Latest / Contractor Business Builder Podcast / Are YOU the Firestarter? Hard Truths Most Contractors Avoid

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Are YOU the Firestarter? Hard Truths Most Contractors Avoid · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

0:00
Telling no matter how hard you work, you're still constantly
0:03
putting out fires in your construction business, chasing
0:06
your cruise around and fixing problems that only you can
0:09
solve. What if the chaos is not around
0:11
you though? What if it's actually coming
0:13
from you? In this video, going to be
0:15
breaking down the patterns that turn good construction business
0:18
owners into accidental fire starters.
0:20
How to shift from being reactive, living in the chaos to
0:24
intentional leadership. If you're tired of being the
0:27
bottleneck in your business, this is where we finally change
0:30
that. So the first step in ensuring
0:32
that you're not creating fires that are springing up across
0:35
your business is improving your communication so much.
0:39
A construction is tied to good communication and communication
0:43
is a skill. It's something you need to
0:45
practice and improve over time. It's not just talking or
0:50
providing more communication, but it's actually there's a
0:53
quality level and a method to communication which I'll be
0:56
sharing with you. So if you're crews like keep
0:59
messing up, maybe the instructions are giving them
1:02
weren't that clear to begin with, or maybe you're the only
1:05
one who really understood the plan in the beginning.
1:08
So often we can easily kind of put things on our guys.
1:13
They don't know what they're doing.
1:14
They don't understand. I give them instructions, but
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they still mess up there. You have to get rid of that
1:20
thinking and realize, you know, what can I do to make sure that
1:24
things are clear so that they do follow the plan so that they
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have and I, you know, some sort of idea of what's what's
1:29
happening. And you also need to realize
1:32
that you are probably being the bottleneck as far as
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communication goes because they've gotta, you know, either
1:38
if you have too many people who are relying on you to provide
1:41
answers, to provide information, whether that's clients,
1:44
employees, subcontractors, whatever, right?
1:48
You need to open up those lines of communication.
1:50
And one of the great resource or idea to really nail this on the
1:55
head is have meetings. And I know nobody wants to have
1:58
more meetings in their schedule. I get it.
2:00
But having a well thought out and reoccurring meeting can
2:04
solve so many problems and really provide a platform and a
2:09
place to get rid of issues, to get rid of this communication so
2:13
that you're not having to, you know, do all of this
2:15
communication over the every day or week.
2:19
So good meetings are have a field crew meeting once per
2:24
week. Probably you've got to make it
2:25
make sense for your business. But typically speaking, once per
2:28
week, little toolbox talk, everybody jumps on a Zoom call
2:31
or video call. So they don't need to you know,
2:33
you don't need to meet in person for this 15 minutes quick check
2:36
in. Hey, you know what's happening.
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Give them any information of what's happening on, you know,
2:42
sites. Everyone kind of touches bases
2:44
or anything we're forgetting about.
2:45
Is there any tools at any places?
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Is there any material that needs to get delivered?
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What's the game plan for the week?
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Any issues that have come up, any problems for anybody?
2:53
And this right there will already eliminate a lot of kind
2:57
of communication and fires popping up because everyone's on
3:00
the same page. And also, if it's an issue that
3:02
comes up and they know that it's not pressing or urgent, they
3:07
can, you know, they can tell you in the meeting or they can
3:09
tackle in the meeting instead of you becoming that bottleneck
3:12
where they've always got to ask you for permission or for advice
3:16
or whatever it may be. Now, another good method to
3:20
improve communication, as I mentioned, this is a skill and
3:22
you want to improve your quality is if you're telling someone how
3:26
to do something and you expect them to do it, but you can tell
3:30
they're kind of like you're not quite sure if they got it, ask
3:33
them to repeat it back to you. I remember I was doing a project
3:36
doing kitchen remodel at the time.
3:38
I had hired a guy who was pretty new.
3:40
He told me that a lot of tiling, he had lots of tiling
3:43
experience. So I set him on doing the
3:45
kitchen backsplash. And I get a call from the, the
3:48
homeowner, I think that evening or the next day and they're
3:51
like, hey, tiles are looking pretty good, except for, you
3:54
know, behind the stove. They're they're not, they're not
3:57
level. Something's off here.
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Like, OK, I'll take a look, you know, and let me handle it.
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So I go there. Sure enough, towels are
4:03
drooping. And if I were to ask him,
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especially because this is one of the first times I believe
4:09
that I had asked him to do some tiling work, just ask him like,
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hey, what is your process for ensuring that the tiling all
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goes in straight and it's flush? How are you going to be grouting
4:19
this? What is the your process?
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And then just having him walk through it.
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And I probably could have caught that he didn't use a straight
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straight line or level or anything when the countertop
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ended and you went behind the stove, right?
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So easy fix, but it cost me. I don't know, hunters are
4:35
thousands, maybe $1000 or whatever to to, you know,
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straighten out the tiles and materials and lost labour and
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all that kind of stuff, right? So if someone's not getting
4:44
something or you're not sure, you'll have those people that
4:46
say, yeah, we can do it. And they're, you know, naturally
4:49
positive or optimistic, but you're not quite sure.
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Ask them to repeat back to you and tell them like, I'm not
4:55
trying to be difficult. I just want to make sure that
4:59
that we're both on the same page and that is clear, right.
5:02
And then the final thing with communications that I'm going to
5:04
mention is expectations. A lot of fires on site,
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miscommunication issues, problems, frustrations are due
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to expectations not being met. And if you're not very clear on
5:17
your expectations of what you want somebody to be doing or
5:21
want or how you want to process to run or whatever, you're
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leaving the door open for miscommunication and you getting
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upset because if nobody, if they don't know your expectations
5:33
specifically they're, they're not going to meet them.
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Same goes for your clients, employees, whoever ask them what
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are your expectations of working with me, working on this job of
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communication of whatever, right?
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A great document for this is having some sort of like what to
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expect document to give to a client as well as like employee
5:50
handbook. And it just lays out what the
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expectations are of them, the roles, responsibilities,
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whatever it may be. And this way everyone's clear on
5:57
what to expect. And also you can then align
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expectations that are out of whack, right?
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So if someone has very super high expectations of like we
6:07
want to, I know every single dollar that's spent on this
6:11
project, or we wanna know every schedule down to the day or
6:14
whatever. You can set that expectation
6:17
that you know, that's just going to waste a lot of time, but have
6:20
to charge you probably an extra $10,000 on this project just to
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communicate at that level if that's where you truly want and
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just set those expectations, right, so that everyone knows
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what they should be thinking about.
6:30
All right, moving on point #2 here with putting out fires that
6:35
originate from you as the owner is reflection, having some
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reflection on issues. If you have the same problem
6:42
keeps showing up on every job, you know, it's not a fluke.
6:45
It is your signature. It is the way that you are
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running your business. If a problem keeps persisting
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over and over again, that is 100% your responsibility.
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And you need to go from being a problem solver because we often
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think, oh, issue pops up, solve the problem, move on to the next
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day, you know, get through it. And there's this like hamster
7:03
wheel cycle, right, of problems and fires and things coming up
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and you're always you're kind of the hero, you know, the go to
7:09
guy to get things done in your business.
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But you need to get out of that mindset of being a problem
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solver to being a solution architect.
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What can I build? What can I do?
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So this never happens again. That should be the thinking
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here. So things like especially
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reoccurring problems like employees, if they're not
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showing up on time or if you have even just communication,
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like an employee always like when they start, they're always
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asking like, hey, when you get their paychecks or hey, where,
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where should I be working? Or how do I, how do I do my time
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entries right? All that kind of stuff.
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Recurring issues, reoccurring questions should be documented
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somewhere. You should create a system, some
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sort of whatever it is. But what can you create to make
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sure that problem doesn't come up with that piece of
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communication is that is handled outside of you specifically
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having to tell someone. Same with decisions often, not
7:58
often, but it it comes up. Sometimes a homeowner will maybe
8:01
ask an employee, hey, do you mind coming on the weekend to do
8:04
this little side project or whatever, right.
8:07
If that's an issue in your company and it's popped up a
8:09
couple of times, make sure you are communicate with your
8:11
employee that, hey, if this happens, please let us know.
8:14
You know, you, however you feel about it, You can, you can let
8:17
them know. But if it's like if you do a
8:18
little bit of side work here and there, not a big deal.
8:21
But if it's with a client that we are working with, that may be
8:24
a problem and it can get complicated things or, or
8:27
whatever rate. So lay that all out and create,
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you know, be the, the solution architect in your business, not
8:34
just the problem solver that the hero that everyone needs to rely
8:37
on and creating that that bottleneck and which solutions
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realize that you want to get feedback from people.
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So not every problem is your problem, right?
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If, if, if the guys on site are calling you about all this kind
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of stuff that they should know is that expectation.
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I expect you to be able to handle this type of problem and
8:52
then get their feedback of like, how can we ensure that you know
8:57
what to do? Or how can we, how can I help
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you either train you to make those decisions by yourself and
9:02
then try and test solutions, right?
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We'll try this software, try this process, or we're going to
9:08
try this. If it doesn't work, maybe you
9:10
tweak it, you find tune it for you, try something else, right,
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But always be building something tangible inside your business
9:16
systems, processes, whatever to combat those problems so that
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you do not have to be that firefighter gets taken care of
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with, you know, your awesome business that you create.
9:25
So Third Point here is an organized leader.
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So leadership super essential. This whole process you need to
9:31
step up and take ownership for the company.
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Essentially. I'm not going to go down, you
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know, that rabbit hole on on leadership, but that's a huge
9:37
part of it. But a lot of leadership is
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leading by example. And if you are unorganized, if
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your calendar is all over the place, your priorities are
9:46
changing constantly, or we're all, you know, you don't really
9:49
have priorities and nobody knows what really is important to
9:52
matters. You know, your team being lost,
9:54
your clients not knowing what's going on, you're the one who's
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driving the ship and you're the one who needs to be organized
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and set that example for the rest of the company to follow.
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And that'll create some consistency and lead by example.
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So the first thing to do is get a hold of your calendar if
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you're not using like a Google Calendar I calendar and putting
10:14
in blocking time for the stuff that's really important in your
10:17
business. So if you want to work on
10:19
systems and processes, block out some time.
10:21
If you know every week you've got to put in a couple of hours
10:24
of estimating or review your financials, lock time in your
10:27
calendar because you'll very quickly see that your calendar
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may fill up with all this other business stuff that you need to
10:33
do and you don't have a lot of time for sites.
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You need to start delegating or or what have you, as well as
10:38
meetings. Make sure you're showing up.
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If you yourself as a business owner are late to meetings or
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you're just like always running around nonstop like a chicken
10:47
with their head cut off, your guys are gonna pick up on that
10:49
energy. They're gonna feel like, well,
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the boss is, you know, 5-10 minutes late.
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Yeah, you're the boss. You got more going on.
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And, you know, you can make any excuse in the book.
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But ultimately, if you're not, you know, highly accountable and
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leading by that example, then you can expect the rest of your
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business and team to to essentially do the same.
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So it really does start with you get ahold of your calendar,
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block stuff out, schedule meetings and then prioritize
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things get prioritized focus. And by setting prioritize, by
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setting priorities, you will know where to focus.
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So what is the big problem in your business right now?
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What is the main function of your business that's struggling?
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What is maybe the, the, the one employee that's struggling or
11:30
the one job or project or whatever it may be, But you need
11:34
to set clear priorities. I like to do this weekly as far
11:38
as like for tasks, but you should have weekly, monthly,
11:41
quarterly and annual priorities and objectives that you're going
11:45
towards that you've always got this Longview and and typically,
11:48
you know, even up to five years, but start with a year.
11:52
You know, a year is pretty good. Things will kind of waver and
11:54
change pretty, you know, over time when you're talking about
11:56
years. But this way you've always got
11:58
your long term kind of goal that you're driving towards.
12:00
And then you're you're during the week and the months, you
12:02
know, you may do some of this, but at least there everything is
12:05
aligned and you've got your priorities straight.
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And it'll help you from getting super overwhelmed and stressed
12:10
because even if things are kind of a little off the rails or a
12:12
little unorganized or whatever, if you're spending time and
12:16
you're tackling what really matters for the long term, you
12:19
will become successful. And you can rest assured that
12:22
even if you can't handle everything right now, you're
12:24
handling what matters. So super important as a leader
12:28
to set priorities and focus very clearly on those priorities and
12:32
block out all the rest of the noise that can happen with with
12:35
running a business. So the other point I'm going to
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mention as far as becoming an organized leader is starting to
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bring organization to your business.
12:43
So structure, documentation, systems, processes, software,
12:48
all the things that I love and this is what we do at Wrap
12:52
Result Creators is we specifically help our clients
12:54
implement great systems very quickly, focused on one function
12:59
of their business at a time. And this has just a virtuous
13:03
effect and one improvement after another.
13:06
Once you bring structure and regularity to your business.
13:09
Like those meetings that I mentioned, once everybody knows,
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we have these regular meetings or once everyone knows like this
13:14
is our ideal client and services, or we, we've got this
13:18
automation set up, or we've got this estimating process setup or
13:21
this training process, whatever it may be.
13:23
Every little piece and every little system and organization
13:26
you bring to the business just builds momentum and creates this
13:31
like beautiful structure to be able to grow, to scale, to get
13:34
your time back, to stop putting out fires.
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And it's just incredibly important.
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It can be, it's a very daunting task to start to build that out.
13:41
So feel free to reach out to us if you want more information of
13:44
how we can make that easier for you.
13:45
If you're going to tackle this yourself, we've already started
13:47
prioritize and get clear. If, if you've got money
13:50
problems, you want to look at estimating financials.
13:53
If you've got employee problems, you wanna look at your HR and
13:56
training and, and whatever. So wherever there's issues and
13:59
things popping up, that's where you need to build up systems,
14:01
create some organizations, build some consistency around the
14:04
business and that's how you going to get your time back, how
14:06
you get freedom back, get more money in your bank account.
14:09
All those good things that you started the business for
14:11
originally, but can definitely go off track and you can get
14:14
jaded over the years just working in construction.
14:17
I had someone comment on video the other day, 10 plus years in
14:19
in construction business and you know, they retired, they were
14:22
sick of it not making enough money.
14:24
Chaos nonstop. And it is a long road, but you
14:28
can get there if you're intentional with building a
14:30
business as opposed to just trying to run operation to make
14:33
money, right, which is where a lot of guys get stuck.
14:35
So going on to the fourth point here, find your balance.
14:40
Life is about balance. Everyone's heard of the work
14:43
work life balance. It's really, you're never going
14:45
to be 100% balance and balance makes it feel like it should be
14:48
like half and half kind of thing.
14:50
That's, that's not where it's at.
14:52
You need to find the most effective balance and it, it
14:54
could be there's, you know, the 8020 rule, which is often
14:57
applicable in a lot of cases. But what I mean by finding your
15:00
balance is you need to, as a manager and a leader, you're
15:04
going to be having to delegate a lot of stuff.
15:06
You're also going to have to let like trust people a lot to be
15:09
able to get stuff done without you.
15:11
Having those systems and processes in place makes it so
15:14
much easier because you know that there's some structure
15:16
there, but the balance is between trusting too much and
15:19
just allowing someone to run with something and and then
15:23
micromanaging. And if you're on either side of
15:25
that, you need to find that middle ground.
15:27
And the problem is there's never like a specific place that's
15:32
always shifting and moving to some degree depending on the
15:35
employee or the client or whatever is happening in the
15:39
business. And as the business grows, it's
15:41
constantly shifting as well because as you kind of get off
15:45
the tools, if you will, you're, you're no longer, as you get off
15:48
the tools, you're no longer on the site.
15:50
Later getting a project manager is if you're already there, you
15:52
know how this is, you now have to give trust and space to your,
15:56
to your project managers. Then you'll level up.
15:58
You're gonna have a sales manager, maybe an estimating
16:01
manager or design manager, whatever it may be, financial
16:04
management, you're going to have this layer of management team
16:06
and you're going to level up yet again.
16:08
And every level is going to take more leadership, more skill, and
16:12
more of this balance between micromanaging to make sure that
16:16
that they know what they're doing, but not in the sense that
16:19
you're infringing on them or making their life difficult or
16:22
taking up way too much of your time on things that you should
16:25
not be doing. The same time.
16:26
You give them too much space, you're probably gonna lead to
16:29
efficient inefficiencies. You're not going to really know
16:31
what's going on and there's going to be chaos that ensues.
16:34
So what I like to see is that structure, like I mentioned,
16:38
obviously getting the systems, processes, clear roles,
16:40
responsibilities, all that stuff, and then have some checks
16:43
and balances. So whether that is them giving
16:46
you a report daily, weekly, monthly, depending on the
16:50
position, checks and balances as far as quality control, so
16:53
checklists, things like this, making sure that every project
16:56
and every communication that goes out is meeting certain
16:59
criteria. And then finally the the balance
17:02
with time management. When you start out, you're
17:04
probably gonna spend a lot of time just managing your
17:07
business. And there is a book called
17:09
Emeth, which puts us very nicely where there's the technician,
17:12
there's manager and there's entrepreneur.
17:14
I believe I've got that right. Technician is kind of where most
17:17
guys start. You're good at something.
17:18
You start a business and you do whatever you were doing before
17:22
in your business, you know, whatever that may be, managing
17:24
projects and things like that. The manager is managing people,
17:28
projects, whatever. And then the entrepreneur is the
17:32
one who's building the business, providing the vision, the
17:34
leadership, all that stuff. And you're going to have certain
17:37
degrees of balance between those two.
17:39
At the beginning, you're probably going to start off
17:41
being mostly technician and manager with a little bit of
17:44
entrepreneurship. As you level up and move on in
17:47
your, in your entrepreneurial journey, you're going to be much
17:49
more at the higher visionary entrepreneur level business
17:52
development and you're not going to be actively managing the
17:56
business operations and, and the day-to-day.
17:58
So finding your balance is within each of those roles is
18:02
important to be able to kind of level up and then be able to get
18:06
out of that day-to-day. Stop putting out those fires,
18:09
creative systems and processes, people, the structure in order
18:11
to do that well. So now that you know how to get
18:14
yourself out of the that Firestarter stage and create a
18:18
business that doesn't rely on you specifically and you'll have
18:22
to put all these fires, now you're going to want to check
18:25
out our next video. So go check out this video here
18:27
on how to avoid hiring the wrong employees that wreck your
18:31
business and Peace of Mind. Hiring the wrong employees
18:34
causes all sorts of fires and issues in your business.
18:36
So go check out this next video to get the up and up on that.