Posted on November 9, 2011
As a landscape designer, working in these hard economic times, you can't have failed to notice more and more small garden businesses going to the wall.
Whether they are nurseries or landscaping firms, it's hard to make a living right now, jobs are scarce and margins tight.
A worst case scenario is for your contractor to go under, halfway through a job, potentially costing your clients $1000's and you a monumental headache, trying to find another contractor to finish the work.
You may even be held partly liable, swept up in any legal action. So the designer needs to be doubly careful when selecting contractors to tender and also, be seen to be doing their due diligence.
Taking a contractor's word, that they are financially solvent is no longer adequate. Before signing the contract, bank references should be taken up and the client should be advised in writing to do a credit check with a firm such as Dun & Bradstreet.
However even this may not be enough. On larger jobs, lasting several months, the contractor could still run into difficulties. Either through poor management or in the event that one of their suppliers going bankrupt and taking them down in the process.
There is little you can do about the latter, but you can help manage the contract and at the same time protect your client from paying too much up front before work is completed and materials are on site.
The first and most important document you should insist on, before work starts on site is a daily work schedule. This is a day by day breakdown of what work will be carried out, to include; in what order the jobs are to be completed and the number of man days involved.
Small contractors are sometimes reluctant to provide these, as they involve hours of preparation, but I make this a contractual requirement and won't let a project start before the client and I have both received a copy.
This document allows all parties to monitor the progress of the job. The designer and client can see at a glance, if the work is on schedule and the contractor can also plan when materials and plant should be ordered, so the work is not delayed due to material hold ups. Read More...
Posted on November 5, 2011
At the core of most management positions, where a supervising, managing and leading a work group is the responsibility for creating stability. That is to say, the manager generally maintains the cohesiveness and assures the completion of the work responsibility for the business unit. This is not to imply just maintaining the "business as usual" work of the team. It does focus on "maintaining" the functioning of the group in order for it to complete the broad responsibilities of the team. To make sure that things are working as expected to complete the work at hand is core to successful management.
The basic management skills in support of the stability of the business unit include the following.
1. Organizing the work. The manager has business unit goals, work product objectives and timetables that are in the ordinary and necessary category. the actions and activities of the team must be planned, assigned and scheduled to meet the over-all expectations for the business unit's productivity.
2. Delegate Tasks. Once the work is organized and schedules defined, specific Delegate Tasks.assignments must be delegated to individuals and sub-teams. Some of this is routine but new assignments and projects can occur and these must be worked into the day-to-day routine. Read More...
Posted on August 8, 2011
It has never been easier to run online home businesses because there are various tools provided to online entrepreneurs who can manage to run a successful online business. There are various to ensure that business is well-managed and is able to produce constant profits throughout its years of operations.
The business that is well operating can find the best and constant resources if the business investor takes the time to run the online business. Successful work from home businesses through easy steps It is easy to have a successful online business managed though easy steps that you can take throughout time invested in the business and resources wisely invested. Even if the business is an online retail business or a sales business it can be run successfully. This is through real focus and devotion to maintaining the success of the business and investing resources such as capital wisely and reducing expenses. The company would then be able to sell its products on the internet profitably with the best customer traffic.
The easy approach to running the business is through identifying the area of expertise of the company. Once the expertise or field is identified then it may be possible to identify the key supplies offered by the business and what products would be marketed and the format on which it should be tailored such as the business ideology and concepts for money making opps. If the business is a small start-up then it should explain its aim to the online audience and should then further explain how it will manage to cover its expenses. Further the company then needs to hire an accountant or draft its own financial statements and use google to manage it supply and hire the best employees for the business. The business owner should then interpret the needs of the business and the target audience such as who would buy from the business. Read More...