


No More Mom and Pop
by Simplar | Apr 10, 2025 | Business Failure, Business Failure, Business of Construction, Business, Strategic and Project Planning, Leadership, Weekly Construction Message
My portrayal of the start-up process of most mom-and-pop contracting firms (which represent a huge portion of the $ 2.1 trillion industry) in last week’s blog was meant to describe the natural recruiting and training process that founders engage in as firms...
Prior and Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance
by Simplar | Feb 13, 2025 | Built Environment, Business Development, Business of Construction, Business, Strategic & Project Planning, Business, Strategic and Project Planning, Change Management, Financial Management and Risk, Financial Management and Risk, Growth, Growth, Labor & Labor Issues, Leadership, Leadership, Managing Subcontractors, Project Selection, Project Teams, Risk Management, Weekly Construction Message
Designers avoid risk, owners prefer to pass it along, and contractors absorb it. Today’s construction risk environment is dramatically different than it was in the last several decades, and risk factors are mutating just enough to be almost unrecognizable. It is...
You Pick the Project
by Simplar | Jan 30, 2025 | Business Development, Business Failure, Business of Construction, Business, Strategic & Project Planning, Business, Strategic and Project Planning, Leadership, Leadership, Project Selection, Project Selection, Weekly Construction Message
Don’t let the project pick you. In other words, don’t be tempted to take any project that comes along. Too many contractors scour the marketplace for any project they might be able to snag. They fashion a bid that they think will be competitive but often...
Looking Ahead to 2025
by Simplar | Jan 9, 2025 | Built Environment, Business Development, Business of Construction, Business, Strategic & Project Planning, Business, Strategic and Project Planning, Financial Management and Risk, Leadership, Weekly Construction Message
Looking Ahead to 2025 Thomas C Schleifer, Ph.D. These are the topics we will be discussing in 2025. We’ll be diving a little deeper and our treatment of each topic will be more granular. See you next year. Marketing Reputation Market segmentation Owner...
Opportunistic Growth vs. Planned Growth
by Simplar | Nov 14, 2024 | Business, Strategic & Project Planning, Business, Strategic and Project Planning, Financial Management and Risk, Growth, Growth, Leadership, Weekly Construction Message
For many years I have been cautioning about the risk inherent in accelerated growth. Construction professionals, however, have not been listening to these cautions because, unlike all other industries, construction has no ongoing business inertia. Contractors must...Search Past Blogs by Keywords