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The Secret to Making Multi Millions With a Construction Business in 2026 · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

0:00
Approximately 20% of construction businesses fail
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within their first year and 50% do not survive past their fifth
0:06
year. Construction industry has such a
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high failure rate, so how does some contractors still make
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millions without even coming close to failing?
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After generating over $32 million in revenue and 5,000,000
0:16
in profit from multiple construction companies, I
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figured out four secrets that are making contractors
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successful and removing their stress.
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So in this video, I'll reveal exactly what those secrets are
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and how to use them to make millions of dollars in profit
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without working 80 hours per week.
0:30
Now the first secret lies with how you price projects and it's
0:33
the backbone of your business grows.
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Most contracts make the mistake of doing this with a weak
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pricing, which leads to failure and just new problems cropping
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up in the business. You cannot scale a business if
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you haven't improved your margins to an extent that you
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can afford to actually scale up. So variable margins on projects
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are so essential. I get this question a lot.
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What should we be charging 1520? Forty, 50% margins?
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What is the right number? It will depend on your area, but
0:58
the things you want to be thinking of is making sure that
1:01
your margins, they're covering your overhead.
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And if you don't have project management as a line item and
1:06
our pricing for it, you need a healthy margin to cover all of
1:09
the management, even if you're managing the project yourself.
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Now, what you want to do is be more competitive on good large
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projects and less competitive on small, undesirable projects.
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So if you are a home builder and someone wants to build a cheap
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home that's far away, you need to put a lot of margin on that
1:26
because it's got to be worth your time.
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I mean, if it's not in your wheelhouse, just let it go.
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But essentially the larger and better clients and bigger
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projects, you are going to have a little bit of a thinner margin
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typically to be able to close those projects easier.
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Whereas smaller projects you want to price yourself out of
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that market because you want to be going after bigger, better
1:46
projects. Now, the other part of pricing
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is having really good estimating templates and a really good
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estimating system. I hear a lot of contractors same
1:53
thing. My, you know, I've got 40%
1:55
margins. I should be making a lot of
1:57
money, but we always forget stuff in the estimates or
2:00
there's holes in my estimating. Pricing is off or schedule goes
2:03
longer and I end up spending a lot more money on labour,
2:05
whatever it may be. So having really good templates
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and pricing for estimating is so paramount.
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You make your money in construction.
2:12
When you estimate a project, yes, you've got to fill it and
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you've got to run an efficient project and you'll be conscious
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of material cost and labour costs.
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But if you have underpriced the project, there is just no way
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you can make that up with efficiency gains later on.
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There's only so much efficiency you can get out of your people
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and you know, cheap prices on materials, which can lead to
2:30
other problems as well. The other common thing I see is
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a misunderstanding of markup and margin.
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So margin is a percentage of the total, whereas markup is markup
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on top. So if you have $100,000 project,
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if you have 20% margins, that means the cost is 80%.
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Your margin is then 20% to make the 100% whereas a markup is on
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top of that. So the difference is a couple of
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percentages and it the more margins or markup you have, the
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bigger the difference between those.
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And this is where contractors can feel like I should be making
3:01
1520% profit on this project. But I'm lucky if I'm going to
3:05
make 5%. You probably have a disconnect
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between your margin and your markup and you're not
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associating your true overhead and contingency expenses for
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your you're estimating. Now some common mistakes that I
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see in estimating is the kind of hidden costs, if you will, that
3:20
are not being accounted for, preconstruction being one of
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them. Your preconstruction process,
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you should be getting paid for your budgeting, for your
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scheduling, for calling trades and getting pricing from them
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from meeting the client on site, talking with the designers,
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whatever it may be. You need to be getting paid for
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all that work. So that is often a sunk cost.
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If you don't have a good pre construction process, yes, you
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can provide like a free kind of rough budget to get your foot in
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the door and like kind of put a little bit of value towards the
3:47
client. But there needs to be a clear
3:48
cut off point that if you want to work farther and you want to
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drill down budget and design, we need to go into a pre
3:54
construction process. Now if you're a commercial
3:56
contractor or if you're in one of those areas that super budget
3:59
oriented, you need to at least put it in your estimate.
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So if you are doing maybe smaller projects, it's like
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there's not really much preconstruction I can charge
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for, which I would disagree with.
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But if that is the case, make sure you're at least pricing in
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an extra 5/10/15 hours into your estimate for the amount of time
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that you are doing during the preconstruction so that you're
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getting paid for it one way or the other, either when you land
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the project or as a preconstruction agreement.
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One of the quickest ways to not make a lot of money is to lower
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your price to try to win a job. This is a race to the bottom and
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you need to be able to know what your value is and know what a
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profitable business is at. There's no use going into a
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project that's going to take three months, six months, a year
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and not make any money at the end of it.
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There's no reason to keep you guys busy or to get revenue
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through your project. It doesn't matter if you're
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doing 1 million or 10 million if you're not profitable.
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At the end of the day, it's all for nothing.
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So do not shoot yourself in the foot and under price your
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project. I know it can be scary when
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especially when you have not a lot of leads or you feel you
5:00
need to, to get this job because it's interesting or it's bigger
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than anyone you've ever done and you've got dollar signs in your
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eyes. Realize that larger projects
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with low pricing is a sure way to sync your business and never
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mind getting to the millions of dollars you could possibly go
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into bankruptcy. Do not make this mistake.
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I see it over and over again. The biggest reason why many
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contractors fail and never come close to making millions because
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they don't know how to actually acquire clients.
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So you need to keep your demand super high and your production
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cap so that the ideal situation is you're in demand.
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You've got lots of leads coming in, lots of new projects, and
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you can be choosy with the clients, with the projects, with
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the locations, whatever it may be.
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You're pricing with really good margins and you're not feeling
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production. So 5 new house houses come in
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for leads. You're not telling them all that
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you can start within the next couple of months.
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You need to prioritize and tell them whoever signs the contract
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first or whoever joins the preconstruction phase and moves
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into that phase, we will hold a spot in our pipeline.
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And this is how you are always scheduling out.
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Work farther and farther. If you can do 2 houses at one
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time, fill that spot for two houses and then realize that the
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next house may have to wait six months or eight months.
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And The thing is, once you have that pipeline and you have over
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a year of booked work, you are in such a good confidence state
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that you're not worried if you didn't get leads this week or if
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that next project didn't quite pan out because you've got a
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full year to fill the next spot in your pipeline.
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Plus you can then plan it well ahead of, hey, we actually are
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pushing out more than a year of work.
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We should hire another project manager.
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So we can go from, you know, maybe two or three houses at one
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time and scale up to six or seven.
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And we know that we can meet that production because we were
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booking that far out. And as long as the leads are are
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high and our, and we're not meeting that production, we can
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then facilitate this. So just that mindset of in
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demand scheduled out, You're not just saying yes to every single
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client and getting started with them.
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Now you might be saying, you know, Derek, that's great.
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I wish I had unlimited demand and just, you know, stack of new
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estimates and clients that wanted to do work with me, But
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how do I actually get there? There's a few key components and
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a lot of contractors skip the first step, which is really
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defining their niche and their unique selling proposition.
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So you want to be specialized, you want to be the perfect fit
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for your ideal type of client. And this does take a little bit
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of brain work and legwork on your part of determining who is
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the right client. Often you can think back of who
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was some of the best clients I've ever had.
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While they lived in generally these areas, they probably made
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a certain amount of money. They might have been
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professionals, maybe new professionals that moved to the
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city or maybe families who are now growing.
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What are the commonalities? What are they afraid of?
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What are they aspired to? What is the real reason they
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want to build the home that they do?
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They can go buy a home and so why would they build 1 and go
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through all the, the trials and tribulations of construction,
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right? So really getting down into the
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psychographics and demographics, knowing your client so well and
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then all of your marketing, your sales, your conversations are
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stemming from that knowledge. And you have a certain
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confidence because you know your client so well.
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You, you get to a point where you've been in so many of those
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conversations with them, whether it's a new lead or
8:06
preconstruction process or whatever, whenever you need to
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convert them into the next stage that you already know what their
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objections are going to be, the problems that they're dealing
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with, even if they're not telling you about them.
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And you are able to then be the right pick for them because you
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get them because they have a good feeling about you.
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Because everything about your brand, your marketing, the
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colours, the way you converse with them, the people in your
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business, everything speaks to them and just feels like the
8:30
right fit. And they'll be willing to spend
8:31
an extra 510% and probably not look at a lot of your
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competitors, maybe just to vet it.
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But at the end of the day, they want to go with you.
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The other thing is the preconstruction process that I
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mentioned. Every step along the client,
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Bernie should feel like just another step in the process.
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Always telling them the next step and going from one stage to
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the next to the preconstruction agreement to the construction
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agreement and, and just moving them along the conveyor belt
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essentially. Now there's a million and one
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ways to market and generate leads.
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Some of the best ones that I've found and what most home
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builders will, will tell you is they want referrals, right?
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Referrals are the best leads. Having a good client refer
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another good client or maybe having somebody in your network
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like a designer or realtor refer new clients to you because
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there's already some trust there.
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There's affiliate familiarity and you know that that person
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isn't going to refer someone that's just way out to lunch.
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They're probably gonna refer other people similar to them.
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So if you're dealing with professionals and you have good
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clients, they're going to refer other professionals and other
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good clients. Now, because referrals are so
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important, you need a really good system to capitalize on
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your referrals. I believe you should be setting
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the intention before you even start the project.
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You don't need to ask for a hard referral, but mention, hey, by
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the way, if you know anybody, we work primarily through referrals
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because we do great work and people refer to us and we like
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to work with similar types of people.
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So if you have family members, coworkers, whoever that's
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thinking about buying a home, get them in touch with us
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because we can maybe help them and help guide that conversation
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and give them some great, you know, advice and a client
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experience. Like we've shown you, you've
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spent the time, energy, built the brand and the reputation to
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bring in clients after doing great work for them.
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You should be constantly top of mind for them that they can
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generate referrals for you. And they know if they do
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generate A referral, you're going to send them a gift card
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there something nice, maybe gift basket, depending on what it is
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for professionals, maybe you give them a small percentage of
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the the revenue or, or cut them a check for 500,000 bucks,
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whatever it may be as something nice or you just refer, right?
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The more you can refer to other people, the more likely they are
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going to want to refer to you. So developing that strong
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referral system and network can get you up to a few $1,000,000
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of business quite easily. Typically, yes, they're still
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going to do all the other marketing.
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And I believe in multi channel marketing.
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So you should be present on social media.
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You should be doing the e-mail newsletter at least once per
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month. So you've got those touch
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points, you've got content that's going out.
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Think about content as creating like one content piece and then
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splitting it up so you can push it out to all the different
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channels. So you could do one blog article
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of like top 10 things you need to know before designing your
11:01
home. And all those 10 things could be
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10 separate posts that go into social media.
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So create that system so that you always have some content
11:08
going out and your brand aware, but that is just sort of for
11:12
your existing market social media, you're not really
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reaching new people. It's more or less people that
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have found you ready and are just happened to, you know, be
11:19
on their feet at the time. The real best thing is these
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referrals and then some paid advertising.
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Yes, it's gonna cost you money and it's gonna take some time
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before the ROI maybe makes sense for you, but invest at least
11:31
small amounts of money. The good thing about paid
11:33
advertising is it's fully trackable.
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So you know exactly down to the penny how much you're spending,
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whether it's working, whether it's not, how things are going
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up and down, which types of people are are coming through.
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It's all very trackable once it's set up.
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And what I have found to work for my clients is using Google
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ads. You're going to pay more for
11:50
them, but there's high intent because the person is searching.
11:52
And then use Facebook ads for more of a nurture, Meta ads,
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Instagram, Facebook, that kind of thing.
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They're cheaper, but you typically need some sort of
11:59
offer more than just, hey, give us a call.
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If you're building your home, that can work, but typically you
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want to provide some sort of free guide, maybe free
12:06
consultation, some sort of discount potentially.
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I don't like to do discounts, but you need to grab their
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attention a little bit more. But the great thing about that
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is you're paying a little heavier price for high intent
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and then you're nurturing them and getting another touch point
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when those people search you on Google and then later in the day
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they go to Facebook or Instagram and then they see like, oh hey,
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that company I just searched. And you can then get in front of
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a potential client more times for less money essentially.
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And between the two, it works really, really well.
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Now with all your marketing, as I mentioned, with the niche, the
12:37
goal is to get high quality clients and large high quality
12:42
projects. So that is what you should
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always be optimizing for with your marketing.
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It feels good sometimes to get a whole bunch of leads or a lot of
12:49
traction views, whatever those vanity metrics.
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But at the end of the day, it boils down to am I getting the
12:55
right type of clients that I want to work with that it will
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actually convert at a high level, you can afford my
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services and are they building the type of projects that I want
13:02
to be working with them on? But even if you have the best
13:05
marketing out there and your pricing templates and estimating
13:08
is on point, if you don't know how to build an amazing team,
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it's all for nothing. You're still going to be
13:13
stressed out and have way too much work to handle.
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So that's where secret #3 comes in and that is how to bring in
13:19
and retain a players. And even if you're not going to
13:22
have full eight players, how to get people from being a B player
13:24
to an A player with great human resource systems for hiring,
13:28
onboarding and training employees.
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And if you need help with any of this, click the link in the
13:33
description below to apply for my coaching program.
13:36
Now team building, it's not really a secret.
13:38
You know that you need to hire employees to to build a
13:40
business. The the problem is you can't
13:42
delegate without systems. And most contractors run into
13:46
this problem. I see it over and over again.
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Just talked with one of the other day Hide A project manager
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fired them after three weeks because they didn't work out.
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Hiring 8 players into a broken system is just going to give you
13:55
a whole lot of really expensive chaos and make your life harder
13:59
because now you've got to babysit them and try to train
14:02
them on something that is everything you know in your head
14:05
and you don't have anything to hand off and really get them
14:07
running and successful in their in their job.
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Way to think about hiring is you have an organization chart in
14:13
your business. You are the CEO of the top and
14:16
most people fill that role and and you feel like you're the
14:18
owner. What you don't understand is
14:20
most of that that pyramid is typical shape is owned and
14:24
operated by you. You're the project manager,
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you're the finance manager, you're the HR manager, the
14:29
marketing manager, whatever it may be.
14:31
Even if you have people in those positions, you are still
14:34
managing them constantly and having to tell them what to do.
14:36
And you were probably maybe even doing some of those roles.
14:39
So your goal is to hire the bottom rungs and solely get that
14:42
support structure and that team as you move up and own just the
14:46
top CEO roles of of the company. Now the biggest kind of mindset
14:51
thing is you need to stop doing $50.00 an hour asks if you can
14:55
hire someone for $50.00 an hour. Your time is worth at least 100,
14:59
probably 2 maybe even $1000 an hour depending on the size of
15:02
your business and guaranteed most of the different positions
15:05
in your company are gonna be you can pay someone $50.00 an hour
15:08
or less. A lot of them probably even 10
15:11
to 1520 if you get virtual assistance overseas project
15:15
manager, maybe you're paying them, you know, 50 up to $70.00
15:18
an hour depending on what they do or lead Carpenter.
15:21
So eventually you will fill those positions as well.
15:24
But just realize that the the cheap repetitive stuff.
15:26
So the first thing to get off your plate I find is
15:29
bookkeeping. Then you want to hire an
15:30
administration assistant or office manager, somebody to help
15:34
you. Even if you are very involved on
15:36
site, still you need that office person 5/10/15 hours per week.
15:41
Whatever it is, take care of that little nitty gritty stuff
15:44
that you don't have time for, you don't enjoy doing.
15:46
You need to get that off your plate sooner than hiring like a
15:49
project manager or even maybe a Superintendent.
15:52
Once you've got the office stuff figured out, then you move into
15:55
the site manager and project management, getting those off
15:58
your plate and then bringing in a marketing manager, which your
16:01
office manager can kind of handle some of that.
16:04
So that's a typical progression and you don't want to hire all
16:07
of them right away. You need to level up
16:09
essentially, and you need to make sure that you have a good
16:12
system in place before you hire this person.
16:15
It doesn't have to be perfect, but at least a playbook of these
16:19
are the big steps, These are the roles and responsibilities,
16:21
These are descriptions, all of those kind of things that they
16:24
are not walking into a job where you just have to tell them
16:27
everything. There should be a rhyme and a
16:29
reason why you do things and a playbook with some training for
16:31
them to handle it. As for recruiting systems, I'm
16:34
gonna run through our process that we use.
16:37
There's a lot of depth to it, but essentially this is what you
16:39
want to be thinking of. Just as you have an ideal
16:42
client, as I mentioned before, you're going to have an ideal
16:44
employee. So with the client, you want to
16:47
know all those different demographics and psychographics.
16:49
Same thing for an employee who's the best site manager for men
16:52
that I've ever had or worked with before?
16:55
What was unique about them? Why were they good at the job?
16:57
Why would I want to hire another person like that?
17:00
Oh, and all that stuff so that you have a clear understanding
17:02
of who is the right person for this job.
17:04
If you're just putting out an ad, need a site manager and they
17:07
need to be able to do this, this, this and this and have
17:09
this experience, you're going to get a whole bunch of random
17:11
people. You want to have a job ad that's
17:13
curated specifically for certain type of persons that you're
17:16
attracting that type of person. And the other thing with hiring
17:19
is just as you don't want to lowball yourself with estimate
17:22
pricing, you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot with hiring
17:25
too fast. And the problem is usually
17:27
you're looking to hire when things get busy and you're like,
17:30
I need someone yesterday because I'm going crazy, My people are
17:32
going crazy. I have projects behind schedule.
17:34
I need someone right away. I just a warm body.
17:37
And that's the worst thing you can do for culture because
17:39
you're trying to bring someone in while things are super busy
17:42
trying to onboard them. So they're coming into an
17:43
environment that's already chaotic and you're probably
17:45
moving things too fast without proper vetting.
17:48
So understanding that the right type of person, you create a job
17:51
ad, you want to get as much exposure as you can.
17:53
So post it on a lot of different sites.
17:54
Ask your existing employees, ask your network, put out social
17:58
media posts. Hey, we're hiring send out
18:00
emails to everybody who's you've interviewed before for that
18:03
position. So people sent you resumes for
18:05
the carpentry position two years ago.
18:07
You should have that data on file that you can send an e-mail
18:09
and say, hey, you should reapply.
18:11
We're now hiring again for this position because that person now
18:14
has two more years of experience and they may be working in
18:17
another company or not actively looking for a job.
18:19
So the best employees are probably working in your
18:22
competitors companies. They're not just sitting on
18:24
their thumbs at home waiting for your job ad to come across their
18:27
desk so they can apply for your position.
18:29
So it's really important to have those databases and those
18:31
networks. Find the people who may be in
18:33
employment already but possibly looking for a change.
18:36
Once you get all of the different people, you're going
18:38
to curate it down to maybe 2-3, four top candidates.
18:42
Meet with them, spend some time with them.
18:43
If it's an important management position, have other people on
18:46
your team meet with them as well without you there and then get
18:49
their feedback. What did you think about this
18:51
person? Do you think will be a good fit?
18:52
You know, what were some red flags for you?
18:53
Because you as a business owner are probably optimistic.
18:56
You're used to sales. You're used to like getting
18:58
along with people, having a good time.
19:00
And you may think someone is great for a position without
19:03
because you have a good feeling about them without realizing
19:06
that there is things that are off here and they may not, you
19:08
know, they may clash with the the current culture or they may
19:11
not really have the experience that they're telling you they do
19:14
all those kind of things. Final thing is to make sure you
19:17
do your due diligence. Call references, call their past
19:20
employers, call possibly their landlord, get a background check
19:23
if you think it's relevant, just to make sure that there's no
19:26
difficult things in their past that they have to deal with.
19:28
And even if they are, that they can communicate them to you and
19:31
everyone knows what's going on. In order to make millions,
19:33
there's one more step that's extremely important that builds
19:36
your reputation. And that is to operate so
19:38
efficiently that you can take time off, take a vacation
19:41
without things falling apart, and still come back to your
19:44
business and it'll be growing. The day that your projects are
19:47
the same whether you're on site or on vacation is the day you
19:50
can start to grow much faster and focus working on the
19:53
business instead of in it. So amazing operations is secret
19:57
#4 it's much more than just getting less stress.
20:01
It is everything to do with your.
20:03
Business from the clients experience and your employees
20:06
experience and your subcontractors experience.
20:09
When your operations are on point, you feel good.
20:11
It's amazing when you get to that point where it's like you
20:14
don't even have to think about it and it's just operating and
20:18
you have this piece of mind to know that your people are
20:21
trained, there's a system in place.
20:23
You're going to get your reports, you're going to have
20:25
your weekly or monthly meetings with the key people of your
20:28
organization, and you get these clients that are just ecstatic
20:31
to be working with you and so happy about that project manager
20:34
and how they're running your company.
20:36
That is a wonderful, amazing place to be in making millions
20:40
of dollars fantastic. But having a business that can
20:42
operate like that is just the like next level amount of
20:46
freedom. And the real reason why business
20:48
owners, entrepreneurs get into business in the 1st place is to
20:51
have that fulfillment of creating an amazing business
20:54
that fulfills like clients meets expectations.
20:57
They get good reviews enabling your people, you're leading
21:00
them, they're happy, you're happy.
21:02
It's just a beautiful place to be and it is not an easy place
21:06
to get to. As you probably know, anything
21:08
and everything can happen. We talked about building your
21:10
team. The next step is actually
21:12
delegating. So you've built A-Team, you've
21:14
brought in the ideal clients. You've got eight players, maybe
21:16
some B players who you know you wanna level up to 8 players.
21:20
Delegating to them is all about the operations and systems of
21:22
your business. So there's some key components
21:24
and maybe seeing stuff out there, you know, Sops are dead.
21:28
Yeah, most Sops probably do. And even if you're giving your
21:31
SOP to an AI, you still need operating procedures.
21:34
You still need to have A bought out way that's efficient of how
21:38
things get done as documented somewhere.
21:41
I don't care what kind of business you're in or what sort
21:44
of you know, people you've got in your business.
21:46
At the end of the day you need this written down.
21:48
Otherwise you're never going to set yourself free from your
21:50
business. So document your processes.
21:52
Start simple estimating. If that is your the process
21:56
you're what is the big steps of estimating?
21:58
What do you do? 5 to 10 big steps with a little
22:00
description. That's all you need at the
22:01
beginning. From there you can start to
22:03
build it out and refine it. Stay focused, figure out what is
22:06
the big pain point you're dealing with right now.
22:09
What is the thing you don't want to be doing anymore?
22:11
What is the problem of your business?
22:13
It could be communication, it could be management, could be
22:17
scheduling. What is that small little
22:19
system? Don't think about like building
22:20
out like this huge software, like your job software or some
22:24
big marketing campaign. What is the small thing that you
22:27
can do? The next actionable step, work
22:29
on that, then move on to the next one.
22:31
It doesn't have to be perfect, you just need to get it in
22:33
place. Once you've got that system, it
22:35
then becomes really easy with the right candidate to have them
22:38
on boarded trained. They get the employee handbook,
22:41
they get the training manuals, they understand the, the SOP's.
22:45
They there's a training process that they shadow someone doing
22:48
whatever needs to get done or you're providing feedback or
22:50
someone on your team providing feedback.
22:52
So there's a great way to be able to delegate, get it off
22:54
your plate. And then you need checks and
22:55
balances. And this is another part where a
22:57
lot of people go wrong is I hired this person, I gave them
23:00
all this stuff. They should know what they're
23:02
doing, but I still have to check on them and they're still not
23:04
doing things correctly and they let things slide.
23:07
They get too comfortable. Whatever it is that boils down
23:09
to a leadership and communication issue, not
23:12
necessarily an employee issue. Yeah, if they're not getting it,
23:14
maybe you have to let them go. But most of the time, more often
23:17
than not, it is that you haven't communicated clearly that, hey,
23:20
this is really important, I need you to get these things done.
23:23
These are the priorities. This is the first thing you get
23:26
done. This is the second thing.
23:27
This is the third thing. If these lower priorities don't
23:29
get done and you have a valid reason, I understand.
23:32
I don't want excuses, but at the end of the day, they're not as
23:35
important. As long as you're taking care of
23:36
your core deliverables, then we should be running just fine.
23:40
Have a scorecard, have check-ins, you know, sending
23:43
daily site updates or logs. And make sure that you are
23:47
keeping this as very important in your mind.
23:50
Because if you are like at 80 or 70%, like, oh, it's OK, you
23:54
didn't get the daily login today or you got three out of five
23:57
last week, they're going to be like, well, they're OK with
23:59
three out of five. So if I just send like one or
24:02
two a week or probably OK. So they're always going to the
24:04
importance for the person that you're asking someone to do
24:07
something for is always going to be less.
24:09
So if you're telling a project manager, hey, it's super
24:11
important that the guys clean up the site after your project
24:14
manager is probably like tells the guys, hey guys, boss says we
24:17
need to clean up the site better by the time it gets down through
24:20
the site. Guys, it's not really super
24:22
important. So you have to make sure that
24:24
you're communicating very clearly and that there's
24:26
repercussion and that if they can't meet something, maybe you
24:30
have some sort of ulterior thing that you can do.
24:32
Give them a day off until they get it right.
24:34
Send them, you know, across town to go clean up something and
24:37
whatever it needs needs to happen now.
24:39
After stating the importance and priorities, now you need to give
24:43
clear instructions on how to instruct and make decisions for
24:49
your employees. There should be a document
24:51
somewhere along with the SOP's or the training materials of
24:54
exactly what to do in certain situations so that if something
24:57
comes up, they have something to refer back to or at least it's
25:00
been communicated with them. So in the project management
25:03
training, there should be something.
25:04
If a client asks for additional work to be done on the project,
25:08
you need to do this right. Tell them they need to talk with
25:12
however, or you'll get them an estimate that you can't, you
25:14
know, proceed with it. If guys showing up late or maybe
25:18
they're they're hungover multiple days out of the week,
25:20
then this is what you need to do, right?
25:22
So very clear instructions. If you have problems that are
25:25
reoccurring in your business, that is a clear indication that
25:28
your systems are not adequate. So if you have the same thing
25:31
happening over and over, you need to put some sort of
25:33
documentation, communication, leadership in place to mitigate
25:37
that. And if you can't solve that
25:39
problem, maybe you need to make structural changes or personnel
25:42
changes inside your business to address that problem.
25:45
You, at the end of the day, need to be stopping the bottleneck.
25:48
And we'll have to give up some control and realize that there
25:52
will be some fallout and some collateral damage potentially by
25:56
giving more responsibility to your people.
25:58
Now, you need to outline this in your roles and responsibilities,
26:02
description of the job so that they know clearly what things
26:05
they can make decisions on and have threshold.
26:07
So if something's going to take two hours to fix, maybe they fix
26:10
it. If it's going to take over that,
26:11
then they need to get a change order or talk to you, their
26:14
senior manager. If they can purchase something
26:17
for under $500 and they need it for the site, maybe that's, you
26:21
know, within reason and they can do that.
26:22
If it's above that, they need additional clearance or what
26:25
have you. So there's certain checks, but
26:27
you need to give up more control to your people with clear
26:30
decision guidelines and clear communication guidelines.
26:33
At the end of the day, and this is really the only way to stop
26:35
micromanaging and get yourself out of the day-to-day.
26:38
The last thing I'm going to touch on with Amazing Operations
26:41
is utilizing technology effectively.
26:43
You don't have to be an expert at all this, you know, new
26:46
automations or AI, but realize that there's so much help out
26:50
there that you can receive to automate a lot of the back end,
26:55
anything to do with Peter software, scheduling,
26:57
communications. A lot of it could be automated
26:59
or improved with even just small parts of the process utilizing
27:03
better technology. Especially with AI nowadays,
27:05
there's a lot of good tools out there that you're probably not
27:09
using and you just need to get in touch with the right people
27:12
or hunker down and just learn something new and realize that
27:15
sometimes you'll have to try something out or train a new
27:18
system before it'll become effective.
27:21
Now you understand the secrets to building a multi $1,000,000
27:24
construction business. The info that I shared with you
27:27
in this video is just a small fraction of what we teach
27:29
contractors inside our coaching program.
27:32
So if you want help with this from someone who's generated
27:34
over $30 million in revenue for general contractors, click the
27:36
link in the description to work with me.
27:38
And if you want to learn how I generate over $5 million of
27:41
profit for contractors, watch this next video where I break it
27:43
down for you.