Tony Booth

E612: Setting Goals for 2017

December 20, 2016 Tony Booth Coachcasts 0 Comments

It’s virtually impossible to hit the target when you don’t know where you are aiming.

 

  1. Step 2 of the Pyramid Goal process – defining the vision with trajectories/goals
    1. Start by looking at your visions
    2. Example:
      1. ABC had a successful financial year in 2017 increasing revenues and profits while focusing on Government contracting.
    3. This vision statement has 3 key parts – Financial Success – Growth  – Gvt Contracting
  2. Define the vision with trajectories/goals
    1. Use your goals and trajectories to define the vision
    2. In the example above, if we look at financial success, we need to define what that means
    3. Create some 2017 targets
      1. We complete $5M or more of work in 2017 with a profit margin of 5% or more while maintaining our debt to less than 4% of annual revenue.
  3. Keep your trajectories SMART
    1. Specific
    2. Measurable
    3. Agreed Upon – (this is where the vision comes in)
    4. Realistic
    5. Timely

E611: Pyramid Goals & Your Vision

December 19, 2016 Tony Booth Coachcasts, General Business 0 Comments

Vision without execution is delusion. – Thomas Edison

 

This week we are working on creating our plans for 2017. We will be working through the Pyramid Goal process.

 

  1. Pyramid Goals System
    1. Vision
    2. Goals & Trajectories
    3. Plans and Roadmaps
    4. Tasks & Take-Action Steps
  2. Start creating your vision
    1. Take out your notes from last week
    2. Use your review to write some positive vision statements for 2017
    3. How do you want 2017 to end up in each area of your business?

E610: 2016 Personal Review

December 16, 2016 Tony Booth Coachcasts, Improvement 0 Comments

I hope 2016 was a great year for you. Let’s make 2017 even better.

 

  1. Review your 2016
    1. How was the year for you?
    2. Look at the 4 Pillars
      1. Work
      2. Family
      3. Self
      4. Community
  2. Evaluate each pillar
    1. Write out the best things that happened in 2016 for each
    2. Write out the worst things
  3. Making 2017 better
    1. Review each pillar
    2. Determine 4 or 5 things that you want to improve, do more of, etc.
    3. Determine 1 thing in each pillar you want to eliminate

E609: 2016 Business Review

December 15, 2016 Tony Booth Coachcasts, General Business, Human Resources 0 Comments

Building a successful business strat with good planning.

 

  1. Start with the important stuff – “Profit is not a dirty word”
    1. How was 2016 for business profits?
    2. What about cash flow, AR & AP, debt
    3. What are your 2017 projections?
  2. Human Resources
    1. How is the culture and moral?
    2. How about skill sets and training?
    3. What are your 2017 improvements?
  3. Operations and resources
    1. How was 2016 overall for your business? A good year? A great year?
    2. How are the resources? Enough internal staff? How about external support?
    3. What do you want to change in 2017?

E608: 2016 Project Management Review

December 14, 2016 Tony Booth Coachcasts, Project Management 0 Comments

Was 2016 a good year for your project management teams?

 

  1. Year end review of our project management
    1. How was the year?
    2. How were your projects?
    3. How was your client satisfaction?
  2. The best and the worst
    1. Pick your best project
      1. What went right? What was different?
    2. Pick you worst project
      1. What went wrong? What could have been different?
    3. Identify lessons learned from those projects
  3. What can you change in 2017
    1. What things can you identify to change in 2017
    2. Make a list of things to work on
    3. Pick the top 3 to 5 to implement in 2017

E607: 2016 Year End Review

December 13, 2016 Tony Booth Coachcasts, Estimating, Marketing, Sales 0 Comments

How did your sales, marketing, and estimating fair in 2016?

 

  1. It’s year end review time
    1. Let’s review our performance for 2016
    2. Did we accomplish what we wanted to?
    3. What’s in store for 2017
  2. Take a look back at 2016
    1. Did you have goals set for the year? Did you reach them?
    2. Did you win enough work?
    3. Did you generate the necessary leads?
  3. Where are you headed in 2017
    1. What are your new goals for 2017?
    2. What is your target revenue?
    3. What are the necessary targets to reach that goal?

E606: Ask Coach – Improving Communication

December 12, 2016 Tony Booth Ask The Coach, Coachcasts 0 Comments

Supercharge your project communication with more collaboration.

 

Q: How can I improve my project communication?

A: Create a log of all open items, use a collaboration platform, and have a watchdog.

 

  1. Communication is a big issue
    1. How do we keep everyone in the loop?
    2. How do we make sure the right people get the right information?
    3. How do we keep things from falling through the cracks?
  2. Move towards collaboration
    1. Collaboration – working with others to produce results
    2. Sharing of knowledge, status, and efforts
    3. Email is not collaboration
  3. Create a system to supercharge your communication
    1. Create a log of all open items that is shared with everyone
    2. Use a collaboration platform
      1. Procore / Basecamp / Dropbox / Box / Trello  Slack
      2. I like using Trello and Dropbox together
    3. Move information from the inbox to your system
    4. Have one person in charge of checking the list

E605: Plan Some Adventures

December 9, 2016 Tony Booth Coachcasts, Improvement 0 Comments

Life is a series of experience, don’t miss out.

 

  1. Let’s reflect back on 2016
    1. Did you enjoy this year?
    2. Did you have some fun and adventurous experiences?
    3. Did you do something exciting?
  2. Life is about adventure – we need to enjoy our experiences
    1. Yes, we love what we do – but that’s not all there is
    2. We need to have experiences and fun
    3. There are huge benefits beyond the enjoyment
      1. If helps us in many other ways long after the experience
  3. Plan some adventures in 2017
    1. Large or small, it’s doesn’t matter – just enjoy
    2. Try something new, visit somewhere you have never been before
    3. Plan some mini-trips or experiences
    4. Set a goal for how many new experiences you will have in 2017

I am committing to at least 6 new adventures/experiences for 2017

E604: Year End Overhead Review

December 8, 2016 Tony Booth Coachcasts, General Business, Overhead 0 Comments

Overhead costs can erode our profits if we are not using the correct markups.

 

  1. We are closing out 2016
    1. Time to start reviewing our year
    2. We need to take a look at how we did
    3. A key area to review is our overhead
  2. Overhead and administrative costs can be a silent killer
    1. Most contractors price overhead as a percentage of costs
    2. Often times we calculate our overhead as a function of revenue
      1. This is a common mistake that can cost you – make sure you are comparing the right numbers
    3. Another common mistake is not calculating overhead properly or regularly to adjust markups
  3. Review your overhead in detail
    1. Don’t just rely on your Profit / Loss statement – dig into the details and verify
    2. Double check your markup percentages – will your markup give you enough money to cover overhead
    3. Create your new budget for 2017 and compare to projected revenues to adjust markups

E603: Protect Your Rights to Payment

December 7, 2016 Tony Booth Coachcasts, Project Management 0 Comments

Be sure you project teams follow the rules to protect your rights.

 

  1. Construction project have risk
    1. One area of concern is the risk of non-payment
    2. In most cases, we do have some protection against this
    3. In the US, it’s primarily Mechanics Liens and Performance & Payment Bonds
    4. Our project management teams need to protect our projects
      1. Both for non-payment by our client and false claims by our suppliers and subcontractors
  2. Protecting against non-payment by our clients
    1. In the US we have mechanic’s liens that any company that provides labor or materials for the improvement of a property
    2. We also have performance and payment bonds that protect subcontractors and suppliers
    3. Each of these have specific requirements depending on the state
    4. Your project teams need to know these rules and follow them
  3. Protecting against claims to us for non-payment
    1. Just like us, our suppliers and subcontractors have protection for payment from us
    2. We want to protect ourselves from any errors or false claims
    3. The primary tool for this in the US is lien releases / waivers
      1. Make sure your project teams and accounting understand the requirements and are collecting the proper paperwork before issuing payments

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