Happy New Year,
Welcome to our website.
Are you happy with your results for 2011, are you prepared for 2012, personally, for your family, for your business? We are happy with 2011and can see that 2012 will be even better. Our 2012 success started last September and looks promising, our goals are set and realistic.
Do you have goals for your family, your professional life, your business? Are your sales and profits at levels you’re comfortable with or had you expected more? Did your firm have sales goals for 2011 or did you just wait to see what came your way? Opportunities do exist in today’s market, are they as good as several years ago, probably not,
–
however they do still exist.
We can help regardless if you are an experienced professional or beginning your
estimating or project management career.
Contractors need to be aggressive in the manner they market these prospects, aggressive in how they estimate them and aggressive in the manner they manage their projects to assure profits. Are you ready for 2012, or will you repeat the same results as 2011? If you want to make positive change for 2012 now is the time for those changes.
How are you looking for work in today’s economy? Contractors that market in the same manner they marketed three or four years ago are generally not having great success. You do not need to wonder why your results are lagging, change how you are looking for and marketing new leads. Look outside of the box and find opportunities that do currently exist. Websites, newsletters and pin point marketing directed towards the clientele you want to help.
Contractors estimating techniques that are accurate, consistent and quick will help. Included in your estimates, your costs need to be correct while being formatted in a manner that aids your estimating during the estimating process and project management processes when awarded a project. Project management techniques should be implemented that helps your team complete projects in as quick and efficient a manner as possible, being able to increase profits, beyond the levels expected on the original estimate. Both estimating and project management methods need to be absolutely automatic, consistent and accurate.
Our mission statement is, we get to help people succeed! We believe this statement, our classes are designed to help with consistent and quick processes. Whether the topic is estimating or project management we fall back on the basics to help contractors reduce stress, increased accuracy and profits. We want contractors to improve their percentage of proactive time during their day versus reactive time that currently drains resources. Contracting is a reactive business, we want our clients to realize that a phone call from a client needing immediate help for a problem will create reactive time for them, and this is good reactive time. Contractors get paid for this type of reactive time. We help contractors avoid as much reactive time as possible, that is a result of not completing tasks on time, all too often we work with contractors that have dug themselves into a hole because items that needed to be completed and had not, becomes emergencies that cost resources that could be better used in other areas.
An important technique in our estimating structure is breakouts for bidding and future management purposes, we see quite a few estimators that do not utilize this and wonder why. Breaking out an estimate into small sections can increase an estimator’s speed, will almost certainly increase their accuracy and for projects awarded, these breakouts provide your firm a jump start on managing projects efficiently. We look at breakouts as the gift that just keeps giving, pay for it once on the initial estimate and take advantage of it in the final review (before the bid is released), then jump start your firms management of awarded projects.
Working with contractors, large and small that want to improve on estimating and/or project management techniques. A question that we ask when consulting with a contractor is to see their last 5 or 6 estimates; some show them while others do not. A surprising number that do show them have no consistency between estimates. We know this to be a problem as the estimator themselves have difficulty remembering what they did for a particular job, after the fact. Many reviewers have difficulty reviewing estimates as the estimating methods change from estimate to estimate. We know our estimating methods increases consistency, accuracy, while also increasing competitiveness all with the side benefit of reducing stress and uncertainty. Take a look at the estimating home page to get more details on our fundamental estimating training; classes are designed to help contractors immediately. Regardless if you are just starting your estimating career or are an experienced estimator that just needs a tune up, perhaps a new technique or two.
Go to our Courses Page and then to our
Electrical Estimating Page for more information on our estimating class.
Once a project is awarded, it is time to start the management side of the project. If you have a perfect estimate, this dream is seldom realized, and do not manage your projects aggressively the chance of making a profit are reduced. Projects must be, in our opinion, aggressively managed from the very start. Construction projects vary from project to project, however the methods of managing a project should be systematic and automatic. We believe in scheduling a project from the start, without a good idea on when you are expected to complete a task, managing that project may be difficult. A schedule from the general contractor or owner simplifies matters as we then have a document indicating what is expected of our firm. We stress the importance of rolling schedules, the first completed during a kick off meeting before a job starts. This first rolling schedule can be completed jointly by a project manager and field supervisor. Each week the supervisor updates this schedule which will help them determine materials, labor and tool that will be needed weeks ahead of time. These rolling schedules also allow for any questions to be asked prior to needing the information which allows for a steady construction flow. Construction schedules makes purchasing materials easier, whether quoted or commodity, as your office will have more time to purchase and receive the items in a more cost efficient manner.
Tracking your labor used versus the completed percentage is an area that many contractors ignore until it is too late to make changes. These early changes will make a project run smoother while hopefully increasing profits. At all times a Project Manager should keep all parties updated in a timely manner.
Contact us utilizing our contact page. We offer a FREE one–time, one hour telephone call and webinar where we will help you with your needs or areas of concern. Our discussion will be based on your questions, not our classes. Everyone knows that we provide classes, and this offer is to show you how we present our materials. We will only contact you once unless you contact us again in the future. Contact us via our contact us page and ask us for this free call, we will need a few items to accomplish this, your phone number, your email address and a couple of days and times when you could take the time to receive this offer. We will try to accommodate your request and send you an email confirming a date and time or offering you an alternate day and time if your preferred time does not work with our schedule.
Tuition for our Home Study Fundamental Estimating Course is $1,990.00.
Contractors outside of the United States contact us for rates.
Register today for our
Home Study Fundamental Estimating Class
push the button below to start registration.
For Contractors that would like to enroll in our Home Study Fundamental Estimating Class, however may be struggling with the cost of the class, we have started to take payments. We start with a fifty percent payment which gets the class mateirals sent and the classes started. One month later studnets send another twenty five percent payment and a month after that the final twenty five percent is due. This allows our contractors to take the class and begin to realize some benefit while paying for the class.
Should a payment not be made on time classes would stop until a reinstatement fee and the missed payment is paid.
Contact us for the details to this offer, the class could change the way you do business, in a positive manner.
For Contractors that would like to purchase our
Microsoft Excel and Word
Estimating Files without attending classes
While these files are very good, in fact the same files that we use for actual projects, they are not a substitute for any class, and no discount for students who have purchased files that later want to enroll in our classes will be provided.
Contractors Guide for Success – Project Management
Our Contractors Guide for Success Course is every bit as important as our fundamental estimating course – some might say it is more important. Many reasons for this exists, an estimate while critically important, is still most often the work of one individual, an estimators taking off a set of drawings and then determining what their opinion is of the costs associated with that project. Many people are good quantity surveyors but few are actually estimators as many do not actually build the project in their heads as they are taking the project off of a set of construction drawings. Our estimating class works at changing this and getting the feel of a project into the equation. Project management techniques are vastly broader and depending on each firms method can differ significantly from firm to firm.
Our approach is different than most other classes – we hold a series of six classes we will cover the topics below in the project management list at the bottom of this page. These topics if applied to your day to day activities can increase both the accuracy and volume you get done in a normal day. They can also reduce the amount of items that often seem to be forgotten until they become an emergency. We work to get the most important tasks completed when they need to be completed. A tremendous amount of money and time is lost because these tasks seem to become emergencies all too often; the following is a list of some of the more important topics we explore in class.
Once a project is secured and an award has been made it is time to start the management side of the project. If you have a perfect estimate, this is a dream seldom realized, and do not manage your projects aggressively the chance of making a profit are reduced. Projects must be, in our opinion, aggressively managed from the very start of a project. Construction projects vary from project to project, however the methods of managing a project should be systematic and automatic. We believe in scheduling a project from the start, without a good idea on when you are expected to complete a task, managing that project may be difficult. A schedule from the general contractor or owner simplifies matters as we then have a document indicating what is expected of our firm. We stress the importance of rolling schedules, the first completed during a kick off meeting, before a job starts. This first rolling schedule can be completed jointly by a Project Manager and the field supervisor. Each week the supervisor updates this schedule which will help them determine materials, labor and tool that will be needed weeks ahead of time. These look ahead schedules also allow for any questions to be asked prior to the lack of information stopping the flow of the project. Construction schedules makes purchasing materials easier, whether quoted or commodity, as your shop will have more time to purchase and receive the items in a more cost efficient manner.
Tracking your labor used versus the completed percentage is an area that many contractors ignore until it is too late to make changes. These early changes will make a project run smoother while hopefully increasing profits. At all times a Project Manager should keep all parties updated in a timely manner. Go to our Courses Page and then to our Project Management Page for more information on this class.
Go to our Courses Page and then to our Project Management Page for more information on this class.
Register today for our Home Study Contractors Guide for Success – Project Management Class.
Tuition for our Home Study Contractors Guide for Success – Project Management Class is $1,445.00.
This is for contractors in the United States. Contractors outside of the United States contact us for rates.
For Contractors that would like to enroll in our Contractors Guide for Success Class, however may be struggling with the cost of the class, we have started to take payments. We start with a fifty percent payment which gets the class mateirals sent and the classes started. One month later studnets send another fifty percent payment. This allows our contractors to take the class and begin to realize some benefit while paying for the it.
Should a payment not be made on time classes would stop until a reinstatement fee and the missed payment is paid.
Contact us for the details to this offer, the class could change the way you do business, in a positive manner.
For Contractors that would like to purchase our Microsoft Excel and Word
Contractors Guide for Success – Project Management Files without attending classes
While these files are very good, in fact the same files that we use for actual projects, they are not a substitute for any class, and no discount for students who have purchased files that later want to enroll in our classes will be provided.
Classes are scheduled frequently. Do you need a different location, days, or class hours? Send us a request and we will make are best attempt to make your request happen. Are you the type that prefers home study classes? We will attempt to accommodate you.
At JDE & Associates we get to help people succeed thru estimating, project management training and consulting opportunities that are designed to reduce stress while increasing profits. A additional service that we provide is internet protection. The best offense is a good defense; we want to share a defense that we use at JDE & Associates. Productivity in contractors offices is a key to costs control while maximizing your company’s revenue. Every minute spent off task is negatively affecting your bottom line. Every minute your staff is aimlessly browsing the internet or chatting with friends affects your bottom line. On the positive side the internet is a bonus as it provides a wealth of instant information. On the negative side it can be a huge distraction for your staff. Employees are wasting valuable company time by surfing inappropriate web sites (Adult websites. facebook, shopping, sports, MySpace, auctions, the list is endless), talking to friends or spouses via online chat, downloading illegal software and music and a multitude of other time wasting activities. We have developed a quick, easy service that will help eliminate or greatly reduce this waste of company time. Continue to our services section to read more.
On a personal note, do you or one of your employees have children who may be abusing the internet? Are your children being abused on the Internet? Are they constantly on the Net? This very same technology will severely restrict their access, without them knowing they are restricted. Allow you to absolutely monitor their internet activity, even if they delete their computers history, you would be able to see where they have been, who they have talked to. Allow internet access at predetermined times automatically? This service is affordable, permanent and allows for constant help from technicians in the United States, Not India! Protection in most cases is less than a week away, in some cases less.
Do you have questions regarding our classes or services? Utilize our Contact Us Page and ask your questions, we will respond generally within twenty-four hours.
Project ManagementThese following topics are covered in this class;
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Electrical EstimatingThese following topics are covered in this class;
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