Toyota Recall Information

As we have all heard, Toyota recently had the largest manufacturer recall in history.  The recall involved the drivers side floor mat and the possibility of it jamming the accelerator pedal in a manner that was dangerous.  As a measure to shine the tarnished image of the auto manufacturer, Toyota has issued a press release stating that its dealerships will shorten the gas pedal of the affected vehicles and then later replace the pedal when it has a suitable replacement developed.

I know a lot of us drive Toyota vehicles or we have crews that man Toyota work trucks.  This is important information that needs to be addressed by you if you or your company uses these vehicles.  For more information view the official Totota press release.

An Excellent Educational Resource for CAD users

I began my CAD experience by begging information out of the guy that did all the CAD work in the office that I worked in.  He wanted to get a job done and teaching was not his forté.  He admitted that teaching was not his thing and that I was better off trying to learn on my own or take a class.  Of course he said that he would loan assistance if absolutely necessary, but our definitions differ and off to school I went.  I took an AutoCAD 101 class at the local technical school and many questions were answered and limited, productive work was able to be accomplished.  To reinforce the "Basics" of what I had learned, I turned to the Internet.  The Internet chat rooms/forums and our software package vendor site were helpful; however, they were not the best for the next step above "Basic" kind of CAD things, i.e. unique template creation, scale issues, symbol creation, etc.  This type of CAD development fell into support cases and additional costs would have been incurred.  So, a little time passed and I began to explore what Field to Finish could do to improve field collection to drawing processes from a land surveying perspective.  Instantly, I realized that Field to Finish could greatly improve drawing times and I wanted to learn more about how I could utilize it at my company.
 
One of the many CAD sites that I had run across was thatCADgirl.com.  Jennifer Dibona runs the thatCADgirl consulting business.  She has the ability to come to your site and custom build solutions; but, she also provides online resources, via her website, that can be a huge help.  The site has links to a schedule of many helpful Lunch N Learn sessions that are minumal in cost and usually will get NC CEU credits.  The website also has an entire page of links for useful information for Carlson products and AutoDesk products.  On one occasion, I had to do a late registration for a webinar and Jennifer accomodated my registration even though it was 8:30 PM the night before!  You get the feeling that she actually cares about what she does and who she is affecting.

I am no CAD expert, but I can manage my way around a dwg file.  It has taken several years to get to this point, a far cry from the office with the self proclaimed non teacher as CAD master.  However, I feel that anyone needing extra help or has a question that needs answered can draw on the expertise of thatCADgirl.  This resource helped me develop my Field to Finish presence in office and field procedures, which did end up saving 1-3 hours per job.  Please take the time to look at the site because I feel that it can be beneficial!

Education is super critical

I recently attended a Chamber of Commerce Leadership series event where I had a chance to have old words reiterated with statistical backing. Those words, in a nutshell, were get an education or be a laborer the rest of your life. It was shown through statistical data that there is a direct correlation between average salary amounts and levels of education. However, ALL levels of education needed to be improved in order to actually gain in overall education level for a regional area. This started at the pre-school level all the way through higher education. Data showed that the regions of the US that had the best educational opportunities, more often than not, attracted and maintained the new, emerging talent coming of age in today's workforce. This en turn boosts a regions overall standard of living and makes that area more attractive to business and development. The development helps to promote revenues for the region so further infrastructure and planning can take place to insure the growth and well being of the region. The educational opportunities that boosted economic growth that brought development is all cyclical and beneficial to everyone in a region.

If thought about correctly, it comes down to everyone trying to better their personal education while promoting the education of others. This can mean CEU (Continuing Education Units) or obtaining another degree or certification AND it means encouraging children to better themselves by trying hard in school and then instilling in them the importance of further education. Further education is learning more about a subject. That can be improving your skill set within a trade or attending a certification program for a particular industry; anything that can help improve your knowledge set whereby helping to improve something else is further education. At the same time, stats showed that people with higher educational levels had lower unemployment. The highest unemployed group were people with high school diplomas or less and in direct contrast, the lowest unemployed group were 4-year degree college graduates. The correlations between education level and overall employment numbers and regional prosperity are uncanny. If anything can be said, it is that focus on education throughout the life cycle is important for the well being and growth of not just one's self, but an entire region.

The Greenville Chamber of Commerce's Fifth Leadership Series with the help of the Greenville News has been made available online. This is a link to the entire presentation by three speakers.  (Click the On-Demand option and go ahead and fast forward to about minute 24, if not it starts by default near the end of the presentation.) The speakers included Ted Abernathy of the Southern Grown Policies Board, Dr. Bruce Yandle of Clemson University College of Business and Behavior Science and Carol Coletta from CEO for Cities. Each speaker had unique information and stats to share that help to really show the relationships between education and regional/city prosperity.

All of this can be tied in with helping your company. The first improvements can be self education from the top leadership in the company. Their is no better way to lead than by good example. Pursue ways to improve overall knowledge about a certain market segment that your company currently operates in or is looking to expand into. Be involved in community events and organizations in order to be educated on what is going on outside of your immediate company realm. Then, expand that to your employee base. Having employees that know their company cares enough to keep them trained on the latest trends and tricks will be beneficial in retaining the those employees. The more an employee feels that they are getting from a company, the more willing they will be to work hard for that company and stay with that company. The benefits are two-fold here. First, people are furthering their education and secondly, the company is keeping training cost and employee turn over cost at a minimum. And both of these effects have a direct, positive influence on our community. Not only in our cities, but that also spreads out into the regions that we reside.

Laser Scanning Webinars - from POB

Here are two webinars that promote products but also give a good idea of what to expect from laser scanning. This has some sales/marketing talk, but is also full of great information if you are researching laser scanning ideas or opportunities.


Webinars - Point of Beginning

Real Estate Made Easy/Land Surveying and the land owner - Life - The Phoenix

This is a great article that I found from a Pennsylvania newspaper. It does an exceptional job of explaining why a homeowner NEEDS to get a land survey.


Real Estate Made Easy /Land Surveying and the land owner - Life - The Phoenix

Selling services effectively

When someone calls into your land surveying/engineering firm and asks for a price, is that what you give them and that's it? Well if this is all you can give, then it is no wonder that your company's sales may be less than spectacular!

The initial phone call for a quote is the first opportunity to start to build a relationship! When selling land surveying or engineering services, as a service provider, we have to determine what the needs of the potential client are and what circumstances might adhere to their particular situation. Tell the potential client that you will be happy to provide a quote for services, but in order to provide as accurate a quote as possible, some additional questions need to be asked. The potential client will be impressed that you care enough to spend some of your time to get pertinent information concerning their situation. Now, with your experience in your particular field, begin to ask questions that will help determine exactly what the potential client is needing. Armed with this added information about the potential clients situation, you are more easily able to formulate a plan of attack for the potential job and therefore you are able to more accurately provide a price quote for services. At the same time, you may be able to uncover potential for additional work relating to the clients current situation or future needs. Regardless, you have, A) taken the time to engage a potential client about their needs thereby laying the foundation for a relationship AND B) you are able to have a clearer understanding of the potential clients particular situation and you can provide a much more accurate price quote. Even if the client does not go with your bid, I guarantee that the potential client will not have anything negative to pass along about your company. A potential client is much more likely to appreciate the extra time that you took to understand their situation and then take that positive experience and pass it along to their friends and colleagues. As the old adage goes, good news spreads fast, but bad news spreads even faster and has negative repercussions.

Remember that selling services is about developing relationships. Take time to engage a potential client about their particular needs. You may not get every job this way, but you will begin to build a reputation of actually caring about your clients which will help develop relationships and that will go a long way to winning business in the future. Its all about the sales and if they are not available, then your job won't be either!

Back to User Groups

I had previously mentioned the benefit of User groups to help build a network and expand business and contacts. Well I like to practice what I preach, and I stepped from the virtual world back into the real world. I heard about a Facilities Management trade show in the Greenville, SC area that was partnering with the premier facilities manager user group, the Association for Facilities Engineering. This blended well with the hype being stirred up in the engineering and land surveyors world's right now about BIM or Building Information Management. Where better to go and see if building management is really a concern than a Facilities Management trade show?

Well, after viewing several presentations and hearing the general questions and feedback from other attendees, it seems that Facility Managers have a definite concern with knowing where things are within their facilities. Things of concern can be anything from chilling towers and their associated pipelines and valves to where are fire sensors and fire extinguishers located throughout the corporate campus. Knowing where things are can greatly reduce stress and cost at critical moments! Hearing this information helped to reinforce what I had just read in POB magazine concerning BIM(that's another thing, subscribe or regularly acquire your industry's trade magazines to keep abreast of industry buzz!) Another person that I met at the show was Randi Handshoe with Penrod Services. His company does outsourcing for CAD work, but he also does building documentation. He had a great seminar session where he discussed why having your building documented can be so important. After which we spoke and exchanged some great business ideas about how we could benefit each others businesses.

From just this one event, I was able to gain considerable knowledge on a subject that I did not know much about (BIM) and network with some people in my area in order to help our businesses. This is one example of how User groups benefited me, so go out and regularly attend or participate in real world and virtual User group sessions. That may be the thing that keeps your business alive the next time the economy takes a downward turn.