CrossCheck Blog

Jay Leno — comedian, former late-night TV entertainer, and current host of Jay Leno’s Garage — recently made the news for driving the world’s first 3D printed automobile, the 2015 Local Motors Strati. More importantly, at least from the technological perspective, Leno has been an early adopter of 3D printing in his Big Dog Garage where he curates a collection of 300-plus cars and motorcycles. The Burbank, California facility features 3D engineering and production software as well as 3D scanners, inspection tools and printers. Leno and his team make some replacement parts on site, but they special order others from companies having more sophisticated 3D equipment.

Membership in trade groups provides a type of safety in numbers that is achieved by being united with large numbers of people with similar business interests. With competition arising from every nook and cranny, GMs in the building materials industry can find professional security, increase sales and stay abreast of the latest trends by joining an association. CrossCheck reviewed a handful of representative orgs that support their membership bases while providing brief descriptions, links to upcoming conferences, and the means to join. We highly recommend seeking out and joining one in your region, so much so, that we wrote this successful article: Ten Reasons to Join an Association.

Let the uninformed call it "Fall." Building supply lot owners and managers know it's really "Football Season." So it's worth considering how our next Super Bowl might change the game for the building materials industry. It's the fiftieth, and the National Football League has assured the media it will be "spectacular." The Super Bowl 50 Host Committee promises it will be "Loud, proud, inclusive and authentic, just like the Bay Area itself." They expect a million people to come to San Francisco for the annual NFL Experience, which will be held at the Moscone Center for the week preceding the game.

As of yesterday the juggling forum on Reddit topped 5,000 members, and while the site doesn't attempt to explain why, the reason will be obvious to any owner or manager of a professional building supply company: you and your competitors are signing up to find business advice you can actually use.

For a capitalist society that relies on the free play of supply and demand, the largest recession in a hundred years was bound to throw things out of whack. And for the owners and managers of building materials lots, it certainly did.

Trying to guess how next year’s storms will affect your building materials business? Well, there’s only one reliable source of information about future weather -- and it may also give us crucial insights into the future business climate as well.

Since the CBO expects us to run out of money for infrastructure this year, now might be a good time for building supply company owners and managers to make two critical decisions: first, what they want to say to their elected leaders, and second, what they want to say to their customers. The message to elected leaders may be the more challenging of the two, mostly because the building industry’s point of view can’t be summarized in a bumper sticker or a thirty-second commercial. Everyone in the industry knows that the American Society of Civil Engineers gives our country’s infrastructure a “D+” overall, with our roads getting a lowly “D.” It’s pretty obvious why they call for $3.6 trillion in infrastructure investment between now and 2020.

With or without warning, Mother Nature’s disasters can be very devastating to human life and the economy. Emergency crews and government agencies often help people prepare for and recover from natural disasters.

Now that pending home sales have hit their highest level in nine years, building supply and landscaping nursery owners and managers may want to prepare for homeowners improving their property for sale. Today, selling a home requires that most homeowners consider their house as a commodity with a certain value that they must present in as attractive a light as possible – and you are the retail resource that can help them the most.

It’s easier to sell things if you also marvel at them, and if bicycles can teach us anything about building materials, it’s that a little marveling can go a long way towards lucrative, long-term business relationships and higher sales.