I was thinking about what people want in a construction scaffolding system.  My first thought is that no one is really thinking about a construction scaffolding system, but they do probably think of how much time and energy is wasted using pump jacks that are slow and unreliable.  You can't lift all that much weight on them.  They are a pain to set up on a house.  You get tired out pumping up that darned wall.   

When you think about going out and renting one of those giant Genie Lift Systems or a scissor lift, you are talking about paying between $2500 and $3500 per month just to rent it.  Or you can go out and spend $20K on a used one, but then you get stuck maintaining it.  Another factor is that you can't take one of those systems on every jobsite, so not only does it cost you a bundle to own or even rent, you can't even use it when you probably want it the most! 

So now we are going to make it way too easy. 

I have been talking for the past month about what the Power Pole Solution can do for you.  You can set it up in minutes, it can lift 1000lbs per pair just by pressing a button (it is motored by 1/2" drills), all for a fraction of the cost of the Genie's you can rent from places like United Rental.  (Actually, if you do want to go above 24' high, you do have to tie in to the roof with the roof bracket, but then you can go to 50'!).   

But now we are making it a complete no-brainer. 

We just announced a financing program in which you can get an approval for credit to buy between $5K and $75K in Power Poles, the Power Latch, the Power Port and the Speed Rails.  Just to give you a little flavor for what that means to you, you can get $10K in Power Poles and accessories for about $200 per month.  The best part is that there is no payment due for 90 days!  That puts you at about March, 2009 before you have to pay $200 per month to get your business competitive!   

When you consider that the Power Pole Solution will save you an average of between $500 and $700 per house in reduced labor costs, you've got to  be kidding me if you still say "I just can't take the chance and spend the money right now.  Maybe I can pull it off in the spring..." 

I don't know.  Maybe you can wait it out and pull it off in the spring.  But then again, you may be working in a gas station by then because if you can't get competitive with your pricing and make a living through the winter and you needed to figure out how to pay the mortgage. 

The thing with the Power Pole Solution is that we can provide you with Labor Efficiency Training.  Who else is offering something like that to help your business?  No one.  The training process is simple, but brilliant.  No matter if you are installing James Hardie fiber cement siding, Nichiha fiber cement siding, CertainTeed WeatherBoard fiber cement siding, windows, roofing, stucco, EFIS, brick, stone, hanging awnings, painting, there is a way to get it done faster.  You are in a Speed Industry.  Unless you are a Union Carpenter getting paid by the hour, you get paid when stuff gets hung on the wall.  That means if I can speed you up without having to kill yourselves, you make more money because you can get to the next job faster.  That is what we are peddling.  It is the process that just happens to have the Power Pole Solution at the heart of it that makes all the difference in the world. 

With this new financing program, all I can say is that we are making it way too easy.  If your idea of winter includes hibernating like a black bear in the woods, see you in the spring (maybe).  Otherwise, get with us and let us show you how to weather the storm, make your jobs more profitable, and keep the doors open during the winter.  This is the best time to start chewing up market share, not the worst. 

Go Power Pole! 

Yesterday found me in beautiful Colorado Springs, CO to do a training for a massive carpenter/contractor who is building 980 homes on two US Air Force bases.  The process was interesting in the first place...I flew out to Colorado two months ago and did a demo for the General Contractor, Actus Lend Lease who is overseeing the entire project.  They make the people at OSHA look soft (not that there is anything soft about OSHA, but it is an indication of how militant Actus Lend Lease is regarding safety), hence the Power Pole Solution. 

Anyway, after just blowing them all away on the initial Power Pole demo two months ago, they finally approved the system and the carpenter/contractor who is doing all the framing, roofing, James Hardie fiber cement siding, painting and window installation purchased $150K worth of Power Pole equipment. 

Yesterday, I went out on the jobsite to do some Labor Efficiency Training coupled with Safety Training.  It went very well.  They had one of the newly framed houses set up with a Wall Walker system.  I was curious and asked about it.  Apparently, one of the framing crews brought them out and set them up.  Now everyone is all bent out of shape because they have to spend about 20 man hours taking the Wall Walkers down and that is costing the contractor a ton of money.  By comparison, they have set up Power Poles with the Power Port system on the back wall of their first house which is about 48' long.  They really enjoy using them so far. 

One thing I didn't think of, but was pretty interested to hear about is that the framing crew is using the Power Poles and related End Rails and Mid Rails (the safety rail systems that come with the Power Pole Solution) as their second story fall protection when they start framing the second floor.  Specifically, they set up the Power Poles with just the first 12' Pole, the front and back planks, then all the safety rails.  They lean the top V-brace against the rim joist, then power the system up to that rim joist.  At that point, they are now fully safety compliant with Actus and OSHA requirements for second story fall protection.  It is a really big deal!

Furthermore, the carpenter/contractor bought a ton of the Super Stand-offs that attach to the roof because they wanted to be able to run the whole system right up to the soffit/fascia board and stick above the roof to act as fall protection for the guys sheeting the roof with plywood.  The safety requirements on the base demand that the fall protection system extends 42" past the soffit line.  The Power Pole System with the Super Stand-off accessory allowed them to attain that goal.  It's just cool. 

I ended the day by doing a training for the James Hardie Siding Center in Denver.  They brought their complete Power Pole set to a re-siding job they are doing in Lakewood, CO (suburb of Denver) and I met their installation crew to train them on the system.  There wasn't a dry eye in the place!  Everyone was pretty much just blown away with the Power Pole. 

Anyway, other than that, I was milking the dog! 

It was a very productive day. 

 Go Power Pole!

So today I fly to Denver and tape a segment on the Power Pole for the DIY Network.  It was pretty cool.  They set up the camera's at the James Hardie Siding Center where we had a complete Power Pole System set up.  It included the Power Pole (obviously), the Power Port, the Power Latches and all the safety rails. 

It seems that they found us on the internet and have a show called "Cool Tools" that showcases neat tools on the market.  Now the show is targeted for the Do It Yourselfers (hence, the DIY Network) and they asked me about the uses for the Power Pole Solution for the average Joe.  I let them know that people are using the Power Pole for painting their own house, installing windows, siding their own house, putting awnings on their own house and even trimming trees!  The benefits for a siding installer, window installer, masonry installer, painter, framing crew, etc are obvious...you can take a thousand pounds up to 50' in the air just by pressing the trigger on a common drill. 

But the DIY'er is also a no-brainer.  I've seen this with the contractor who buys the Power Pole...they start out using it for installing their James Hardie ColorPlus siding, but then end up inventing excuses to use it for installing a big bay window.  As a matter of fact, the DIY'er ends up buying it for a specific large project (maybe, painting their house) which is a particular pain, then once they have the Power Pole, they end up using it for just about everything.  It's really pretty cool. 

So it is important to be as efficient and profitable as possible when you are a contractor, but think about it.  If you are a DIY'er with a project you are just dreading, why would you spend five weekends of your precious summer or fall wasting time putting siding on your house or taking two weeks of your precious vacation to paint the house when you can get a set of Power Poles and finish the job in a fraction of that time?  It only makes sense to get the Power Pole Solution. 

I was told that the DIY Network is going to air the segment sometime in or around April or May, 2009.  The segment is going to be short (something like two minutes), but we are getting some national press and I am pretty fired up about it. 

Go Power Pole!

Good grief!  Whether you are happy about the results of the Presidential Election yesterday or not, can we all agree that it is about time that we get back to work and stop worrying about what the politicians are going to say next!  Since when did the fate of the country rest on the words of the lawyers anyway!

While I am not particularly happy with the results, I am currently celebrating the victory of the democratic process.  We all got to put our two cents in and it was winner take all.  That is the American way.

 Today we can sit down at the dinner table with a little Election Day Hangover and ponder about what is going to happen next, but it is my feeling that this country wasn't built by a bunch of people sitting around for very long.  This country was built by people getting up and going to work. 

As we move into this new chapter in the history of our country (which every new presidency is), we need to get back to the basics.  Hard work.  Innovation.  Persistence.  Calculated risk taking.  We need to invent new ways to get our jobs done more efficiently so we don't end up spending the rest of our days breaking our backs.  It is one of the unique, national attributes. 

If I have said it once, I will say it a thousand times...only the strong will survive.  Now let's get back to work and let's start being leaders again. 

God bless America. 

 Go Power Pole!

One of the things that I hear all the time in the field, no matter what part of the world, is that I just isn't the right time to get their Power Poles.  This week, I heard a guy who was convinced that due to 1) uncertain market conditions and 2) the global financial mess that he was going to just keep working with his ladder jacks...

Now think of how nuts that sounds...

"I am not going to do anything except for try to survive."  That is what this guy essentially told me.

I showed him that the labor savings would actually pay for the entire Power Pole System in about 5 houses (he was installing James Hardie fiber-cement siding).  But this guy thinks he is going to be better off installing fiber cement siding one piece at a time off ladder jacks. 

One thing for sure: he is only going to be able to work on a house a month, so surviving should be pretty easy. 

But for those who actually want to work this winter and keep the pipeline filled up so there isn't downtime, you better be thinking about improving your profitability by increasing your productivity. 

That is where the Power Pole Solution comes in.

But that guy is going to continue to be extatic when the Dow Jones increases 889 points and be ready to shoot himself when it drops.  Never mind that the core issue of staying employed remains no matter what the stock market does.  I can't live my life based on the stock market.  I don't understand how hiding his head in the sand is productive for his business. 

Let's face it.  These are some scary and uncertain times. 

The stock market is going up and down like a yo-yo, Congress is now buying preferred stock in the national banks.  It sure feels like the sky is falling on us, right?

The problem is that it really isn't. 

The reality is that while things aren't as peachy as they have been in the past two decades, there is still plenty of business for Americans to pursue and get.  I have been all over North America over the past six months and again, while business isn't falling out of trees like it has in the past, it's still out there. 

But things have to change.  We have to change.  Now I know that is the most uncomforable of words at this point because it feels like the whole world is changing our lives for us.  But the key to business and economic survival is to get aggressive.  Think about it!

Sixty years ago, things were bad.  There was a World War going on and when we started into it and our military was still using horses (true story: the US Cavalry has approximately 100,000 horses, yes, horses in the Army stables!).  So it was time to buckle up, get serious and start innovating new ways to fight. 

I look at this world economy and think we are in a situation just like that (without the 60 million casualties).  We have to stand up, take notes, then fight our way through this.  We cannot bury our heads in the sand.  It cannot be an option.

Enter the Power Pole:

What I find so exciting about this Power Pole equipment is that it gives us the opportunity to make things easier for us.  For example, if you are installing heavy siding, masonry, windows, roofing or really anything on the outside of the structure (single family new construction or multi-family or even light commercial), the Power Pole will give you the ability to get up that wall with a thousand pounds of weight just by pressing the trigger on a common 1/2" drill.  It's really quite amazing.

Not only do you improve your productivity, but you do it safely.  The Power Pole is 100% OSHA compliant and it has CE Certification for the Europeans, so it satisfied even the strictest safety regulations worldwide. 

But the question always remains: what does improved productivity mean to me?  Well, here goes:

I have found that the contractor ends up saving between $500 to $700 per house in reduced labor costs.  That means if you are working on 30 houses per year, the low end of the scale will prove out to save you about $15,000 in reduced labor.  Now what you do with that savings is up to you...you can take it to the bank in terms of higher profitability, you can lower your overall costs in order to not only maintain your original desired profit margin, but to increase the probability of getting the job because you underbid your competitiion, or split the difference (maybe lower your price by $250, but increase your profit by $250). 

The point is that you really shouldn't do things the way they were done 80 years ago.  Specifically, if you use pump jacks, you are wasting money.  Eighty years ago when pump jacks were invented, the fastest airplane in the sky was traveling about 60 miles per hour.  Now you can get a moped to do that. 

I had a guy in Edmonton, Canada tell me last week "I can pump up that wall as fast as you can on those Power Poles."  I laughed and told him he was out of his mind.  First of all, he has to set those pump jacks up and attach them to the roof (you don't attach to the roof with Power Poles up to 24' high).  Secondly, if we put 800lbs of materials plus him on the pump jacks, he wouldn't be able to even pump up, let alone do it efficiently. Lastly, while he is toiling away at getting up that wall, I was busy kicking his butt and installing several pieces of James Hardie ColorPlus siding and smiling. 

In conclusion, if you are going to be competitive in a changing market, you better get a car with a bigger engine.  There is no argument that work is definitely showing down out there.  But you can do one of two things: 1) bury your head and the sand and stay home playing your X-Box or PlayStation 3 in your underpants all day or 2) get yourself efficient, profitable and competitive and attack the market. 

Our PowerPole literature is now available in Spanish. Please visit http://www.reechcraft.com/powerpole_espanol.pdf to view the Spanish version.