More stories about Sales

• Strictly Business: Charging for Estimates

  Charging for estimates not an end in itself

• Letters

  More on payment schedules, painting over knots, affordable design catalog announced, “green” building vs. “healthy” building, followup on tool pretenders, flitch beam details

• Letters

  Differing viewpoints on sealing crawlspaces, NEC clarification, nuances of foreign-made tools, why clothes washers break trap seals

• Strictly Business: Limits to Growth

  Good reasons for resisting growth

• Strictly Business: Learning To Say "No"

  Turning down work without turning off prospective clients

• Letters

  Asphalt roof-over pros & cons, PT wood myths, preventing wood siding woes, lead paint caution

• Strictly Business: Rethinking Close-Rate Ratios

  Turning more leads into sales

• Notebook

  Heatway & Goodyear square off in radiant tubing failure, L-P adds money to siding settlement, Senergy leaves EIFS group, dangers of fluorescent lamps, wood stoves & Y2K, mold lawsuits in Calif., benefits of insulating attics

• Answers to Ten Tough Business Questions

  We asked a dozen builders and remodelers across the country about their experiences in starting and growing their businesses. Here is their wisdom, gleaned from the school of hard knocks, on everything from hiring and delegating to estimating and charging for design.

• Strictly Business: How Do You Spell REFERRAL?

  How to guarantee good referrals