up then mention your aspirations and your goal to take the company in the next few years.

Marketing via blog:-

People love to read blogs and they believe that it helps them a lot to learn new things. In a blog you write stuffs that help someone to understand new things about the construction industry and then you leave the blog open for people to leave their comments. If someone has a query and they talk about it there in the blog, he can expect to get answers from others who are reading the blog and if you know the answer/solution then you can chip in and provide your view point. What is happening here is something quite fruitful to you. People get to know you through your blog and if at all you have some announcement to make, you can pretty well make use of the blog to do so. You may get suggestions and at times even new businesses through that medium.

Social media:-

One of the most powerful tools in today’s times to reach out to millions at one shot is Social Media. You post your message in a social media website and it reaches to everyone irrespective of people knows your or not. Make good use of this tool to speak about your construction business. It will always earn you rich dividend.

Sprinkle water to keep the construction site dust free

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It becomes difficult to breathe while you are inside a construction site. The amount of dust that you can see all around the site will make you wonder how the employees are working in such a perilous zone. They might contact any air borne disease which could be quite fatal to them. Also comes into the mind the necessary steps the company is taking to keep the dust under control. Well, frankly where construction is in full swing, dust is bound to flow in the environment and nothing much can be done by anybody to contain it. However, there is one step that can be taken to contain dust and it is to sprinkle water at regular intervals so that the water pulls the dust on the ground and allows fresh air to breathe. But there are places where there is water scarcity in that particular area. In such places, even sprinkling water can be a problem.

In order to bring dust under control, there is no other medium other than spraying water on the ground and if at all there is any other way to contain this problem then that will be very expensive, probably out of the reach of many construction companies. They will certainly not want to invest a good chunk of money to keep the dust level under control. Though it is a must to equip and implement whatever process you can to keep the construction site dust free, construction companies would not want to adopt any expensive modes. So this leaves them with the option of spraying water.

For places where there is water in abundance, construction companies can store gallons of water in a storage tank and then later fill it up in a truck that has a pipe attached to it and then use the truck to spray water all over the site. By doing this, you make the process portable; which means you need not have a large pipe that goes across the entire corner of the jobsite. One can only imagine this and wonder how tedious it will be for the person who moves around the jobsite with the pipe spraying water. For a big construction site, using a water tanker that can move while spraying water is the best option. Please do not make use of fresh drinking water for this purpose. You will only end up finishing your resources sooner than you have thought.

You can make use of water that you get while excavating earth. Though the proportion of that water will be quite limited for your use, you can also make use of saline water of the sea. For that, you need to make necessary arrangements to port water from the seabed to the construction site. This exercise may prove to be a bit expensive but certainly advisable rather than exhausting the fresh water to control dust. Using nozzles while sprinkling water is recommended as it not only settles down the dust but also allows it to return to the ground making it a convenient process of dust control.

Cat 953 Track Loader is one of the best of its kind

For contractors who are into excavating work often find a track loader as a good substitute for a full scale excavator. Though it can’t completely replace an excavator because of its phenomenon features, it can nevertheless play a crucial role in excavation work and can do a lot more other activities which can’t be expected from an excavator. Overall, a track loader is a heavy equipment that is capable of performing tasks that are ideally performed by other heavy equipment.

It has the potential to do all the work for which we normally seek the help of other heavy equipment but it somehow lacks to perform the job that is done by the core machines under certain set of conditions. This is perhaps one of the reasons why mostly all construction companies will want to possess a track loader. For instance, an excavating company will possess an excavator but at the same time will also keep a track loader handy. The track loader will perform jobs while the excavator is busy excavating. Thus the construction company will be able to complete its work in time.

Contractors prefer using CAT track loaders as they find it to be convenient and user friendly. The acceptability of CAT track loaders has increased all the more with the arrival of the CAT 953 loaders. The net power of the loader is 110 hp which is phenomenal in this class of machine. It also has a displacement of 317.3 cu in. Moving towards the operational part of the machine, the operating weight of the machine is 14098 kg. The total fuel capacity and hydraulic system fluid capacity of the machine is 192 liters and 58 liters respectively. The capacity of the bucket when struck is 1.3 m3 and when heaped is 1.5 m3. It has a maximum speed of 10.4 km per hour.

If we check the undercarriage segment of the tracker, the track show width is 380mm and the number of track rollers per side is 6. The length of the track on ground is 7.5 ft in with a ground contact area of 1.7 m2 and ground pressure of 11.3psi. The dimension of the loader just meets the industry standards. The total length of the loader with the bucket on ground is 19.2 ft in and the width to outside of track is 7.2ft in. The total height of the machine to the top of the cab is 10.1ft in and has a ground clearance of 1.2ft in.

CAT has also manufactured multi-terrain loaders such as 257D, 277D, 287D etc. These loaders are considerably tougher as compared to the conventional ones. They have the potential to perform at rough terrains where the land is ultra-muddy or you have to work on a slope and still stay fixed to the ground. You definitely need special types of machines for unconventional jobs and CAT has been successfully able to meet the demands of the customers and keep itself in the top most position.

 

Factors that affects the construction industry

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For the functioning of any industry/business, there are few factors that have to work positively or else the chances of the industry to develop any further become obscure. This is why there are companies who have hired strategists so that they can frame plans to ensure that the factors that can have a positive impact on their company never cease to exist. The entire construction domain heavily depends on such factors which in a way have to be conducive for the industry to exist. For instance, constant availability of raw materials is one of the most important immediate requirements of the construction business. A couple of days ago you may find the stock to be in order but just within 2 days you may find it to be almost empty. Now the contacts that you have with the suppliers’ is instrumental. That acts as one of the factor.

After having ordered the materials you also need to keep a tab on the time it may take for the stuffs to come. Now there can be some factors which are beyond our control. Factors like flood, hurricane and other such natural catastrophes can’t be known and therefore if something of this kind strikes the place from where the raw materials was supposed to come it will only unnecessarily delay the project. It is therefore important that you have to foresee the requirement as you will not be able to foresee the catastrophe and accordingly keep your stock up to date.

There are also few factors that can affect the overall construction industry positively. One such example is fall in the price of fuel or lowering of interest rate by the federal government. Both can be good news for the construction company who manufactures condos, PUDs and single unit residences. They will be able to save a lot on fuel and still get the same work done and sell it at no lesser price or perhaps at a slightly lesser price. Fall in the interest rates does not have a direct impact on the construction company but it more or less benefits the common man who goes out hunting for a home. If the interest rate is down, it means that the general public will now aggressively look for a property and the construction company will be able to sell their produces like hot cakes during this time.

Construction industry is closely linked with the heavy equipment sector. So if there comes a problem in the heavy equipment sector, it will have a direct and a big impact on the construction industry. Fall in fuel price normally hurt the economy of the heavy equipment industry. This means that though the fall in fuel price can bring smile on the faces of the contractors but can simultaneously make the heavy equipment industry look grimmer. Heavy equipment companies will therefore begin cutting costs by shutting down few of their offices or can even increase the price of their machine to sustain. They may even call off the production of some affordable heavy equipment to save themselves from incurring losses.

 

How to hire competent operators

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Hiring competent workforce can be a real challenge for any company. They often see this as a pain and the HR finds this to be the most challenging task out of the many activities they conduct on a daily basis. It is simply not possible for any human being to judge another person by having a 15 minute talk. You may not know if the person knows about the subject that the company wants him to work on or for that matter how the person will be facing once he is hired. If the job demands a person who can work under pressure, it is virtually not possible for an HR to identify the person who can indeed work under pressure and still deliver results. But when the company needs human resource, the HR team has to get into this work of hiring men/women and they have to ensure that they pick the right guys/gals from the lot that come for the interview.

The construction industry is a highly competitive business and here the impact of hiring a wrong candidate can prove to be really costly to the company. The HR of the company does understand the seriousness of the business and this is the reason why they take utter precaution while hiring for important positions. They conduct levels of interview with the same person in order to judge the kind of person he/she is. The different levels of interviews are held by different people and then their view on the interviewee is collated and a decision is finally taken if they all agree to hire him or not.

Hiring an operator becomes more challenging because here the person interviewing the candidate should have little technical knowledge about heavy equipment and how it works. So firstly, the ground level HR can interview him by checking his credentials and qualifications. If the HR finds him to be apt then he goes to the next round where he is interviewed by guys with sound technical knowledge.

Asking the right question is important:-

When you are hiring an operator, you can’t ask him questions that are relevant to a mechanic. You should be checking with him the different types of heavy equipment that he/she has worked on and the models. On the basis of his answer, you should be putting forth your next question. He may not be able to answer a question that does not fall within his domain and therefore asking the right question is important.

Check his skills on the machine:-

When you are hiring heavy equipment operator, you should make it a point to check his skills on the machine. You can provide him with construction equipment and give him a task to complete. The task should not be a complex one as you are only checking his skill and not trying to get a part of the work done. You need to see how well he can maneuver and how smooth he is on the machine. If the operator is really good on it, you can hire him.

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Construction companies should hire competent contractors

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Competency is the need of the hour in any form of industry. No matter how qualified you are, in the end all that matter is how effectively you can execute the responsibility. It all depends on your competency level and how experienced you are pertaining to a given type of work. It is a no brainer for any company that they will hire guys who have the competency to deliver in time and outperform whenever required. As a matter of fact, this is the real reason behind the success of any industry. Volatile industries are more dependent on competent employees. They just can’t afford to hire guys who do not possess the skill to execute a given responsibility. It will lead to the debacle of the business and will eventually have to wind up. Construction industry is also considered to be a volatile form of business and therefore it is a must to get onboard a project with highly skilled men.

A construction company after bagging a project starts hunting for contractors. They know for sure that they can’t complete the project singlehandedly and they will require the co-operation of contractors. This is also perhaps the reason why we have contractors in existence. The real work is indeed done by the contractors. The construction companies only deal with bagging the projects and then they hand it over to the next level to take care of the execution part and in this case the next level is the contractors. Hence it becomes quite imperative to hire highly competent contractors. The future of the construction companies more or less is dependent on the quality of work that they can get from their contractors. It is therefore equally important to set up a benchmark to hire contractors. Anybody falling short of it will not be a part of the project.

Detailed study of contractors is essential:-

Before you hire a contractor for your project, it is essential that you do a thorough study of the entity. Remember, here you are not hiring an individual that you will not have enough time to screen the person. Since you will be hiring an entity you can get volumes of information from internet. You can check the reviews and accordingly take your call. More importantly, you can speak to other construction companies with whom you have good terms and know if they have ever encountered with the contractor that you are likely to hire. Try to gain as much data as you can before you finally pick them up for work.

Monitor the performance at regular intervals:-

The work of a construction company does not end after hiring a contractor who is renowned for its work in the industry. The company should also ensure that it takes some time out and monitor the performance of the project. This is crucial to be done as the project is owned by the company and not by the contractor. It will be supreme if the construction company works hand in hand with the contractor. This will give the company a better control over things.

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Starting an utility company

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Though construction business is considered to be the most rewarding business but there are few businesses that are associated with it which are equally rewarding. One of them is the utility business. What we understand from the word utility business is a business that covers the work of installing sewer mains, pipelines, gas pipelines, communication lines and things thereon. If one is intending to start a business that involves installing the utilities, he/she will find it to be a rewarding business. It is definitely not as simple as it sound but it is definitely not an impossible task to start a utility company. Once you have started an utility company, you can expect businesses coming from all spheres. You can expect getting contracts from government as well as from private concerns. The job of a utility company also includes installing traffic signals, street lights, power lines and things of that sort. So this means that you got to have the right people for the job.

Hiring competent workforce:-

Once you have a utility company, you start dealing with many things and therefore you need to have people who are competent in doing many things. If at all, they are expert in one particular field then you got to search for guys who can take care of some different department. For example, if you have guys who are excellent workers when it comes to installing sewer mains or pipelines but they do not know much about communication lines or power lines. This means that you need to hire people who know about that stuff as well. Once you are in this business you tend to get all types of work and you can’t say “NO” to any of them. Therefore, having the right men by your side is of uttermost importance.

Hunt for clients:-

By no means should you feel that you have lot of clients from whom you can get enough work. You never know when you will be short of clients. Therefore, you better keep your hunt on for more clients. More clients definitely means more business and more business will only benefit your company. There are some good opportunities in installing gas pipelines as there are natural gas companies who are also in hunt for utility companies that have experience in laying gas pipelines. So that sounds to be a good deal. Similarly, there are more such business opportunities that you will get in you keep your hunt on.

Have good knowledge of the regulatory policies:-

In a utility company you would be dealing with crucial things that need sanctions from the concerned authorities. There are lots of policies in place which one needs to be aware of. So people who things that anybody can start a utility business needs to think all over again. You got to know most of the regulatory policies so that you do not go wrong when it comes with the law of the land. You can also hire an able attorney who will take care of the legalities but you should be ready to pay them a heavy price for their service.