Things To Do In SW Florida

Accidents happen. This is why it’s important for a contractor or a contracting company to carry worker’s compensation, because you never know when someone with trip or slip!

In 2016, 203,500 injuries and illnesses were reported in the construction industry. Around 22,880 of these were sprains, strains, and tears; 13,020 claims were pain related; 11,880 were fractures and 11,810 were cuts, lacerations and punctures.

The average time a worker was out was 10 days. Of the 82,760 accident injuries reported, only 14 percent required just 1 day out. However, 26,010 injuries caused people to be way from work an average of 31 days; this accounts for around 1/3 of the accidents. That’s a lot of people out of work for a long time!

Why so many injuries? Well construction sites are full of hazards. Even when the right safety measure have been taken, accidents can still occur. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics 2016 Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses, here’s some examples of what hurt people. read more

If you have your own contracting business, getting new customers is your livelihood. However, you want to promote yourself to the RIGHT customers. Otherwise, if you just promote to the masses, it can cost you. Spending time and money on resources that are going out to people who would never hire you. Don’t let the wrong customers take you away from the right customers. Your customer is someone who fits your business, the geography you work in, the price point your service at. You don’t want your promotions to go to people thousands of miles away who can’t afford your work, right? Right!

• Recognize who your best customer is
• Define your customer. Who do you love to do business with? List the traits that you think would or do define your best customer. Personality. Budgets. Geography. Project size. Type of construction.
• Once you see who your customer is, you can go after them more clearly.
• Use past years’ date and info to help you to also define your customer. See if your preferred customers bring you more profit.

Once you define and recognize your ideal customer, you can focus your attention on strategically marketing to that person. This person will guide your advertising and marketing efforts in person and on the web. You will realize what referrals are worth going after or know what types of customers will be a waste of time. With a target audience in mind, you will save time and money on marketing efforts and will continue to see more visibility and attention to your brand and business. read more

Looking for another way to promote your contracting business? How about an email newsletter? Sure, email newsletters can be annoying, but that’s only when they are not created or sent correctly. No one really wants daily newsletters from the same company. Some companies even go overboard sending multiple emails a day. This is enough to aggravate a person for them to remove themselves from your email list entirely. We wanted to share with you ways to use construction email newsletter that won’t annoy your audience.
• Be strategic in your approach.
• Make your email content relevant. Low quality emails can hurt you and increase the numbers of be unsubscribing.
• How often you send an email out will depend on your business, your customers, and your service.
• Your email will depend whether your target is a former customer or potential customer. A couple times a month for a former customer is good, as long as your information is useful. For a potential customer, you could double that frequency.
• Emails help keep your name in front of any and all customers, especially former customers who can give your more business or new clients.
• People will learn about your knowledge and expertise through your email and turn to you when they need help.
• Your emails need to provide value and offer people something. For example: home improvement tips, home trends, new products, etc.
• Make your newsletter 90 percent informative and 10 percent promotional.
• Make your newsletter intriguing. Catch your audience with a fun interesting title or visuals. Link to quality blogs or articles. Avoid using spammy words like FREE or CLICK HERE in the subject line.
• When you get a subscriber, let them know (on average) how often you will be emailing them so they will be aware. You can also provide an option for them to choose how often they get an email (which they may prefer). read more

We’re on the brink of having a society filled with robots. Think of recent developments: drones, roombas. Companies and consumers are turning to robotic technologies to make their lives easier. Now, robots can potentially help with construction site security. Security is key at a construction site. Why? Often, things get stolen from these sites, so it’s essential to think ahead and plan security measures to keep your site and equipment safe.

• Virtual guards are a new technology that can replace a physical security guard. A virtual guard is a camera system, which means it can see and track more than a human. It also never leaves its post or gets distracted. Camera are set up around the perimeter of the site. The system does a walk through of the site on a schedule just like a regular guard would. The virtual guard also can have a panic button for workers to use if an emergency occurs on site when no one else is around. The panic button will contact authorities. Click here to learn more about this virtual guard.
• Drones are starting to be used in construction sites. They can sense body heat at night and determine if there is a trespasser. They can fly around and search the entire property faster than a human can.
• Robot security guards by Knightscope are 300 pounds and use to scare off trespassers. They move around quickly and chase away intruders and record everything. They haven’t been used in construction sites yet, but will be in the future.

These robotic options can make a work site safer, and also are most cost effective in the long run. If you are in charge of construction sites, you may want to consider using these new technological advances in security.

Looking to get your Florida contractor’s license? Or start your own contracting business? Let us do the work for you! Just answer some questions and we do all the heavy lifting! We’ve helped thousands of people become licensed contractors. We are a Florida contractor licensing company. To start with us today, click here of call 239-777-1028. read more

Being “green” isn’t a trend or fad, it’s the way of the future, and even the present! More companies are turning to greener methods and are learning how to be profitable while making greener decisions.  Not every green decision a company makes has to be out in the open or sellable to clients. If you are in the construction world, we wanted to share with you some ways you can be greener in this new year and the years to come.