Federation of Master Builders Ireland

18/06/2020

Little Hinges Swing Big Doors.

Think about that for a minute...

I'm not asking you to literally think about door hinges but the broader principle.
I mean - think about the little things that make bigger things happen - or work.

It's the little 3" or 4" hinge that enables big heavy oak doors to swing.

In your personal life, it might have been the first smile that led to a date night, that led to marriage.
It might have been letting someone out at a junction that led to someone being just axlittle bit happier - that led to a nice €10k job (that happened to me).

In your business - what would doubling your word-of-mouth referrals do for you? or trippling them?
That's what joining FMB Ireland could do for you.

Unlike other associations who give you empty promises - we give you the help you need to build and strengthen your business.

But now's not the time to.dilly-dally on this.

There's a storm on the horizon - and it's not gonna be good. I'm talking about a recession. There's no denying it's coming. The only question is how long we have to get prepared...

I suspect that it's gonna be really hard on a lot of people.
But that doesn't have to include you.

We'll help you put your business in a really strong position to weather the storm.

Get in touch and find out how FMB Ireland can help you get more customers now and get prepared for the future.

Thanks for reading.
Adrian

17/06/2020

Everyone loves referrals.

We call it "getting business through word of mouth".
Many trade businesses rely on word of mouth. For many, it's the only way they have of getting customers.

On one hand, it's great. You're doing a good job otherwise you wouldn't get any.

On the other hand, it's dangerous. It leads to feast and famine. It often puts you in a position of having to do work rather than having your choice of work.

I ask business owners how they get their customers and 8 times out of 10 they tell me it's by word of mouth.
Then I ask how they manage that word of mouth referral process - and no one has an answer beyond "it just happens".

Wouldn't life in business be a little more comfortable if you could manage the referral process? If you had some control over it? If you could make it happen more often?

How about doubling the number of customers you get by word of mouth? How'd you like that?

If there was one key reason to join FMB Ireland - that would be to double your word of mouth referrals?

There are lots more reasons to join, but that's a biggie!

27/10/2018

Are you cooking up any special offers for the end of the year?

You probably know Black Friday is only 4 weeks away. It used to be an online thing but now there's a lot of pressure on real brick and mortar businesses to get involved.

But it's a definite NO from me.

While the rest of the business world are falling over themselves to give their 'stuff' away for little or no profit, I'm staying away.

Maybe you should too?

We got into business to makes profit.
To some, that's a bad word.
But it's difficult enough to be in this game without discounting our time and effort.

If anything, I help my tribe to make more profit not less.

Interested in getting more customers and making more of the monies?

Let's have a chat?

19/10/2018

Thank Dog it's Friday!

When you've been working like a dog all week, if you're like me, you look forward to having a beer or two on a Friday night?
Nothing serious - literally just a few beers to unwind and relax.

Moretti is my favourite - in case you're buying!

I'm working tomorrow - the voluntary kind. We're replacing a big decking at the back of my outlaws. I don't mind. They've always been like a 2nd family for me. I reckon I'm lucky like that. I know a lot of guys who don't get on that well with their in-laws.

Anyway,
We originally built the decking about 3 weeks before my good lady and me got hitched. That was 16 years ago in September past - so if you're decking lasts as long, you've not got much to complain about.

I know a few people whose marriages didn't last as long as that decking!

We'll that's almost all for now.

I'm gonna spend a few hours on Sunday preparing for a talk I'm giving in London on Wednesday.
I'm going over to teach sparks how to get and keep more customers.

Imagine that.
Not content with having us Paddy's build their roads and their country, they want us to help them build their business too!
I'm doing this as a favour to a friend who runs a electricians organisation in the south of England - and he likes my approach to business.
I'll take that as a compliment.

Anyway
Happy Friday
Have a great weekend and stay safe
Adrian

15/10/2018

10 weeks and counting!

We've only ten weeks left of this year and they'll pass us by in a flash.
This year has been really good to many in the building trade - especially those who are in Dublin or could travel to the big smoke. Cork, Galway, and Limerick have each been pretty busy too.

But for many of good guys outside of the cities, things have not been that great.

In fact, I talk to a lot of smaller builders and tradesmen around the country and there are a lot of people who have not felt the benefits of the recovery. Yes, there's more work but prices outside the cities have not risen by as much as the costs of doing business.

So, for those who are feeling the warm glow of the building boom, how much longer will it last?

This year house prices in Dublin have risen sharply and affordability is a big problem again.
On top of that, lending seems to be tightening up. I've met with several architects across Dublin in the past few weeks who have told me that they have private clients, with 'shovel ready' projects, but who can't get funding.

Are the banks tightening the purse strings because of Brexit and the uncertainty it's causing? Or do they see the writing on the wall for a bubble that's gonna burst?
Who knows??

I don't think anyone can argue that a bust is 'in the post'. For me, it's a case of when not if, it's going to happen.

I've no desire to be a prophet of doom. But the reality is going to bite if we don't make some preparations for it. Hopefully, we have at last another 6 months before it does. That will take us roughly up to the point of Brexit - who knows what that mess will bring - nothing good in any event - for any of us!

Anyway, thanks for reading
Adrian

25/01/2018

End of days!

Well it's not really - just the end of the short days.
The doom and gloom of January is almost over. The 21st was the shortest day of the year (shortest daylight hours anyway).

And we all know that January can be a loong month - when or if the Christmas spending bills come home to roost! (Hope you didn't do too much damage there!).

Anyway, for many people, the start of the year comes with a few good intentions:

Get to the gym.
Get some weight off.
Get fit.
Change jobs.
Drink less.
Sort out a relationship.
Sort out the business.
Get rid of the pain in the ass employee...

Add to this what you might.

Myth has it that most good intentions are abandoned by the 22nd of the month.

Did you have any good intentions? Did you manage to put them into action? And if you did, how have you stuck with them?

Me?
I decided to give the pints and the vino a miss for January.
I was never a heavy drinker - just enjoy a couple of sociable drinks.
I've stayed off it too. It probably helps that I don't smoke...

The alternative? I'm a big coffee lover - but coffee doesn't have the same appeal on a Friday night after work.
But still, after almost 4 weeks, I don't miss it.

Anyway...
What do you think this year hold in store for us?

Maybe you haven't give it much thought.
I have a hunch that we are at the top of the economic cycle now. I kinda expect that we're going to see a slow down this year - probably in the second half.
I hope I'm wrong, but if not, I just hope that it's going to gradual. Not a fall of a cliff like the last one.

That's it for now.

Thanks for reading

02/11/2017

Double your Business with FMB Ireland: https://t.co/6rkhcA37bi via

Want to get more word of mouth referrals, more new business enquiries? Need more jobs to quote? We can help you. http://www.FMBIreland.com or call 01-4851177

02/11/2017

Marketing Help for Tradesmen in Ireland: https://t.co/OSnGn1RMv6 via

Marketing Help for Tradesmen in Ireland- FMB Ireland what we do - Help you get more enquiries for new work. Help you get more work through word of mouth. Hel...

30/10/2017

One is a dangerous number... when you're fishing for customers!

What happens if you rely on one way of attracting new customers and that one way stops working?

What if most of your business comes by word-of-mouth - and it slows down or stops all together?

Maybe you do a bit of advertising too?

Think of getting new business, as being a bit like fishing.

Except you're fishing for customers - not salmon.

Wouldn't you expect to catch more fish if you had 5 hooks in the water instead of only 1?

Same goes for your business. It you have 3, 4 or 5 ways of attracting new customer enquiries, your likely to have a reliable, steady flow of new business.

Having just one way leads to a feast and famine experience. That can be stressful. Especially the famine bit.

All the more worrying if you have employees or even family members involved in the business...

But even if you work alone, if your phone isn't ringing regularly with enquiries and jobs to price, you start to worry.
The bills still have to be paid, even when you're not busy.

Look, I'm not gonna tell you that we can solve all your problems.

We don't do miracles.
We can't end disease.
And we can't bring world peace.

But we can help your business to get a reliable, steady flow of new enquiries.

And we can help you to convert more of those enquiries to customers.

We can help you get word-of-mouth to happen more often - probably double it and more.

When you have all this, it allows you to choose the work you do, choose your customers and helps you increase your prices.

Want to chat or find out more?

Just message us from "Contact Us" button here on the page

Or give us a call on 01-4851177

29/10/2017

You're not gonna like this!

Well. Probably not...

Most small businesses are led to believe that if you do a great job or provide a great service, that's all you have to do.

A case of "Build it and they will come"... Remember the film Field of Dreams? The guy built a baseball stadium in the back end of no-where and hoped that customers would fall out of the sky....

You and I both know the business doesn't work like that.

But lots of tradesmen hope that doing good work is gonna create a good reputation - and word-of-mouth will bring all the work and customers that they need.

And that's great when it works like that.
When everything falls together for you and your phone rings because your details are passed along.

There's nothing like it.

It's free advertising and it makes you feel great that people think enough of you to refer you to their friends and family.

It's great when it's working...

but what happens when it's not? Or not working enough to keep you busy?

What do you do then?

Hope and pray for the phone to ring?

Advertise? ...Where?.... How? .... What?

I'm not religious, but even if I was, I wouldn't want to rely on hope and pray for business...

Hoping for the best rarely pays the bills!

How about advertising? So many choices. What will get you customers and what's the fastest way to get them?

Advertising is a thorny issue for many businesses.

Lots feel that it's a waste of time and money. And I completely understand that. It IS a complete waste of money for a lot of businesses.

I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't advertise. The opposite in fact. But no-one will show you how to do advertising properly...

Even the ad sales reps don't know - they're just selling the ad space and don't care what you put in it...
The truth is, they just don't know, because no-one's shown them either.

There's a type of advertising that does work for small business. It's quite different to the ads you see everywhere. It's almost a forgotten art because everyone tries to advertise like they're a big business.
They try brand advertising - because that's what everyone else does...

How to do advertising that works. Advertising that gets profitable results. That's part of what we help our members with.

A huge part of how we do for our members is helping them make word-of-mouth referrals work reliably for them.

And yet another piece of our membership is helping you convert more of your enquiries into paying customers.

And there a lot more than that.

We'll help you get more enquiries, convert enquiries to customers and make repeat and referred business happen a lot more.
All done to help you have a more profitable, more fun and less stressful business.

Why are we the only organisation that thinks this important?

We're the only ones who help tradesmen, builders and home improvement businesses, in Ireland, with the important work of getting more customers.

Interested in finding out more?

Click on the message button and get in touch, or call our office to talk to Adrian on 01-4851177.

Get in touch now and find out how you can make life a little easier for yourself.

And I'll put a link to our site in the comments below too.

Hope you have a great day.
Adrian

29/10/2017

The Sunday Sermon.

Okay. so who else forgot about the hour going back?
Who else got up at 7am thinking it was 8....

Got small kids? My littlest is 5,and she's an early bird. Had my good lady up at 5am this morning (thinking it was 6!
(btw, I offered to get up, but once she's wakened, she can't sleep again.I was up with her yesterday anyway - so I don't feel too bad!)

Sure, it's an hour extra in the day for us! An hour extra fun.

So what's happening today then?
Maybe it's 'Sore head Sunday'?

Anyone have a Halloween party last night? Our neighbours had their's last night.
The kids were over for 'Trick or Treat'.
Lots of scary little monsters!
All good.

And we had a truck run on our load last night too.
The Festival of lights.
It's for charity.
Maybe 100 trucks or more. All freshly polished.
Loads of lights.
Lots of the drivers have their families with them in the trucks.
The little kids love it.

My girls are 10 and 5. They loved it and we were only parked up at the side of the road to watch.

Air-horns galore!

Anyway. It's a chill out day in our house.
A late night for the girls, plus an extra early start, makes for two tired girls.
Plus a tired wife!

I'll keep my head down today.

Have a great weekend!
And stay safe.