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KAD Consulting, Brantford, ON (2026)

11/19/2013

If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.
W. Edwards Deming

We live in a world which is not standing still. No part of our lives is the same as it was even 10 years ago. With technology changing as quickly as it is, the methods we use to do our work each day change from year to year, and maybe even in shorter time frames than that.
But, as we change from one way of doing things to another way of doing things, we are still doing the same things. I might use a computer to write my letters, whereas people in the past would use pen and paper, but we’re still writing letters. I use my cell phone for many of my phone calls, but I’m still making a phone call. The world changes, but we continue to do the same things we’ve always done.
Because we want to do the same things in a new environment, we need to adapt the way we do things, we need to do them differently. But, if we don’t understand what we are doing, how do you change it so that the results will still be predictable?
I had a math teacher who, when asked to explain a process again and again, eventually told us that we needed our “fingers to do the walking.” He meant that at some point, even if we didn’t understand, we needed to simply trust that we were doing the right thing, and believe that when faced with a particular type of problem, we needed to solve it using a specific method. Even if we didn’t understand the method, if we knew how to do it, we would be able to solve the problem.
Of course, he was right. There are many times in life when even if we don’t entirely understand what we are doing, but we can do it, and do it well. Our fingers are doing the walking. However, we are people living in a moving world, a world that will leave us in its wake very quickly, if we are not continuing to develop new skills, new abilities. It is then that our walking fingers are useless to us. In order to develop skills that build on previous ones, we need to understand our building blocks. It is impossible for me to adapt a process if I don’t understand the intent behind or, or the parts that make up the whole.
Our businesses and business lives are the same. We need to be able to understand what we do, not so that we can say we understand it, but so we can apply the same principles to a changing environment, or so that we can apply similar principles to a different situation. It is only then that our processes will start to make us more profitable, more effective, more efficient.
Do you understand what you are doing today?

09/21/2013

I like to think that I am as good a driver as the next person. However, I know that I do not know my car very well. Sure, I understand all the main parts (engine, transmission, etc), but I don’t really know how they all fit together, and I certainly don’t know what the warning signs are that will tell me my car is likely to cause me significant grief and expense.
However, the people that have made my car have given me tools to make sure that I can have a high level of comfort about my car. When they made it, they determined several areas where breakdowns can occur as the car is used. There is a light telling me when my tire pressure or oil pressure is low, there is a light when my gas tank is running low, and lights for 8 or 10 other things as well. I have a gauge to show that my engine is running too hot, or that I have it running at too many RPM’s. Each of these gauges and warning lights assures me that when they are all off, or in a safe range, I can have a high degree of comfort that my car will continue to work the way it always has.
A business is the same for many people. Sure, we know the parts of our business – estimating, job performance, invoicing, A/P, and more, but how they fit together, and how each part needs to run smoothly to make the business profitable, can all be confusing and complicated. Because each part is so different, knowing how to know that each part is running smoothly is also difficult. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a way of knowing this, without having to wait to see if there is any money left over at the end of the year? Wouldn’t you like to have a well-designed dashboard for your business, just like my car has for me?
Well, you can. KAD Consulting can produce a simple report that would take minutes to fill out each week or month, and would tell you whether you need to worry about your business, or if you can just keep on going the way you have been, because everything is working fine. It will tell you where you might need to focus your energy on fixing an item BEFORE it becomes a major issue, just like my oil pressure light tells me I better put some oil in the car, before it becomes a major issue.
Message us today, or email [email protected] to arrange a consultation, so you can get the comfort level about your business that I have about my car.

09/04/2013

"Few people do business well who do nothing else."
Philip Dormer Stanhope (4th Earl of Chesterfield)

One of the terrible effects of technology is that our businesses are more and more becoming a 24/7 activity. With laptops allowing us to work from home whenever we want, and cell phones that make us reachable whenever other people want, there is often no getting away from our business.
We like to think that this is making us more effective as business owners, that it is taking us to a better plane as service providers. However, we cannot be successful in our business if we are obsessing about it. There is always something else to do, always one more contact to call, one more report to review, one more piece of data that could be used – just ask any homemaker about it – the work never stops, nor is there ever enough time to complete it all.
But, we cannot be good at our work if we do not take breaks from it. I could address a longer break such as a vacation, but in this case, I mean more of the short term breaks that we take. We need to take time with our families to eat meals with them, we need to leave our business behind and cut the grass, we simply need time away from our business on a frequent and short term basis to ensure that we have energy and life to come back to it each day. Working & sleeping are not enough tasks for us to complete in order to stay sharp, to stay on top of our game.
I say this not as an expert in the field of breakology – I am as guilty as many in not being able to leave my work at work. I carry a cell phone that I look at several times an evening, and that beckons to me whenever it rings. My laptop is frequently on. Perhaps even more than that, I spend a significant amount of my thought time on things that I really should be leaving on my desk in the office, and this takes my attention away from my family, my church, my friends, and all sorts of other things that I need to focus on when I’m focussing on them.
But, when I don’t focus on other things, then I don’t get the ability to come back to my work, to review it from a fresh perspective, to think about it from a new angle, to be renewed by the energy and ideas and attitudes of others. I don’t get a chance to see life from the perspective of a user, but only as a provider, and that will ultimately make me a poorer provider. The more time I spend not being refreshed, the lower the quality of the work that I produce… and that’s a problem.
So please, take your wife out for dinner, offer to help your neighbour shovel their snow (yes, it is coming again), play a game with your kids, donate time to a local mission or community club, or even just read a book. Your business will thank you!

08/21/2013

“When you compete with a person, you only have to be as good or better than the person to win. If you compete with yourself, there is no limitation to how good you can be.”
Chu Chin-Ning

When contractors and trades are tendering new work, one of the first questions asked is, “Who is my competition?” We want to know because it tells us something about the project, the owners, what the margins will be on the job, and lots more.

Ultimately, to stay in business, we need to beat the competition on a regular basis, out-bidding them for projects that we can then go out and make a profit on, so that we can feed our families and keep the banker happy. We need to find ways to make ourselves better than those around us, so that we can continue to do the work that has made so many previous projects successful. We need to find our competitive advantage.

A competitive advantage is defined as an advantage that a business has over its competition that is sustainable for at least the medium run. Common examples would be patents and copyrights, which effectively limit the ability of the competing companies to produce the same product. However, there are other examples as well. A few years ago, WestJet purchased massive amounts of fuel on the futures market. Almost immediately after, the price of fuel went up significantly, but the future purchase of fuel allowed WestJet to have a distinct advantage in the Canadian marketplace for more than a year, an advantage that no other company could have because they had not made the same shrewd move to buy fuel before the price went up.

Competitive advantages for most companies however, come from within. A millwork company with a very talented cabinet maker, or an excavating company with a top-notch operator that fell into their lap, or an accountant that is particularly adept at finding ways to shave costs every year. These advantages have to be discovered, nurtured and maintained, but that takes work, work that in some ways is meaningless – after all, the guy works for me already!

However, if you have a strong desire not only to be the best company in the marketplace, but to be the best that you can be, regardless of what the marketplace has, nurturing these advantages will be an absolute requirement. I don’t know if there is a line that says it better than the old Dofasco slogan – Our product is Steel, our Strength is People. Working on your people, putting effort into them over and over again, whether that is through individual or group training, regular and proper evaluations and commendations, a well-thought out bonus program, and a willingness to hire excellent employees, even if you don’t really have a place for them, will cause you to be better every year.

The problem with a constant competition with yourself is that when you improve, you don’t get to stand back and say, “Wow, we won. Congratulations!” You have to look up, say, “Wow, we did it. How can I be better next time?” It is a constant battle to be better, an unending chase for improvement in quality, efficiency, resource management, community service, and yes, profitability.

The great thing about a constant competition with yourself is that the other competition, the one with all the other competitors, becomes secondary, even easy. Going out and getting a job is one thing, but doing it better than last time? Now that is a challenge!

08/11/2013

"A budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it."
William Feather

This quote says a lot about some businesses. They go through the work of forecasting sales, calculating their costs, anticipating capital purchases, and then compile all of that information to come up with a budget that is reasonable. At that point, they go over it to see what it says, although maybe that is only to see if the number at the bottom of the page is to their liking, before depositing it in the back of the "g" file.

When it comes time to determine whether they can afford to buy a new piece of machinery, or some other large expenditure, the decision is based completely on the amount of cash available, their mood, or some other method. Go back to the budget? Did we plan for this expense? Did we save in another area, allowing us to spend here? Nonsense, that was just on paper, this is real life!

So, that brings us to the question: what is the purpose of a budget?
A budget serves several purposes for any business, whether large or small.

First, it helps you to focus your attention on company goals. As part of making the budget, each area of costs needs to be considered. The cost of earning a dollar (Cost of Goods Sold) is usually a stable percentage of revenue, and can be calculated from previous years. However, if you want to move in a new direction, it may require new capital expenditures, additional advertising costs, new hires, or other fixed costs. Each of these need to be considered prior to finalizing a budget, forcing you to make goals for the new period ahead.

Second, budgets force you to evaluate your business - what do I do well, and what do I do poorly. This makes you consider just where you need to improve, even if you are not adjusting your goals.

Third, it gives you a road map to where you are trying to go. Having made goals, the budget tells you how you need to run your business in order to get there. It will tell you how much you made available for vehicle costs, advertising, new equipment, etc. Deviating from your budget should only be done after careful consideration.

Finally, having a budget allows you to evaluate your performance fairly. A business that exceeds sales expectations, saves funds on Cost of Goods Sold, or limits other expenses in unexpected ways performed better than expected in each of those areas. Businesses that did not reach sales expectations, spend more money than expected earning their revenue, or had cost over-runs on expenses performed worse than expected in each of those areas. These evaluations can even be done periodically though the year, giving you time to either re-evaluate your goals or make adjustments to your business to get more inline with your earlier expectations.

Ultimately, the budget is a very important tool for every business. It forces you to focus on important planning elements, while allowing you to save time making decisions through the year and giving you tools to evaluate your success. Why wouldn't you make a budget for your up-coming fiscal year?

07/30/2013

"If you keep on doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting what you've always got."
W.L. Bateman

Are you happy with the course of your business? If you're not, and you keep on doing things the way you've always done them, are you expecting a different result?

Business is like so much else in life. It isn't always about working hard, you also need to work smart. If your current way of doing business, whether it is in the construction industry or any other place, isn't working as well as you would like it to, it probably means you need to do things differently. However, you're so busy, working hard to keep your head above water that you don't know where to start doing things differently. Message us today and let's talk about how KAD Consulting can help you reach your goals, rather than just dreaming about them!

KAD Consulting

11/19/2013

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