It’s the “ONE THING” that “CHANGES EVERYTHING” and “COMMUNICATION” – Combined, these Form the Foundation to Creating Exceptional Results.  [ Part 1 of 2 ]

PART 1-A:  After starting Apple Computer in 1976, Steve Jobs was essentially fired by the Apple Board of Directors in 1985. It wasn’t until 1998 that Jobs came back, took control and saved Apple from bankruptcy.

Here’s the “ONE THING” that “CHANGED EVERYTHING” for Apple and YOU can use it as part of your foundation for creating faster growth, increasing profitability and getting you more time away from the business to enjoy those things that are most important to YOU:

Getting Rid of the Distractions and Focusing on the Real Opportunity.

When Steve Jobs came back to Apple, he terminated projects known as “Newton”, “Cyberdog” and “OpenDoc”, and forced the MacIntosh clone makers out of business. Then he focused his resources on the iMac and the iTunes/iPod, which became the basis for the iPhone, “Invention of the Year – 2007” and the iPad.

Yes, the 1 thing that changes everything is getting rid of ALL the lesser opportunities and distractions.  DECIDE NOW TO FOCUS ON JUST “1 THING” – the 1 thing that will, when accomplished, lead to the next 1 most important thing that will make all the difference between where you are now and where you want to be.

PART 1-B:  In the late 1960’s, two PhD human communication researchers, John Grinder and Richard Bandler, developed what we now call NLP or neurolingistic programming. Popularized by Tony Robbins, NLP was based on the simple principle that “Communication is defined by the response that it gets.”

Thus, the burden of fully 100% of the response of any relationship outcome is on the person that initiates the communication.

Now for business purposes, let’s meld these two concepts together:  Planning Communication based on the outcome you want and Focus on the 1 thing that is the most important thing, so that it gets your full attention.

Putting (A) and (B) together will make all the difference in the result.  It’s what enabled us to grow 100% in revenues and profits year over year in the federal construction business for 9 years running.

This concludes Part 1 of 2. In Part 2 of 2, you’ll discover the 1 secret about the type of contract that can deliver the same kind of results for you – triple digit growth in any economy.

Thanks for stopping by and please take a few minutes to watch the brief video “7 Ways to Get Federal Contracts” and sign up to get on our list of valuable government construction market insights.

http://7WaysToGet.com

Sincerely, Doug Reitmeyer, Federal Construction Expert and Consultant

Phone (512) 750-2677, Email doug@gcexperts.com

Co-founder: Federal Construction Magazine

Sample: http://tinyurl.com/FederalConstructionMagazine

Peek the current issue and subscribe: http://FC-Mag.com/SneakPeek

PS – See what AGC member/trainer and ENR Magazine bond columnist Mike Hill and other construction experts say about the Advanced Federal Contracts Workshop in Video No. 7 right here:

http://gcexperts.com/workshops

Connect with me here:  http://linkedin.com/in/DougTheExpert

Join LI group “Federal Construction Professionals” where the ‘insiders’ share valuable information and where we want to hear what you have to say:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Federal-Construction-Professionals-4614280

“CONTRACTORS ARE BEING DRIVEN CRAZY”

A respected Government consultant asked, “What does your crystal ball say about federal construction spending, internal agency memos that say to put contracts on hold, and the fact that Uncle Sam has put a stop on civilian hires for the past 30 days?”

Let’s look at the facts:

There’s no crystal ball, but from experience, it won’t affect current projects that are already funded. And if a stop work order is issued on any current contract, that would be a de facto admission of liability, and responsibility to pay extended overhead costs plus profit.

If you can, avoid a “Work Suspension” because that would prevent profit from being added to your extended overhead costs.

The federal government is the largest land and resource holder with total assets of over $100 trillion, so the debt of $16 trillion can be handled a number of ways. The real problem is that while politicians are gifted with a well refined “ability to manipulate” public perceptions, they have not demonstrated an inclination to make “the business of government” fiscally responsible.

Consider that everything goes through cycles. Just like the weather, the financing of government responsibilities are somewhat predictable in the short term, but not so in the long-term. By historic reflection, there are cycles, and the cycles themselves are always changing.

Hiring freezes can only last so long because there is a natural attrition rate, retirements, deaths, etc. However, the functions of government rely on people that have to do what the Code of Federal Regulations (CFRs) requires of their respective agencies. Most people don’t realize that there are more than 450 federal government agencies that employ more than 2 million civilians in the Executive branch alone!

Doug Reitmeyer

doug@gcexperts.com

(512) 750-2677

Connect With Doug

LinkedIn:  CLICK HERE 

YouTube:  CLICK HERE

Note: If LinkedIn asks for an email use doug@gcexperts.com and please mention you came from Federal Construction Blog, this will speed up the connection process! Thanks

My mission is to help others find incredible success in federal construction.

Federal Construction Contracts – What you Don’t Know about Your Customer

With federal construction contracts, it’s been said that no one wants to be sold, but everyone loves to buy.  This is particularly true in today’s environment when the pressure is on sales people to get the orders, almost no matter the cost.

And if you are in the construction business, it’s tougher than ever.  You’ve got employees and overhead that must be covered and a dwindling pool of cash-paying customers.  When that happens in any economy, all sectors, and even the federal sector, get an influx of opportunists trying to take jobs away from the ‘good old boy’ network of incumbents.

To overcome these market driven problems requires something more than “what was working before”.  You need a strategy, a plan, goals and methods to achieve them, including going back to the fundamental principles of business success.

Knowing How to Script

In the “Advanced Federal Construction Training“ Workshops, we spend a great deal of time with what is called “scripting”.  If you know ahead of time what your buyer is going to say, and you know exactly the right response that will cause them to award you the contract, you are miles ahead of the guessing competition.

This is a list of the first five of the “TOP TEN” questions that are utilized to engage a buyer.  Without our Workshop training, you’ll have to figure out the best way to present the questions and elicit the response you want.

First – Recognize the age old truism, “Everyone is waiting for someone to tell them what to do.”  The problem is that they will only accept direction from a trusted source.  Even our President, after his miserable performance at the first debate was looking to his team to tell him what to change so that he could win re-election.  He knew that if he performed as badly at the 2nd debate as he did at the first one, we might have had our first Mormon President in the White House.

2nd – In federal construction, you need to know the customer priorities.  What has to happen?, why? and when?, are the questions that will lead to an understanding of what priorities have been set in the customer’s mind and the reason that you’ve been granted access to influence a decision-maker.

3rd – You also need to know: What the customer thinks his priorities are, may not be what they should be.  An example is within the story of my friend Scott after he was summoned by the VP of Kohl’s, whose plan it was to finance new marketing initiatives by demanding that it’s vendors lower their prices.  You can read the whole posting, “THREE GREAT LESSONS FROM A MASTER” and learn about how Scott convinced the VP that the VP had been focusing on the wrong thing.

4th – What are the potential client’s alternatives? You may not think about this much, but the fact is that 50% of the customers you get in front of can decide not to decide, at least for now.  If you are not prepared to create a sense of urgency on their part, you may leave the client frustrated because the issue is still on their “to do” list.

5th – Is there a story behind the process that your customer is willing to share?  On a NASA contract, our federal construction contract bid was $317,000 higher than Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI), a multi-billion public corporation.  The story behind the decision to pay the extra money was that CBI had included a 12-month schedule with their proposal while ours was shown at 9 months, a full 90 days sooner.

At a cost of $50,000 per day operational costs, it was a no-brainer; pay $317,000 to save $4.5 million on a $4 million contract.  Once the customer was convinced that the project could be completed in 9 months, they issued the contract within minutes.  Best part: The profit was more than $1.6 million.

Next week we’ll post Part 2 of 2 of the federal construction TOP TEN Things to know about your customer that can make a huge difference in the way you do business.

Until then, I’m Doug Reitmeyer and you can connect on LinkedIn here:  www.LinkedIn.com/in/DougTheExpert

Co-Creator: Federal Construction Magazine

Sample: www.tinyurl.com/FCMagazineSummerIssue

Peek the current issue:  www.FC-Mag.com/Sneak-peek

Blogs for February:  http://reitmeyer.com/2013/02/

PS – Two announcements:

(A) – I’ll be one of the featured speakers at the IRC Summit event next week.  You can get a $500 discount if you sign up by this Friday.   Use Promo Code ALYNX200 at Checkout.
Click on this link today and get a seat before they are sold out: http://ircsummit.com/#!/register-now

(B) – In two weeks from today, we’ll have the next “Advanced Federal Construction Contracts Training” Workshop.  There is still one ticket available.  Carl Ballerino (www.HCS-GC.com) attended the late January Workshop and has already received his first federal contract award to repair a pump at Dyess AFB. He plans to start the project tomorrow.

See what your peers are saying about it here:  www.GCExperts.com/workshops

The Workshop is a transformational event for federal construction professionals, specifically designed to get you up and going in the federal construction market in the matter of just a few days.  Graduates have access to over $250,000 worth of training, tools, templates and technologies that have delivered, over the past 32 months, more than $340 million in highly profitable government contracts.

New Resources in Government Construction

For government construction professionals interested in getting highly profitable U.S. Federal Contracts, here’s several new resources…

1. The “Government Construction Experts” hang out at LinkedIn Group “Federal Construction Professionals”
2. The top trainers and consultants have launched a YouTube Channelwith more than 50 videos.
3. Google “Government Construction Experts” to find out more about what they do for contractors and subcontractors.
4. Visit GC Experts  to learn more about attending the most powerful federal construction training in the world.

Small businesses face issues by being unprepared. To be awarded federal contracts, everything about the company impacts their success rate. This includes bidding on the right projects and having the right partners to work with. Those are two of the main reasons businesses fail or succeed.

Only by learning that its a vicious cycle do they realize that they could have come to recognized experts at the start. Having the right people allowed several contractors to not only get the job done, but achieve success above and beyond what was initially expected.

PS – To be even more motivated, listen to Mike Brasberger tell his story of life after joining GC Experts in the recorded phone conversation here:

GCExperts.com/brasbergers

And David Snodgrass of Snodgrass Construction will tell how he got $10 million in new federal contracts over the previous 60 days here:

GCExperts Workshop Video # 12

Joe Call explains how he went from $500K bonding to $15 million in less than 60 days in two recorded phone conversations here:

GCExperts Workshop Video # 10

And the story of how Carlos went from being a Houston, TX home builder to a national federal contractor is here:

GCExperts Workshop Video # 11

The real purpose of business isn’t what most people think; it’s not to make cash.

Yes, cash is the life blood of a business, but it is not “The Purpose of Your Business”.

“The Purpose of Your Business”

Adopt the following philosophy as your purpose for being in business, and watch it improve. Here are the three parts:

A) To find or create a customer or client who has a need or desire for a product or service that you can provide to the level of their expectation(s).

B) They must have the money to exchange for what they need or desire, and

C) They must be willing to trade or exchange their money when they are satisfied that you have met their expectation(s).

This “Philosophy” makes the focus on creating a win-win agreement. Use this script,

“The purpose of our business is to create win-win agreements that meet the expectations of our clients. We do that by focusing first on understanding their wants, needs and/or desires, then developing a timely plan to exceed their expectations of value.”

Make an “up front” contract with the client that you both agree to work together to achieve the results they want. This is “The Buy-In” part of getting them to adopt my philosophy.

Once you have created a new customer and been awarded a contract, the “PURPOSE OF YOUR BUSINESS” changes. THE NEW PURPOSE BECOMES:

TO KEEP THE CLIENT AND INCREASE THE VALUE OF THE RELATIONSHIP WITH NEW WIN-WIN AGREEMENTS.

There are three key parts to continually improve upon:

First – Identifying the right clients; the ones that pay you! You must know with precision exactly who your best clients are and where to find them. Two of the main reasons we love doing federal contracts are, by law, they must make construction progress payments monthly and within 14 days; it’s called the Prompt Payment Act. With Federal Contracts, we never have to worry about the money, and it’s easy to find solicitations for the contracts that they want to award!

Second – Conversion: You must have a fool-proof method of getting the potential client to become a customer.

Third – Keeping and increasing the value of each new customer.

THE COMPETITION OBSTACLE:

If you think that the game of business is something just between you and the potential customer, you are dead wrong. All business is between you, the potential customer, and all the other companies that are capable of providing what the potential customer wants or needs; it’s called “competition”.

That’s right; you must recognize your competition every time you venture out to convert a potential client into a customer. And that means every time you turn in a bid to the government or anyone else. Loss of “purpose” will cause loss of customers to your competitors; it happens every day.

WHY THE FOCUS ON FEDERAL CONTRACTS? HERE’S THE ANSWER:

A) THEY HAVE NEEDS THAT I CAN EASILY FULFILL TO THEIR LEVEL OF EXPECTATION

B) THEY HAVE THE MONEY (AND MEANS TO PRINT MORE WHEN THEY RUN LOW!)

C) THEY PAY PEOPLE TO INVEST THAT MONEY BY AWARDING HIGHLY PROFITABLE CONTRACTS! (Understand that it’s not “their” money; It’s our money!)

By focusing your business on federal contracts, you don’t have to worry about B) or C)!

Over the past 30 months, the 38 contractors and subcontractors that have been trained on how to best adopt this philosophy have received more than $330 million in highly profitable government contracts. They have joined an exclusive “Membership” program that now spans Alaska to Florida, New York to Hawaii and most places in between. See what they are saying about it in the brief videos here: http://GCExperts.com/workshops

Avaliable via Phone or Email

Doug Reitmeyer

doug@gcexperts.com

(512) 750-2677

Connect With Doug

LinkedIn:  CLICK HERE 

YouTube:  CLICK HERE

Note: If LinkedIn asks for an email use doug@gcexperts.com and please mention you came from Federal Construction Blog, this will speed up the connection process! Thank

My mission is to help others find incredible success in federal construction.

From $500K Bonding to $15 million in less than 60 days

OR WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW…

On May 2012, Day 1 of Federal Construction Workshop, Doug Reitmeyer interviewed Joe Call of Call Associates in Buffalo, NY and Marc Donnot of Apsalooke Contracting in Billings, MT. After learning about the 8(A) program, Joe decided to go into government contracting himself. He knew that there was a way to be successful in the government business, and was impressed by Doug’s program. One of Marc’s big takeaways from the workshop was how to communicate and get the desired response.