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Dec 2, 2024 | 
prosalesmagazine.com | Todd Drummond
It appears I may have opened a can of worms with my last article, “A Case Study for Transforming Profits Through Employment Practices.” The article was a summary of the session I led at the Building Components Manufacturers Conference (BCMC), “Case Study —Building Material Supply & Truss Manufacturing.” The article mentioned that the equipment and employment practices of some roof truss truss component manufacturers (CM) are not the wisest.
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Nov 11, 2024 | 
prosalesmagazine.com | Todd Drummond
The following is a summary of the seminar I gave at this year’s Building Component Manufacturers Conference (BCMC) on October 8th, 2024. If your mind is open, I am handing you pure gold to help your company meet the challenges negatively affecting everyone now and in the coming years. Case Study —Building Material Supply & Truss ManufacturingEmployee staffing and cost issues will impact net profits.
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Sep 30, 2024 | 
prosalesmagazine.com | Todd Drummond
Automation within the building industry has been ongoing for decades but at a slower pace than other industries. So, what do we mean by automation? Let’s focus on two types: automation for building estimation and automation for roof truss manufacturing. Both will be discussed at the Building Component Manufacturers Conference (BCMC) on October 7–11 in Milwaukee, Wis.
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Sep 2, 2024 | 
prosalesmagazine.com | Todd Drummond
Millions of dollars are being lost by many companies that don’t recognize they have a problem. Does your LBM company have more than $50 million combined sales? Quantified as a ratio of sales, according to Six Sigma case studies, the cost of poor quality—defined as waste, inefficiencies, and defects—can be as low as 5% to as high as 40% of sales. Most companies' average loss from inefficiencies is about 20% of sales.
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Jul 29, 2024 | 
prosalesmagazine.com | Todd Drummond
What was widely expected has finally happened. Years of very profitable high sales led to vast increases in capacity to meet that demand, but now we have declining sales volume—the classic too much supply versus not enough demand to maintain margins. Some like to call this margin compression, while others see it as lowering prices to keep paying the bills. Suddenly, what was considered safe or reliable customers are now offered attractive quotes from your competitors.
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Jun 3, 2024 | 
prosalesmagazine.com | Todd Drummond
If you are a manufacturer who desires high efficiency with high-quality products and services for your customers, then you know you need good employees to deliver them. Many claim that employees are the most important part of their business. So, it should not be a shock that poor productivity and quality issues are caused by too few employees and too many new employees. How can a company be at its most productive when constantly hiring and training new employees?
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Apr 29, 2024 | 
prosalesmagazine.com | Todd Drummond
Too many get caught up in believing that any additional pay to employees is inherently costing the company more money and should be avoided at every turn. If you believe this is the case, there is something you are overlooking. What may be lost is that when the total volume (productivity and sales) is increased, the added gross margin dollars to the company’s daily intake should far outweigh any perceived increased wage or bonus payout.
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Apr 1, 2024 | 
prosalesmagazine.com | Todd Drummond
Every generation has to learn the same lesson: the stove is hot. Each generation has to learn all the life lessons either through their own mistakes or the counseling of the older generation. The vast majority of us wish not to repeat the same mistakes and, if possible, avoid them altogether. If you wish to avoid embarrassment, whether you are new to being an employee or in a management position, hopefully, you can learn some important life lessons from the older generations’ counsel.
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Jan 29, 2024 | 
prosalesmagazine.com | Todd Drummond
The winter months are normally the time to make changes to your processes within your area of influence. Depending on how your company is structured for decision-making, your influence and actions to stay competitive in the face of ever-increasing challenges will determine the long-term viability of your company and your individual career. What has been true for decades will no longer remain the same whether or not you embrace the changes.
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Jan 8, 2024 | 
prosalesmagazine.com | Todd Drummond
Continuous Improvement (Kaizen) for Enhancing Performance to Ensure ROI Retention, is a natural lead-in to Poka-Yoke. In lean terminology, roughly translated from Japanese, Poka-Yoke means to mistake-proof the process. A more accurate translation could be "inadvertent error prevention." In a nutshell, one tries to make any process bulletproof so that inadvertent errors are not created because the system process is simplified and does not allow for mistakes (or is "idiot-proof").
