Latest / Contractor Business Builder Podcast / What Generating $32 Million For GCs Taught Me About Growth

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What Generating $32 Million For GCs Taught Me About Growth · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

0:14
Many contractors think that they lose jobs because of price.
0:18
I see it all the time and it's actually because clients don't
0:21
trust them enough to justify the higher prices.
0:24
The highest paid contractors, you know, they don't look
0:27
desperate or reactive for work, disorganized.
0:30
They look premium, trustworthy, respectful, someone that you
0:34
want to do business with and you just trust through and through
0:37
because they they look the part and present that that aura of
0:42
confidence. You see, how much respect and
0:47
trust do you get depends on how clients perceive you.
0:49
So you have to build a solid perception in their mind of a
0:53
company that is premium, that is luxury, that is specific for
0:57
them. You see it all the time in the
1:39
marketplace. Brands that charge 2310 times
1:42
more for prices and still sell lots of products and are in high
1:47
demand. Things like Apple, you pay more
1:49
for an Apple phone over like an Android or a Google phone, even
1:53
though the other ones may be better depending on who you talk
1:56
to, right? Nike shoes, Louis Vuitton
1:59
handbags, all of these brands charge a premium price and are
2:04
in high demand because of the perception of the brand
2:07
awareness. And the same thing is applicable
2:10
to construction business, even more so because you're not
2:12
selling 100 or $1000 items, you're selling hundreds of
2:16
thousands or $1,000,000 projects.
2:19
So you need to be able to look the part.
2:21
And the way that you create this perception in the mind is having
2:25
consistency across your brand, across your business.
2:28
Aesthetics do matter. The way you look, the way you
2:31
show up, the way you communicate, the way your people
2:34
communicate, it all matters in showing a professional face to
2:39
the client and for them to be able to trust and respect your
2:42
company. So you want to have your company
2:44
look like it's been in business for a long time.
2:46
It does lots of projects of high caliber with the type of clients
2:52
that isn't your ideal clients. So luxury, when you think of
2:57
luxury, you maybe after a very high end market, but it doesn't
3:03
always mean that it has to be, you know, gold trims and these
3:07
elaborate, you know, luxury items.
3:10
But you do need to have a certain level of visual
3:14
aesthetics in your company and the way that you look.
3:18
Luxury is really about personalized experience.
3:21
It doesn't mean that you need to look like you have a market
3:25
segment, but it's like you have to personalize it to the
3:28
specific person. There are people that will spend
3:33
hundreds of thousands of dollars on a beautiful car and rent a
3:37
crappy apartment, right? It's all about values.
3:40
There's people that will spend millions of dollars on a house
3:43
and be, you know, poor somewhere else essentially.
3:47
So you need to know who your ideal client is and you want to
3:52
be charging enough to stay profitable.
3:54
Price is another way that people valuate luxury.
3:58
So if your price is on par or below what other competitors are
4:04
or other businesses that they feel are of like kind of a a
4:09
bigger, better caliber or lower caliber there, that all helps
4:13
make up their mind of how trustworthy you are and if
4:15
you're the type of business they want to do it.
4:17
There are people that want to pay more money for a better
4:20
experience for for knowing certainty when they make that
4:26
decision to sign the deal that they are doing business with a
4:30
company that gets them, that is reputable, that's going to do a
4:34
good job for them. The other thing about going like
4:39
raising prices and and having better perception in the
4:43
marketplace is the better types of clients that you do business
4:47
for, the more aligned you are with them, the more referrals
4:50
they're going to give you. And if you're doing business
4:52
with great clients, they're going to refer other great
4:55
clients because typically people swim in in circles and in
5:00
different areas that are they're going to naturally have more
5:05
people that know them and are like them.
5:18
I, I had a client who when we started together, their website
5:23
was so, so they had a list of services.
5:27
It looked very like back backyard, kind of a builder, if
5:31
you will. Even though they were a good
5:33
builder and did great work and worked with some higher end
5:37
clients, their marketing was not geared that way.
5:40
And the contractor was struggling, struggling to have
5:43
projects, trying to do all these different projects that weren't
5:46
really in his wheelhouse because he just wanted to stay busy.
5:50
He needed some money flowing in. So we changed the wording on the
5:54
website, we updated the aesthetics.
5:56
We eliminated a bunch of services and just focused on his
6:01
core service of the type of clients he wants.
6:03
Fast forward, it wasn't an overnight success, but within
6:06
one year he was showing project progress already.
6:09
It was less than that, but in one year he was already booking
6:12
up his pipeline and two years now he's got his pipeline fully
6:15
booked with lots of new houses of like high level quality type
6:20
of clients that he wants to do business with.
6:58
Alright, principal #2 is great positioning makes you stand out
7:01
from 99% of competitors. You might be thinking 9%.
7:05
How can I stand out from everybody?
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I have analyzed hundreds of contractors and the one thing
7:09
they get wrong is not positioning themselves properly.
7:12
They position themselves as just, you know, another builder.
7:16
The slight variations may be in, in colours of their brand, but
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that's about it. Your clients have multiple
7:22
options and every contractor is kind of saying the same thing.
7:26
We do great work, we do quality work.
7:28
We really care about our clients and the branding is often
7:32
typically very much the same. The way to differentiate is
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there's so many different ways you can differentiate your
7:39
company and align it with high quality, high paying projects
7:44
that give you good profit margins.
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And if you don't get this right, all the stuff that comes after
7:48
this doesn't really matter because you're just going to be
7:51
spinning your wheels. That's why I'm spending time
7:53
here on positioning on how you need to have your perception in
7:59
the marketplace because it matters so much that this is the
8:02
starting point of when a client finds you and if they're willing
8:05
to pay for your services and how easy this the sales is going to
8:08
be and the and the process to get them into a construction
8:12
contract or a pre construction contract.
8:22
So the ways this, so the way it's to position yourself better
8:28
is you want to be a specialist, not a generalist.
8:31
And you can specialize in the location.
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This is one of the easiest things.
8:34
So which neighborhoods, which part of the city, what types of
8:38
developments do you work in? So become a specialist in a
8:42
specific category, in a specific area, certain size of project,
8:47
the type of design that you do, maybe doing design build or your
8:51
process for design or your process for construction.
8:55
It's not gonna be different than everybody else out there.
8:58
But the way you communicate it and you, you position everything
9:01
in a very succinct manner of like, these are the clients we
9:04
work with. This is the kind of the market
9:06
segment. This is the type of people we
9:08
work with. Is it, you know, new families
9:10
who need to expand and get a bigger home?
9:12
Is IT professionals moving to your city who, who need a place
9:15
to live because they've got a new job here?
9:19
What part of the market type of client?
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All these different things can help you differentiate and
9:24
spending some time to really get this right.
9:26
It's called your unique selling proposition.
9:29
What is unique about your business?
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Yes, there's going to be other contractors that can build them
9:33
a home and provide that same service, but are they going to
9:37
build the same type of home or is the process going to be the
9:40
same? Are they actually local?
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Do they have lots of reviews? Do they, are they the
9:44
neighborhood heroes? So there's all these different
9:46
things that you can elevate, all these little facets that that
9:50
differentiate you and make you a specialist will help bump up
9:54
your pricing and the perceived value of your company and make
9:57
everything else easier to run. You want to always be focusing
10:01
on the outcome as well. So it's not just like what you
10:04
do or where you do it, but what is the outcome you produce.
10:08
So what are the is the final product going to be different
10:12
than other ones because your design is so much better.
10:14
The clients come away being a part of your business, feeling
10:17
like family. Maybe you have like a kickoff
10:20
party for when they move in and you know, things like this.
10:24
Maybe it's the way that you provide that final walkthrough.
10:27
So the outcome talking about clients who maybe you built a
10:31
house for five years ago and how it's changed their life.
10:34
That's what people want to buy and that's what differentiates
10:37
you from competitors who are, it's like, we'll build you this
10:41
beautiful house and it's going to have everything you want to
10:43
the builder. That's we understood this
10:45
family. They, they came to us.
10:48
They needed room for this. This was like their quirks.
10:50
They, you know, she did sewing as a hobby and he wanted to be
10:54
able to do more fishing. So we, we, you know, customize
10:57
their garage for the fishing boat or whatever, right?
10:59
So explain those stories and and that's a great way to
11:02
differentiate you by the types of clients and how in depth and
11:07
fine-tuned your with your clients and building around what
11:10
they need within their budget. If budgets are a conscious
11:14
thing, people have budgets, but that doesn't mean you can't have
11:19
great margins and still produce great products for people on a
11:23
budget. And of course, if if the budget
11:26
total act, then you gotta let them know.
11:28
But a lot of contractors, you know, they worry about lead
11:31
generation and marketing. But what actually leads you to
11:36
having more clients is a really solid reputation.
11:39
And it's something a lot of marketers out there are not
11:41
going to talk about. They're going to talk about
11:43
getting the right ad mix or the branding and aesthetics and
11:47
website and funnels and whatever.
11:48
And it's important, but at the end of the day, your reputation
11:52
is going to speak for you and it's what's going to generate a
11:55
lot of referrals and it's the easiest way to strengthen every
11:59
other piece of marketing and branding you do by really having
12:03
a dialed in an amazing reputation.
12:47
That leads us on to principle #3 reputation compounds faster than
12:52
any advertising. A lot of contractors I know are
12:55
scared to quote higher prices because they're worried about
13:01
their clients are not getting enough clients and they end up
13:04
having a poor budget and a poor company at the end of the day
13:08
where they can't afford to have good talent, have the right
13:11
equipment or invest in the right systems for their business.
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Hence their reputation gets affected.
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They're known as the cheap builder or the builder that just
13:19
is mediocre, which is time. But when you do the opposite,
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you raise your prices, you may get fewer clients, but the
13:27
clients you get will refer you to other high paying clients.
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And that compounding increases your reputation and increases
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the scale that you can build your business successfully on
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with margins that you can reinvest and pull out profit to
13:45
build a big business. We implemented this for one of
14:00
our clients in California and they were kind of getting their
14:04
business up and going. We really early identified that
14:08
they needed to increase their their markup AKA margins because
14:14
their pricing was just sort of covering their overhead and not
14:19
really leaving a whole ton of profit.
14:20
And they had some very. We were able to implement these
15:20
methods with a client of ours in California.
15:23
They were getting their business going and it was very evident
15:28
early on that they were not charging enough.
15:30
They had just covered their overhead, maybe a little bit
15:34
extra for profit depending on how the project went.
15:37
They were comfortable, but there was a lot of room for
15:40
improvement there. And considering the quality and
15:43
the specific specificity of the jobs they were going for, they
15:48
needed to raise their pricing. So we ended up raising their
15:51
pricing, but we didn't just raise it overnight.
15:54
We were very strategic in how we went about this.
15:59
We improved their branding, improved their website, got very
16:02
specific in a a category of the type of houses that they were
16:07
going to do and how no other builder was positioning
16:11
themselves as this type of market.
16:14
I can't go into the details because I don't want to give it
16:16
away right now. We were able to implement these
16:35
strategies with one of our clients in California.
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They were a newer company kind of getting up and going.
16:41
The one of the owners had a long experience in in general
16:46
contracting and had a bit of a reputation in the area.
16:49
But they're, they're branding, the marketing, everything was
16:52
sort of starting from scratch and not really hitting the mark
16:55
as far as getting them good quality, high paying projects.
17:00
All of their clients that were coming in were simply like a few
17:06
referrals and it was a little bit of a stretch in between.
17:09
So what we did is we were able to position their years of
17:13
experience, set up their websites specifically catered to
17:18
their ideal type of client. They were able to produce homes
17:22
and very interested in ecological safe 0 emission that
17:27
that type of thing which put them in a specialized category
17:31
in their area that a lot of people were looking for.
17:34
But there was no builders who had the credentials, the
17:39
qualifications or the branding to communicate it specifically
17:44
after implementing these strategies to be able to raise
17:48
their prices, They were getting great profit margins.
17:51
They were bringing in lots of clients.
17:53
They would be able to be choosy about them.
17:55
And they had that reputation really working in their area.
17:59
They were actually getting people referred to them, the
18:03
same person by different clients that they had worked with.
18:06
And after every single project, they usually had one or two
18:09
referrals from the the clients that they did the project for.
18:13
And this is how you compound and grow a business.
18:15
And referrals are the strongest, most trusting type of leads.
18:19
They're willing to pay the highest prices because they know
18:23
that their friend is trustworthy.
18:26
They did a project together, They're going to trust you.
18:29
And if your price is 510, even 15% higher than the competitor,
18:34
they're going to have a good experience with you.
18:36
There's certainty and there's also that relationship that
18:41
they've developed with the person that referred you that it
18:45
just seems natural for them to work together.
19:09
At this point, you've got some of the best construction
19:11
business lessons you can get for creating a highly profitable
19:15
company. But the remaining principles
19:17
that I'm about to explain are even more powerful for you.
19:21
But before that, if you want to scale your construction business
19:24
and get one to one coaching, click the first link in the
19:27
description to work with us. So principle #4 clients work
19:31
with people they trust. And I touched on this before,
19:34
but there are specific things that you need to do in your
19:37
business to raise the trust level and the social proof to
19:40
make sure that clients know they are getting in with a very
19:45
reputable, very trustworthy builder.
20:01
So much noise out there in the marketplace that what you need
20:04
to be showing clients is specific examples of previous
20:08
projects that you've done, of previous clients you've worked
20:11
with. You have much higher chances of
20:14
closing a sale when they can see, oh, you've worked with
20:16
three other clients similar to my, you know, situation and
20:22
these are the houses you built. Ideally you have testimonials
20:26
and maybe even videos of them. And it's just like you did a
20:30
great job for all these other people.
20:32
I'm sure you'll do it for me. So that building that trust is
20:35
so critically important and a great way to be able to get
20:38
higher margins and raise your prices.
20:42
These clients are making a decision with hundreds of
20:45
thousands, if not millions of dollars.
20:47
One of the biggest investments that a lot of people are going
20:51
to be making is into their home and you need to recognize that
20:56
this is a very big decision for them and the trust needs to be
21:00
sky high. The right clients are willing to
21:17
pay for certainty and prestige up to 1015% higher in a lot of
21:23
cases. We have tested this.
21:24
We've done it with many of our clients.
21:26
I've done it myself personally in my construction business and
21:30
it may feel like if I raise my prices 5, 10%, I'm going to lose
21:34
so many sales because the price pressure is so, you know,
21:38
competitive. That is almost never true.
21:42
I I don't even know if I've ever found this.
21:44
Yes, there might be the odd one, but typically these aren't the
21:46
clients you necessarily want to be working with.
21:49
And what you will usually find is there will be little to no
21:52
difference. If you raise your prices 5
21:54
percent, 10%, there might be a noticeable decline, but the I'm
22:00
going to be going over this later.
22:01
The profit you receive is so much better.
22:03
So how do you create super high value trust in your clients?
22:09
As mentioned, reviews and testimonials.
22:11
But everything you do in your business needs to be a system
22:14
needs to be a process so that there is no room left over for
22:19
ambiguity or grayness in the areas.
22:22
So because reviews and testimonials reputation trust is
22:27
so important, you need systems that make this the way that you
22:31
do it to function at a high level.
22:33
So every time a client finishes a project, you get a review, you
22:38
get a testimonial. That testimonial should be
22:41
posted to your social media. You should get a video of the
22:46
House of of the project so you can show the after house.
22:49
You should get a video of the clients doing a little interview
22:53
with them in the house ideally and justice walking through the
22:57
process. When you started, you know, what
23:00
were you looking for? What made you decide you wanted
23:02
to upgrade your home or build a new home?
23:04
What were you worried about with contractor?
23:07
Why did you choose us? How is the build experience all
23:09
this stuff and tell them, you know, be 100% honest upfront.
23:13
If there's things that came up that didn't go well, people
23:17
really want to see an inside story and they don't want just,
23:20
you know, a flat kind of marketing.
23:22
Everything is great and and amazing, right?
23:26
Give show them the the true story and then do a case study
23:30
as well. So write a case study based off
23:32
the client's interview, the situation, the house.
23:35
A lot of people love this and put it on your website, so that
23:40
is the greatest way to show trust because it shows a track
23:43
record and other clients to work with.
23:45
The other way to do it preemptively is have a brochure
23:50
of your business or some sort of marketing material that looks
23:53
very well designed, shows a few client projects, a few reviews
23:57
that you can give to a client the first time you meet them,
24:00
whether that's at their host or design studio or wherever.
24:03
Give them a brochure or something they can take home or
24:06
keep in their home that has information about the building
24:09
process, their company, you're experienced, past clients,
24:13
there's sign, all that kind of stuff.
24:16
Also having a design guide or some sort of new home building
24:20
guide where you can give it to them, educate them.
24:23
It has like lists that they can fill out, you know, very
24:27
intuitive questions of what's important to you, what do you
24:31
want, what's your timeline, what's your budget so they can
24:35
start thinking about their project.
24:37
And you're being positioned as the trusted advisor because
24:41
you're giving them materials and resources to help them better
24:45
make a decision on what kind of contractor to go with or what
24:48
kind of home to build. Beyond that, another great way
24:52
to elevate trust is to have a nurture e-mail sequence.
24:56
So wherever lead comes in, when they get into your system, they
25:00
should automatically be subscribed to your newsletter
25:02
and there should be an automated e-mail campaign that goes out to
25:05
them. Anywhere from 3 to 5 emails,
25:08
maybe more. But three to five is a good
25:11
start over a two to three-week period.
25:13
And the e-mail should be how you know things to know before you
25:17
start designing your home or before you start thinking about
25:20
building your home. 10 mistakes that that clients make when when
25:25
they go through the building process, 10 questions to ask
25:28
your contractor before deciding who's the right fit.
25:31
This kind of stuff that's very educational.
25:34
It's unbiased. I mean, obviously it's a little
25:36
bit biased towards your company, but you want to be presenting
25:39
yourself as a resource and, and providing value to them and
25:45
nurturing them. Social media content is another
25:48
one. So if you're on site, if you're
25:49
providing helpful tips, if they're seeing you in their
25:52
social media feeds, it just familiarity helps build trust.
25:56
If you see someone for the first time or business for the first
25:59
time, the trust is, is next to nothing because you have no idea
26:02
who they are. If you've seen them a bunch of
26:05
times, you've seen their signs, you've seen the truck wrap,
26:07
you've seen, you know, their social media posts or
26:09
advertisements, you've maybe been on their e-mail list, your
26:14
trust is going to be super high because you've built up a
26:16
relationship even if you haven't physically talked to them
26:19
before. The last thing with trust is
26:23
looking the part. Even if you have all that other
26:25
stuff, if you show up and you're, you know, dirty or
26:28
you're frazzled, you're stressed out, you're missing details or
26:32
they call your company and the secretary only gets back to
26:35
them, you know, two days later. All of this stuff really matters
26:39
for the trust as well. So make sure you're very
26:41
responsive with e-mail, with phone calls, your business looks
26:45
the part. You don't have to go and spend,
26:47
you know, 10s or hundreds of thousands of dollars on
26:49
beautiful, you know, perfect truck wraps and signs and stuff
26:53
like that. You want to get there.
26:55
But everything should at least look professional, clean and
26:59
well organized and managed. Now moving on to principle #5
27:32
there is one thing that you can do to start making a lot more
27:35
money. It's very easy.
27:37
A lot of contractors don't really practice it regularly,
27:40
and that is to double your profit with a small pricing
27:44
change. So you don't need to do massive
27:48
price increases on your projects.
27:51
But it's such a simple strategy and as I mentioned before, it
27:55
almost rarely ever highly affects your closing ratios.
27:59
If you've done what I've we've mentioned before with
28:01
perception, with trust, with social proof, you build up those
28:05
things and you can easily bump up your pricing 510, even 15 to
28:10
20%. I've seen it, I've done it with
28:12
many contractors and in my own business.
28:15
And it is the easiest, quickest, best way to be able to make sure
28:20
you're, you're generating enough profit to scale your business,
28:23
to make yourself comfortable without stressing about finances
28:27
or payroll and all that kind of stuff.
28:29
So when you raise your price that 10%, you know that's only
28:33
like a 10% increase in revenue. So that's not huge, right?
28:36
You went from 1,000,000 to $1.1 million in revenue.
28:40
But when you look at it properly at the bottom line, that is a
28:44
doubling of your profit. If you only had a 10% profit
28:48
margin before you raise your prices by 10%, which you need to
28:54
do 11% mark up to 10% margin. Won't get into the whole, you
28:59
know, math part of it here, but it's such an easy way to improve
29:04
your your profits and nobody does this on a consistent basis.
29:08
You should be regularly increasing your prices and
29:11
figuring out where that sweet spot is to make yourself a lot
29:13
of profit. Weed out the the low paying and
29:16
the clients that aren't willing to pay for premium builder for
29:19
those quality who has high trust.
29:21
All of these these different things.
29:36
So let me ask you this, what would twice the profit, twice
29:39
the cash in your profit? Let me ask you this, what would
29:44
twice the cash in your pocket, twice the profit in your
29:47
business mean for you? I'm sure that would mean a
29:49
little bit less stress, probably an extra vacation, maybe buy
29:53
that, that new toy boat, dirt bike, whatever it is.
29:57
And it's not, it's not rocket science.
30:00
If you've got you're selling a project, it's a $500,000
30:04
project, you have 10% profit margins, which a lot of builders
30:09
aren't even making 10% profit margins.
30:11
I've seen typically they're like 5, maybe 10%.
30:16
So you're $500,000 project, you're only making $50,000 of
30:21
profit is very typical for most builders.
30:24
But if you can raise your prices by an extra 10% markup, then you
30:30
going from a $500,000 project to $550,000 project, you've
30:35
increased your markup by 10%. That's another $50,000 of
30:40
profit. You've essentially doubled your
30:42
profits and going through a sale for someone to go from 500,000
30:48
once they've already made that commitment that they know
30:50
they're going to invest 500,000 to go to 550,000 after building
30:54
your brand and your positioning and your trust values and having
30:57
good referrals and all that stuff is not a stretch at all,
31:01
especially with the right sales process.
31:04
So now you've gone from $50,000 profit, which is not bad,
31:08
$50,000, it's a nice chunk of change to $100,000 of profit.
31:13
That's where it starts to become pretty amazing because now you
31:17
don't need a gigantic revenues to be making hundreds of
31:20
thousands of dollars per year in your construction business.
31:29
I know what you might be saying is that's easy to say, but not
31:33
so easy to do. But I've just outlined in the
31:35
previous principles all the different ways that you can
31:37
increase your profit margins and your pricing by building your
31:42
brand, positioning yourself well, building those trust
31:45
factors and being very niche and very specific with your unique
31:50
selling proposition. All of these lead to incremental
31:53
increases in the value perception of your company and
31:55
the amount of money that you can charge.
31:58
Just knowing the five principles that I've stated so far is not
32:02
enough though, because the next one is the backbone of a
32:05
construction business. Just knowing these five
32:24
principles I've mentioned so far is not enough, though, because
32:27
one. Just knowing these five
32:41
principles that I've mentioned so far is not enough, because
32:44
the next one is the backbone of a construction business's
32:47
growth, and it is principal #6 build systems before you get
32:53
burnt. And if you know me, I'm all
32:54
about systems. Our company is all about
32:57
systemizing construction businesses to save you time,
33:00
save you money, and make your life a whole lot easier.
33:24
I see so many contractors kind of confused or not understand
33:27
the importance of systemizing their business.
33:31
They they typically know that it's important, it's something
33:34
they need to do. You've probably taken a few
33:35
steps in the right direction, but kind of get lazy or
33:38
complacent, busy, all these other things and you get stuck
33:41
inside your business wearing all the hats and it essentially
33:45
stops you from growing and can kill your business because you
33:48
grow too big. Your systems, your foundation
33:51
isn't there. The business falls over or like
33:54
a lot of builders I I've heard about that told me, don't grow a
33:58
big business, just keep small because it's easier to manage.
34:01
But in reality, it's harder to manage a small business.
34:03
It's easier to manage a large business because you can have
34:07
your managers, you can have your organization structure, but you
34:10
need this systems, that foundation in order to get
34:13
there. Building proper systems is not
34:16
easy. It can take months to build out
34:19
certain systems in your business, and it'll take at
34:21
least one to two years with guided help to fully systemize
34:25
the construction business. It's a big undertaking, which is
34:28
why a lot of people don't do it, but.
34:51
Every client that we work with, we help them build systems in
34:55
their company with done for you items.
34:57
We've we've templated and built out and got a business in a box
35:00
for you, but very unique methods to help them scale and that's
35:04
how we have over 100. It's for every client that we
35:15
work with. We focus very heavily and help
35:18
them build out systems in their construction company done for
35:21
them. We build them for our clients
35:23
using very unique methods that we use to help them scale, and
35:27
that's how we have a nearly 100% success rate.
35:46
Now listen closely because I'm going to give you a very
35:49
succinct method to build systems in your business.
35:53
This is the kind of the shortest, easiest way to build
35:56
out systems and get the best results for implementation
35:59
because it's not just about building the system, it's about
36:01
implementing and getting your people to actually use it.
36:04
So the method that I use is called maps and the first it's
36:10
an acronym, so M for map, first you need to map out what your
36:14
business looks like. So you want to identify the
36:16
different roles in your business.
36:18
Site manager, form and project manager, Labour admin,
36:23
bookkeeper. Probably you're at the top,
36:26
maybe director of OK. You'll want to pay attention to
37:06
this because I'm going to give you our process that we used for
37:10
it's the quickest, shortest way to implement systems in your
37:13
business. It's not just about building the
37:15
system. You've got to do that,
37:16
obviously, but the implementation is where the
37:19
challenge comes in. And if you're trying to do too
37:21
much or you have a bad process for implementation, people
37:25
aren't going to want to do it. There's gonna be no
37:27
accountability. And you're going to ask yourself
37:30
like, why did I even create this in the 1st place?
37:32
Because it's not not working for me.
37:33
And you've probably been in that position before.
37:35
So the acronym is MAPS and the first M is for MAP.
37:41
You need to map out your business.
37:43
You want to identify the different roles in your
37:44
business. So form and project manager,
37:48
laborers, carpenters, bookkeeper, you know, director
37:53
of of marketing or sales estimating.
37:55
So there's all these different areas, these different functions
37:58
that your business you want to map that out.
38:00
What is your business look like? Org charts are great for this
38:03
because you can specifically see what are all the positions in
38:05
the business and what are the big systems around it might have
38:08
project management software, different softwares.
38:11
So you just need to get that all on paper and have it in front of
38:15
you. So you have some sort of
38:16
organization. And then once you've identified
38:20
sort of what the business look likes or all the different areas
38:22
that you have in your business, you wanna then look at what are
38:26
the gaps. So you may find out that, hey,
38:29
we don't have anybody who's actually responsible for putting
38:33
out social media content or we don't have anybody who is
38:37
responsible for, for calling past due invoices for clients
38:42
who haven't paid yet or late on payments, right?
38:45
You'll start to figure out when you put tasks and people in the
38:48
right places that there's going to be gaps.
38:50
There could be overlap too, where it's like, hey, the site
38:53
manager has ordered materials, but the project manager is also
38:55
ordering materials. Who should be doing what?
38:57
How is this responsible? You'll just from mapping
39:00
everything out, you'll get some clarity around what your
39:03
business looks like and you'll start to discover like why
39:06
things aren't working the way that they should be very quickly
39:11
after map. Then you want to align.
39:13
So the alignment process of systemizing a business is you
39:18
need to build alignment between your people and in the roles.
39:22
And the best way to do this is go talk with them.
39:24
So if you've got a project manager, you've identified the
39:29
project management position, what the to different tasks that
39:33
they do, you need to go talk to them.
39:35
What do you normally do in a day?
39:36
What are the tasks? What are the issues that you
39:38
encounter? If you could change anything
39:40
about your job, you know, what would you change?
39:43
What do you feel does work well? What doesn't work well?
39:46
And by doing this, they feel like they're part of the process
39:49
because you want buy in from your team.
39:51
If you just come to them with like, here's the new system,
39:54
here's the SOP. I want you to follow every
39:57
single little dotted line and check box, every little check
40:00
box, they're going to be like whatever man, like forget it,
40:04
right? They might give you a little bit
40:06
of face value of like, yeah, sure.
40:07
But you know, at the end of the day, it's not going to get done
40:10
if you've worked through this with them and they're part of
40:13
building these systems at least by giving feedback or or like
40:16
working through the process. You've aligned with them and the
40:19
rest of it. The implementation is gonna be
40:21
so much easier. So align with your people and
40:24
then align the process. What do you do on a project?
40:28
What do you do when you need to start the new project?
40:30
Well, we need to order materials, we need to get the
40:32
site signs up, we need to call the subgrades, we need to
40:34
organize the site labour, you know, so on and so forth.
40:38
So work through, you're not looking to get finalized like
40:42
SOP's or perfect processes. You want the big steps.
40:46
What's what's the big pieces of the puzzle so that you've got
40:50
some sort of trajectory of like this is what that position holds
40:54
and this is the alignment that we have.
40:55
All right, here's the line. A lot of times there, but next
40:57
one is prioritized. So we're doing math.
40:59
So prioritize is the PP because if you start to build systems
41:05
across your business or try to fix every little leak of
41:08
efficiency and profit, you're in for a rough time and you're
41:12
going to be stuck at square, square one, base one forever.
41:16
You need to prioritize. OK, we've aligned everything you
41:19
have now, like a really good map of of your business.
41:23
What is the most pressing, urgent important part I need to
41:27
fix right now? And typically this is going to
41:29
be tied to either revenue or a major pain point or thing that
41:33
you need to delegate and get off of your plate.
41:36
So often something to do with marketing or estimating are
41:40
usually pretty high priorities early on.
41:42
But for you, it could be HR, if if you have a real hard time
41:46
bringing in good employees or you've got all these projects
41:49
you need to bring in better later, find new subcontractors,
41:52
then you maybe you focus there. So prioritize, choose your top
41:56
three systems. So not just areas like
41:59
estimating, but top three specific things.
42:02
So if you've identified estimating, OK, well, our
42:05
pricing database sucks. You know, we've got old outdated
42:08
pricing, half of it's missing and we need to improve that,
42:11
right? Other thing might be we have no
42:14
review process. We don't even know like how much
42:16
we made on a project. We need to figure out, you know,
42:19
the job costing. So identify specific, very
42:22
specific smaller systems inside the bigger functions or rules of
42:27
your business. Now you've prioritized top
42:29
three, you're going to pick the top one to work on and then
42:33
you've got to systemize. So the first three steps to
42:37
building systems, you don't start actually building the
42:40
system till the last step, which is systemized.
42:42
This is where you've identified the priority.
42:45
You've lined everything. Now you build out the system.
42:48
All right, so we're we're tackling the the cost database.
42:51
What do we need to get into place?
42:53
Well, we need to get pricing from suppliers or we need to
42:56
connect with a online pricing database that we can pull
42:59
pricing from. We need to figure out how much
43:03
additional, you know, fudge factor.
43:05
Are we going to have 100 pricing, right, because nothing
43:08
is perfect and we're going to build that out.
43:10
And then what's the next part of estimating?
43:12
Well, we don't have any good templates for this type of
43:14
project, so we can go and build that out, right?
43:16
So build out that system and then you're going to document
43:18
it. Here's the operating procedure,
43:21
how you do an estimate while you pull up the template, you use
43:25
the pricing database, you check the scope of work, you do the
43:28
take off from the plans, right? So that's when you're going to
43:31
build out the training materials, which is typically a
43:33
document plus maybe a video. Videos are great for people and
43:38
the purpose is not to have like you need the system, then you
43:41
need to implement and train your people.
43:43
And once you've done that, you'll find things that don't
43:46
work in the system or need to be changed because the wording is
43:50
wrong or maybe they missed a step or it's not the right kind
43:53
of thing that you want to put into place.
43:55
You work out a few kinks, then you build the training materials
43:58
around it because if you build the training materials to early,
44:00
you're going to have to do it again once you change the
44:02
system. Now you've got a high
44:06
functioning system, you've got training materials you can then
44:09
delegate. And the last final piece to any
44:11
good system is the accountability section.
44:15
Who is responsible for getting this done?
44:17
Who is accountable for checking that it was done?
44:19
Those are two different things. So a site manager might be
44:22
responsible for ordering certain types of material.
44:26
The project manager is accountable for the material
44:31
being correct and showing up outside on time, something like
44:34
that where you've got, you know, it might be the same person is
44:37
responsible and accountable, but typically the more junior person
44:41
is going to be doing the work. Your laborers are responsible
44:44
for actually framing up the wall.
44:45
The site managers accountable that the wall is is level
44:49
squared, has the right size of windows, all of that kind of
44:53
stuff, right? So and by giving those two
44:56
pieces, now you have a complete functioning system with
44:59
accountability that you don't have to be the centre of and you
45:02
don't have to deal with because you built it and life is a
45:06
wonderful thing.