By Mark Buckshon
President, Construction News and Report Group of Companies
This story will be both frustrating and enlightening for the smaller sub trade or general contractor trying to make a go of things. Ebrahim Desai of BW Services in Ottawa, Canada is himself not particularly skilled at any construction trade, yet he has managed to grow a business (with virtually no capital investment or debt) from virtually nothing to $1.3 million annual sales in about four years, and with a lifestyle that allows him plenty of vacation and family time (he works from his home).
How did he do it?
The essence is that Desai has always seen himself as a salesperson first and foremost. Of course he also needs to work with qualified tradespeople, and he has developed his own systems to quickly size up their competence and suitability, and retain their loyalty.
Now he has contracts with several major national businesses in Canada and is poised to grow the business in several directions including possibly larger projects or international expansion.
Desai said he started his business in the spring of 2001, with the goal of providing a graffiti removal services for Ottawa-area businesses.
“This was not a business I saw myself retiring in," he said. “This was a 36-year-old guy who decided he was going to open up a summer business, other than lawn mowing or painting in the suburbs."
Desai started out by finding a graffiti removal contractor who could do the actual work. He figured out the costs, and then drove around looking for places that could use his services.
For two months, he walked into stores and offices, asked to see the manager, and handed the employee a completed and totally unsolicited quote for graffiti removal services.
If you think this is daunting work – spending two months going to one store after another on what are truly cold calls -- you are right, but Desai only had to do this for a brief period.
The 100 initial calls resulted in 15 clients and a modest business of about $45,000 in sales for the year.
It also opened the door for repeat and additional business.
The people who needed graffiti removed at one location, needed other ‘handyman’ services minor repairs, tenant fit-ups, painting and fixing up, and other tasks that are both frustrating and difficult to administer and Desai took on the various jobs with commitment to quality.
Of course, he needed people to do the actual work. “There’s a lot of screening with the subtrades," he says. He wants to know their personality, lifestyle, the quality of their equipment, and the actual quality of their work."
“One subtrade asked in Sudbury asked me what it mattered what type and year of truck he owned," Desai said. “I told him that if he needed to be on a site at 8:00 a.m. one day, I didn’t want a situation where he couldn’t be there because his truck had broken down."
Desai also knows that smaller subtrades and suppliers need to be paid quickly, even though his clients (who now include some of the largest retail chains and organizations in Canada) can take 30 to 60 or more days to settle their bills.
As he worked on the small Ottawa jobs, he used his new contacts to gain introductions to regional and national construction managers, proposing to them that he could provide service across the country, to all the stores and locations, without the hassle of dealing with individual trades for smaller projects.
“I was on vacation in the Maritimes when I got a call to tackle several projects in that area," Desai said. “So I called around and met the subtrades in the hotel lobby, and set things up there." Now he has the capacity to provide service in more than 100 communities across Canada.
He says he obtained one of his largest national accounts – the Winners chain of stores – when one of his friends told him of a person who worked at the Bells Corners location and needed a small job done. “I called the construction manger, got the go ahead, and did the $800 job."
“Then I asked if there were other things to do – and ultimately they gave me the work across Canada.
Desai, of course, obtained a testimonial letter. “My experiences with BW Services have been very positive," wrote Frak Pannozzo, Director of Facilities for the Winners and HomeSense Group of Stores. “When called to perform the simplest serve call they have proved that they can have staff on site usually within the same day. If given an emergency situation whereby immediate services are required, they have in many cases had trades on site within an hour. BW Services is reliable and can be called on after hours and on weekends when required."
(Desai also hasn’t forgotten the friend who gave him the initial referral – he continues to give him some money as a ‘thank you’ for the business he brought him.)
Fortunately, as Desai’s business has grown, he has discovered contractors and subtrades able to handle larger volumes. In Ottawa, about half of his volume goes to Richard Masse of Omni Construction. The larger suppliers also help out in cash flow management – while Desai knows the smaller subs need to be paid right away, he can reasonably match the up-to-60-day payment terms of his larger clients with the larger subtrades.
Desai’s advice for other construction trades wishing to grow a bigger business: “Put down the hammer for a few weeks and spend your time building the business," he said. In other words, he advocates stepping away from the job, to the business of managing the business and finding new work (and suppliers).
“If you are going to build the business, say for the next two weeks, I’m not going to have revenue – I’m going to be out in the trenches, out making cold calls, my target is five leads a day, or whatever," he said.
Desai says in the future he may want to take on more substantial design-build work, find other major national clients, perhaps grow the business internationally, and maybe purchase an office/warehouse condominium and develop some additional lines of business.
Or, he says, he may take some time off and go to school for a Masters of Business Administration (he dropped out of college after six months).
His goal this year: Find one more national chain client wishing his company’s comprehensive service program.
But he says he wants to manage the growth and think about his priorities. He has a wife and four kids and wants to spend time with them.
And, if you think Desai has a perfectly wonderful life story and experience, consider this: “I’ve been divorced twice, and bankrupt twice," he told me.
(The first bankruptcy came when a partner bailed out of an earlier retail business, leaving him holding the bag with leases and no inventory the second resulted from one of his divorces.)
“Now I pay my trades, and I don’t want to use anyone else’s money. When you become comfortable using other people’s money, you get into debt."
And he knows now that starting work at 4 a.m. and working 18 hour days to build a business is not the best approach to maintaining a healthy personal life. “Now I’ve managed to step back a bit for family time."
Mark Buckshon is president of the Construction News and Report Group of Companies, which publishes regional construction industry trade newspapers in several U.S. and Canadian cities, and operates a network of approximately 100 regional websites. He can be reached by email at Buckshon@constructionnrgroup.com or by phone at 888-432-3555 ext 224.
