A construction business which works for you works without the owner having to do all the important work, including making most day-to-day decisions, telling everyone what to do, organizing activities and tasks, scheduling crews, ordering materials, and having everyone look to you for input and directions. In other words, the business works for you as the owner versus you working for the business as a hands-on worker, doer, estimator, project manager, supervisor, firefighter, or fixer.
Successful business owners and presidents must be the visionary leader, creator, innovator, motivator, and improvement promoter for their companies. Their main role is to provide leadership as the head coach, CEO – chief enforcement officer, CIO – chief improvement officer, CTO – chief talent officer, CSO – chief sales officer, CMO – chief motivation officer, and CRO – chief reminder officer. The owner’s job is to enjoy the benefits of owning a business that works for them. Their job is not to handle most of the tasks required to bid, build, and manage projects. Their job is to be the visionary leader and develop the capacity to grow and profit by building a strong management team which runs the daily activities and is responsible for achieving the company’s vision and goals.
The company owner and president’s primary role is to:
- Implement and maintain an updated business plan with a vision, targets, and goals.
- Achieve and monitor high-margin company results.
- Provide effective leadership and proactive management.
- Maintain, monitor and enforce systems and structure.
- Achieve excellent construction performance.
- Develop, coach and maintain top talent and a strong growing team.
- Grow the business, sell, and win high-margin customers and contracts.
- Develop wealth-building investment opportunities.
TAKE THE TEST
To test yourself on “does my business work?” reflect on whether the following statements are true or false.
- You’ve been in business for a while but feel stuck and not getting ahead.
- You have low profit margins and must bid cheaply to win work.
- You have a lack of systems and difficulty delegating or holding people accountable.
- You’re unable to find responsible employees or hire the best talent available.
- You continually have an overwhelming workload and work too many hours for the return you earn.
- You’re always too busy to meet all your commitments, implement systems, hold regular team meetings, or spend time developing loyal customer relationships.
- You’re tired of feeling guilty about working too much and feel disconnected from your family.
- You don’t have many investments or a retirement strategy.
- You continuously watch your boat, hunting rifle, fishing poles, motor home, or golf clubs rust.
- You don’t see a way off your business treadmill or rut. You want to start finding a better way to run your business, get organized, and gain control, but you don’t know what to do or where to start to improve your situation and move your business to a higher level.
STOP SETTLING
Your business is in its current condition because of your actions, inactions, or decisions you made. This is what you get when you accept less than what you want. To improve, you must invest time and money to improve your company, systems, standards, structure, people, processes, software, marketing, sales, customer development, innovation, job-cost tracking, estimating accuracy, or professional accounting. Take a deep look at how you do business. You know what works, what doesn’t, and what’s preventing you from achieving your goals.
IMPROVEMENT STARTS WITH YOU
To achieve the results you want, you must improve how you run and manage your business. As an example, your people aren’t accountable because you don’t hold them accountable or train and coach them how to do what you want them to do.
Some of the reasons your profits may be low is because you don’t track your numbers, you bid low to win work, your estimates are inaccurate, your field doesn’t hit their production goals, or your team doesn’t manage their schedules and change orders properly. You know your problems and now must decide to do something about it.
Change starts with redesigning your role and committing time and money to build a great business which produces great results. You need to start investing in hiring the right people, delegating, coaching, training, holding workers accountable, implementing and enforcing systems, spending time building good customers, focusing on your numbers, and being accountable to yourself to do what you must do to build a better company.
To start building a business that works, list and identify all the things that don’t work well in your company. Then, look at this list of features and characteristics that successful construction companies maintain. In my next column for Modern Contractor Solutions, I will explore the characteristics of construction companies that succeed.
about the author
George Hedley CPBC is a certified professional construction business coach, consultant, and speaker. He shows contractors how to double their profits, grow, get organized, and get their company to work like a machine! He is the author of Get Your Construction Business To Always Make A Profit! available on Amazon.com. To talk, start a personalized BIZ-BUILDER program, or get his free e-newsletter, email gh@hardhatbizcoach.com. Visit his YouTube channel to watch his videos. To download online courses or get his contractor templates, visit www.constructionbusinesscoaching.com.