22 Oct 2014

Do you have what our clients are looking for?

by | posted in: How To | 0

Do you have what our clients are looking for?

 

 

Supply and Demand…. that’s what its’ all about right? Anticipating what your customer or client is going to need before your competition and delivering it at the lowest price but with more benefit and value because that’s what everyone expects!

That seems like a lot of variables and it actually makes my head hurt thinking about it!

But does it have to be this complicated?

Well if you are in the construction industry, lucky for you the answer is NO!

And this is where I break out in Tarzan song and chest pounding… “coz I work for Leads 2 Business!”

A lot of people are under the impression that we purely publish Tenders and Project developments on our site and sure that’s where we shine, but what people don’t know is by using the Leads 2 Business website to its fullest, you can network and market your business, big or small.  So let me run through some of the ways with you.

Welcome to our Directory!

Now here is where it gets fun, because even if you are only subscribed to our Platinum Directory for R 650.00 per annum you are able to email key contacts throughout the construction industry, you can enquire about their services, or introduce your own, upload your profile/brochure and you can customise your email by adding your own company logo and personal signature.

But wait there’s more!

LOL! I feel like I’m in a cheesy infomercial but I can’t help it, my Company and all it does excites me 🙂

So…. by the click of a button you can see every Project, Tender or award that contact you looking at on our Directory is or was involved in and, sure, you would have to subscribe further to access the full details of these items, but isn’t it cool that you can see what you in for before you subscribe, if you ask me, that’s inspired!

Now OK, so you’ve decide to subscribe to our Daily Tenders or perhaps our Private Projects (which includes Daily Tenders FREE I might add).  Now, as before, you can email directly from our website but now with KNOWLEDGE.  The knowledge of knowing exactly what that Architect, Project Manager, Quantity Surveyor etc. is working on.  Imagine yourself as a electrical or security installations company, for interest sake,  then being able to get hold of the Quantity Surveyor months before the Project goes to tender and having your products specified on that bill of Quantities.  Do you know what that would mean for business? That’s right! MONEY!

Everyone of those bidders are going to be calling YOU!

Fascinating stuff right? Absolutely, its what we do!

So to all of you who thought we simply publish Tenders and Projects….. you would be wrong, we offer you the support and give you the tools to take your business to the next level and we love watching you succeed as a direct result of it 🙂

Sometimes the difference between getting that contract or not is who you know… and we help you with that!

So why don’t you take the leap and contact me, let me show you the way! 

You can mail me at Directory@L2B.co.za or go to our website and take a look for yourself first at www.L2B.co.za.

We look forward to hearing from you…. Have a Super day!

 

About Sherina Shawe

"You have to do everything you can, you have to work your hardest, and if you do, if you stay positive, you have a shot at a silver lining." from: Silver Linings Playbook.

3 Sep 2014

What the Frack!

by | posted in: Construction Chat | 1

What the Frack?

 

The topic of fracking seems to be coming up more and more these days and sure, I can hold my weight in a 3 minute conversation about it, but in no way have I ever been left feeling 100% confident I know exactly what the frack everyone is on about!  So I went on an information quest and this is what I came up with.

 

Let’s start with the basics like the definition:

fracking1

ˈfrakɪŋ/

noun

noun: fracking

  1. the process of injecting liquid (usually water mixed with sand and chemicals) at high pressure into subterranean rocks, boreholes, etc. so as to force open existing fissures and extract oil or gas.

Just by definition it sounds invasive, but I knew I was going to have to be objective during this quest in order to find out all the facts and make an informative decision as to whether I’m “for” or “against”.

So let’s break this down, as the definition implies, fracking is the extraction of natural gases or oil by fracturing the layers of shale by means of hydraulics. 2.4 to 7.8 million gallons of water is added to +- 40,000 gallons of chemicals and used during this process, to put that in perspective for you the gallon/litre conversion is 1 Gallon to 3.78541 litres!

The list of chemicals used is longer than my arm but here are a few, Hydrochloric Acid, Ethylene Glycol, Triethanolamine Zirconate, Methanol, Lauryl Sulfate, uranium, lead, mercury and the list goes on, and honestly they all sound a little frightening but mainly because I have no idea what many of them are or what they do, so I will hold any judgement for now due to ignorance.

To continue, once all the fracking has taken place there are geologic formation pressures that force up the “fracking water”, this is then meant to be stored and treated…. never to contaminate.

This is where my investigation got a little shady, and my impartial views began to diminish.

Site after site I stumbled onto terms such as:

“Fracturing fluid migration into drinking water aquifers”

“Waste water transportation accidents”

“Possible environmental impacts include ground water contamination, methane greenhouse gas fugitive emissions, waste water handling, and even potential earthquakes”

Not to mention these fun fracking facts:

  • There have been over 1,000 documented cases of water contamination next to areas of gas drilling as well as cases of sensory, respiratory, and neurological damage due to ingested contaminated water.
  • The waste fluid is left in open air pits to evaporate, releasing harmful VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) into the atmosphere, creating contaminated air, acid rain etc.
  • Methane concentrations are 17 times higher in drinking-water wells near fracturing sites than in normal wells.
  • Approximately 40,000 gallons of chemicals are used per fracturing.
  • Up to 600 chemicals are used in fracking fluid

 

Explain to me why again is South Africa considering this?!!

Let’s bring South Africa in to this equation, where are we on the fracking global debate? It will seem we are firmly in the exploration phase of fracking as reported on the 2014-03-23 on the News 24 website, the headlines read “Govt gives go-ahead for Karoo fracking” It states that this is going to be an “economic game changer” and I couldn’t agree more, I love job creation just as much as the next person but does the “economic Game Change” outweigh the impact to our environment? Well to be fair, we were not given a vote and neither were the residents of the Karoo.

So all we can all do now is wait and see what the results of the exploration fracking will bring and hope that our government is responsible enough to do what is right for our Beautiful Country and the people who live in it ….

 

And that is the conclusion of my quest, but don’t take my word for it, go do some investigation yourself, I personally may have got stuck on the negatives of Fracking, so bring us back some positives and we can thrash those out in another blog installment entitled “Why the Frack not!”

 

Until then 😉

 

 

Sources:

http://www.energyfromshale.org/hydraulic-fracturing/hydraulic-fracturing-fluid

http://www2.epa.gov/hfstudy/plan-study-potential-impacts-hydraulic-fracturing-drinking-water-resources-epa600r-11122

http://www.what-is-fracking.com/what-is-hydraulic-fracturing/what-is-in-fracking-fluid/

http://www.dangersoffracking.com/

Home

http://www.iol.co.za/news/politics/sa-to-be-fracked-within-weeks-1.1665020

http://www.news24.com/Tags/Topics/fracking

About Sherina Shawe

"You have to do everything you can, you have to work your hardest, and if you do, if you stay positive, you have a shot at a silver lining." from: Silver Linings Playbook.

30 Jul 2014

Three lessons I would share with my younger self about life

by | posted in: Life Lessons | 2

Three lessons I would share with my younger self about life

At first when I was asked to write this article it occurred to me that perhaps I was too young to do so.  But then I remembered that I have three children and just recently I caught myself sounding like a mom and lecturing them about what I wish I knew as a younger me.  Now I know I’m not wise nor old enough to bestow any wise words of wisdom on anyone, but I have picked up a few things along the way….

 

 

NO DEBT!

And this is a biggie – if you cant afford it, save until you can and if you are unfortunate enough to find yourself in debt – pay it!  Don’t hide – take that call.

 

TAKE ADVANTAGE!

Now wait, let me finish…

As a kid you are given education, sport, entertainment and time.  Now what we would do for a little more of that right now – right?  I remember complaining and faking my way out of hockey practice week in and week out and now I have to PAY to gym and still do it after hours and I’m talking “parent hours” not work hours!

So take that extra subject, join a team, take part in the school production and enjoy your holidays.

 

BE HONEST!

This comes with time and from what I can tell, a lot of dishonesty is out of fear. We can all remember telling white lies as children because we where scared of the consequences. Well, be brave.  The sooner you realise how empowering honesty can be, the sooner you can be free. Take responsibility, you will respect yourself for it and so will others.

Now that last one is not a once off “life lesson”, but rather life in progress, much like the rest of my list, the kind of things I have to remind myself about every so often and in some cases still learn.

 

  • Go the extra mile and smile.
  • If you can’t say it to their face, don’t say it behind their back (this is a tough one mostly for us ladies, but its totally possible).
  • When all else fails – push some more and don’t stop!
  • Say Thank You, and mean it.
  • Learn something New.
  • Listen.  I mean really and truly listen to your kids, friends, family etc.
  • Don’t say no just because you are feeling lazy.
  • Don’t hide your accomplishments and be proud of yourself.
  • Misfortune and a less than perfect up-bringing is not an excuse for a bad attitude.
  • Don’t leave it for the next person to do!

 

And lastly find something to believe in, it will keep you motivated through the good times and carry you through the tough times.

P.S. Go write a blog! This experience has been an enlightening one, its made me remember what’s important, it’s made me want to smile wider, work harder and be an all round better person 😉

 

 

 

 

 

About Sherina Shawe

"You have to do everything you can, you have to work your hardest, and if you do, if you stay positive, you have a shot at a silver lining." from: Silver Linings Playbook.

21 May 2014

The Benefits of being on a good Directory

by | posted in: General | 1

A Great Construction Directory

Believe it or not Directories fascinate me!

This interest began years ago as a kid when I use to spend my time reading our “national telephone Directory”, so imagine my delight when I found myself working for Leads 2 Business, a Company who has the Biggest Construction Directory in the Country….. and then still be asked to run this department for them.

Now, there are a fair amount of directories out there, and I’m sure you have found yourself on one or more of these in the past, Did you find what you were looking for? Was it user friendly? When searching “Brick suppliers” did you end up on a bridal page rendering “No results”?

What I have found is very few of the directories are as specialised in construction as Leads 2 Business, we focus on Professionals, Contractors and Sub-contractors, with a vast array of trades, industries and regions to choose from.

The use of the common directory has moved away from simply trying to find a telephone number for your local plumber, to rather establishing business relations with key people in your industry.

Being able to look up a company and immediately having their information, not only contact information, but what that company has been working on, such as Tenders and private Projects, both past and current…. this is priceless!

This is only one side of the coin though, being on our Directory doesn’t cost you anything, however the traffic our site experiences daily ensures that if your entry on our Directory is accurate you WILL at some point be viewed, whether it’s through a direct Company search, a trade search, Contact search or even if your Company has been linked to our database through a Project or Tender….. you are going to be viewed! That’s free advertising!

So next time you get a call from a Directory…. think before you insist on being removed because you “don’t want to be harassed”,surely no one goes into business to not be seen and contacted . So snap up the opportunity to be viewed and advertised for free!

Take a few minutes and update your details and reap the benefit of being on a specialised Construction Directory like our own 🙂

 

If you would like to find out if you are on our Directory is your information accurate? Or if you would like to be added please feel free to contact me on Directory@L2B.co.za

I look forward to hearing from you 🙂

About Sherina Shawe

"You have to do everything you can, you have to work your hardest, and if you do, if you stay positive, you have a shot at a silver lining." from: Silver Linings Playbook.

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