Construction Business Basics is a live, classroom-based program. That might seem a little old-school in this digital age where remote communication seems like the answer to everything. There are a few good reasons for it though.
This is interactive: Your questions have as much to do with learning as all the prepared presentations and exercises. The best way to get you an answer is if you can talk it through.
You, and your peers bring a lot of knowledge: If you have spent any time at events attended by other contractors you already know how much you can learn from each other. That kind of exchange isn’t going to happen when everyone is sitting at their own computer terminal.
It’s quicker: If that claim sounds a bit radical ask yourself this question: How would you rather get an answer to any complex technical question? Ask an expert in the same room? Or go look it up in the manual?
All of this doesn’t make it the easiest way to go. You have to commit the time, and we know you don’t have much of that to spare. In the end though, we do believe this is the best way to use your time.
You might wonder about being in a class with other contractors. Are they sizing you up, making judgments? Are they competitors? Can you talk freely among strangers in the same industry? Those concerns are understandable, and up to a point they are even healthy. You don’t want to step into any group voicing your anxieties and talking about your weaknesses. So you should understand a few things.
- No one attending a course is ever asked to reveal details of their business. As you get comfortable with the people in the group you will likely find that you are eager to share common experience. But what you share and what you say will always be your choice to make.
- Like others in your course, you have chosen to get better at a difficult, frustrating part of running a business. That sets you in a pretty exclusive group. Not because you’re at our course, but because you have the vision and the objectivity to do something where others only complain. Whatever their trade, your classmates are your partners in elevating the professionalism of the industry. Your real competition lies among the part-timers and the unskilled who aren’t committed to their industry. They aren’t likely to be in the room with you because they don’t take this kind of course.
- Even so, you should be aware that the average class size is 10 individuals. With 40 thousand operators in the various building and construction trades in Ontario the odds are slim that the 10 people sharing your class will include someone from your trade, your business region or your range of service.