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The computer can also help you to generate leads, analyze your prior customers’ demographic patterns, create promotional materials, and run and measure direct mail campaigns. While all of these things sound helpful, they also sound difficult. The fact is, that they are not too difficult. While no one expects the average builder to have the direct marketing savvy of LL Bean, a little thought about your products and customers can go a long way toward generating useful leads.

What Your Computer Won’t Do

While there are many ways that a computer can help you to run your business more efficiently, computers should not be viewed as more than the business tools that they are. For some reason, computers have been viewed by many as almost mystical beings that can do no wrong. How many times have you heard someone say, "the computer says...so it must be right"?

Staying on Schedule

The construction process contains many moving parts. Many of the tasks involved in building or remodeling a home are dependent on the completion of previous tasks. For example, you must dig your foundation hole before you pour the foundation, and you must have the foundation inspected before you backfill. While these may be simple concepts to the experienced builder, there are so many interdependencies in construction that they are almost impossible to manage "in your head".

The Tools You Can’t Afford Not To Have

We have seen many ways in which the computer can add speed, accuracy, professionalism, and most important, profit to your company. However, the most recent surveys, and even just a quick look at the competition shows that most of us have not taken full advantage of the tools available to us. I would like to argue that as business people we can’t afford not to have a computer. We do need the benefits, the structure and the professionalism that computers bring. Further, a simple mathematical analysis will show how quickly these tools pay for themselves, and more.

Cover The Basics

When people get new computers they often tend to want to get fancy. They want the hottest new program with thousands of features (most of which they’ll never use). Later these people find themselves frustrated with the difficulty of using the programs they have bought, and decide that "computers are just too hard to use". Computers are as easy to use as the software you put on them. It’s as simple as that. The computer itself just processes the requests from the user and the programs it run. With that in mind, my suggestion is to start with the basics and move to advanced programs as your comfort level increases.