The latest business and management best practices, written by CONTRACTOR columnists and other industry professionals, for plumbing and mechanical contractors
I AM NOT A FAN of most partnerships. You can prove me wrong by reminding me of Hewlett and Packard, the great electronics combination, which has prospered far beyond the dreams of the founding geniuses. Sears and Roebuck did not have a real...
LAST WEEK, A CLIENT called, pretty distraught, because an owner wouldnt release its retention until the contractor submitted a manufacturers warranty, and the manufacturer wouldnt issue the written warranty (the manufacturer said it had some doubt...
RAISE YOUR HAND if you own all or a portion of a closely held business. Raise the other hand if you intend, sooner or later, to transfer your interest in the business to a family member (usually one or more of your business kids). Based on 40...
EACH JOB HAS a lifecycle of its very own. Ive always taught that the beginning of a job is the most important and the end is second in importance to ensure bottom-line profitability. If you fail to devote sufficient time and energy to the middle...
IN LAST MONTHS article (pg. 40), we began discussing the many choices for the heating plant for the snow-melt system. This month well get into the of the system that we actually installed in that big retail store, the part that most hydronic...
TECHNOLOGY has come a long, long way from back in the days when cutting- edge handhelds meant calculators and mini-tape recorders. Today, some of the most bantered about buzzwords in mobile warrior circles are tablet PCs and pocket PCs. Tablet PCs...
Dave, I live in the Atlanta area and operate a plumbing business there. A lot of the houses that I plumb are on septic tanks and occasionally we are having problems with a sewage smell. In most cases, it happens when we have had a good bit of rain...
