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How To Manage A Construction Project Step By Step · Contractor Business Builder Podcast

• 0:00
  Most contractors are trapped working 12 hours a day because
• 0:04
  they do not know how to manage construction projects the right
• 0:07
  way. I didn't have proper project
• 0:09
  management methods. I used to be super stressed and
• 0:13
  was forced to work extra hours. So in this video, I'm going to
• 0:16
  be sharing with you every single detail from selections to
• 0:20
  scheduling so your jobs run with joy instead of all that stress.
• 0:24
  We'll break down how to lead your team, manage trades and
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  keep clients informed so you're not stuck on site every single
• 0:30
  day. And I will walk you through my
• 0:32
  personal project closeout process to get you more
• 0:36
  referrals on autopilot. Alright, you are in luck.
• 0:39
  We're going to be building a complete system to ensure every
• 0:43
  project runs smoothly and profitably in your business.
• 0:46
  Why am I sharing this with you today?
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  I have 20 years of contracting experience.
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  Everything from tools to project management to general
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  contractor, business owner systemized well over 30 plus
• 0:58
  general contracting companies. Very closely worked with them
• 1:01
  and I'm here to lead a movement towards systems leadership and
• 1:05
  generational wealth for contractors.
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  I'm tired seeing contractors burnt out, stressed out, not
• 1:11
  having the right systems and processes in place.
• 1:12
  So you are going to be getting everything here today.
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  So First things first, world class mindset need to get the
• 1:21
  thinking right first. I'm not big on, you know,
• 1:23
  mindset and all that kind of stuff, but there is some
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  important things that you should be able to think about and know
• 1:28
  before we dive into building the system.
• 1:30
  So planning reduces stress. The if you have a lot of stress
• 1:34
  in your business and your life and your project management is
• 1:37
  because there's a lack of planning, 95% of the time all
• 1:40
  this stress that comes up is because you weren't proactive
• 1:43
  and didn't have a good system in place.
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  So just recognize that lots of stress, it's, it's a, it's a
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  data point that you need better planning.
• 1:51
  The secret of growth is speed. When you're running a project,
• 1:56
  don't wait for anybody, anything, any.
• 1:58
  Anyhow, it does not matter what happened.
• 2:00
  Your mindset needs. I'm not waiting around for
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  anything. So the trade says they can't get
• 2:06
  there today. You need to call them, figure
• 2:08
  out why. If someone, something goes on
• 2:11
  back order, you need to go in and figure out why is the
• 2:13
  material on back order? What can we get instead?
• 2:15
  Why did this happen? It's very common and it can be
• 2:19
  tempting sometimes that when something comes up, oh, the
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  homeowner didn't select the shower, whatever door for this
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  shower. So now we didn't order on time.
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  So we're not going to kind of get things rolling.
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  We're going to have like a week break until we, we wait for the
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  shower door, right? You have to get that kind of
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  thinking. You don't want to make excuses
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  for why something should take longer or you guys can't be
• 2:42
  working there. You always want to be pushing
• 2:45
  and have your, your foot on the accelerator for projects because
• 2:47
  as you know, every project runs into scheduling delays.
• 2:51
  Something happens, things get pushed out and that often leads
• 2:54
  to just a lease there too easy going idea of of speed.
• 3:00
  So if you want to grow your construction company, if you
• 3:02
  want to grow as a project manager, speed is the name of
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  the game with planning caveat. You don't want to be speeding so
• 3:09
  much that you're missing details and things like that.
• 3:12
  But as far as like schedules, everybody knows this is a
• 3:15
  schedule. We need to stick to it total
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  problem thinking. Not every problem is your
• 3:19
  problem, but every problem on a project will affect you one way
• 3:24
  or the other. So if the electricians guys
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  aren't showing up because they're all sick, if there's
• 3:29
  some supply chain issue, that's someone else's problem to figure
• 3:33
  out and deal with. But it is your problem because
• 3:35
  you are accountable for the entire project.
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  So if there is something that's gone wrong on the project,
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  blaming someone else or coming up with excuses does not cut it.
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  And it's not a way to operate. And you're just going to look
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  unprofessional and you're not going to really get to the real
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  heart of the problem if that is the way that you're thinking.
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  Become a world class leader. The best project managers aren't
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  just good managers, they are leaders.
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  They are leading everybody by example, leading everybody by
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  communicating well with them, leading everybody by having a
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  system and a process, by being personal with people.
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  Sometimes a personal touch is needed.
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  So know that you're not just here to manage a project.
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  You're here to lead a group of people to achieve a certain
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  outcome, which is, you know, amazing projects that are on
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  time, on schedule, on budget. I have yet to have a client come
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  to me and say, Derek you are over communicating.
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  I need you to stop talking and sending me emails and sending me
• 4:30
  texts and providing schedule updates.
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  It's too much. I'm overwhelmed.
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  I can't, I can't, you know, I don't want to hear from you at
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  all. Just do the project I.
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  Have yet to hear that happen from a client so just realize
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  that the majority of contractors if if this is like perfect
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  communication. Most guys, project managers,
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  contractors are somewhere. Over here where communication is
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  not high enough, very rarely the people over communicate.
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  And even if they do, very few clients are gonna be upset that
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  you're overcommitted. There may be a little annoyed
• 5:00
  sometimes, like I'm getting all these like notifications and
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  they're sending all these updates, but it's their project.
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  They're paying their good hard earned money for you to provide
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  a service and create a project for them.
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  They want to hear from you. They want to know what's going
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  on and then finally go upstream. So you've ever heard this
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  analogy, This guy, he's at a river and there's babies that
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  are floating down the river and he's jumping into the river to
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  go save the babies. Like, you know, why is why are
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  all these babies like drowning in the river?
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  So he saving these babies and then this guy jogs by and he
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  says, oht, what's happening? He's like, all these babies are
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  drowning in the river. He's like, OK, And he keeps
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  jogging. He's like, are you gonna help
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  me? He's like, well, I'm gonna go
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  see who's throwing all these babies in the river.
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  So make sure that you are not just putting out fires every day
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  and saving babies that you're actually figuring out.
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  Why is this keep cropping up? What's the heart of this
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  problem? Go upstream and figure out
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  what's the root cause so that we can put a system around and put
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  communication around it. Build some sort of automation
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  around it so that this stops happening in the future.
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  OK, so now that we got some of those those mindset things out
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  of the way and how to think, now we're going to be doing this set
• 6:06
  for success. So with the project, we want to
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  be proactive and the pre con checklist is instrumental in
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  making sure that we're moving into the project with everything
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  in place and nothing is forgotten about.
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  So we want to be checking the design and architectural, making
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  sure that it is complete. It's been reviewed by yourself
• 6:27
  as a project manager or somebody on your team and when you can
• 6:30
  provide. Feedback to a designer
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  architect, you want to do it in a nice wave so that they don't
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  get upset. You know, who are they to tell
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  me how to build a design a project?
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  But if you can, if you can bring up things like, hey, I'm not
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  sure if this design is going to work or this architectural
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  piece. We're missing this information.
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  When you can provide a bit of a list, it's like a professional
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  take on some things that they may have missed or over or not
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  thought about. It really elevates you as a
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  professional. So always make sure you're
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  reviewing the plans and the architectural drawings and going
• 6:59
  through everything to make sure that you are first and foremost,
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  you're not going to have huge surprises when the project comes
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  up, but also to be able to provide feedback.
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  Next thing is scheduling. So complete scheduling of the
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  preconstruction process of not just scheduling the actual
• 7:16
  project, which I will show you later, but scheduling the
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  reconstruction process of how long is it going to take for
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  design or for drawings or for permitting for any of you know,
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  selections, all that kind of stuff.
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  And then having a really good client onboarding process is is
• 7:29
  key. So this is where they have
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  signed a contract and now you are going to be on boarding them
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  as a client. What to expect, setting
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  expectations. The biggest kind of place where
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  frustration, friction, upset clients comes into play is not
• 7:45
  setting good expectations. So you should have a document
• 7:49
  that outlines all the expectations, what they can
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  expect. As far as the construction
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  project, you know how it gets started guys.
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  Coming and going. Access to the sites, payments,
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  invoicing, all these little things that if the clients ever
• 8:03
  got upset with you about something, you want to make sure
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  that you put that expectation into the document so that they
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  know going into it. This is what to expect
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  essentially. Shared files.
• 8:13
  So you want to share files out to them, the plans, the
• 8:16
  schedule, their dashboard, whatever it may be to make sure
• 8:20
  that they have everything they need.
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  And you have gone through a full checklist of like clients taking
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  care of design architecturals in place, scheduling is in place,
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  everything is in order. And we know that we are set for
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  success. So now the $10 million
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  selections process, any company doing $10 million projects or
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  even, you know, doing $10 million in revenue, they have
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  nailed down the selections process and the preconstruction
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  process. If you want to scale up 10,
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  twenty, $100 million construction company, even if
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  you just want to get more organized and have less client
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  complaints, you need to nail down the selections process.
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  This has to be a condition for starting the project.
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  I remember when I started moving in general contracting and doing
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  remodels, and this is something I didn't do well and it
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  definitely affected me and my clients.
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  And looking back, it just seems so unprofessional.
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  Now. Everything for the project
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  should be agreed upon, selected before you even think about
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  starting the project. And this is something that you
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  should have a designer, somebody that's managing the selections
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  process, that has design input. You as a project manager,
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  business owner, yeah, you may know what looks good and you've
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  been in the business long enough to know what you know materials
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  and and stuff works together, but you're not a designer.
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  If you're like me like you know, I don't have any clue.
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  I can never make a beautiful interior like this and this may
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  not be everyone style, but you get the idea right.
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  So make sure you're offering design help, whether that is
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  bringing in an interior designer from outside your company or
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  hiring one inside your company. Depending on what kind of design
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  build process that you have a strong selections schedule.
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  So this should be either in your project management software or a
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  spreadsheet that has all of the selections by area by.
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  Room so that and everything is detailed, it's knowing this is
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  the supplier, this is the dimensions, this is the the
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  colour, the QR there the code, whatever you know like all of
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  that information should. Be in there so anybody can go
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  into it really easily and find it.
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  And then you want to be adding your preferred vendors.
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  So giving your clients a list of preferred vendors so that they
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  know like, oh, if I want to show for tile, I should go to this
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  place and go look at tile. I should talk to this sales Rep
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  about tile instead of them going out to maybe, you know, coming
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  back to you is like, yeah, we went profile and we like, you
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  know this tile from this supplier and this one.
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  And so you got like 3 different places you're ordering tile from
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  or they're ordering it from places that you know, or just
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  have like poor customer service or crappy products or or
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  whatever, right? So good designer should
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  essentially take care of this again, but you as a company as
• 10:52
  well should be providing to your designer or to your client.
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  Like these are the people that we like to work with.
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  This is where we have accounts for this, where we can get
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  discounts from. And so that not that they can't
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  go outside and get stuff, you know, that if they really like
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  something somewhere else, they can get it, but they should be
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  pregaming it so that they're more than likely gonna go with
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  the your preferred vendors. And then before the project
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  starts, making sure someone's going through it line by line
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  allowances versus selections and making updates to the budget or
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  making change orders depending on what's happening.
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  So the clients went and picked their 15, you know, $15 per
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  square foot tile for the shower. Great.
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  But we only had $10 in our budget.
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  So we need to make up that difference, right?
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  And provide, you know, budget update or change order, however
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  you handle that. But that needs to be gone
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  through so that you're getting, you're taking care of these
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  issues and conversations before it becomes critical.
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  Nobody wants to be standing in the living room with their
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  client. Like, yeah, here's the two
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  different types of flooring that we have.
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  And this one is going to take like 4 weeks, but we need to
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  install it in two weeks because our flooring guys showing up,
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  right? But you don't want to be having
• 12:01
  these kind of conversations on an ongoing project.
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  Everything money wise, selections wise, scheduling wise
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  should be figured out, discussed and ironed out before anybody
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  steps foot on the site for construction and lead time
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  planning, very important that we're checking lead times.
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  If they've ordered some crazy tile from straight from Italy
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  that's gonna take three months, you know, to come across on some
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  ship or whatever, then you need to know about that so and put it
• 12:27
  in your schedule and plan for it.
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  So checking lead times super critical when going through the
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  selections process. If you've ever been to trivia
• 12:34
  night, I've got one for you here.
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  What's the average percent of projects go over schedule?
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  You might be thinking, well, pretty much 100% it hit 6777 or
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  87%. What do you think?
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  So it is in fact 77%. So 8 out of 10 projects go over
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  schedule and 85% of projects experience cost overruns.
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  So you can see the bar is set pretty low.
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  And if you get these systems and processes in place, if you as a
• 13:03
  company can improve upon these numbers, which is again.
• 13:06
  Pretty pretty low and you can get some.
• 13:09
  Low hanging fruit of good project management,
• 13:12
  preconstruction, scheduling and job costing.
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  You are going to be well ahead of all the other builders in
• 13:19
  your area. Alright, so who wouldn't like to
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  have a crystal ball and see exactly what's gonna happen in
• 13:25
  the future? Maybe with AI this is gonna
• 13:28
  become more of a reality. But until then, we've gotta
• 13:31
  create project schedules. And the schedule is paramount to
• 13:36
  running an effective project, to being an effective project
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  manager. If you've run projects without
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  schedules, you know how chaotic and how crazy things can get.
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  And really, you're in the dark and clueless about what's
• 13:48
  happening and what's going to happen.
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  So a good schedule, first of all, that tells everybody what's
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  happening. Second of all, it lets you know
• 13:55
  ahead of time what things are looking like into the future.
• 13:58
  So time judgment and buffers, if you're a little bit optimistic,
• 14:01
  like most people, your time judgment, even if you're very
• 14:05
  experienced construction is probably not accurate because
• 14:08
  there's always little things you forget.
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  There's always like variables that can come up.
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  Nobody can predict the future. So that's why you need to have
• 14:15
  some buffers in place. Buffers are just little windows
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  between major phases of the project, so.
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  Between. Permits and getting the project
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  started have a few weeks in their potentially in case the
• 14:27
  permits go longer, your guys are finishing up another project
• 14:30
  can't get started right away, whatever it may be, as well as
• 14:33
  between trade. So if you have, you know,
• 14:36
  subcontractors, plumbing, electrical, what have you.
• 14:39
  Well, how often does 1 trade finish in the next one start
• 14:42
  perfectly, you know, day after day, very rarely in in my
• 14:47
  experience. So put a day buffer in there.
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  If you don't use that buffer, great, you're a little bit ahead
• 14:51
  of schedule and maybe you can bump up the next trader, what
• 14:54
  have you. You don't want to elongate your
• 14:56
  schedule like crazy amounts and have huge buffers in there, but
• 14:59
  small buffers along the way just make things much more realistic
• 15:02
  because as you know something's going to go wrong, something's
• 15:05
  going to come up, and inevitably that the schedule is going to
• 15:08
  get pushed out. Next thing is lead time.
• 15:10
  So lead times ordering should be in your schedule.
• 15:13
  I like to see ordering in there if you have cabinets that you
• 15:16
  know are going to need to be installed in three months and
• 15:19
  your cabinet manufacturer takes about 6-7 weeks to produce
• 15:22
  cabinets and you've got to get it in there.
• 15:24
  System and get the design then 8 to 9 weeks before you need to
• 15:29
  install there should be something in your schedule that
• 15:31
  says order cabinets and then it's like Oh yeah I need to
• 15:34
  reach out to whoever to get the cabinets ordered right that way
• 15:38
  when it comes down to the day install it's all scheduled and
• 15:41
  ahead of time low stress you know what's happening critical
• 15:45
  path and phases so the critical path is things that have to get
• 15:50
  done before the next thing happens if you're building a new
• 15:53
  home whether the deck. Goes on during drywall or during
• 15:58
  landscaping. At the end it's, it doesn't make
• 16:00
  a huge difference. So something like a deck would
• 16:03
  not be on a critical path. Whereas plumbing pipes are very
• 16:07
  critical before you can drywall or do anything else with the
• 16:10
  project. So knowing what's on the
• 16:12
  critical path, what's very necessary needs to get done and
• 16:15
  other things that can maybe slide a little bit or you can
• 16:17
  move them around to convenient times.
• 16:19
  That's what critical path is. Phases.
• 16:22
  I like to see large phases in the schedule and then you've got
• 16:25
  all your items underneath. That way you can show the client
• 16:29
  the large phases without having them see all the little
• 16:32
  individual items. So they're not diving into like,
• 16:34
  hey, the electrician was supposed to show up yesterday,
• 16:37
  but they're still not here. You know why, why is why are we
• 16:40
  off schedule? Right?
• 16:41
  So instead of that, you might have like a rough end stage
• 16:44
  where you've got, you know, the client just sees roughens for
• 16:47
  three weeks or whatever. And then but on your schedule,
• 16:50
  you're going to see, you know, plumber, electrician, HVAC,
• 16:52
  whatever it may be. And those phases kind of give
• 16:55
  you a larger picture of how things are going step by step
• 16:58
  dependencies. This is probably the main
• 17:02
  mistake that I see a lot of contractors, project managers
• 17:05
  not using effectively or not getting 100% right.
• 17:10
  Everything in your schedule should have a dependency on it
• 17:13
  so that it's linked with something else in your schedule.
• 17:15
  Unless it's like your birthday, which I don't think you put in
• 17:18
  your schedule, but that's like a specific day.
• 17:20
  Everything else is going to be linked to something else because
• 17:24
  it has to get done in a certain order.
• 17:26
  And if you change the start date or you change how long something
• 17:29
  takes, let's say you're finished, Carpenter took extra
• 17:33
  amount of time. Well, that means you can't start
• 17:36
  the next thing, whatever it may be, right?
• 17:38
  So make sure that every single thing in the schedule, it has a
• 17:41
  dependency on something else so that when you change one date,
• 17:44
  everything else changes and you don't have to manually start
• 17:47
  moving stuff around. Now, trade stacking is effective
• 17:52
  and sometimes necessary, but it should be a last resort.
• 17:55
  What I mean by trade stacking. Because you've got multiple
• 17:58
  trades doing multiple jobs on the same project.
• 18:02
  If you got a massive warehouse or shopping mall or something
• 18:05
  like that, yeah, you're going to have a whole bunch of different
• 18:08
  trades there and on different places.
• 18:09
  But if you're building like a home or doing a remodel, nobody
• 18:13
  wants to be working around each other.
• 18:15
  Like electrician doesn't want to be around the plumber or the
• 18:17
  HVAC guy, right? So if one has taken longer and
• 18:19
  you want to get the other one in there, make sure you're
• 18:22
  communicating that, hey, you guys are running late.
• 18:24
  I've got to get the other guy in.
• 18:25
  Tell the other guy, hey, these guys are running late.
• 18:27
  You're gonna have guys working over each other and try to
• 18:30
  smooth that situation out. But that's why you have buffers
• 18:32
  in there. So ideally, they don't have to
• 18:34
  work on top of each other. They're trying to make up time.
• 18:37
  Just realize that they're probably gonna be a little
• 18:39
  pissed off. And you don't want to be a
• 18:41
  contractor that's always pushing projects and making life
• 18:44
  difficult for your tradespeople. Yeah, you gotta let them know
• 18:47
  what's what, and you got to keep them on track.
• 18:49
  But at the end of the day, they can go work for another
• 18:51
  contract. And if they've got a choice
• 18:52
  between, you know, who they're working with, hopefully it's you
• 18:55
  because you've got schedules in place.
• 18:57
  You got a plan, you're good at communicating, that's what you
• 18:59
  want. Another way to make sure that
• 19:01
  trades are not going, you know, grossly over schedule is get
• 19:06
  their feedback. So when you're creating your
• 19:08
  schedule, call your plumber and ask, hey, how long is this
• 19:11
  project going to take? Well, that's about, you know, 7
• 19:13
  days of work. Great.
• 19:14
  Put seven days in there. Put a buffer of an extra day
• 19:17
  just in case. And later, if they are running
• 19:20
  over schedule, tell them, hey, you told me this would take
• 19:23
  seven days. You're at like 9 days.
• 19:24
  What you know what the hecks going on here.
• 19:26
  So that way at least they're accountable and you're getting
• 19:29
  their feedback. If you're like, oh, I think that
• 19:30
  should take four days. It's a small project.
• 19:32
  They're telling you it should be take six.
• 19:34
  Well, they're probably more accurate because they know their
• 19:37
  guys, they know their schedule, they know what's going on,
• 19:39
  right? If they're just like way out to
• 19:41
  lunch, like it's telling you it's two weeks when you know it
• 19:44
  should be one, call them out on it.
• 19:45
  Figure out what what's what's appropriate, but get their
• 19:48
  feedback, get their accountability of how much time
• 19:50
  they think it should take and how much time you're going to
• 19:52
  give them to take snowballing. So this is where small little
• 19:56
  changes in the schedule just snowball into like Major.
• 20:00
  Delays and projects going over weeks, months, you know,
• 20:03
  hopefully not years, but weeks and months sometimes.
• 20:05
  If you're gonna make an adjustment and a schedule, make
• 20:08
  sure that you. Are.
• 20:10
  Giving yourself extra time if let's say your plumber took an
• 20:14
  extra, I'm picking on plumbers here, but it could be anybody.
• 20:16
  Let's say your electrician does that takes an extra 2 days and
• 20:20
  now you need to tell the client, hey, we're two days over
• 20:24
  schedule, whatever. Don't tell your client or two
• 20:26
  days over schedule. Tell your client, hey, we're
• 20:27
  three to four days over schedule or whatever, right?
• 20:29
  And you want to kind of lump it together.
• 20:32
  So you'd say, hey, you know, the rough in phase, we're a little
• 20:35
  bit behind. We kind of lost a little bit of
• 20:37
  time, you know, earlier on. And now in the Ruffins, we lost
• 20:40
  a little bit of time. So I need to adjust the schedule
• 20:42
  like an extra week or an extra 4 days, right?
• 20:45
  That way it's not like, oh, the HVAC guy took a little extra
• 20:50
  time and now my finisher is taking extra time.
• 20:51
  And, and like you're always adding like a few days here and
• 20:54
  there. Put a proper adjustment on the
• 20:55
  schedule. And that way you can kind of get
• 20:57
  yourself ahead so that if things do fall behind again, you don't
• 21:00
  have to adjust it right away. You don't want to be adjusting
• 21:03
  the schedule every week or two. Plus your sub trades don't wanna
• 21:06
  see that come over to their desk too.
• 21:08
  It's like, hey, you're starting on the 16th.
• 21:10
  Well, no, we lost little time. So you're starting the 18th.
• 21:13
  Oh, no, we lost little time. And I was going to be, you know,
• 21:15
  the 20th. And they're like, well, when are
• 21:17
  we actually starting this project, right?
• 21:19
  So give yourself a little bit of extra grace there.
• 21:22
  And then with change orders, ensure that you are accounting
• 21:25
  scheduled time for change orders.
• 21:27
  I see this quite often again, where it's a small thing.
• 21:31
  It's going to take us half a day or it's going to take us a day.
• 21:33
  Do this tiny change order, then put an extra 2 days in the
• 21:36
  schedule. Do yourself a favor, tell the
• 21:38
  client, hey, you know, we need to take care of this change
• 21:40
  order can be extra 5 grand. It's going to take three days.
• 21:43
  Even if it's going to take you 2, tell them it's going to take
• 21:45
  3 because you never know, it could go over.
• 21:47
  And that way again, you can pad the schedule a little bit.
• 21:49
  And there's a reason behind your change of the schedule instead
• 21:53
  of just doing a change order. And then you get down later and
• 21:55
  it's like, we lost like a week of time what happened?
• 21:58
  And it's like, Oh yeah, well we had like 3 change orders that
• 22:01
  took each day each, right? So make sure you're putting
• 22:03
  those in there as well. OK, so now we're getting into
• 22:08
  the good stuff, the systems, the templates and all that beautiful
• 22:11
  things and the project template. Having good project templates
• 22:14
  going to save you hours on every project and a lot of headaches.
• 22:17
  So what are project template is is just pretty much a snapshot
• 22:21
  of all the little templates and checklists and things that you
• 22:24
  need to get into place so that you can just copy it for every
• 22:28
  new project. First thing is a schedule with
• 22:31
  schedules. You want to have a pretty large
• 22:33
  schedule. So if you are a residential
• 22:35
  contractor and general contractor, then having like a
• 22:39
  full home build or new home build is ideal.
• 22:42
  Even if you do remodels and like let's say you're doing a
• 22:45
  basement, you're still going to use most of the steps that you
• 22:47
  would have in full. Home.
• 22:49
  Project, it might just be shorter, maybe you don't have
• 22:51
  like the site work or something like that.
• 22:53
  But essentially you've still got all the same phases.
• 22:55
  So having a project schedule template is super important and
• 22:58
  helpful. And I know some project
• 23:01
  management software is you can import a schedule from your
• 23:05
  estimate. So it's got all like the
• 23:06
  estimate items you don't like that because every time it's
• 23:10
  kind of different and I prefer to have something more templated
• 23:15
  if you will. But if it's a very like one off
• 23:18
  remodels or like custom projects, then you may be better
• 23:21
  off pulling in schedule from the actual estimate items.
• 23:26
  So either. Way you don't want to be doing
• 23:28
  it manually from the. Start Quality and procedure
• 23:31
  checklist. So these are your quality
• 23:32
  control checklists. Quality control checklists are
• 23:35
  one of the easiest things to implement and one of the most
• 23:38
  impactful as well. It's really low hanging fruit if
• 23:41
  you don't have good quality control.
• 23:43
  Essentially you're gonna have lists of everything that needs
• 23:46
  to be checked to make sure that it's 100% complete and proper.
• 23:50
  These are things like foundation framing your ruffins.
• 23:54
  You should have quality control checklist for all the different
• 23:57
  stuff that goes into a project and that's being followed.
• 24:00
  I had a client, we're talking with them.
• 24:02
  We have implemented a quality control checklist for his
• 24:04
  project managers, talking with him, asking him, hey, how's it
• 24:07
  going with the quality control stuff for guys following it?
• 24:09
  Is it being effective? It's like, yeah, I couldn't
• 24:11
  believe it. I called one of my project
• 24:13
  managers were finishing up a host and I asked them, you know,
• 24:16
  what's the timeline? When do you think we can be
• 24:18
  done? He's like, we're pretty much
• 24:20
  done now or probably be like a day or two.
• 24:22
  And typically it took them weeks at the end of a project to
• 24:26
  figure out and finish up and take care of all those little,
• 24:28
  you know, tiny things that that you need to finish on a project
• 24:31
  because they had good quality control checks in place.
• 24:35
  By the time they. Got to the end of the project
• 24:37
  was just finished off a few little minor things, smooth
• 24:39
  sailing. Turn it over to the client
• 24:41
  procedure checklist. These are things usually like
• 24:44
  project start, project closeout. Those are the big 2.
• 24:46
  So project starts, what do we need?
• 24:49
  Site signs first save material, porta potty like fencing,
• 24:53
  whatever it may be, right? Checking off everything and as
• 24:57
  well as closeout. You know what's all this stuff
• 24:59
  that we need to to close off a project?
• 25:01
  So standard folders and files. This is usually how I can tell
• 25:04
  how organized the company is if I take a look at their file
• 25:07
  management system. You've maybe heard this saying
• 25:10
  before, if you go to a restaurant and the bathroom is
• 25:12
  dirty, probably the kitchen is dirty as well.
• 25:15
  If I look at a general contracting company and their
• 25:18
  file sharing system is a bit of a mess and things are all
• 25:21
  numbered and named different things and unorganized and
• 25:24
  clients have different folders here and there, I can probably
• 25:27
  guarantee that the the management of that company is
• 25:29
  also fairly sporadic and unorganized.
• 25:33
  So do yourself a favor, every client should have a folder.
• 25:37
  They should all be named the same way, like clients name the
• 25:42
  address of the project and maybe like what type of project it is
• 25:46
  or something like that. But anyways, every folder should
• 25:49
  have the client's name and address on it so it's easy to
• 25:51
  search for. Then inside that folder you
• 25:52
  should have a standard set up, plans, estimates, site
• 25:56
  documents, change orders, financials, whatever it may be.
• 25:59
  But you're going to have a couple of subfolders and in
• 26:02
  there you're going to have their selection sheet.
• 26:04
  If it's not in your project management software, you're what
• 26:06
  to expect documents in there. You can share access and
• 26:09
  permissions to it with anybody and your team and the client
• 26:11
  who's going to need access to it.
• 26:13
  So everybody knows anything to do with this project.
• 26:16
  All the files are in this location.
• 26:18
  If we get new files, they need to go there.
• 26:20
  So everyone has Open Access. It's organized and that is
• 26:24
  something that's easy to set up. You just template it, copy it
• 26:27
  for every new client. OK, now we're going to be
• 26:29
  talking about project management software, and I get this
• 26:32
  question all the time. Which software should I use?
• 26:35
  What do you think about this software?
• 26:36
  This software could be telling you specifics here today.
• 26:39
  I do have other videos about that if you want to go, but this
• 26:41
  is what you should be thinking about for Project Microsoft.
• 26:43
  You probably already using some sort of software.
• 26:46
  Most companies are nowadays, there's so many new ones coming
• 26:49
  out all the time. But this is what I look for and
• 26:51
  what you should be thinking about because maybe the software
• 26:54
  using right now is not going to serve you well into the future.
• 26:57
  Or if you're a little frustrated with it, look at something else
• 27:00
  that has this. So first thing is ease of use,
• 27:02
  because it's not just you that's going to be using it, it's going
• 27:05
  to be your other project managers and everybody else on
• 27:08
  your team, possibly your clients experience as well.
• 27:11
  So make sure it's easy to use, it's intuitive, and you're not
• 27:14
  getting super frustrated with it because if you're getting
• 27:17
  frustrated with it, you can guarantee everybody else on your
• 27:19
  team is going to get frustrated with it as well.
• 27:21
  Speed is huge. I hate sitting around and if I
• 27:24
  click a button, it's got to think and think and bring me to
• 27:27
  another screen. Or even if things are just
• 27:29
  unorganized, it takes forever to go change settings or whatever.
• 27:32
  So how quick is this system? Is it responsive?
• 27:34
  Does things move quickly? That's super important because
• 27:37
  it's not just you as well, like your whole team.
• 27:39
  If it's slow for one person, it's wasting everybody else's
• 27:42
  time as well. And it's integrations.
• 27:45
  And if you do me a favor, make sure that you, the software you
• 27:49
  get has an open API, which simply means that it can
• 27:53
  integrate with any other open API software.
• 27:56
  Most software has integrations that'll be inherent to it, like
• 28:00
  QuickBooks or maybe a HubSpot, something like that.
• 28:04
  They've usually got a number of different programs that they
• 28:06
  link to and integrate with, but an open API integration means
• 28:09
  that they can essentially link with any other software.
• 28:13
  So we can move information from one software the next because
• 28:16
  you're probably going to update your software as every now and
• 28:18
  then and you want everything to move together.
• 28:21
  It's really important because you do not want to be having to
• 28:24
  do things manually or be like trapped where you have to use
• 28:29
  this software because it integrates with this software
• 28:31
  and you kind of want that integration, but you're not
• 28:33
  super happy about the software. So integration is a really
• 28:37
  important thing to check out. Next thing is support.
• 28:40
  How good is their support? Most of them.
• 28:43
  The Ichabods, which work fairly well, but can you get someone on
• 28:47
  the phone? Do you can get someone like that
• 28:49
  will e-mail you or you know, do a live chat with you?
• 28:54
  Do they have videos inside their software?
• 28:57
  I like to see that where inside the project management software
• 29:00
  it has training videos. If you're in the estimation
• 29:02
  module, there should be a little training video.
• 29:04
  Here's the training video of how to use this module.
• 29:06
  So it's super easy because the last thing you want to do is be
• 29:09
  training your staff on how to use the software.
• 29:11
  You should have like talk with one of you know, the softwares
• 29:15
  people or go watch these videos. They should be able to train
• 29:19
  themselves more or less, and you're just helping them with
• 29:21
  the process of the way that you want to run your company's track
• 29:24
  record. Another important thing, as I
• 29:26
  mentioned, lots of new software nowadays seems like there's you
• 29:29
  know, I see it pretty much every day, every week some new
• 29:32
  software someone like have you seen this?
• 29:33
  Have you checked this? Like, no, something that has a
• 29:36
  track record, if it is new, IT may be good, but in my
• 29:40
  experience, until the software's been around for at least two to
• 29:43
  three years, it probably hasn't ironed out the kinks.
• 29:46
  It probably hasn't implemented all the different functions that
• 29:49
  it should. So I wouldn't be a little bit
• 29:52
  hesitant to get on with a new software that's just getting
• 29:56
  going. That's me.
• 29:57
  Figure it out, but just realize that if you're making an
• 30:00
  investment for the long term, you're thinking long term.
• 30:02
  You probably want something that is been around for at least a
• 30:05
  little while. The last thing is the
• 30:07
  investment. How much money is it going to
• 30:09
  cost? In my opinion, the investment,
• 30:12
  as long as it's reasonable is going to be worth it.
• 30:14
  And you know, I wouldn't make a decision based off of all this
• 30:17
  one's $200 a month, this one's $400.00 a month.
• 30:21
  I'm gonna go with the $200 a month because it's cheaper.
• 30:23
  The $400.00 a month maybe a much better software, the $200 a
• 30:26
  month, maybe much better software.
• 30:27
  But make your decision based off of the software.
• 30:30
  How good is going to fit with your company, the feel you get
• 30:32
  from it? Because a few $100 a month is
• 30:35
  nothing compared to the time savings and just the less stress
• 30:38
  that you're going to have with using a proper good software
• 30:41
  over something that may be just cheaper.
• 30:46
  There's a saying in aviation called fly ahead of the plane.
• 30:50
  And that is the thought of the pilot as they're flying the
• 30:54
  plane to actually think of themselves as being outside of
• 30:57
  the plane and in the future in like in the out out in front of
• 31:03
  the plane. The reason they want to do that
• 31:04
  is because they don't want to be reactive and just think about
• 31:08
  what's happening right now. They want to especially, you
• 31:10
  know, a jet fighter, they're going to be in another mile
• 31:14
  within seconds, right? So you always want to be
• 31:16
  thinking, especially things move fast in construction projects,
• 31:19
  you go, a lot of them go thinking ahead of the plane and
• 31:21
  stay in the future of what's happening.
• 31:24
  So you're less reactive and you're being proactive and
• 31:27
  planning. So and this saves months of time
• 31:29
  because you're always thinking like the next day, the next
• 31:31
  week, the next month, what's coming up?
• 31:33
  What do I need to prepare for? And the way you do that is by
• 31:36
  having a really good project start checklist.
• 31:38
  So we did all that preconstruction.
• 31:39
  Now we getting into the checklist.
• 31:41
  As you can see, there's so much planning that happens on a
• 31:45
  project before you actually start your construction and
• 31:48
  having a good checklist in place, make sure that your guys,
• 31:50
  you know, mobilization, what are they going to need for materials
• 31:53
  is ordered. What about tools and equipment?
• 31:55
  Have you communicated with the trades, with your with your
• 31:58
  laborers, with everybody that needs to $10 million
• 32:00
  construction businesses do this 2030 million, $100 million
• 32:04
  construction business do this. The guys that are scratching it
• 32:06
  out at 123 million, they're the ones who are scrambling and
• 32:09
  don't put this kind of thought or attention into it.
• 32:12
  And it shows. And so do yourself a favor, if
• 32:14
  you want to grow and scale to, you know, 8-9 figure
• 32:18
  construction business, you need to be able to fly ahead of the
• 32:21
  plane and really make sure every project is you're moving in with
• 32:26
  momentum and everything is set in order.
• 32:28
  So it's just follow the plan essentially throughout the
• 32:32
  project. And then another really useful
• 32:34
  exercise that I did as a project manager, I learned this from a
• 32:38
  guy that was really on the up and up, do a RAID review every
• 32:44
  week. And I'm an optimist and you may
• 32:47
  be like this too. Projects running, things are
• 32:49
  going good, you know, just kind of getting in in the groove and
• 32:52
  the rhythm, but you're not really thinking critically about
• 32:54
  what could go wrong or the risks or, or things like that.
• 32:56
  So rate review is risks, assumptions, issues and
• 33:00
  dependencies. So what risks are there?
• 33:02
  Is there bad weather coming up is, you know, this subcontractor
• 33:06
  didn't really do a good job on the last project, so they could
• 33:09
  be a risk on this project too. Assumptions.
• 33:11
  I'm assuming that, you know, material order is going to show
• 33:15
  up on Friday, but I haven't heard them both them for a week.
• 33:18
  Well, maybe you should just send them a quick e-mail and just
• 33:20
  double check to make sure that they have the right information.
• 33:23
  So what are you assuming is going to happen or assuming
• 33:25
  about the project that you haven't really double checked
• 33:28
  issues? Is there any lingering issues?
• 33:30
  Those little things that's not really important yet.
• 33:33
  We don't need to worry about it. I've got other more priority
• 33:36
  stuff which is good on you, stick to your priorities.
• 33:39
  But those little issues, those little small things can come
• 33:42
  back to bite you in the ass later on when you are at the end
• 33:45
  of the project or maybe you've got a critical stage like
• 33:48
  inspection or drywall is going on.
• 33:50
  And now it's like, oh, I've got to scramble to get someone here
• 33:53
  to fix those little things. So what issues have not been
• 33:56
  taken care of or could come up that need to get taken care of?
• 33:58
  And then dependencies, who are you depending on that's critical
• 34:01
  for the project? Maybe you're depending on the
• 34:03
  designer to get a certain schematic or, or or selection in
• 34:08
  place and you're approaching that deadline, you know, knowing
• 34:11
  what dependencies are going to maybe hold you back on a
• 34:14
  project. And by doing this every week,
• 34:16
  just a quick 10-15 minute review going through like what I said
• 34:19
  there, and you can pick out and save yourself a lot of time for
• 34:23
  headache and frustration in a project and be flying ahead of
• 34:27
  the plane. Alright.
• 34:30
  So now we're actually moving into like doing actual work on
• 34:33
  the project. And I hope you haven't talked
• 34:36
  your ear off yet about all the pre planning and preconstruction
• 34:39
  and checklists and templates, all that stuff because it's it's
• 34:43
  actually essential. And that's probably where you're
• 34:45
  going to spend 50 to 70% of your time setting up that system.
• 34:50
  If you get that dialed in, the rest is, is easy and the walk in
• 34:54
  the park essentially. And if you've ever managed a
• 34:56
  project, very rarely as a walk in the park, you do the other
• 34:59
  stuff, it becomes crazy easy compared to not doing it.
• 35:03
  Now, if you want help with this, I know that like I said, there's
• 35:05
  a lot that goes into really nailing down these systems.
• 35:08
  Make sure all the operating procedures, the training, the
• 35:11
  software, everything is really working together.
• 35:14
  If you need help with this, look in the description below.
• 35:17
  There's a link for to work with us as well as a free course on
• 35:22
  systemizing your business. Let us help you.
• 35:25
  We've done this with countless other general contractors.
• 35:28
  Help them build those systems. It's what we do, making this
• 35:31
  super easy for you. Skip all the trial, error and
• 35:34
  frustration. Reach out to us.
• 35:35
  We'd love to talk to you about how to build and scale up your
• 35:39
  construction business. All right, proper site
• 35:41
  protection this is. Another kind of rookie thing
• 35:44
  that I see with contractors that are not experienced or are not
• 35:49
  flying ahead of the plane as I mentioned is having good site
• 35:51
  protection and it's one thing to.
• 35:53
  Have the site protection on site.
• 35:55
  It's another thing for your people to be using it
• 35:57
  effectively if you've ever had a scratched floor where you needed
• 36:00
  to RIP out a bunch of boards. You know, put in a new.
• 36:02
  Piece like how annoying is that? Or guys leaving their tools on
• 36:06
  the countertops and it just looks like a mess or they get
• 36:08
  things dirty that doesn't need to.
• 36:10
  Or you got to get your painter back there and there's big
• 36:11
  scuffs all over the walls. Set up ram board on the floor.
• 36:14
  It's any high traffic areas, holy walls to make sure dust
• 36:18
  isn't getting anywhere. It's not any client items.
• 36:20
  If you're doing remodels and the client has valuables or
• 36:23
  keepsakes, tell them in the what to expect document.
• 36:26
  If you leave anything valuable or that you don't want damage
• 36:29
  inside the construction zone, we are not liable whatsoever for
• 36:33
  any damages. So you need to get it out of the
• 36:36
  area and provide for them for this.
• 36:38
  If you want our guys, I, I wouldn't get your guys to help
• 36:40
  move it, but maybe you have a moving company, you know, let me
• 36:43
  give my moving company in here. They will move this, put it in,
• 36:46
  you know, AC can or the garage or whatever, right.
• 36:49
  So make sure anything valuable is out of the out of the picture
• 36:52
  signage, put up site signs, you know, hard hat area, PPE,
• 36:56
  whatever, right, brooms and bins.
• 36:58
  I don't know how many sites have gone to where you hear the
• 37:01
  contractor complaining and the things are dirty, but there's no
• 37:05
  garbage bins around, there's no grooms.
• 37:08
  You know, guys, you're using plywood to scrape some stuff off
• 37:11
  the floor and what have you, right?
• 37:13
  Do everybody a favor, buy some brooms, buy some garbage bins,
• 37:17
  whatever. People need to clean up garbage
• 37:19
  bags, put them on site, put your sticker on them so they know
• 37:23
  that it's from your company and tell them no excuses.
• 37:26
  Your guys need to clean up every day.
• 37:28
  There's, you know, they've got everything they need, right?
• 37:31
  So make it easy for them to keep the site clean.
• 37:34
  Security, big believer in having security cameras.
• 37:37
  It's easier than ever. You can go grab them on Amazon
• 37:39
  or wherever, put a little security camera up on the site.
• 37:42
  You can see when guys are coming going and makes it more secure.
• 37:45
  It deters theft, all those kind of things.
• 37:47
  Yes, you may need to install Wi-Fi or whatever and then
• 37:50
  expense this to the client. Tell the client, you know, we're
• 37:53
  setting up a security system on here.
• 37:55
  We do this for all of our clients.
• 37:56
  It's a $50.00 a month charge or whatever.
• 37:58
  Like doesn't have to be super expensive, but essentially
• 38:01
  they'll cover the cost of your security should be factored into
• 38:05
  the pricing of the project. And you know, less, less
• 38:08
  materials getting stolen, less guys showing up Willy nilly.
• 38:12
  Or you can always check the progress.
• 38:13
  If you're on vacation, you can see what's happening, right?
• 38:17
  You're project manager should whoever's management project
• 38:19
  like actively should be worried about that.
• 38:21
  You shouldn't. But anyways, you get my point.
• 38:23
  No house parties. This is where if you've ever
• 38:26
  been to a party, you know the kind where you show up and the
• 38:31
  house is a complete mess. It's kind of smelly.
• 38:33
  People are going everywhere. You know, typically your teenage
• 38:36
  years is probably what you're thinking back to maybe maybe
• 38:39
  recently, but how likely are you to take off your shoes?
• 38:41
  How likely are you to to put your your can, you know, in the
• 38:45
  garbage or the recycling or whatever?
• 38:47
  Probably unlikely because the rest of the house is a complete
• 38:49
  mess. Everyone's partying and no ones
• 38:51
  given, you know, a rats ass. Essentially change that to when
• 38:54
  you go to like a nice party. Everyone's very organized,
• 38:58
  everybody's taking their shoes off.
• 38:59
  The house is very clean, everything's in place, they've
• 39:02
  got the nice, you know, trays out and everything.
• 39:04
  Are you likely to just walk in with your shoes and and throw
• 39:06
  your garbage everywhere? Not really.
• 39:08
  So you're your sites are gonna be the same way.
• 39:11
  If a sub trade shows up to a site, last trade kind of left
• 39:14
  their wire strippings or framing junk everywhere, whatever it may
• 39:19
  be, that next tree is not going to clean up after them and
• 39:22
  they're going to think that that's acceptable.
• 39:23
  It was a mess before we showed up.
• 39:25
  You know, what does it matter if I leave a few coffee cups here
• 39:28
  or, you know, a pile of garbage in the corner or whatever,
• 39:30
  right? So just consider that everybody
• 39:33
  needs to have that high standard.
• 39:35
  And if they don't reach that standard, tell one of your
• 39:37
  laborers go clean up. Let this expectation with your
• 39:40
  trades, go clean up that house and then back charge your
• 39:43
  subcontractor 100, two, $100, whatever it costs you to send a
• 39:47
  laborer to go clean up their mess.
• 39:49
  OK, now you've nailed down the preconstruction, getting
• 39:52
  everything in place, planning everything out, and we're going
• 39:55
  to move on to what happens during actual construction.
• 39:58
  So what's the secret behind elite projects?
• 40:01
  What's the difference between doing no small remodels or
• 40:04
  cookie cutter houses to some big mansion like this or high high
• 40:08
  end, you know, commercial projects?
• 40:10
  Big difference that it boils down to is communication.
• 40:14
  The difference between large elite projects is how much
• 40:16
  communication and the higher the higher level of communication
• 40:20
  that happens on those types of projects.
• 40:24
  First part of nailing your communication is going to be
• 40:27
  impressing clients with luxury communication.
• 40:31
  May not have heard that before, but as a client, think about if
• 40:35
  you go to do a really fancy hotel, you're expecting a
• 40:40
  certain level of communication and organization from that
• 40:44
  hotel, right? If you go to some cheap motel on
• 40:48
  the edge of town, you're not really expecting too much.
• 40:50
  So if you want to level up your business, you've got to nail the
• 40:54
  type of communication that you're having with clients now,
• 40:58
  the art of written communication.
• 41:01
  How many times have you had a conversation with a client or,
• 41:05
  and even maybe some text messages and later the clients
• 41:09
  like, no, that's not what I thought or that's not what I
• 41:12
  said, or you know, I thought you meant this or whatever, right?
• 41:15
  So start writing down important notes.
• 41:18
  If you've, if you talk to the client, hey, we're going to be
• 41:20
  doing a change order. We've got to make these changes.
• 41:22
  It's going to be about this much.
• 41:23
  Make sure right after the call you're sending an e-mail with
• 41:27
  just some very small amounts of like information, but the very
• 41:31
  pertinent notes like we're doing a change order.
• 41:33
  This is the reason. This is what the expected cost
• 41:35
  is and and can you please reply to confirm or whatever and then
• 41:39
  you'll send a more detailed change order later.
• 41:42
  But this way there's just. No confusion, and if there is,
• 41:45
  you always have something to go back to in an e-mail.
• 41:48
  Emails are great too because you can search them, whereas you
• 41:50
  know a text message you got to be scrolling through it.
• 41:52
  Ideally, you've got some sort of CRM that also manages
• 41:55
  communication, but get in the habit of making sure that
• 41:58
  anything really important is written down somewhere because
• 42:02
  it's gonna make you actually have to think about what you're
• 42:05
  writing and also make sure that both parties know what's going
• 42:09
  on. And then a dashboard is
• 42:11
  essential for clients to really feel like you have a business
• 42:16
  that's above and beyond, right? Not a lot of, especially smaller
• 42:20
  residential contractors have really good dashboards or any
• 42:23
  dashboards at all. And I get it.
• 42:25
  I know why because it's not the easiest thing to keep in place
• 42:28
  and you have to be on top of your game.
• 42:30
  But if you really want to level up as business and you want
• 42:32
  those high-end clients, you need to provide a little bit more.
• 42:35
  And the dashboard should have quick links to any files, to any
• 42:40
  files that they have. It should have the schedule as
• 42:43
  well as ideally some financial information.
• 42:45
  The finances don't always want to be on on the dashboard
• 42:48
  because it's a little tricky to kind of keep that up to date
• 42:51
  sometimes. But the more information you can
• 42:53
  provide to the client on a dashboard, the less they're
• 42:56
  going to need to call you and ask you, hey, what's happening.
• 42:59
  Setting smooth managing expectations are the key to a
• 43:04
  good client relationship as a project manager, letting them
• 43:07
  know what's happening. Hey, we've got guys showing up.
• 43:11
  It's gonna give you messy. And This is why you can expect
• 43:14
  or hey, we are getting into this phase of the project.
• 43:18
  There may be something that unknown's come up just to to
• 43:21
  give you a heads up, right. So always tell them what's
• 43:23
  happening next and set those expectations so that they're not
• 43:26
  disappointed or they've, you know, clients.
• 43:28
  If you leave them to their own devices, they're gonna have
• 43:31
  expectations that are super high.
• 43:33
  Like they want to know exactly what's going on.
• 43:34
  Everything's going to be on schedule, on budget and
• 43:37
  everything. Tell them from the beginning,
• 43:39
  hey, 5% contingency is typical for projects.
• 43:43
  You know, budgets change, there's change orders, things
• 43:45
  that come up, not to scare you, but just so that you're prepared
• 43:49
  and that you have the expectation that we've set the
• 43:51
  budget. But often there are small things
• 43:54
  that could increase that budget, you know, over the extent of the
• 43:56
  project. And a great way to do this in a
• 43:58
  systematic way and a good system you need to put into place in
• 44:02
  your business right now is start sending weekly updates to the
• 44:05
  client. So every week you're going to
• 44:07
  send them an e-mail and you're going to say what got done this
• 44:09
  week and what you're going to do next week.
• 44:11
  This gets the client in the habit of opening your emails.
• 44:14
  Ideally you'll do it on Friday or something like that so you
• 44:17
  don't get a bunch of calls over the weekend when they've gone to
• 44:20
  site or asking what's going on and just tell them, hey, this
• 44:22
  week we got the drywall board on her insulation passed
• 44:27
  inspection. We put the drywall boarding on.
• 44:29
  Next week we're going to finish the boarding and start doing
• 44:32
  the, you know, mudding, taping, whatever, right?
• 44:34
  So just play by play and then some pertinent notes.
• 44:37
  So it's, you know, fixtures are on back order or we had a small
• 44:41
  change order for this or hey, if you notice there's some extra
• 44:44
  windows on site. The supplier sent us ones that
• 44:47
  weren't the right size. We're going to return them for
• 44:50
  refund. There's not gonna be any extra
• 44:51
  cost for it, whatever, right? So set the expectations, tell
• 44:54
  them what's happening. And this way they are not going
• 44:56
  to be like wanting to call you every time something comes up or
• 44:59
  they don't know what's going on. They know every week, OK, you
• 45:02
  know, makes sense. This is what's happening, right?
• 45:04
  And then the final thing to talk about with communication is
• 45:07
  obviously what do you do when you have difficult clients,
• 45:11
  those clients that are digging into all the little details,
• 45:14
  those clients that are just giving you a hard time or maybe
• 45:17
  their uncles, brothers, cousin people was a builder or home
• 45:21
  inspector and they're thinking that you're doing everything
• 45:24
  wrong on site. So the best way to kind of nip
• 45:27
  this in the bud is to be honest, even with bad news.
• 45:31
  So if something comes up on site, you don't need to tell
• 45:33
  them PrettyLittleThing that goes wrong, But if it's something
• 45:35
  that's gonna affect them or they're gonna notice or even if
• 45:38
  they're not gonna notice, but get in the habit of calling them
• 45:41
  when you, when there's bad things come up.
• 45:43
  Hey, you know what? We weren't able to meet the
• 45:46
  deadline for this or hey, you know, one of our guys left
• 45:50
  whatever window open and there's a raccoon in your house.
• 45:53
  You know, whatever it may be, you don't make yourself look
• 45:56
  bad, but at the same time you want to be honest and upfront,
• 45:58
  but also call them with good news.
• 46:00
  So don't just call them when something bad happens cause
• 46:01
  they're thinking every time you call them, it's like, oh, what
• 46:04
  now? Wait, what now?
• 46:05
  So hey, we just installed the cabinets.
• 46:06
  Everything's looking really good guy was able to get done in a
• 46:09
  day earlier. Here's some pictures of it,
• 46:11
  right? So show them good news, tell
• 46:13
  them the good things that are going on.
• 46:14
  And then if you have a few like odd things that come up that
• 46:17
  are, you know, bad news or unfortunate, it's, it's just,
• 46:20
  you know, no big deal. Essentially.
• 46:21
  Next one is get your head right. It can be stressful.
• 46:24
  It can be really annoying to have to deal with the bad
• 46:28
  client. You know the ones, I'm sure
• 46:30
  you've dealt with them before where you just cannot please
• 46:32
  them. Something's gone sour with the
• 46:35
  build. You need to get your head in the
• 46:37
  right space and justice. Realize that you need to frame
• 46:41
  it as in they've hired you to do a job.
• 46:43
  You need to be professional, even if you may be blowing
• 46:46
  gaskets and getting red in the face because you're just, you
• 46:48
  know, upset and and done with this client already.
• 46:51
  You need to take a breath, let it go and just do your best to
• 46:54
  help facilitate that relationship.
• 46:56
  Get to the finish line or whatever you need to do and
• 46:58
  hopefully just finish the project off as best you can and
• 47:01
  communicate that with them. Just be upfront again with being
• 47:04
  honest. You know what, I know things are
• 47:06
  a little jaded. We haven't had the best
• 47:07
  communication, but we made mistakes.
• 47:09
  You know, if you made some mistakes and I'm hoping we could
• 47:12
  put that behind us. I do want to just finish this
• 47:14
  project. I understand we, we may be on
• 47:16
  different, you know, ideas of what everything needs, but at
• 47:18
  the end of the day, we're going to provide you with a good
• 47:20
  quality project. And I hope that you will be up
• 47:24
  front with you and I hope you'll be up front with us and we can
• 47:26
  get this done in a in a civil kind of manner.
• 47:29
  So just let them know. The last one is stop holding the
• 47:32
  bag. This can be a little difficult
• 47:35
  with to be commercial clients and certain parties where it's
• 47:40
  where there's a lot more paperwork involved.
• 47:42
  But if you're a residential contractor, you should never be
• 47:45
  left holding the bag where your client has holding money over
• 47:48
  top of you. They're saying like, oh, we're
• 47:50
  not going to pay you until you get this thing done or you fix
• 47:52
  this or, you know, you're off schedule.
• 47:54
  So we're we're gonna wait, you know, a couple of months or a
• 47:57
  week to to pay you or whatever, right?
• 47:58
  You never want to be in that situation.
• 48:00
  You should be collecting a deposit up front and you should
• 48:02
  always have money in the bank from the client so that they are
• 48:05
  financing their project. You should never be putting your
• 48:07
  own companies money into their project when at all possible.
• 48:11
  So you get a deposit first day on site, you know, first week.
• 48:15
  Once that week is done or the first two weeks, you are then
• 48:18
  invoicing client for the next, you know, payment so that you've
• 48:22
  always got a deposit and you're taking essentially from the
• 48:25
  deposit. And there's never you're never
• 48:27
  behind on a project where you're putting your own company's money
• 48:30
  into the project. This puts you in a really bad
• 48:32
  position with the client and the client can then sort of jerk you
• 48:36
  around as far as waiting for you to, you know, get some little
• 48:40
  thing done or some minor stuff and and say that it's reason not
• 48:44
  to pay you not have thought of it specifically.
• 48:48
  But like I said, communication is the key to project
• 48:52
  management. Communication can smooth out
• 48:54
  rough spots. It can get people motivated.
• 48:56
  It can take care of clients and everything.
• 48:58
  Now we're talking about the field crew communication.
• 49:01
  So this is probably the most fun one.
• 49:03
  I mean, these are your site guys, your laborers, your
• 49:06
  carpenters, whatever your your in-house carpentry team.
• 49:10
  And they can be a lot of fun, but they can also take a lot of
• 49:13
  work to communicate with, as you probably know.
• 49:15
  So how do you get some communicated with and make sure
• 49:18
  they're communicating with you, which is it's always a two way
• 49:21
  street. So every day make sure that they
• 49:24
  know specifically what the goal is and the instructions.
• 49:27
  And you as a project manager need to be able to lead leaders
• 49:31
  because you're going to have a site manager or superintendents
• 49:34
  depending on the structure of your business.
• 49:36
  And you're going to make sure you're going to have to make
• 49:38
  sure that they whoever is managing the site to know they
• 49:42
  need to be instructing everybody on exactly how to do everything.
• 49:46
  And then also, what is the goal today?
• 49:47
  So we're gonna stand these walls today or we're gonna, you know,
• 49:50
  get these cabinets installed today.
• 49:52
  They'll usually set goals that are unrealistic, as is often the
• 49:56
  case, but at least it gives them something to work towards.
• 49:59
  And again, they're setting expectations.
• 50:01
  So setting expectations for client key, but also with your
• 50:04
  subcontractors and your field crew is also very important.
• 50:07
  So make sure there's always a goal that to work toward report
• 50:11
  logs. So every day site manager,
• 50:13
  Superintendent should be doing a daily report.
• 50:17
  This is, you know what got done today, this is who showed up.
• 50:19
  These are the materials that you know, whatever it is, it doesn't
• 50:22
  have to be big. It can be very short.
• 50:24
  And nowadays with your phone, you can essentially talk into AI
• 50:28
  and it'll just send off a communication or put it into
• 50:32
  text. And it's really easy way, hold
• 50:34
  down, you know, Chapt, Gemini, whatever.
• 50:36
  Today we did that and then you just copy that, put it in your
• 50:40
  site, report in the project management software, super easy.
• 50:43
  And that way you've always got a track record and it keeps people
• 50:46
  up to date on what's happening. And then finally, time tracking,
• 50:49
  time tracking, if you're trying to start this for the first
• 50:52
  time, can be very frustrating with your site guys, because
• 50:56
  guys don't check in. They wait till, you know, one
• 50:58
  week or two weeks out, all pay days tomorrow.
• 51:01
  So I gotta get all my hours in. How many hours did I work last
• 51:03
  Monday? I was at this job, right?
• 51:05
  So having up to date time tracking, make sure it's
• 51:07
  accurate is super critical. I like to be able to have the
• 51:10
  everybody to manage their own time.
• 51:13
  And I know that can be some trust issues there where it's
• 51:17
  like, I don't really want my guys to be putting in their own
• 51:20
  time. They're gonna exaggerate it or
• 51:21
  what happened, whatever. So if that's the case, you can
• 51:24
  have the site manager review everybody's time daily or at
• 51:28
  least once per week just to make sure everyone is is accurate.
• 51:31
  Or you have the site manager fill in everybody's time or, or
• 51:34
  the Superintendent. But that can just kind of cause
• 51:37
  problems in and of itself. I know guys that just have
• 51:39
  everybody write down their time on site because it keeps them
• 51:42
  more honest. So do what you want, but ideally
• 51:45
  everybody is tracking their own time through an app.
• 51:47
  So you know, what project were on, what kind of tasks that
• 51:50
  they're doing and when everyone gets in the habit, it's not
• 51:53
  really a difficult thing. Now, as a project manager, you
• 51:57
  need to ensure that there's on site leadership.
• 52:00
  And I've seen this happen very many times where my guys just
• 52:04
  don't follow the instructions or my guys slack off, You know,
• 52:07
  like this having some fun on site, which you want guys to
• 52:10
  have fun and be enjoying their work.
• 52:12
  But at the same time, if they're taking, you know, 1 1/2 hour
• 52:14
  lunch breaks, they're going to pick up materials every single
• 52:17
  day and kind of slacking off. Often it comes down to no
• 52:20
  specific leadership on site. And I've again, I've seen this
• 52:23
  where you may have like two or three people in a crew and
• 52:27
  everyone is like kind of the same level or very experience.
• 52:31
  And and there's no clear like this is the person in charge,
• 52:34
  Especially when you've got people kind of moving around to
• 52:38
  a lot of different sites and you may not have guys on one site
• 52:40
  for a long time. So you need to be very clear of
• 52:43
  like this person is responsible. You are the site leader and I
• 52:47
  expect you to do this and this and this.
• 52:49
  So very clear on the structure of like who's in charge and
• 52:53
  everyone. You know, if you've got
• 52:54
  problems, you go to that person, that person then then goes to
• 52:57
  you or, or what have you. And beyond that, you really need
• 52:59
  to play to people's strengths because depending on the size of
• 53:03
  your business, but if you've got even just like 3 to 510 twenty
• 53:07
  different laborers, carpenters, you know that some are better at
• 53:11
  finishing, some are better at framing.
• 53:13
  Some are just your get in there and swing a sledgehammer and
• 53:15
  demo, demo a house in the day by themselves kind of guys.
• 53:19
  So you want to put them in places that make sense and move
• 53:22
  them around to play to their strengths.
• 53:25
  Materials is another big pain point and being very clear with
• 53:29
  communication and the leadership of who is able to go get
• 53:33
  materials, what facilitates a material run, who should they be
• 53:37
  calling for? Materials needs to be very, very
• 53:39
  clear because as you know, you can eat up two hours of driving
• 53:44
  to Home Depot or Rona to go pick up a $5 part and you spent 90 or
• 53:50
  $100 on labour for a $5 part that maybe could have waited a
• 53:54
  day or two and they could have picked it up with something
• 53:56
  else. So being very clear to anybody
• 53:59
  that's going for deliveries of like, you know what it, it costs
• 54:02
  anywhere from 100 to $200 just for you to go there with the
• 54:05
  time, the gas, the vehicle, whatever it is.
• 54:09
  So we need to start doing deliveries, you know, once every
• 54:12
  couple of days or what have you. And then having a specific place
• 54:16
  for a running list as well. So where do you list out the
• 54:19
  materials? Ideally you have in a project
• 54:21
  management software in a notes or tied to specific projects
• 54:25
  where if you need something for this project, here's the things.
• 54:28
  If you need something for just general for the trailer or for
• 54:32
  just site materials or tools, you know this is the thing.
• 54:36
  So list for tools as well materials and then make sure
• 54:39
  that if you do have someone that's running around, get all
• 54:42
  the materials for three different sites and have them go
• 54:44
  and drop them off right. If you're big enough company,
• 54:47
  you could probably have someone dedicated to this potentially
• 54:49
  like a clean up Gopher type of person, but have it very
• 54:53
  structured and communicate that no matter what we cannot be
• 54:57
  going from to go get materials every single day.
• 55:01
  Now, the last group of people that you need to be
• 55:03
  communicating at a very high level with your company is
• 55:05
  subcontractors and professionals.
• 55:07
  These could be architects, designers, that kind of thing.
• 55:10
  And what what I'm talking about this communication, like I'm
• 55:12
  giving you some tips and tricks and ideas, but what you need to
• 55:15
  do is put this in a complete system and have it as a process
• 55:19
  of procedure, just the way that you do business.
• 55:22
  It's one thing to communicate this to your people, which you
• 55:24
  need to, but you need it documented somewhere and
• 55:27
  training in a handbook, whatever.
• 55:29
  And I like to have a subcontractors handbook that I
• 55:32
  give to every subcontractor so that all of this stuff is is
• 55:36
  detailed in there and they know exactly what to do.
• 55:40
  So and that's part of the what to expect.
• 55:41
  So quality, what kind of quality do you expect from them?
• 55:45
  Specific things like level plum, what you know, if you've got
• 55:50
  1000 square foot floor, how far out of square can it be for a
• 55:55
  framer or for a concrete person? So specific levels of quality of
• 56:00
  what's expected cleanliness, you know, broom swept at the end of
• 56:03
  the day, full clean at the end, all garbage in a nice neat pile
• 56:08
  outside or in the dumpster, whatever.
• 56:11
  Me and and communication what to expect.
• 56:13
  I expect you to communicate when things go wrong.
• 56:16
  I expect you to communicate when you're going to start.
• 56:17
  I expect you to communicate if you're running behind all of
• 56:20
  this kind of stuff. Very clear on expectations stuff
• 56:24
  is scheduling. And the way that I'd like to do
• 56:28
  scheduling that I found to be the most effective is you want
• 56:31
  to send an e-mail, a call, and if they don't pick up the phone,
• 56:34
  leave a voice memo until you've actually talked with someone and
• 56:37
  confirmed, hey, are you starting on Tuesday?
• 56:40
  What time are you guys gonna show up, whatever they might
• 56:43
  say, but you need to confirm through a call, through voice
• 56:47
  exactly what day they're going to be there.
• 56:50
  And the scheduling, because I've seen it all too often where
• 56:53
  people are like, oh, we have automations that go out so they
• 56:56
  get automated, you know, messages and automation does
• 56:59
  does not have any weight to it. When you get an automation like,
• 57:02
  oh, you're starting this, it's like, well, someone's willing to
• 57:04
  send you a specific e-mail or phone call, they're just not
• 57:08
  gonna register. It's like, yeah, well, it's a
• 57:11
  notification, but I didn't know that they actually wanted us
• 57:13
  specifically that day. And then for scheduling, as a
• 57:17
  project manager for trades, you wanna be thinking one to two
• 57:20
  months out at all times and planning what's going to be
• 57:24
  happening. So every one to two months out,
• 57:26
  every subcontractor should have a heads up of, hey, this is when
• 57:29
  we're starting sub. Subcontractors may even need
• 57:31
  three months depending how busy they are.
• 57:32
  And then the week before they're ready to start again.
• 57:35
  Phone. Well, how are you guys doing?
• 57:37
  Are you going to be done your next project?
• 57:38
  You have guys lined up or starting this day?
• 57:41
  Do you have your materials and things like this?
• 57:43
  You really need to kind of dive into them.
• 57:45
  Not just like, yeah, OK, we'll be there.
• 57:46
  But like how many guys you gonna have?
• 57:49
  Do you have your materials ready?
• 57:51
  That kind of thing. So you can dive into it a little
• 57:52
  bit so that they know like, hey, this guy's on the ball.
• 57:56
  You must make sure that we've got the right people and the
• 57:58
  right materials. And he's really expecting us to
• 58:01
  be there and fully ready to like really hammer down on this
• 58:05
  project. Now, proactive quality control
• 58:07
  with sub trades is super important to your trades may not
• 58:11
  appreciate you pointing out things that they're, you know,
• 58:13
  doing wrong or what have you, But when you could be proactive
• 58:17
  with quality control because they're going to be there for
• 58:19
  whatever it is, you know, three days a week, 2 weeks a month,
• 58:23
  whatever it may be. Make sure that while they're
• 58:25
  going through their job that you are trying to help them and make
• 58:30
  sure if you see something out of place that you tell them about
• 58:34
  it. Obviously there's things in
• 58:35
  progress and something's not finished finish, but if you can
• 58:38
  just kind of tell them, hey, make sure to remember this right
• 58:41
  before you guys leave, I noticed you didn't put in this low
• 58:44
  voltage wire here or whatever, right?
• 58:46
  So that way if you can help them through that, then you know when
• 58:49
  you do your inspection for quality control inspection,
• 58:52
  you're not calling them back for like 10 different things, right?
• 58:54
  Maybe there's one, ideally none and it'll help you, it'll help
• 58:58
  them. So be proactive.
• 59:00
  And then 3D scans are phenomenal.
• 59:02
  Before you close up the walls, do a 3D scan so you get all of
• 59:06
  the new plumbing, HVAC, framing, you can see everything behind
• 59:10
  the walls. And that way when you eventually
• 59:13
  it's going to come up sooner or later.
• 59:14
  I'm sure you've been through this where it's like, where do
• 59:17
  we put that piece of backing or did we actually run a wire here?
• 59:20
  Why is this not connected or whatever, right?
• 59:23
  Go back to your 3D scan and you can look at it.
• 59:25
  If you don't want to hire someone to do a 3D scan, then at
• 59:28
  the very least take video or panorama pictures and just
• 59:33
  massive amount of pictures before the walls get closed up
• 59:36
  because you're going to want to go back and and check out those
• 59:39
  pictures beforehand. And if you want to be really
• 59:41
  organized, have separate folders for different stages of the
• 59:44
  project because as you know, you may end up with hundreds of
• 59:48
  pictures per project. So I like to have sort of demo
• 59:51
  and framing your rough ends pre board and then post board
• 59:55
  drywall and so on. And you could even have like buy
• 59:58
  room or something like that. So you can always go back and
• 1:00:00
  see specifically what happened at what stage of the project.
• 1:00:04
  Now subcontractors they can work for, pretty much.
• 1:00:08
  Anybody else there, they're free agents and they can go to the
• 1:00:13
  next guy if you don't treat them well or they don't feel like
• 1:00:17
  they want to be doing your projects.
• 1:00:18
  So make sure you're treating them and you're thinking about
• 1:00:21
  retention and prioritizing them as well.
• 1:00:24
  So appreciation and benefits for them.
• 1:00:27
  Typically, if you want them to do their job properly, they want
• 1:00:30
  you to do your job properly. So don't have a whole bunch of
• 1:00:33
  other trades there. Don't have a messy site.
• 1:00:35
  Don't be unorganized. Don't be calling them the day
• 1:00:37
  before telling them. Hey, I need you to.
• 1:00:40
  Send someone to go fix this thing because we got inspection
• 1:00:42
  tomorrow and you know always having to these like fires that
• 1:00:46
  you need to call them to put out or asking them for minute
• 1:00:49
  details on plans, little tiny things like that, right.
• 1:00:52
  So really appreciate them do your best.
• 1:00:55
  If they're messing around and they're not doing well, then you
• 1:00:59
  need to tell them, but you need to go out of your way to make
• 1:01:02
  sure that you've created a great environment.
• 1:01:04
  And the biggest thing to doing that is by being really
• 1:01:07
  professional and making sure that you're doing like heads up
• 1:01:11
  on issues. So something comes up.
• 1:01:13
  Hey, my whatever drywaller is behind, it's taking longer to to
• 1:01:18
  sand out. I'm sorry, I'm going to have to
• 1:01:19
  push you guys, you know, off a couple of days, you know, for
• 1:01:22
  the painters or whatever, right? So just tell them straight up
• 1:01:25
  and then tell them as well that you always want to know what's
• 1:01:29
  going on. If they're going to be late, if
• 1:01:30
  something bad happened on site, they need to tell you.
• 1:01:33
  And you're not going to lose your crew.
• 1:01:35
  Hold and flip over and get angry like cool, calm and collected
• 1:01:38
  and let them know obviously, and and you guys are team.
• 1:01:41
  You've got to figure it out. Yeah.
• 1:01:42
  So that's at the end of the day, that's what it is.
• 1:01:44
  You're a team. You're both wanting high quality
• 1:01:47
  project that finishes on time and on budget, and you're both
• 1:01:50
  working together. Now inevitably you're going to
• 1:01:53
  have difficult Subs. Subsets have either grown too
• 1:01:57
  big for you and and don't really care about your projects
• 1:02:00
  anymore, or Subs that don't show up or just do bad work, or maybe
• 1:02:04
  they hired a guy that's just not cut out for it or whatever it
• 1:02:08
  may be. And essentially what you need to
• 1:02:10
  do there is be upfront with them, tell them what's
• 1:02:14
  acceptable, what's not. And if yeah, if they've done,
• 1:02:18
  you know, 2-3 projects and they've all kind of been the
• 1:02:21
  same and unorganized and you just know what to expect from
• 1:02:24
  them, then it's time to probably cut ways and look for somebody
• 1:02:27
  else. And if you got to pay them a
• 1:02:29
  little bit more, then do that. Better to have someone who is
• 1:02:32
  accountable and who can manage schedules and organized then
• 1:02:37
  someone who's going to waste your time and make you look bad.
• 1:02:40
  In front of a client. Essentially, at the end of the
• 1:02:42
  day, the subcontractors you hire is a representation of your
• 1:02:46
  company and employees for that matter too.
• 1:02:48
  So if your clients are seeing like guys that just don't care,
• 1:02:52
  they're messy, they come and go whenever they please and they
• 1:02:56
  just don't communicate well, that's going to reflect badly on
• 1:03:00
  you and it's going to keep you from having high levels of
• 1:03:02
  communication and high level clients.
• 1:03:07
  Now that you've got amazing communication on your sites, we
• 1:03:09
  gotta talk about the money behind it all.
• 1:03:12
  Burning budgets. How many times have you got into
• 1:03:15
  a project and things look pretty good and then you get halfway
• 1:03:18
  and it's like getting a little tight and then by the end, you
• 1:03:21
  know you're just burning off all your profits.
• 1:03:24
  Try to eke out and finish the job.
• 1:03:26
  That is not where you want to be.
• 1:03:27
  You want to know well ahead of time where a project is at and
• 1:03:31
  be able to track it throughout the entire project.
• 1:03:34
  So job costing is the way to do that.
• 1:03:36
  It's easy to understand, but very difficult, I would say to
• 1:03:41
  really get set up and operating 100% at, at full accuracy.
• 1:03:46
  Now the way that I like to set up job costing, and again, this
• 1:03:49
  is something I would suggest hiring someone to do, so reach
• 1:03:52
  out to us. There's links in the
• 1:03:54
  description. We can help you set up all the
• 1:03:56
  systems for your project management, whether that's your
• 1:03:58
  software, your job costing, the financial side of things,
• 1:04:01
  whatever it may be. But essentially the way you want
• 1:04:04
  to be thinking about it and the way that I've found it works the
• 1:04:06
  best is you want to leave your accounting software as is and
• 1:04:11
  not do job costing through accounting software.
• 1:04:13
  What I suggest is do your job costing through your project
• 1:04:17
  management software, but you want an integration so that your
• 1:04:20
  accounting software, your bookkeeping software is sending
• 1:04:23
  information to the project management software.
• 1:04:26
  And in the project management software is where the project
• 1:04:29
  manager is categorizing the different expenses.
• 1:04:33
  So miss, miss project framing materials and, and you can just
• 1:04:37
  do everything in there. And the reason you want to do
• 1:04:39
  that because it keeps your books clean.
• 1:04:41
  Your bookkeeper doesn't really know what's happening on site.
• 1:04:43
  And you probably don't want your project managers having like
• 1:04:46
  full access either to your bookkeeping accounting software
• 1:04:49
  because things get mixed up and they can see a whole lot of
• 1:04:51
  stuff that they just really don't need to have access to.
• 1:04:55
  So that's the way that I've seen it work best.
• 1:04:57
  Now, every project management software is a different story.
• 1:05:00
  And a lot of them don't communicate well with other
• 1:05:02
  programs. And that whole thing can be
• 1:05:04
  quite messy. Plus you've got the human
• 1:05:06
  component of, you know, you as the project manager.
• 1:05:08
  If you're watching this, you're the one I'll be doing this, you
• 1:05:11
  need to be able to keep accurate with this and keep it up to
• 1:05:15
  date, which can be challenging, especially when you got a lot of
• 1:05:18
  projects that are managing to really let that slip.
• 1:05:20
  And that's what you essentially don't want to be doing.
• 1:05:22
  But job costing, you've got your time and hour tracking.
• 1:05:25
  So we talked about that with the field crew.
• 1:05:27
  They should be clocking in and out of of jobs and also which
• 1:05:31
  part of the job they're working on.
• 1:05:33
  And if they're not, then the Superintendent or site manager
• 1:05:35
  should be doing it. And then expense tracking.
• 1:05:37
  So expense tracking should all be automatic.
• 1:05:40
  All the everything is paid by credit card or bank transfer or
• 1:05:44
  whatever. And all those transactions are
• 1:05:46
  going to go into your bookkeeping software and then
• 1:05:48
  they just pull over into your project management software and
• 1:05:52
  then get categorized there. Now once that system set up, you
• 1:05:56
  are, I call it the Holy Grail of construction businesses because
• 1:06:00
  essentially once you have jaw like good job costing set up,
• 1:06:04
  now you know exactly where you are at on projects.
• 1:06:07
  You know your profitability, you know when things are starting to
• 1:06:10
  go sideways over next you'll project that you estimate where
• 1:06:14
  things are up or down. So be doing a weekly review on
• 1:06:17
  the project. Just as I mentioned, a weekly
• 1:06:19
  review of the schedule to make sure everything is, you know
• 1:06:22
  you're looking month, two months out, weekly review of the
• 1:06:24
  budget. Where are we going over?
• 1:06:27
  Where are we under? And you don't want to get fooled
• 1:06:30
  again. I'm sure you've got fooled where
• 1:06:33
  you thought you were making money on a project.
• 1:06:35
  The project ends, you look at your bank account and it's like,
• 1:06:38
  where did all the money go? Why didn't I make any profit on
• 1:06:41
  this? And you essentially have no idea
• 1:06:43
  because the job costing is, is just not in place.
• 1:06:45
  So weekly review of financial budgets, change orders are
• 1:06:49
  another quick way to burn money and light it on fire.
• 1:06:53
  And if you need to burn $100 bill in front of, you know,
• 1:06:57
  whoever's needs to know about change orders, then do that to
• 1:07:00
  get the point across. But essentially every change
• 1:07:03
  order needs to be communicated right away.
• 1:07:06
  And you should have a decision kind of matrix or decision
• 1:07:09
  communication to your guys that, hey, if it's something small,
• 1:07:13
  it's going to take you half an hour to fix, Just go ahead and
• 1:07:15
  fix it and don't worry about it. But make sure you're putting in
• 1:07:18
  the daily report or communicating it to a
• 1:07:21
  Superintendent or whoever so that we know how many small
• 1:07:25
  little changes are outside of the scope.
• 1:07:27
  Now, if something's going to take, I don't know, one hour or
• 1:07:30
  two hours, it's going to cost over $300 to fix something,
• 1:07:34
  whatever it may be. You're going to have like the
• 1:07:37
  threshold of like below this. Just take care of it above this.
• 1:07:40
  We need a change order in place and documenting that.
• 1:07:43
  I'm working with a client where they've been running a project
• 1:07:47
  and they're just pushing progress and getting things
• 1:07:49
  done. And now two months later into
• 1:07:51
  the project, the financials are a bit tight.
• 1:07:54
  And it's like, well, you know, we have all these different
• 1:07:57
  change orders or things that have changed in the scope or
• 1:07:59
  updated architectural drawings. And now they need to go back and
• 1:08:02
  sort through all these different, you know, what was
• 1:08:04
  the change order? How much time do we spend and,
• 1:08:06
  and what was the materials that we picked for this?
• 1:08:08
  And it's a bit of a mess and it doesn't look good with the
• 1:08:11
  client, right. If it's like, yeah, you know,
• 1:08:14
  we're doing change orders like retroactive after the fact and
• 1:08:18
  now it's gonna cost you a whole bunch of extra.
• 1:08:20
  And these are like even if they're legitimate, which they
• 1:08:22
  are, it just doesn't look great. And no client wants to get that,
• 1:08:26
  you know, big bill of here's all the change orders, now you owe
• 1:08:29
  us whatever, you know, an extra $20,000 or something like that.
• 1:08:32
  Much better to do small ones, communicating with them ahead of
• 1:08:35
  time. Be proactive with that.
• 1:08:37
  And as I mentioned with the scheduling, make sure that every
• 1:08:39
  change order also has a schedule update as well.
• 1:08:42
  This is going to take an extra 2 days and this is an extra week
• 1:08:45
  of work or whatever. Subs and independent
• 1:08:47
  contractors. This is an easy way if you're
• 1:08:50
  doing like cost plus or if you're just pulling this up, you
• 1:08:54
  know, that last scramble of like, I don't care, just charge
• 1:08:57
  me for it. I need you to get in here and
• 1:09:00
  just do finishing and you're trying to push the project
• 1:09:02
  forward, but the, the sub gives you a bill and it's like, well,
• 1:09:06
  $10,000, well, we only had budgeted like four or five.
• 1:09:09
  You know, like either you're going to eat the cost or you
• 1:09:11
  going to talk with a sub and try to bring them down, which nobody
• 1:09:14
  wants to be in that situation because they kind of did you a
• 1:09:16
  favor with maybe coming in there quicker or what have you.
• 1:09:19
  So I would, I would very rarely give us some free rein and just
• 1:09:23
  do like cost plus or just say like, Hey, just come in here,
• 1:09:26
  finish that and charge me. What what you need to, if you
• 1:09:29
  know, you've got the budget for it, OK, in a pinch, but always
• 1:09:33
  be getting pricing from a sub, even if it's just like something
• 1:09:36
  small and you need them in there for a day.
• 1:09:38
  Ask them what they think it's going to take, how many hours,
• 1:09:41
  how much cost or money and always be holding them to their,
• 1:09:44
  their estimates that they're doing to make sure that you're
• 1:09:47
  not just again, throwing money out the window because you guys
• 1:09:50
  were not on the same page. And if they give you a price,
• 1:09:52
  it's way over what you budgeted. Now at least you have something.
• 1:09:55
  Maybe you can go to the client and just let them know, Hey,
• 1:09:58
  this is the stuff that's going to cost more or whatever and,
• 1:10:00
  and try to work that out. And then finally, the clients,
• 1:10:04
  if you have had those clients before where they just talk
• 1:10:07
  nonstop, They're always on site, they're talking to your guys and
• 1:10:11
  they're just sort of necessary wasting everyone's time, but
• 1:10:14
  they're wasting a lot of time. You need to talk with those.
• 1:10:16
  Hence, if you're doing a cost plus job, tell them, hey, happy
• 1:10:20
  to answer all these questions, happy for you guys, you talking
• 1:10:23
  with the guys. But just know that all those
• 1:10:25
  conversations, all that time that we're putting into this
• 1:10:28
  that you're asking my project manager go dive through all
• 1:10:30
  these like old receipts or whatever it's costing you money
• 1:10:34
  or or vice versa. Just let them know that, hey,
• 1:10:36
  you know, all of this is like costing money.
• 1:10:38
  So tell the clients, obviously you need to do it with some tax
• 1:10:41
  and a little diplomacy, but let them know that if they're asking
• 1:10:44
  for a lot of detailed information or they're talking
• 1:10:46
  with you guys, obviously they're coming to site and kind of using
• 1:10:50
  up a lot of time that it's, it's costing money and it's it's
• 1:10:53
  burning through the budget. Congratulations.
• 1:10:57
  We are getting close to the end of the project, but not done
• 1:11:01
  yet. We still gotta close it out.
• 1:11:02
  And then we got to do a recap and review.
• 1:11:04
  So we know that the next projects going to be even
• 1:11:07
  stellar. And that's where you hit the
• 1:11:09
  sweet spot with business. When you can finish something,
• 1:11:12
  review it, improve it so that every new project is getting
• 1:11:16
  better and better every time. So now we're gonna talk about
• 1:11:19
  the double time closeout. Who doesn't want to get to the
• 1:11:22
  end of the project? Spend one day.
• 1:11:25
  Doing the final cleanup and then hand it over to the client.
• 1:11:27
  And you can get there may not be one day, but your closeout
• 1:11:31
  should be a few days for to fix a couple of things, not two
• 1:11:34
  weeks of loose ends and a whole bunch of random stuff that needs
• 1:11:38
  to get done. And it starts with great quality
• 1:11:40
  control earlier, but at the end you need to completion
• 1:11:43
  checklist. So these are all the things that
• 1:11:44
  need to be completed. And those are things both on
• 1:11:47
  site by sub trades, the quality control, all of that kind of
• 1:11:51
  stuff, but also for permitting, for final inspections, for
• 1:11:56
  education for the client on their new HVAC systems or, or
• 1:12:01
  plumbing fixtures or whatever, right?
• 1:12:03
  So whatever needs to get done should be in a checklist so that
• 1:12:07
  it's very easy. This is everything that's done.
• 1:12:09
  These are the few things we need to get completed.
• 1:12:11
  Everyone's on the same page. And in the end, quality does
• 1:12:15
  trump time. I know clients who are obviously
• 1:12:18
  not happy with things taking longer, but if it's a decision
• 1:12:22
  between do we do a little bit better quality or do we get it
• 1:12:26
  done on time? More often than not, I found
• 1:12:29
  quality is king. If you can't reach a certain
• 1:12:32
  level of quality, then your company is gonna suffer.
• 1:12:36
  Whereas if you're a bit behind schedule, not the end of the
• 1:12:40
  world, it's easier to tell clients, hey, I know we're
• 1:12:42
  behind schedule. I know this is taking longer,
• 1:12:44
  but we really want to ensure that we're at least getting the
• 1:12:47
  quality really top notch and we're getting things done right
• 1:12:50
  and proper so that when you move in, you're 100% satisfied with
• 1:12:54
  everything that we've done. And then the thing that I hope
• 1:12:57
  you've learned and I learned the hard way is no work after move
• 1:13:01
  in. So once the client moves into
• 1:13:03
  the house or the project or they take ownership of the building,
• 1:13:07
  whatever it may be, to not be that contractor that then has
• 1:13:11
  people coming in to fix up some random little stuff that got
• 1:13:14
  done and your carpenters in there with their tools while the
• 1:13:18
  family is trying to eat their breakfast and they're still
• 1:13:20
  moving in. When they move into their new
• 1:13:22
  space, they're going to be super busy moving everything in.
• 1:13:25
  They're enjoying the space and they've just went through a very
• 1:13:28
  traumatic, you know, whatever is 8-9 months of building.
• 1:13:32
  They don't want people coming into their house to come fix
• 1:13:35
  things. So make sure everything is 100%
• 1:13:38
  done. Have a final walkthrough with
• 1:13:40
  them. Any little things get picked off
• 1:13:43
  and, and and identified. Then give yourself another
• 1:13:47
  couple of days or a week, even if you need again, you want to
• 1:13:50
  close that that closeout process time, but give yourself whatever
• 1:13:54
  time you need to finish absolutely everything.
• 1:13:56
  So it's 100% Immaculate before the people move in.
• 1:14:01
  And then the final things to discuss and confirm is warranty.
• 1:14:04
  So let them know I'm going to follow up with you in two months
• 1:14:08
  or three months and ask to see how things are going.
• 1:14:11
  You may notice that there might be some little drywall pops or
• 1:14:13
  some screw pops or maybe a little something is like maybe a
• 1:14:17
  little loose or, or stuff comes up.
• 1:14:19
  Tell us about those. We want to know those.
• 1:14:21
  We will list them out and then we will do a warranty call at 3
• 1:14:25
  months or whatever the reason you.
• 1:14:26
  Want to say this? Is because as you know, you
• 1:14:28
  don't want to be sending a Carpenter there every week,
• 1:14:31
  every two weeks to go fix some little baseboard or, or fix some
• 1:14:35
  minor little screw pop or crack in the drywall.
• 1:14:38
  If it's if it's something really bad or, or what have you, yeah,
• 1:14:42
  you may send someone, but you wanna be creating a list and
• 1:14:45
  tell your client that so that you can tackle everything.
• 1:14:47
  You send a guy for three or four hours, they go fix all these
• 1:14:50
  little things, take care of this and that and then you know it's
• 1:14:53
  done and you've spent maybe 3 or 4 hours on warranty time.
• 1:14:56
  But it beats having to go back four or five different times
• 1:14:59
  with a Carpenter or your finisher.
• 1:15:02
  And now they've had to, you know, drive and communicate and
• 1:15:05
  they've got to disrupt the family, you know, a bunch of
• 1:15:07
  times and all this stuff, right. And then so I like to do two or
• 1:15:10
  three months kind of in fix everything that needs to get
• 1:15:13
  fixed and then call them like a month before.
• 1:15:16
  Usually you have a one year for workmanship on warranty, but a
• 1:15:19
  month before the warranty ends, call them and ask them, Hey,
• 1:15:23
  your warranty is coming up in a month.
• 1:15:25
  We can send someone out next week.
• 1:15:27
  Is there anything you'd like us to come and fix any issues that
• 1:15:30
  you found in, in your, you know, whatever, right?
• 1:15:32
  So be really proactive with the warranty and do it on specific
• 1:15:37
  times. Make sure you're getting a final
• 1:15:38
  sign off. I know a lot of contractors who
• 1:15:41
  do this as well where they don't really have any documented thing
• 1:15:45
  where the client is signed off that they're that the project is
• 1:15:48
  100% complete. You need to be getting that sign
• 1:15:51
  off from the client so that later they can't say, well, you
• 1:15:54
  know, you guys never came and fixed this or this was never
• 1:15:58
  actually completed, right? Get their sign off after that
• 1:16:01
  final walkthrough going to list out or there's, you know these
• 1:16:04
  couple of things, right Alright, sign the paper that were 100%
• 1:16:08
  complete except for these few things.
• 1:16:09
  You get those few things fixed in the next day or two days and
• 1:16:13
  now you've got something on paper.
• 1:16:14
  Hey, we fixed these things. That was it everything 100%
• 1:16:17
  complete. We have final sign off good to
• 1:16:19
  go and then final invoicing as well.
• 1:16:21
  If you you know, like I said, don't have them holding the bag
• 1:16:24
  over you. If you've structured your
• 1:16:26
  invoice and correctly, you should have their money in your
• 1:16:30
  bank account that you need to give back to them.
• 1:16:32
  Now this may be counterintuitive for you, but if you have the
• 1:16:36
  deposit and you've always been invoicing before the deposit
• 1:16:39
  runs out or before that the amount of money is gone, then at
• 1:16:43
  the end they should have paid you above and beyond the actual
• 1:16:46
  work that you did. And then you can give them a
• 1:16:48
  check back of like, yeah, here's the last things we fixed and
• 1:16:52
  everything worked out here is, you know, the remaining 5% or
• 1:16:56
  couple $1000 of your deposit back that covers that final
• 1:16:59
  invoice. Like you going to give a final
• 1:17:01
  invoice, maybe let's say it's 20,000, they gave you 25 $1000
• 1:17:04
  deposit. Now you're going to give them
• 1:17:06
  their $5000 back so that they're paying the final invoice and
• 1:17:09
  you're returning whatever is left of their deposit.
• 1:17:12
  So that you are always like they're financing their their
• 1:17:15
  build and you are never left having your money out that they
• 1:17:19
  can say, well you didn't fix these.
• 1:17:21
  Few minor things, so we're not. Going to pay you that $20,000
• 1:17:25
  last invoice until you fix them, right?
• 1:17:26
  That's where you do not want to be in that situation.
• 1:17:31
  So now the project is complete, but you want to make sure that
• 1:17:35
  your next project is even better and I'm sure you've gone.
• 1:17:38
  Back to the. End of the project knows what
• 1:17:40
  happened, you know, over schedule, over budget.
• 1:17:42
  I don't wanna repeat that again. And this is the way that you
• 1:17:45
  don't do it. One thing to keep in mind when
• 1:17:46
  you do complete a project, make sure you congratulate and
• 1:17:49
  appreciate everybody Subs, your employees, whoever that worked
• 1:17:53
  on the project, just say, hey, great job finishing the project,
• 1:17:57
  handing it over to the client. So if you know, if you've
• 1:17:59
  figured out by now, I like checklists because that's the
• 1:18:02
  way you build a process proven, structured, systemized company.
• 1:18:05
  So this should be a project review checklist.
• 1:18:07
  And on that checklist, typically you're going to have checking
• 1:18:10
  your actuals to budget it. So you've done your job costing.
• 1:18:13
  What did we go over? What did we go under both on the
• 1:18:17
  cost of the project, but also on the schedule.
• 1:18:20
  And from there you can ask like, was this a one off case just
• 1:18:24
  because something you know, out of the blue kind of happened or
• 1:18:27
  is this a repeating thing? Or do we always go over on
• 1:18:29
  framing? Or are we always maybe under
• 1:18:31
  budget on demo and depending on that, you can then adjust your
• 1:18:35
  estimating to know to get a little bit more accurate on it.
• 1:18:38
  Reoccurring issues, what you know, we seem to always have
• 1:18:42
  trouble getting into tile guy in here and finding a good tile
• 1:18:46
  guy. Well, maybe we should reach out
• 1:18:47
  and get a few more tile guys in our database, right?
• 1:18:50
  So always be thinking upstream of like what's kind of
• 1:18:53
  reoccurring on projects, what continues to can happen and then
• 1:18:57
  how can we make sure that it doesn't continue to happen on
• 1:19:00
  future project process changes. Same thing with process changes.
• 1:19:05
  You know, it seems like every time we closeout a project, the
• 1:19:07
  clients are calling us the next day because they don't know how
• 1:19:10
  to use the heating system or they're, they're, they're unsure
• 1:19:14
  about, you know, this certain thing.
• 1:19:15
  We should put that in our closeout process that we provide
• 1:19:19
  that information to them where we show them.
• 1:19:20
  Specifically, this is how you set your heating controls and
• 1:19:24
  and whatever, right? So figure out what do you need
• 1:19:27
  to change, maybe in your processes to to build, to build
• 1:19:30
  better projects and then start, stop, continue.
• 1:19:33
  This one is good for the whole. Company, but especially for
• 1:19:36
  project management as well, what can we start doing that will
• 1:19:39
  improve what we do? What can we maybe stop doing?
• 1:19:42
  Well, we don't really need to continue to whatever may be
• 1:19:46
  right and what should we continue?
• 1:19:48
  So this is working really well. Don't touch it.
• 1:19:50
  If something's working, just continue doing it well.
• 1:19:53
  So at this point you are so far ahead of so many other project
• 1:19:57
  managers and construction companies out there.
• 1:19:59
  If you can implement and follow what the lessons and information
• 1:20:03
  and put those systems in place. You're well on your way now this
• 1:20:07
  is what separates the good from the great or the elite is the
• 1:20:10
  post project. So after every project, you
• 1:20:14
  should be doing a client survey of what went well.
• 1:20:17
  What did you enjoy? Why did you choose us?
• 1:20:19
  What things were you unsure of or what kind of what?
• 1:20:22
  What was the most stressful part of the project, right.
• 1:20:25
  You need to be getting that client feedback and most clients
• 1:20:27
  are more than happy to fill out a quick, you know, 10 minute
• 1:20:29
  survey. Make it as anonymous as you can
• 1:20:32
  or have like an office admin or something send it out because
• 1:20:35
  you as the owner or the project manager, they may be a little
• 1:20:39
  bit reserved about providing feedback to you.
• 1:20:41
  But when it's somebody else in the company, they may be more
• 1:20:45
  open or more of an anonymous like form to fill out.
• 1:20:47
  Ask for a review. Never waste a good review.
• 1:20:50
  You wanna be getting five star reviews on, you know, Google or
• 1:20:53
  any other Facebook, whatever sites that you want reviews
• 1:20:56
  from. Google is the big one.
• 1:20:58
  Make sure you're always getting reviews so you can put it on
• 1:21:00
  your website. And that they're in all the
• 1:21:02
  profiles and then ask for referrals if they've done a good
• 1:21:05
  project. Ask for referrals.
• 1:21:06
  I, I did a project for a client. He had a beautiful cottage.
• 1:21:11
  We went and built him the garage, but it was, it was
• 1:21:14
  mirrored the, the cottage and was Immaculate, like workshop
• 1:21:17
  and everything. And he ended up referring us to
• 1:21:19
  someone else on the lake. They ended up referring us to
• 1:21:21
  someone else. So keep that chain of referrals
• 1:21:24
  going and find your Tony. Tony was this great client who's
• 1:21:28
  actually referred to me by somebody else I had worked with.
• 1:21:31
  And then he referred me and then they referred me.
• 1:21:33
  And you had these, they were old, like really great clients
• 1:21:37
  to work with. And you'll find these groups of
• 1:21:39
  people that if you have a really good client, they're going to
• 1:21:43
  know other people that are generally really good.
• 1:21:45
  And we're going to do high quality projects.
• 1:21:47
  And once you've built something for somebody, they're kind of
• 1:21:50
  like keeping up with the Joneses.
• 1:21:51
  Now their neighbors want, you know, that new thing or, or that
• 1:21:54
  new house or whatever, right? follow-ups.
• 1:21:56
  You're going to be following up for warranties, as I mentioned,
• 1:21:58
  but you should be following up every 33130 and then 365 for
• 1:22:02
  sure. And then every year after that
• 1:22:04
  or every six months, continue to follow up with them.
• 1:22:07
  Hey, how's it going with the project?
• 1:22:08
  You still happy with everything? You know, what's going on?
• 1:22:11
  How are the kids? Whatever.
• 1:22:12
  A little bit of small talk, not a big conversation, but keep in
• 1:22:15
  touch with them. It's great customer service and
• 1:22:18
  it also opens the door for more referrals and feedback for
• 1:22:22
  yourself. And then the warranty portion,
• 1:22:23
  as I mentioned, if you can really nail down the warranty,
• 1:22:26
  even if you got to spend a little extra to send guys over
• 1:22:28
  there, they're going to want to refer you so much more.
• 1:22:31
  Even if there's little issues that crop up.
• 1:22:35
  Now here are some final keys for you to get right to put
• 1:22:40
  everything together and really get started implementing all
• 1:22:44
  this stuff. I know this is a lot, and like I
• 1:22:46
  said, if you want help with this, we've got programs and
• 1:22:48
  we've got all the templates and everything already dialed in for
• 1:22:51
  you. So just click the link in the
• 1:22:52
  description below to get in touch with us.
• 1:22:55
  But good practices that are needed throughout the industry
• 1:22:58
  viewing completion as the start. So when you complete a project,
• 1:23:02
  view it as the start of improvement of your business
• 1:23:05
  because now you've got a project completed.
• 1:23:08
  Now you're going to start improving your business.
• 1:23:10
  Celebrating a completed project. As I mentioned, make sure every
• 1:23:13
  project there's a celebration. Ideally you want to be doing a
• 1:23:16
  video interview with your clients, having a little
• 1:23:18
  celebration with them. Get, you know, a nice little
• 1:23:21
  gift basket for them. Give them a gift basket, say
• 1:23:24
  like you know, really work. It was really great working with
• 1:23:27
  you. Celebrate their big achievement
• 1:23:30
  of completing. The project for them 1% better
• 1:23:33
  on every project. So every single project.
• 1:23:36
  Do if you can get 1% better, improve this, improve that
• 1:23:39
  better, whatever communication systems, this and that, you're
• 1:23:42
  just going to slowly keep leveling up and you're going to
• 1:23:45
  slowly get away from the pack of other builders and you're gonna
• 1:23:48
  be the go to builder. Charge premium prices, work with
• 1:23:51
  premium clients, taking time for details.
• 1:23:54
  As you know, we like to work rapidly.
• 1:23:56
  And this was one of my maybe issues as a project manager is I
• 1:24:01
  like to move fast. I like things to get done on
• 1:24:04
  time. I like to have systems in place.
• 1:24:05
  I like communication. Happened and I would rush things
• 1:24:07
  sometimes and sometimes there come to, you know, bite me in
• 1:24:10
  the ass after because I maybe missed some details of the plans
• 1:24:14
  or I didn't maybe communicate as good as I should have been a
• 1:24:17
  missed some some key details or what have you.
• 1:24:19
  So make sure that you are you want to have that momentum and
• 1:24:24
  energy in a project, but you also don't want it to be rushed
• 1:24:27
  where people are missing details and running around with like a
• 1:24:30
  bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.
• 1:24:31
  So take time to make sure the details are in place.
• 1:24:34
  Do that pre planning and the rest of the project will run.
• 1:24:36
  Really asking for help and opinions this is another thing
• 1:24:39
  for me I like to run my own show and in construction you get a
• 1:24:44
  lot of guys like this, you know the kind of desperado, lone wolf
• 1:24:47
  kind of mentality of I'll figure it out I don't need help and.
• 1:24:51
  But asking for help and opinions is important, especially from
• 1:24:54
  guys who have been there for a long time.
• 1:24:56
  I can remember as a project manager when I, when I imagine
• 1:24:58
  projects, you know, way back in the day was working with the
• 1:25:02
  company and I was new to the company, had been project
• 1:25:05
  managing for a long time. But I didn't know the way that a
• 1:25:08
  company worked and exactly how they built and all this kind of
• 1:25:10
  stuff. And the one of the guys that
• 1:25:13
  have been there for like 15 years, he was able to give me
• 1:25:17
  some really great, no suggestions and help as far as
• 1:25:20
  like how to build things. And I wasn't super receptive to
• 1:25:23
  it. But later I realized that even
• 1:25:25
  just because, someone's maybe a labour outside.
• 1:25:27
  Or a Carpenter. That doesn't mean that they
• 1:25:29
  don't have knowledge and expertise that they can really,
• 1:25:32
  you know, help you. So take opinions, take help.
• 1:25:36
  You don't have to listen to everything you know, not all
• 1:25:38
  suggestions and and help is is good, but but be open to it and
• 1:25:42
  ask for feedback from your Subs, from your workers, from, you
• 1:25:45
  know, architects, engineers, whatever, right?
• 1:25:48
  And you'll just become a much better project manager.
• 1:25:50
  And then the final thing I'm going to leave you with is
• 1:25:53
  rigorously implement systems. Every single thing can become a
• 1:25:57
  system. You're going to be the human
• 1:25:59
  touch and connection. And that's why project managers
• 1:26:02
  are so valuable and important on a project because they really
• 1:26:05
  bring everything together. But the system should make your
• 1:26:07
  life. Easier and everything you do
• 1:26:10
  should be in a systemized, process driven way.
• 1:26:13
  And that's when projects really become fun.
• 1:26:15
  Everybody knows what's happening, everyone smiling
• 1:26:17
  everyone's like if you're on a site and people are joking
• 1:26:20
  around, but still progress is getting done and you hear the
• 1:26:23
  saw running and you and you hear, you know construction work
• 1:26:26
  happening and people are are, you know, in a good, good mood.
• 1:26:29
  You know that the project manager has good systems and
• 1:26:32
  good communication in place, and that's what you need.
• 1:26:35
  Now that you know how to manage projects, you're going to want
• 1:26:38
  to go. Check out this next video.
• 1:26:39
  You now have a full guide A-Z on how to manage construction
• 1:26:43
  projects at a very high level. If you want help with a full
• 1:26:47
  done for you implementation of these systems and processes,
• 1:26:51
  getting your tech in place, getting your documentation in
• 1:26:53
  place, training your project managers and how to use
• 1:26:56
  different systems, check out the link in the description below
• 1:26:59
  and you can get in touch with us to help you level up your
• 1:27:04
  business.