Ever hear the old saying, “You'll catch more flies with honey than you will with vinegar”? What's that got to do with you and your business?

Most business owners that contact me are reaching out because they're frustrated by what their employees do and don't do. Rarely does someone contact me to let me know they love what their people do and that they're the best in the business. Most owners think poorly about the quality of work done by their employees. This is truly unfortunate. The negativity actually invites more bad performance.

The plumbing industry's second largest national supply house chain, Hughes Supply, is now owned by Home Depot - or soon will be, depending on when they wrap up all the legalities of the takeover. This was Home Depot's largest acquisition ever, costing around $3.5 billion. Hughes operates some 500 branches in 40 states with $4.4 billion in annual sales. Hughes is now part of Home Depot Supply, whose revenues are projected to shoot past $12 billion this year.

Editor's note: We received plenty of responses to Ellen Rohr's December 2005 column, “Women In Plumbing?” which was itself a response to Jim Olsztynski's September 2005 editorial, “Why Do Women Shy Away From The Trades?”

When a plunger doesn't get the throne room back into operation, homeowners usually turn to their plumber for relief. For some plumbers, these calls are a necessary evil that are more trouble than they're worth, but others find special opportunities in drain cleaning. In the course of customizing pricing books for contractors from coast to coast, I've noticed four major camps in the plumbing and drain cleaning business.

Code approval has become a problem area. But you cannot always blame the code-writing organizations. Many times, it is the standard writing organizations that have been delaying the acceptance of new joining methods. They are the groups that need a kick in the butt.

Putting The Electricity Puzzle TogetherI just finished reading Carol Fey's article, “Volts, Amps & Watts,” in the December 2005 edition of Plumbing & Mechanical. Once again she has captured the

I grew up in a house under construction. Every day for the first 18 years of my life, I looked at the wiring in the unfinished walls. It was nice to have the wires. They were fat, black and rubber-coated. Because they ran horizontally through the 2x4s, they made a convenient place to hang things - towels in the bathroom, school awards and prizes in the kitchen, crayon drawings in the kids' bedrooms.

If you've become addicted to the sport of golf, like me, don't despair. There are very valuable lessons to learn from your pursuit of mastering the game of golf that directly apply to mastering the game of business.

I love Wetheads. It is an honor - and a lot of fun - to spend time with them.

Not long ago, I was asked to speak to the Radiant Panel Association at their annual Showcase Awards Program. The event was held in Washington, D.C., our nation's capitol.

A friend of mine had been working on a solar heat system using a Fresnel lens to generate steam. His thought was to heat large buildings by directing magnified levels of solar energy on a collector, and his proposal included a set of pen and ink drawings of our state capitol.