Be Decisive in an Indecisive Economy
by Ron Kubitz
May 5, 2011
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A headline from an article that was widely circulated last week read “AGC Reports Construction Employment Boost, Gains May Not Last.” Another headline from last week said “Construction Industry Five Year Headache Appears Over.”
Wow, what an indecisive profession we find ourselves in! Up and down, left and right—how can we believe what we see and hear? How are we to plan for our futures?
I believe in order to succeed in an indecisive economy or market, we must strive to be decisive. I often hear from folks in our business that one reason many contractors fail is that they don’t or won’t make timely decisions. They know when they are facing a problem that a decision or change needs to occur, but they simply can’t or won’t make the decision to do what needs to be done.
Should I purchase that new piece of equipment or hope that the old one holds out for another project or two? Are my bids still competitive or must I factor competitive bid pressures into my final bid quote or risk losing work? Do I need that new GPS system my biggest rival has or do I make do with my current outdated methods? Do I need to hire a new project manager or is the current one still cutting the mustard?
Life coach and self-help author Brian Tracy talks about triggering your intuition and tapping into higher levels of your mind in order to make better decisions. Perhaps the most obvious area to use your intuitive abilities is in the area of making choices. Whether you are communicating/negotiating, buying/selling, or accepting or leaving a job, you are always making choices of one kind or another. Some of these choices are not important, but many of them have potentially serious long-term consequences.
In order to increase your chances of making the right decision, you must first make up your mind that you are going to mentally handle a necessary decision. When something tough comes up, you need to determine the course of action you should take, make that decision and stick with it. Handle it once and force yourself to take action. If you force yourself to act and have good business intuition, you should have better than a 50/50 chance of getting the decision right the first go-around, which are odds that most folks can prosper with these days. If your decision doesn’t look like it is working, then quickly make a correcting decision. This time you should know more, and you will now more than likely make the correct choices.
Not making any decision is making the wrong decision—especially if change is necessary. Many contractors need help right now—they are experiencing business problems and don’t know how to solve them. But perhaps a portion of the problems they’re facing is self-inflicted because they’ve avoided some tough decisions. Make a decision to make something happen. Doing nothing adds to the dilemma you are in and will not solve the problem.
Problems don’t go away, but businesses do! What are some business decisions that you are currently facing or decisions recently made or not made?
Ron Kubitz
Ron Kubitz is the recruiting manager for Brayman
Construction Corporation, located in Saxonburg,
Pa. As an accomplished presenter,
Ron is often sought after in regard to his expertise within the world of social
media.
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Title: Tough decisions
By: Terry Parker
Posted: May 6, 2011 11:13 AM
Many tough decisions we are wrestling with today. Hire/Fire, equipment issues. Low bids are also killing us. At times it seems as if to much to overcome!
Title: Tough decisions!
By: Jim Whitehead
Posted: May 9, 2011 1:22 PM
Facing a tough decision now! HAve never needed a Business Development person but the market/economy now is a tough one. Commercial builder/contractor wrestling with the thought of hiring a Rep with contacts but trying to justify the $$.