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Jack Miller Network Blog – By: Bill Craft

In January I once again traveled to Orlando, Florida to attend the 3-day annual meetings of the Jack Miller Network.  James CRAFT & Son is a proud member of this elite organization of over 700construction industry firms from throughout the U.S. and Canada. At its heart is the philosophy of“Win-Win Sharing”.  Network members gather to trade their successes and failures without boast or shame, opening up to one another every aspect of their businesses, from financial and marketing programs to safety and management strategies.

As a long time attendee of these annual meetings I have the distinct privilege of running the following 3 Focus Groups for the organization where I facilitate meaningful discussion among those in the room…

Starting a Service Department – helping other companies understand the framework of a good Service Department by outlining the necessary components to ensure good customer service and provide templates for important forms and documents. Over the years we’ve been able to help a number of network members get their own service departments started. This year 9 new companies attended.

Client Relationship Management – everyone practices “Client Relationship Management” in some form or another, but processes and implementation vary widely among contractors. In this group we explore what tools and processes contractors use to manage our most important asset, our customers.

Here I am leading the CRM Focus Group…we had 27 attendees for this one.

Developing the Leader within You – being a leader in a successful and growing construction company takes guts, courage and charisma! This group discusses proven techniques that have worked for great leaders of the past. It also looks at the “human dynamics” involved with leading people and motivating co-workers toward successful teamwork.

This is the “Leadership” Focus Group (my favorite one) where we had 20 attendees this year.

Two days of various Focus Group classes are followed by a 3rd day of “Roundtable Discussions” on specific job related topics.  These are always good because the discussions are more intimate with a smaller group of people.

I participated in the Marketing & Sales related Peer Group this year.

At the beginning of the 3rd day everyone gathers for some comments from Mr. Jack Miller himself, as well as some annual awards that Jack announces and distributes.

This year I was honored to accept the award for “Outstanding Contributor” – voted such for the 17th time by the members.