Posted by A Master in Obtaining Federal Construction Contracts Tells All…
Scott is a proven master at growing businesses in federal construction. In his niche, he runs the largest manufacturer and distributor network in the world with revenues exceeding $500 million/year.
We shared a few days together at the “Waters Edge Hotel” on the San Francisco Bay in Tiburon celebrating my wife’s 60th birthday. After a dinner cruise around the bay, we went out on the deck overlooking the city of San Francisco. While enjoying a bottle of fine wine, imported cheese and that wonderful SF Sour Dough Bread, Scott shared some of his incredible business insights:
Maximizing Sales Per Square Foot
(1) Regarding federal construction competition: “I mastered maximizing sales per square foot on the retail end by proper product mix and placement per location around the world. In between store visits, I mastered the manufacturing and distribution of my product line. That enabled me to ‘target’ competitors and get the retailers to stop giving them shelf space in all the major retail stores. I could easily demonstrate to the retailers that, by using my products and set up they could double their profit per square foot. Over time, all my competitors began suffering. Eventually I could pick and chose who to buyout and who to put out of business.”
(2) Regarding differentiation in federal construction: “You have to be substantially different than your competitors or you end up in a price war and no one wins. Last year the new VP at Kohls Department Stores requested that I attend a meeting on Kohls’s growth plans for 2013.
After the presentation, the VP said he wanted a better pricing discount, threatening that he would start negotiating with my competitor if he didn’t get lower prices.
I said to the VP, ‘You’re a smart guy that is focusing on the wrong thing. In our business, it’s never the ‘price’ you pay for our products. In fact, a cheaper price would result in Kohls making less money per item because of Kohls’s method of pricing mark-ups. Your focus needs to be on the ‘profit’ per square foot of floor space that Kohls makes for their stores.
Why do you think Walmart gives us 100% of their business? It’s not because we are the cheapest. It’s because we bring value that none of our competitors can deliver. In fact, after a study made by Walmart, they determined that our product line delivered twice the profit per square foot that they were getting from our competitor’s product line.”
Cleaning Out the “Head Trash”
(3) Regarding education: “I didn’t get a college degree because I had figured out that real business happens in your head. Once you get a great coach, and he or she helps you clean out the self-defeating bull-shit that goes on in your brain [I call it “head trash” and everyone has it], then it is only a matter of focusing on the right things, which are
(A) Excellence in customer satisfaction
(B) Delivering greater value than your competitors
(C) Setting high goals and pushing yourself and your people to achieve them
(D) Sharing the rewards with your team so they will be motivated to work with you to “take it to the next level”
I have learned a lot from people like Scott and freely share their stories for your benefit.
Two Kinds of Business People
There are two kinds of business people –
A) those that think they know it all and struggle their entire lives, and
B) those that get expert training and use it to get superior results.
Just two questions before I close:
(1) Which one are you? (It’s rhetorical, just ponder it)
(2) Are you willing to step out of your “comfort zone”, get access to the most powerful life, business training and coaching program ever developed for construction executives?
If the answer is “Yes”, call me or “Live ‘chat’ with an Expert” to learn more about the federal construction business at www.GCExperts.com
PS – Connect with me on LinkedIn here: http://LinkedIn.com/in/DougTheExpert