Greetings!
 Welcome to our newsletter. The past few months we've made a lot of changes in our business model, and we've expanded our area served to worldwide. Right now we are doing work in Australia, and are looking to jobs in Haiti and Canada. The aim of this newsletter is to keep you informed of what we are doing, and more importantly, bring subjects of interest to you.
Sincerely,
George W. Runkle P.E.
Runkle Consulting Inc.
678-225-4900
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Where Are We Today?
Today we doing projects across the country and working our way into international work slowly. I have some small projects in Australia and I'm working on getting projects in Canada. Most of our work in that area is building structures from shipping containers. We also are deep into modular construction, and architectural metal (such as curtain walls, windows, and so on) for a couple of different companies. Things have changed very rapidly in three years.  | | Our First Container Building Design |
At his time in 2007, we were doing residential design in the Atlanta area. Business was down (it was actually horrible), but I thought it was temporary. Every economist I listened to said things would turn around in "six months or so". I had no idea things would get so bad. By January of 2008, it was obvious serious changes had to be made. The first step was painful - I cut back to just myself. If I didn't do that, the company would not survive, I felt horrible for about a week after I did that, but I had no doubt as to what had to be done. The next step was to look at how to get what little business there was. I started advertising on Google to try to pickup some foundation investigations, which worked for a while. The big change came in June of 2008, although I didn't know it at the time. I had just experienced a miserable failure at trying to partner with some people in a different venture, and I was kind of confused as to what to do next. I knew my website had to be redone, it was a disaster, but what would I focus on?
One day that June I got a phone call from a man who was terribly enthused about shipping container buildings. He'd seen the container house we worked on in Atlanta on our website. That house didn't seem like a big deal to me at the time we did the design (2006). It was an infinitesimal slice of our revenue, and I'd built with shipping containers in Uzbekistan in 2003 when the Air Force called me to active duty for an extended all expense paid trip to Hell. Containers seemed interesting, but they didn't make a big impression on me.
A light bulb lit in my head. What was there to lose by putting some effort into coming up with design methods for container buildings and marketing it? The only cost would be some time, and I had lots of that (unfortunately). Things started slowly, and at times I wasn't sure whether my effort would pay off other than keeping me from wasting the day watching TV and waiting for the phone to ring. It was a good thing too, in August of 2008 I had no work, no backlog, and the only calls I got were from phone solicitors.
I used to visit Container Technology in Morrow, GA, and we would joke about whether I'd really get some work out of this. The jobs started to materialize very slowly, but looking back, there was definitely a momentum building. At this very moment I'm working on 4 container projects (one in Connecticut, one in West Virginia, and two in Australia) I have proposals due on four others (three in Atlanta, and one in Canada). I did a design for the Virgin Islands, and we're looking at more work there. I'm waiting on a client to send me some work in Haiti. Can you believe this happened in two years? .
What made this work was the Internet. In my father's day, he built up his engineering firm by referrals. His company was involved in school construction in Maryland. The market changed, school construction disappeared, and he never was able to expand quickly enough to other areas. The process of referrals takes years.
Today, the Internet allows me to pick up business without waiting for the slow process of customers referring me. Where we are at today in shipping containers would take 5 to 10 years to accomplish, but instead it took 2. This issue will focus on the Internet and how it can save you.
I'm rather stunned on how business has developed, and I didn't realize it was happening, it's just as I am sitting here writing about it I realize just how much has changed. Hopefully we can continue to make the right moves, and the economy will continue to improve. We will continue our changes, but one thing won't change - our desire to provide you with the best structural engineering you can get anywhere for whatever your project is, and wherever you build it.
George
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About Runkle Consulting Inc.
Runkle Consulting Inc. is a structural engineering firm that specializes in buildings made from recycled shipping containers, modular construction, and structural design for architectural metal products.
Runkle Consulting Inc.
P.O. Box 702
Grayson, Georgia 30017
678-225-4900 |
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The Internet And Your Business
The Internet has leveled the playing field for so many of us, the traditional methods of building businesses can't compete. However, you have to adapt yourself to this new medium. First, do you have a website? It must do more than list your business and phone number. It must tell people why your business is better than your competitors'. Provide information to your potential clients, it keeps them on your site and starts a relationship with them. A blog helps also, but there is a danger. It's a bit too easy to post, and if you put something up after a bad day, it can make you look like an idiot to the entire world in seconds. Be careful what you post. A lot of people blog by putting in links to other articles. I don't understand the purpose of that. I can find what I want in Google, why should I go to yoru blog for that? Blog about your business, what you see, and provide helpful hints. Another area is social media. Twitter and Facebook. I have to admit, I don't understand the point of Twitter, but Facebook is pretty good I think (I am still experimenting with it). Right now I use it as a mini-blog to build a relationship with my clients and potential clients. When I was stuck in Hurricane Earl in the Virgin Islands, I posted videos of the hurricane. I post about jobs I am finishing, and ones I get. It helps people to know me and my company. Just be careful with it, I see people post stuff that is a little Too Much Information for the rest of us. Finally, look at newsletters. I started this one by mailing it, but the list got too long, and the mailing and printing costs got out of hand. I switched to sending the newsletter in PDF format, but that fills people's boxes with space consuming junk. I then went to sending links to my website where they could download the newsletter. That seemed OK, but it took a bit too many steps, and I need to stay compliant with the CanSpam act. So, I am experimenting with Constant Contact. This is my first issue using it. Newsletters are good, they build relationships and keep your clients informed. In these times it is also important to let your clients know you are still in business. For more information on building a website, check out this section on my website for helpful information from my own experience: Building A Website.
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