Welcome and thank you for visiting our website
At JDE & Associates we help contractors succeed. One reason we succeed is that we help contractors reduce the daily chaos often linked with contractors. This is accomplished using several methods; first we have multiple training options available to contractors. Our second option is through our consulting services – if you have a project with issues, we review both jobsite and office procedures to spot areas that creates these issues and suggests techniques to help resolve them. A better consulting option is for us to visit your office and jobsites before issues develop, offering suggestions to avoid issues before they develop. The payback for these consulting services before issues begin our often measured in weeks.
Contractors need to build a team that works efficiently together – Estimators, Project Managers, and Field Supervisors need to work in harmony with each other to help assure overall company success. This helps to build morale, efficiency and profits generally increase when this happens, every contractor should be striving to attain this goal. Sadly we are hired far too often to help mitigate a contractor’s loss because this team approach was not followed.
If you’re firm is not estimating projects where your chances of success are highest, you may be losing valuable resources needlessly. When you decide to estimate a project, the estimate needs to be completed as accurately as possible. The use of one of the many outstanding computer estimating systems can only increase your odds – it is a numbers game, being awarded a project, so we encourage contractors to bid project types that have worked best for them in the past. Taking advantage of every legitimate estimating tactic in your arsenal just makes sense; use your creative genius to beat your competition, nothing wrong or unethical about estimating to win. Utilize solid estimating techniques that many of your competitors will not bother to use or may not know, increases your odds of success. Have confidence that your estimated cost includes accurate material costs, the proper sales tax, labor costs, including accurate labor burden and current overhead that reflect your firm’s costs. Having confidence that these estimated costs are accurate allows your estimator to use the lowest profit percentage possible with confidence that the estimated costs are accurate. Regardless if your estimating manually or using one of the quality computer estimating systems available, you still need to understand how and why to structure an estimate in the manner that most computer estimating systems utilize.
If you’re firm is not estimating projects where your chances of success are highest, you may be losing valuable resources needlessly. When you decide to estimate a project, the estimate needs to be completed as accurately as possible. The use of one of the many outstanding computer estimating systems can only increase your odds – it is a numbers game, being awarded a project, so we encourage contractors to bid project types that have worked best for them in the past. Taking advantage of every legitimate estimating tactic in your arsenal just makes sense; use your creative genius to beat your competition, nothing wrong or unethical about estimating to win. Utilize solid estimating techniques that many of your competitors will not bother to use or may not know, increases your odds of success. Have confidence that your estimated cost includes accurate material costs, the proper sales tax, labor costs, including accurate labor burden and current overhead that reflect your firm’s costs. Having confidence that these estimated costs are accurate allows your estimator to use the lowest profit percentage possible with confidence that the estimated costs are accurate. Regardless if your estimating manually or using one of the quality computer estimating systems available, you still need to understand how and why to structure an estimate in the manner that most computer estimating systems utilize.
If you are reacting to calls from clients that have problems this is great reactive time and should be profitable. Many contractors have a tendency to be reactive in every stage of their business. items are often not completed when they should be to comply with a projects schedule. These items become emergencies that we as contractors created for ourselves. Stop, as the first type of reactive work we get paid for, the second costs us dearly and creates chaos in both our office and field. Contractors should have the means to know what their most important tasks are and work on that task until it is completed, or to a point where they are waiting on others to supply quotes or other information they need to finish.
The first type of reactive work we get paid for, the second costs us dearly and creates chaos in both our office and field. Contractors should have the means to know what their most important tasks are and work on that task until it is completed, or to a point where they are waiting on others to supply quotes or other information they need to finish.
This is true of everyone in your office from the CEO, to the project manager, to the estimator, to the purchasing agent, to the warehouse or driver and never forgets our field. Your field efforts are where all the good estimating, project management and field efforts produce our final profits. Every effort should be in place to meet or exceed estimated productivity levels.
An area that we believe most contractors spend the least amount of time, yet expect and receive their greatest return is our field. Many contractors when a new project is ready to start will pick the best available electrician and have that person become the supervisor for that project. We often give them a set of drawings, perhaps a copy of the projects specifications and tell them to call if they need anything. We spend little to no time explaining a projects schedule, the estimate, how a time sheet is to be filled out or even when to, or how to send these time cards into the office. This is backwards, as contractors we make our profits in the field, now the office can and should set up projects so that our field succeeds, we often fail to inform our supervisors of how we want them to run the project or what steps we may have taken in the office to help them succeed. We need to as an industry, work harder at training a key management player, our field supervisors so that the company as a whole has better success.
Starting over thirteen years ago, our efforts have revolved around contractor’s needs, based on contractor’s requests and our experience with many different contractors, large and small. Our aim is to increase efficiencies in contractor’s office as well as field efforts – these increases start with better estimating policies and techniques, followed closely with project management techniques that save time, increase efficiencies which serves to increase profits. We complete our offerings with field training to help our most valued and our least trained employees in completing not only the installation but in helping the office help the field to increase profits.
Our original intent was to target smaller contractors, those contractors that did not have many of these policies and techniques in place. Little did we know that many larger contractors were missing these same techniques themselves, today we enjoy a mix of small, medium and large contractors as clients. We have designed our classes so many of the techniques shown will help avoid some of these costly issues.
In our current economy contractors cannot afford to stick with techniques that are not working. Our industry changes continuously, sometimes faster than we can react. Are you taking advantage of current changes that may benefit your firm? Will you make the changes that spur growth in 2013 and beyond? An area that will be affected in your business is understanding your labor burden costs, these costs are likely to change significantly in 2013, are you prepared?
At JDE & Associates we have one purpose and that is to
help contractors succeed, we are good at making this happen.
We now have three primary classes, first is our Fundamental Estimating course, and next is our Contractors Guide for Success – Project Management, and last is our recently added Supervisor Training course to our online webinar classes.
We can often help contractors quickly, often on a trial webinar, our free webinar is not a sales gimmick,provide us with the email address to send the webinar invitation, a phone number, three different days and times when you will be available, please include what time zone your in and two or three questions that you need fixed. We will confirm which day and time we can schedule your demonstation, and will discuss your questions during our time. We do this on a one time basis per contractor, this is a method for us to show you how we teach.
We have helped many contractors, large, mid–sized and small, by returning to the basics and have helped many contractors estimating efforts more efficient, we may be able to help you as well. We do not endorse any computer estimating system, many outstanding commercially options are available. If you currently have a computer estimating system we will make it better, if you do not we will prepare you for the time that you interview companies with questions that help assure a long lasting fit for your estimating needs.
Our next class is our Contractors Guide for Success – Project Management, this six week course with one class per week provides simple techniques for issues that many contractors face repeatedly. A few good Computer Project Management Programs are available, again we do not endorse any of them, what we do in our class is show techniques that can help avoid the never ending chaos that often surrounds our Project Managers, these six weeks will change many managers ideas on how to better manage a project. For new Project Managers these six weeks often acts like a springboard for success.
Our third course is our recently added Supervisor Training course to our online webinar line of classes, as a contractor we often spend the least amount of time training our field supervisors why we need certain items to help them succeed. This course is a quick four week course, one class per week to help our field supervisors understand the need, while we are at it we provide techniques that will reduce their stress, the offices stress while maintaining, hopefully increasing profits.
Interested, but not sure if one of our classes is right for you or your firm? We offer one free one hour webinar per contractor to show what we have to offer, more importantly how we teach. This is not your normal sales call, this hour will be spent helping you with areas that are an issue for you and your firm. We sell classes, everyone knows, so instead of your typical sales presentation this time will be spent dealing with your issues or concerns. This offer is a one time offer per contractor. Use our Contact Us Page – just to the left or on the top of this web page, tell us what those concerns are, give us a few days and times when you can spare an hour. We will send you a confirmation on which day and time we can complete your webinar.
Estimating Courses
Would you like to be more confident in your estimating techniques? More confident in your accuracy and speed, we can help. In our thirteen years we have helped many contactors achieve these goals. We have time tested techniques, which are quick and accurate, regardless if you’re utilizing a computer estimating system or estimating manually. Many really great commercial computer estimating systems are available that are outstanding and we encourage our contractors to find the system that works best for them, our class will increase the systems effectiveness. Contractors need to understand how to structure an estimate; this understanding will compliment your computer estimating system, making it more powerful than it is when you first receive it.
Do you need more information, click on the following link regarding our Estimating Classes.
Fundamentals Estimating Home Study Courses,
Our tuition for this course is $2,170.00.
Contractors outside of the United States contact us for rates.
Please contact us for available class times before registering, to avoid delays starting your class.
Register today for our Fundamental Estimating Home Study Course
If you’re interested in our group fundamental estimating classes, we define what expertise level we will be addressing for each class, when advertised on our calendar. In a private setting with one – on – one instruction, we can adjust, based on an individual student’s ability and previous experience, knowledge and class performance. Regardless if you're a seasoned professional or a beginner estimator your efficiency will increase, with this increased efficiency your success also increases.
Look at our Calendar for upcoming Group Fundamental Estimating Courses.
Contrators Guide for Success
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Project Management Courses
Our mission statement is "we get to help people succeed!" 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 while increasing accuracy and profits.
Contractors would you like to increase your proactive time, while reducing reactive time that drains resources? Contracting is a reactive business – a client’s telephone call needing immediate help for a problem will create reactive time, while this is good reactive time we need a system to deal with these issues effectively. Contractors should be paid adequately for this type of reactive time. If your reactive time is caused because something was missed, creating an emergency, we have techniques that often help avoid this type of reactive time. All too often contractors dig themselves into a hole, because items that needed to be completed were not finished in a timely manner, becoming emergencies that cost resources. These resources need to be used positively – we can help reduce this issue.
Do you have goals for your family, your professional life, your business? Are your company’s sales and profits at levels you’re comfortable with or had you expected, perhaps wanted better results? Did your firm have sales goals for 2012 or did you just wait to see what came your way? Opportunities exist in today’s market, are they as good as previous years, probably not – however they do still exist. Contractors need to be aggressive in the manner they market their prospects, aggressive in how they estimate projects and aggressive in the manner they manage those projects to assure profits. Is 2013 looking good for your firm, will you continue having the same issues in 2013, that plagued your firm in 2012? If you want to make a positive change in 2013, now is the time for those changes.
How are you looking for work in today’s economy? Contractors that market their services in the same manner they marketed those same services 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 currently exist. Websites, newsletters and pin point marketing directed towards the clientele you want to attract does not need to be the straw that breaks your stride – a few pinpoint methods can help.
Contractor Guide for Success – Project Management was our second course after our fundamental electrical estimating course. The need for this course became apparent after a few of our estimating students began to estimate more accurate manner, resulting in more awarded projects. Lack of project management skills began to cause serious problems. It is possible to realize a profit on a project that has a faulty electrical estimate (depending on how faulty), with good project management skills. It is far more difficult to make a profit on a well estimated project that has been ineffectively managed. Our class will help contractors manage projects efficiently, will everything work for you, no probably not. What we will supply is a good platform to start managing project efficiently.
Our tuition for this course is $1,431.00 for our
Contractors Guide for Success – Project Management Home Study Course.
Do you need more information, click on the following link regarding our Home Study Contractors Guide for Success – Project Management classes.
Register today for our
Home Study Contractors Guide for Success –
Project Management Class
Supervisor Training Courses
Our newest online course, Supervisor Training is a quick four week class allowing your Field Supervisor to be the center of the instructor’s attention as it is only the instructor and your supervisor in the class. We will go over topics to help your Supervisor increase their efficiencies and reduce reactive time in the field, this reactive time is the most expensive as it creates expensive problems that reduces profits. We have been told that this class should be required for every supervisor in the field. While this is nice to hear, we believe this course should be attended by every field employee, perhaps in a group setting to start setting up our future supervisors and making our field electricians and apprentices more effective.
Do you need more information, click on the following link regarding our Supervisor Training Course.
Our tuition for this course is $874.00.
Contractors outside of the United States contact us for rates.
Please contact us for available class times before registering, to avoid delays starting your class.
If cash flow is a problem, but you want to attend one or more of our courses, contact us, we can arrange a payment plan.
New Consulting Options
Recently we have had several requests for a short online consultation from various contractors. Often we can address several issues in a two hour webinar. Now contractors can request one of these two hours consultations at a reduced rate so that they can see the results of our work at a cost less than an onsite visit. Each contractor can take advantage of two of these two hour webinar consultations. Our normal consulting rate is $225.00 per hour, for these initial two hour webinar consultations we charge $125.00 per hour.
We need you to provide a description of the issues you want to discuss, we suggest that you provide 3 or 4 items, we feel comfortable with estimating, project management or field questions and often can answer a few of your questions in our two hours. When providing your questions, please provide your most pressing issue first, as we will work off of your list when we talk. During our webinar we can change topics quickly, if you need us to, providing us your initial list allows us to have given some thought to your issues and to be prepared for your webinar.
Register today for our Two hour Webinar Consulting Service.
For Contractors that would like to purchase our Microsoft Excel and Word 2003 / 2010 Estimating or 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 our classes, and no discount for students who have purchased files that later want to enroll in our class 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.
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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