0:01

Welcome to Contractor Cuts , where we cover

0:03

the good , the bad and the ugly of

0:06

growing a successful contracting company

0:08

.

0:13

Welcome back to Contractor Cuts . My name is Clark Turner

0:15

, I'm Jared Flo . Thank you for joining us again

0:17

this week . So we are in the final

0:19

of three podcasts in a row

0:21

, final week , where we are going

0:24

over our growth path checklist

0:26

how we coach guys through

0:28

the system from beginning to end

0:31

.

0:31

How to build a great company .

0:33

Yeah , and this isn't the end of the coaching program

0:35

, but this is kind of the end of the guided

0:38

tour through it , because the next couple levels

0:40

are a lot more customized around your specific

0:43

company while you're in

0:45

the program . But week one

0:47

we talked about laying the foundation

0:49

of your company , going from understanding

0:53

every little thing that you need to have in

0:56

place to have a successful company . So

0:58

a lot of guys launching start there , but

1:00

if you've been in business for 15 years

1:03

you still need to go check in with that . Start there , but if you've

1:05

been in business for 15 years , you still need to go check in with

1:07

that . It's

1:09

making sure that you have all of the baseline stuff like emails and websites and business cards

1:12

and all of that stuff that you have to have set up to operating agreements

1:14

and the paperwork you need set up . So that

1:16

was week one . Going through that . It was a little longer

1:19

of a podcast because we had a lot to cover in it . If

1:21

you didn't hear that , go back and listen to it . Even if you've

1:23

been in business for a while , there's a lot of stuff

1:26

in that . Last week , week two

1:28

level , one contractor and

1:30

that's going from for

1:33

the base guy , it's going from

1:35

swinging a hammer , being in the truck

1:37

, up to being a full-time project

1:39

manager . Now , if you're already

1:41

a project manager

1:43

, are you running a company with three project managers running

1:45

for you or a setup where

1:48

you've got a decent-sized company doing $7

1:51

million , $8 million a year ? That's great . Level

1:53

one is still needed because we are laying

1:56

more groundwork for the growth that needs

1:58

to happen . Level one is organizing

2:00

and stabilizing the processes

2:02

and systems that your company is to

2:04

, where duplication is easy and

2:06

mathematic . That's right , right . And so today

2:08

we're talking about now that I've

2:11

got to stabilize , I've got a great foundation

2:13

. This is how we hire and

2:15

grow into the future as a company . Yep

2:17

, right . So that's kind of the overview of where

2:19

we've been . And also , to mention , if you didn't

2:21

hear the first two , we

2:23

give away for podcast listeners

2:26

only the base fundamental

2:28

coaching session . We'll

2:30

do a one-time session . It's a $500

2:32

value . We spend an hour with you

2:35

and go through your company

2:37

. We give that away to you as a podcast listener

2:39

if you're on a complete level

2:41

or above , which is only $199 a month

2:43

and it's a month-to-month and you can sign up for it

2:45

and get two weeks for free anyway .

2:46

So if you're a contractor

2:48

and you're like I don't know if I did it right , or if you're

2:51

the guy that's like , dude , I set it up perfectly . Yeah

2:53

, sign up , set up this thing . It doesn't cost

2:55

you anything . It's going to cost you about 30 , 45 minutes

2:57

of your time and if you set it up

2:59

perfectly , we'll go through the checklist and like , hey , man

3:01

, thumbs up , you killed it , right

3:05

. Worst case scenario . You come out of like , oh

3:07

wow , I didn't even think about that , let me

3:09

get these things done . That's right , right .

3:11

That's right . So entering level

3:13

two as a successful

3:15

project manager right . That's the goal

3:17

is I'm coming into level two ready

3:19

to hire . And really the transition from

3:22

level one to level two is not that first hire , it's prepping for the

3:24

hire . And really the transition from level one to level two is not that first hire , it's prepping

3:26

for the hire , right . And so level two

3:28

is I've got my company systemized

3:30

, I'm a successful project manager

3:32

, I'm super efficient with my jobs

3:34

and my software is perfect

3:37

and I am the ideal candidate of

3:39

who I'd want to hire as a project manager because I'm running

3:41

everything perfectly . That's entering

3:44

level two .

3:54

That transition of moving from level one to level two is I've got

3:56

a clear picture of what I do and how I do it . I know what I do , I

3:59

do these things , whatever but I also know . Here's

4:01

how I do those things . There's actually a documented

4:03

process of it's

4:06

become . It's the transition

4:08

that you've said before . You're no longer selling

4:10

yourself to clients . You're

4:13

now you've got systems and processes

4:15

and whatever that . When you're talking to clients , you're talking

4:17

about the systems and process of

4:19

what they can expect from you , how you're

4:21

going to operate , the type of communication

4:23

that you've got with them , the all of that stuff

4:25

. Where it becomes , you start making that transition

4:28

that people aren't hiring you because of you

4:30

. They're hiring you because of the systems

4:32

and processes that you're spelling out to them , which

4:34

is a prime position

4:36

to be able to be moving into the next

4:38

spot , where your pipeline starts

4:40

growing and you have a lot more work and your

4:43

reputation is growing . Your

4:45

pipeline starts growing , you have a lot more work and your reputation is growing . It's time

4:47

to look at hiring . Well , I've already built the ability to

4:49

tell people here's how I

4:51

do , what I do . Yeah , right , so you're prepped

4:53

and ready to bring somebody in and train them

4:55

.

4:56

Yeah , and I think along with that you

4:59

are starting . This is , in my

5:02

opinion , the most difficult transition

5:04

. So you transition from swinging a hammer

5:06

, doing labor , into being a project manager . You're

5:08

doing the same stuff , you're just telling people how to do

5:10

it at the boss , and so as a project

5:12

manager , you're making sure the people on site are

5:15

doing what you know how to do , and so it

5:17

is very similar , except that you're

5:19

just overseeing as

5:21

opposed to doing , and so that transition is

5:23

hard because you just want to keep grabbing that

5:25

hammer and getting back out there and doing it . But the

5:27

more difficult transition is that

5:29

first hire , and the reason of that

5:32

is because now I've got to compartmentalize

5:34

my job into two different jobs , because

5:37

if I hire you I've still got to rent jobs . I can't

5:39

just give you all the jobs . It's adding a paycheck

5:41

and not increasing the revenue doesn't

5:44

work , so I've got to still be a project

5:46

manager on jobs . I'm going to hire you

5:48

and train you up to be as good

5:50

as I am as a project manager , and

5:52

so I'm a project manager for my company

5:55

, but I'm now also a

5:57

CEO and leader in

5:59

this company , so those are two totally different

6:01

skill sets . Being a boss , hiring

6:04

someone , training

6:11

them up , being the shepherd , helping them become an all-star , giving them that support

6:13

without taking over , helping them coach personally and professionally

6:15

to get better over the next 12 months

6:17

All of those skills have

6:19

nothing to do with being a project manager

6:21

, and so those are two separate jobs

6:24

that you now have to do at the same time

6:26

, and so a lot of times , one

6:28

of those gets ignored , and usually it's

6:30

the new one . That's being a good boss , and

6:33

what does that look like ? So when we're working

6:35

with a level two contractor that

6:38

contractor we are really

6:40

honing in what skills

6:42

you need to really craft to be able

6:44

to be a great boss a great

6:46

. CEO and a great leader inside

6:48

of your company . So

6:51

what does that look like ? Let's kind of dive into

6:53

that If you were transitioning

6:55

to that . One of the biggest changes is that you're

6:58

going to spend a lot more office time than you

7:00

were before Making a hire

7:02

. You are going to be shifting in Now

7:04

. Again , this is going to be customized by

7:06

company , but a lot of times the way we start an

7:08

ideal way is I want

7:10

to . If I'm stepping into that role , I am head

7:12

of construction . I am doing

7:15

onboarding and estimates

7:17

up front , doing the desk estimates , and then I'm sending

7:19

you as my project manager to get on site

7:21

, get your eyes on , refine it and

7:23

utilizing you there . And we'll

7:26

go deeper into that in another podcast about

7:28

how to do that , why to do that

7:30

and how it's so helpful in growing that other person

7:32

because they get to see your estimates and you

7:34

know what's going on . But I'm spending

7:37

a lot more time in the office managing that , managing

7:39

dollars , managing software , managing

7:42

QuickBooks , managing the

7:44

finances all of that stuff I'm doing

7:46

at the office as well as trying

7:48

to be a good boss , trying to figure out how to do

7:50

that for you , and I've got

7:53

projects running on the side right . It is a

7:55

very difficult position getting started

7:57

with this Now in level two you're going

7:59

to make a second and a third PM hire

8:01

and when you do that you're now totally out of PMing

8:04

and you're full time in the

8:06

job of head of construction .

8:07

Right , and that's an easier position . You're

8:10

in a company management role at that

8:12

point . Yeah , but if you're

8:14

a listener and you've listened to the first two

8:16

and then the third podcast

8:18

in this series , you can see why

8:20

. At the very , very beginning , we talked about

8:22

time management . I

8:30

need to learn how to take control of my own time . Then the next level , level one , I

8:32

need to be time blocking my time because I am now wearing two hats . I have office work to do

8:34

and I'm I'm also a project manager . Now I'm

8:37

office work , project manager , managing

8:40

an employee and an owner directional

8:43

right . So if you at

8:45

this level , it's really

8:47

hard to go . Okay , now I'm going

8:49

to start managing my time . Well , you don't have the skills

8:51

. Yeah , you don't know how

8:53

to do that yet and it's required

8:55

from you now .

8:56

You couldn't find an hour of time to

8:58

manage a month ago , how are you going to

9:00

find 10 hours this week ? That's right , right . It

9:03

doesn't jump like that .

9:07

Yeah , yeah . So that's that's what that's . The beauty of this program is that there's

9:09

there's a lot of um I use this example a lot but kind

9:11

of the Indiana Jones , right . It's just , it's

9:13

a little bit by a little bit so that we can eventually

9:15

get to like I'm full time doing this and I'm an expert

9:18

at it , right ?

9:19

So one of the difficult

9:21

parts of this , when we're coaching too is

9:23

some people don't have the skills

9:25

to be a boss . Yeah , now they have

9:27

the skills to be a jerk , to tell people what to do

9:29

. But it's different , because

9:32

in this industry , when you're a head of

9:34

construction , you hire project managers

9:36

. Your project managers are

9:38

the all-star . In most companies . I

9:40

am the all-star and everybody else is a supporting

9:42

role and that's how I grow it and I'm

9:44

the boss and I'm the important one and everyone's

9:46

my support staff In this

9:49

industry . I am hiring you

9:51

as a project manager to go out and be on

9:53

site as a representative for this company and

9:55

the customer's not even seeing me . Yeah , you are

9:57

carrying the load . You are the all-star out

9:59

there making us look good , making us look bad , making us money

10:01

, making us look good , making us look bad , making us

10:03

money , making us lose money . That's on your shoulders

10:06

and my job is to be your coach

10:08

, your support and your guide

10:10

to being able to do that well and grow

10:12

you personally and professionally here in this company .

10:15

Well , and we're not doing a leadership podcast

10:17

right now , but

10:19

I will give you a little secret

10:22

sauce . When

10:24

it comes to being a good leader , there's

10:26

one key piece that will

10:29

make or break whether you're a good leader or

10:31

not , and is being proactive in

10:33

your engagement with your employees . Right

10:35

, thinking through okay

10:37

, I need to meet with this person

10:39

. Thinking about what they're dealing with . Having

10:42

the space , the time management

10:44

, having the space to think about my employees

10:47

. If I'm fully reactionary

10:49

of whenever I engage with them , it's

10:51

just based on some flag that's

10:53

popped up or whatever . All you're doing

10:55

is just fire managing with somebody else

10:58

. You're not a leader . You're not . You're

11:00

not using your time to

11:02

think about this person and creating

11:04

proactive engagement with them . If

11:06

I'm going to meet with them every Friday , don't just

11:08

show up on Friday and say , okay , we're here to meet

11:10

. What are we going to be talking about ? Right , have

11:13

some proactive thought , you know

11:15

, and prep for it . It's easier said than

11:17

done , because time is hard to come by , but if

11:19

you want to be a good leader , you , you , you

11:22

invest by your your . You invest in your

11:24

people by spending time thinking about what

11:26

they need , how you make them better , and

11:28

it just takes time to be proactive with that

11:30

. So that's a small snippet into

11:32

just how to be a good leader .

11:34

And if we scared you away from making a hire . Thanks

11:36

for listening and just keep running jobs . I get

11:38

it right , like there is a lot that seems scary

11:42

in this , but the great part is our

11:44

growth path is a step-by-step . We're

11:46

going to be there helping you , guiding and

11:48

helping develop skills that you might not

11:51

have , because it's a totally

11:53

different skill set , and so you've got to be doing both

11:55

those jobs at the same time . So

11:57

, knowing that we're going to walk into

12:00

we still have the same categories

12:02

, that you're going to be checking the boxes , but

12:09

we're looking at it through a different lens of how am I preparing this for that hire With

12:11

a little bit more depth ? Yes , and so you know when I don't care about you

12:14

know , we're not keeping up your software

12:16

for your sake . We're keeping it up as

12:18

a guide of how the next guy is going to do

12:21

it properly . So

12:23

let's look at hiring when , how

12:25

, who , right . When we're looking at the

12:27

hiring , we're walking through that there's a lot of

12:29

checkboxes that we have . The

12:32

when is going to be your decision

12:34

, but we will say , hey , you're

12:36

not there yet , but do what you want . Or

12:38

hey , you know I don't know why you're waiting Like

12:40

you're good to go . You got your money in place

12:43

, you got your trainings ready , you got your systems

12:45

down which is funny because we've had both spectrums

12:47

.

12:48

We've had the people that are just chomping at the bit and they

12:50

are not ready yeah , and we got the other ones

12:52

are like I'll probably hire next year , yeah , well

12:54

, why aren't

12:56

you ?

12:56

hiring this year . Yeah

12:58

, yeah , us . If you're listening to this

13:01

and we were coaching , or you're thinking

13:03

about it . If we say , hey

13:05

, it's not time to hire yet and you

13:07

say , I understand , but I've got so

13:09

much business I'm going to turn it away if I don't

13:11

hire , yeah , yes

13:13

, yes , you're going to have to turn it away . I'm

13:15

so , I'm so sorry , but you will make a hire

13:17

to say , yes , the business is going

13:20

to ruin your company . We've

13:22

seen it and we've done it . We've we've

13:24

made that mistake time and time again .

13:26

So I promise you the cost of reputation

13:28

is going to be way more expensive than you

13:30

turning it down . A couple of jobs .

13:32

And if you don't have it systemized to

13:34

where I can control my money and

13:36

my costs and my promises , that

13:38

project manager has so much rope that they will

13:41

hang your company , it's going to happen .

13:42

Well , and when it comes to hiring , we spend a lot

13:45

of time with our coaching clients on

13:47

this , because there's

13:49

only a couple key places in the

13:51

growth of a company that are just major , costly

13:54

, difficult , and one

13:56

of them is hiring people is

13:58

one of the more difficult things that you will ever do and

14:01

it is the most risky . It's going to cost

14:03

you the most amount of money . So , making

14:05

sure you're doing all

14:08

the things that you can do to stack

14:10

the deck in your advantage , yeah , well , and

14:12

total transparency

14:14

.

14:15

It is even to this day

14:17

is a difficult task in our construction

14:19

company . It is something . Last year we

14:21

had two different project managers that we brought

14:24

in and we lost a couple

14:26

hundred thousand dollars because they

14:28

were the wrong people and weren't managed well , and

14:31

again I've stepped out of that

14:33

side a lot , but again that was a fault

14:35

of ours , of oh , that's another hole that

14:37

we got to fix . That's why that happened and we're still

14:39

troubleshooting that and we will for the next 15

14:42

, 20 years . There's always growth there

14:44

. But no matter how many things you

14:46

have perfectly in place , there's still

14:48

the risk and what we're trying to do is mitigate

14:50

that risk to where it's as risk-free

14:53

as possible , even though there's still some risk there . So

14:57

that is a spot . Making the wrong hire is the difference of

14:59

profitability and not profitable this year

15:01

, and we still Not

15:04

this month this year , the year I

15:06

mean we try so hard

15:08

to make every dollar and

15:10

one bad hire Eats it all

15:12

up , eats it all up With customers that

15:14

you're covering stuff on with them , hiring

15:17

the wrong people or bringing in the wrong not being

15:19

trained . There's so many spots

15:21

that money just flies out of the bank account

15:23

.

15:23

But that being said , yeah , when

15:26

you have done it successfully

15:28

, yeah , and you've got a team of just

15:30

stellar PMs , yeah , you're

15:37

getting the opportunity to have once a month meetings as a company and spelling out a couple

15:39

of different things , and where we're going and getting to do

15:41

a company events , because

15:43

we've got a little bit of extra cash so I can

15:46

take them to top golf or to dinner

15:48

somewhere . Right , when you get to

15:50

that place because you've you've done

15:52

the hard work to hire in the right people

15:54

, that's a real special place . It's

15:56

a lot of fun . It's

15:58

a , it's just a . It's a great place to

16:00

be . It's hard to get to , but it is absolutely

16:03

doable .

16:03

Yeah , there's a healthy pride there of , of

16:06

, of our team and what we've done

16:08

.

16:08

And the and , honestly , some of the pride comes from

16:10

. We didn't just get lucky . Yeah

16:12

right , we worked our ass off to

16:14

think through all the different things . What

16:17

can we ? How do we interview these people

16:19

? How do we test them ? How do we ? We

16:21

, we worked really , really hard to

16:23

make sure that we found the right

16:25

person and then train them

16:27

and gave them the tools that they needed to be successful

16:29

. So when they are successful and they're

16:32

doing really well and you see them buy their

16:34

first house and like there's just some

16:36

there , it's , there's some pride

16:38

there , there's some , you know , it just feels nice to

16:40

like have some good people working for you and see

16:42

them become successful .

16:44

So going back into the coaching though , the when

16:46

we talk deep about when

16:48

are you ready to hire , and that's that's pretty apparent

16:51

right . It's pretty apparent when we're looking

16:54

at your numbers , looking at your

16:56

finances , looking at your jobs , your pipelines

16:59

, your flow , how accurate

17:01

and clean your software is

17:03

, we are a third party looking

17:05

at you saying hey , thumbs up .

17:07

go do , it make that higher , or bro

17:09

you're not there yet .

17:11

And then it's your call as a coaching

17:13

client . You're paying the money , you decide when you

17:15

do it , but the

17:17

only thing that skin I have in the game

17:19

is I want you to be successful . I don't care about

17:21

your feelings . So if I'm telling

17:23

you you're not ready and you go , do it , all right it's

17:26

your call , go for it . But that's

17:28

the when , the how . We've got an HR

17:31

process that we walk you through Again . We're not going to dive

17:33

that's three podcasts in and of themselves

17:35

but it's how to post

17:39

and find how

17:45

to interview , how to second interview , how to weed out , how to ask questions , what questions to ask

17:47

, how do you test them . All of that stuff start to finish . We have a full

17:50

process that we start training you in once

17:52

you're a level two contractor and you're getting

17:54

closer to this spot to do it . But

17:56

the how is very easy

17:59

, but it's also the most important

18:01

part of this is identifying , filtering

18:04

, checking in and making

18:06

sure and a lot of during the how . The

18:09

answer is the last one who right

18:11

? Figuring out who you're going to hire is

18:14

a lot of times counterintuitive . We've said this

18:16

before on the podcast . I like to hire guys like

18:18

me because I get along with them and I want to go have a beer with them

18:20

Like we're buds . This

18:22

dude's hilarious . I love him . He's so , so

18:24

much fun . I don't need another

18:26

me around as my first hire . I

18:28

need the yin to my yang .

18:30

I need the other side , somebody's great at the stuff

18:33

that I suck at Yep .

18:34

Yep , and so that that is part of

18:36

the who and every hire is a different

18:38

who your first hire versus your second

18:40

hire , versus your office manager versus

18:42

your tech ? All those hires are different

18:44

personality types that we're looking for

18:46

and it how

18:49

we do it is going to be a little differently for each of those

18:51

job roles and we've kind of got all of that laid

18:53

out in our HR process as the

18:55

who . You're hiring job descriptions

18:57

, use these job descriptions , take

18:59

them , edit them , hire that person . It's

19:02

a really great systematic way to ensure

19:04

that you're stacking

19:06

the deck on the gamble of a hire

19:08

Right . So you're going to hopefully win

19:10

more times than lose because

19:12

you've done all of the prep work , you're

19:15

ready to do it , you know how to do it and you've

19:17

got the ideal candidate in mind is who they are

19:19

Right . So what

19:21

does your day-to-day look like through

19:24

the hiring process ? That's

19:26

something that we need to dive into , because hiring

19:29

someone is a full-time job

19:31

. I might get 30

19:33

resumes , 40 resumes I need to interview

19:35

. There is a lot of time . So how are you

19:37

going to keep your jobs running right

19:39

? All of this job's happening that I'm

19:41

trying to run ? I've got this long

19:43

pipeline of jobs at once . So every minute

19:46

I spend not running jobs and hiring

19:48

is a minute . I'm not making money Right

19:50

. So how do we get efficient with our time

19:52

? Time block that stuff , make

19:54

the right , hire and not just interview one person

19:57

. Love them . Great , you're in . I don't have time for

19:59

this Right . How do we manage the

20:01

day to day while doing that ?

20:42

Well , and one of the things that I will say

20:44

about that is you know , I'm always the one that harps

20:46

on time management , but if

20:50

you don't have , if you haven't

20:52

created space to be able

20:54

to spend time on this stuff , on what it takes

20:57

to do the hiring process , I

20:59

promise you you will make

21:01

a decision before you've gone through

21:04

the due diligence , right ? You

21:06

will say , ah , you know what this guy's the best

21:08

? Blah , blah , blah . And you're just going to bypass

21:10

the second interview . You're going to bypass

21:13

sending them out and testing them . You're going to bypass

21:15

calling on references , right

21:17

? It's just , we've , we've done it many

21:20

times over because we

21:22

didn't , we hadn't created

21:24

the space . The , the , the business

21:27

had a sense of urgency of , like , I

21:29

got jobs that have to be running , I've got money

21:31

that has to come in . I can't afford

21:33

any more time here , so I'm

21:35

just going to spend as little as I can to find the perfect person

21:38

, and you're going to bypass the things that are helping

21:40

stack the deck in your favor . So

21:42

that's the place where , okay

21:44

, it's going to take a lot of your time , so

21:46

make sure that you've allocated space

21:48

to be able to spend that time so

21:50

that , when it comes down to okay

21:53

, I've got a great candidate , what's my next step

21:55

? Yep , and you've got the time and space set up

21:57

for it , so you can do it and you're not going to risk , you

21:59

know , bypassing it and making

22:01

a bad decision . That's right .

22:03

All right . So , moving on beyond that , that

22:05

higher , there's three different things we want to cover

22:07

too . I'm going to go from the bottom up , but the CFO

22:10

level of financial understanding and

22:12

management is where you need to be at , and so we work

22:14

on that in level two of you

22:17

don't just need to make sure that you're making money on

22:19

your jobs anymore . Right , we are managing

22:22

a company with increasing expenses . We

22:24

got a second vehicle with gas . We've

22:26

got an office at this point probably

22:28

, or getting close to that .

22:30

Insurance costs are going up , I mean you are skyrocketing

22:33

in overhead expenses .

22:34

So every dollar money

22:36

management , understanding , budgeting

22:39

, looking at pulling levers

22:41

as to hey , if we don't get three more

22:43

jobs , we're going to have to let one of these guys go .

22:45

I set my jobs at 32% profit , but

22:47

I know I always end up at 22%

22:50

. Right , well , that worked in

22:53

stage one , yeah , but stage two

22:55

, you've doubled your overhead . You need

22:57

to dial in why you're losing so much profit

22:59

on your job .

22:59

Your overhead went from 15%

23:02

to 22% . So now you're breaking even because

23:04

your jobs are coming in at 22% . That's right . What's happening

23:06

? That's right . If you don't know those numbers , you're

23:08

not ready to hire . Yep , if you don't have all

23:10

of that pinned down , to where I can look at the last six

23:12

months , last 12 months , last two months

23:14

, this jobs that are open , what's ? Where am I

23:16

losing money ? Where am I making money ? It

23:18

feels like a lot of of

23:21

financial

23:23

knowledge . It is this

23:25

you're not going to get to this level overnight

23:27

, right ? That's why we have these baby steps

23:29

, because we started this financial management

23:32

. Remember

23:37

, back in base fundamentals . You might you probably don't need QuickBooks starting your company , but let's

23:39

go ahead and get it set up so when I'm looking back in a year from now , I

23:41

can see where the money is going

23:43

, and so we're starting those early

23:46

. So by the time you get to level two , you

23:48

have a very good understanding of QuickBooks

23:50

. You know where your money's going in and out , your software's

23:52

being operated , so it's keeping all of your financials

23:54

accurate , because

24:00

that's part of this , too , is you can know numbers and you can know how to read reports . If you're

24:02

not doing the legwork in the software on the jobs to keep your numbers accurate

24:04

there's no data

24:07

to look at , right , right . So that's

24:09

why we've got all of these steps that build

24:11

on each other , because once we get that stuff

24:13

accurate , now let's get

24:15

that CFO level of money

24:18

management understanding . I hate

24:20

QuickBooks . You're great at QuickBooks

24:22

. In our company you handle a lot

24:24

of that finances . I still have to know

24:27

how to read every single report Once a month we

24:29

sit down , we go over reports . I

24:31

need to know exactly what everything

24:33

means , and I can operate QuickBooks real well

24:35

by now . I can handle it because I've

24:37

forced myself to learn that stuff , because

24:40

if I didn't know it , I don't have the reins

24:42

, I don't have the controls of the money in the company

24:44

.

24:45

But you can read financial reports

24:47

. You can read . You know what they're saying

24:49

to you right ? Yes , you need to understand that

24:51

. I mean you think about it in this level , level two . Right , I mean , you think about it

24:53

in this level , level two , right , this is the level that

24:55

we're probably going to be crossing over

24:57

the million , million and a half marker .

24:59

At least yeah .

25:00

Right , yeah , so you think

25:02

that's a million dollars worth of money that

25:04

you're responsible for managing

25:07

? Yeah Right , whether

25:12

you're spending it on jobs , but that's a million dollars that's running through your hands . Small

25:14

little mistakes cost a lot of money , that's right , you

25:16

know . So you need to know where your dollars

25:18

are . You need to have that

25:20

CFO level understanding of your money .

25:22

Yeah , you're usually one to two million and once you make that

25:24

higher you should be . Two to three million is ideal

25:26

and that being said

25:28

and again that's in renovations

25:31

, I mean , it's different for different industries

25:33

whatever . But , all that

25:36

being said , 1%

25:38

, 2% on $3

25:41

million is a lot of money . That's a

25:43

full paycheck for the year . That's 60 grand . Yeah

25:45

, now 2% when you're running jobs by yourself

25:47

and you're doing $500,000 a year

25:50

.

25:51

It's not jump change , but it's not . But it's

25:53

not going to put me out of business . Yeah , that's right .

25:55

And we also talked about , your overhead was running

25:57

at 15% . Now your overhead

25:59

jumps up to 22% . So

26:03

you just lost 7% of your profit by making that higher . Initially

26:05

. This higher is going to get

26:07

you really thin financially until

26:10

they start paying dividends in six months from

26:12

now . And you're now better

26:14

than you were .

26:15

Which means , again , you need

26:17

to be able to know what kind of profit

26:19

am I actually making on my jobs ? Because

26:21

if my overhead is 22% of

26:24

what I'm bringing in and I'm

26:26

only hitting 22% profit

26:28

on my jobs , I'm break even

26:30

as a company . If I hit 18 because something

26:32

goes bad , I paid money to do that job . That's right

26:34

, right . But you have to be able to

26:36

know and read that information , find it

26:38

and be able to say you know from

26:41

here , now that we made this hire , we

26:43

have to be super cautious about

26:45

where we're spending money on our jobs . That's right .

26:48

So that's the financial side . Next

26:50

thing we want to get set up before

26:52

that hire is creating

26:54

accountability . So we kind of have

26:57

that in four different spots

26:59

. It's the accountability with the project

27:01

manager . We do a once a week pal

27:03

meeting . We give you the paperwork and teach you

27:05

how to do that . That is where you're reviewing their jobs

27:07

. It's head of construction job . It's . I'm

27:09

looking over your jobs . I'm looking at what's going on

27:11

. I'm giving you the wisdom and knowledge that I

27:13

have when I'm assessing your job as

27:15

to what's falling behind , what you could

27:18

be doing better , how we're going to communicate

27:20

. We've got our three questions that we ask on every single

27:22

job , every single week . I'm looking at that

27:24

where I'm saying , hey , why isn't

27:26

this push to the client ? You just changed the estimated

27:28

completion date in two weeks . Why haven't you told the

27:30

client that ? Oh , I meant to . Okay , great , write

27:33

that down . You're going to send an email after this meeting . So

27:35

I'm doing my 30,000

27:37

foot view pound meeting . You

27:40

got to have that in place before you make the hire . That's

27:42

not a reactive thing . After you make that hire , that's . I'm

27:44

gonna know how that's done . Do it on

27:46

my , my own jobs . And when I make a hire

27:49

. I'm gonna train them on .

27:50

This is how we're gonna do it once a week well , and that's

27:52

the in the pound meetings is where you find

27:54

out what you don't know , that your , your employee

27:56

, doesn't know . Yeah , right , yeah

27:59

, uh , it's . It's the space like , wait , I

28:01

, I thought you , why did you do it that

28:03

way ? Like I don't know , I just , yeah , you know

28:05

. Like , oh , you've never done an

28:07

l , an lvl , before . You have no

28:09

idea how to measure that . Yeah , I open

28:11

up a wall and open up , do you know ? And

28:14

so that's a place where you

28:16

can catch , before it becomes a major

28:18

issue , where there are some guys that don't

28:20

want to disappoint you , so they're just going to guess that . Right

28:22

, you don't need a guess when it comes to the structural

28:24

integrity of a building .

28:26

Yeah , they think they know when they do it that way and it's

28:28

like what are you no , no , no , no , no . That's

28:30

a , that's a load bearing wall . We cannot just knock

28:32

it out for $800 . That's right . That's

28:34

not enough , that person .

28:35

But all of that is is

28:42

creating accountability , just by nature

28:44

of I have a weekly meeting that my

28:47

employee knows they're going to come in and we're going to sit down and

28:49

we're going to talk .

28:49

We also , before making that higher , planning

28:52

out the power meeting , we also were doing a handbook

28:54

. This is every question

28:56

that you have . We have a handbook . We'll give it to you . It's like 58

28:58

pages long . Every question that

29:01

you need to answer for your employees is in there . So

29:03

we want you to go through it , edit it , make it your

29:05

own vacation . What happens

29:07

when you get sick ? What happens ?

29:08

I mean all the way down to FMLA

29:10

, the insurance stuff and , like you

29:12

know , disability , just

29:15

knowing all of that stuff that when you get

29:17

to an employee status where you have employees , you have to

29:19

have that stuff .

29:19

Some of it's required by law to give to them and

29:21

show them and have in writing , right , all that's

29:24

there for you . Create one if you're not

29:26

in our system . If you are , we'll give you ours and

29:28

we'll work through it . But that's happening in level

29:30

two Job clarity . We

29:32

need to have defined job

29:34

roles and

29:49

again , we give you all this the job role to take and edit as a project manager or as an office manager . Take this , let's make it into how they're going to operate

29:51

. But we need clarity on that and consistently making it even more clear after the hire

29:53

, as they're in the job . Hey , let's add that to your job description . You're really doing that well and doing that often

29:55

. And then , finally , you're

29:57

steering the ship . I am in charge

29:59

of making sure that big picture

30:02

we're going in the right direction . So

30:04

, even with one employee , you

30:06

are still the captain of that ship , and so that means

30:09

I'm making sure that you're taken care

30:11

of , that . You're held accountable , but also

30:13

taken care of . You have everything

30:15

that you need to be successful , and we're headed in the right

30:17

direction and we're turning left , we're turning right

30:20

, but we got to head towards that North Star . We're going

30:22

to keep going that way . So that's kind of the

30:24

accountability . And finally , the last thing

30:26

that we want you doing in step

30:28

two is , once you make that higher , is

30:31

we want to constantly be refining

30:33

our processes . So the 10-step

30:35

project manager process , from intake

30:37

to final invoice how

30:40

you do it in Oklahoma is different than how we do it in

30:42

Georgia versus California versus Ontario

30:45

, right , every company is different

30:47

, every city is different , every location is

30:49

different , code and

30:51

permitting is different . So when

30:54

we're looking at our process , we want

30:56

to assess , as we're growing

30:58

, of what's missing , what's needed

31:00

, what's added , what's unnecessary

31:02

. Yeah , and you're going to get that refined

31:04

refining happening once you hire someone

31:07

, because , oh , I don't , a lot

31:09

of times it's . I didn't put that in my process

31:11

because that's just how you do it and the person's like

31:13

I don't know .

31:13

I don't know how to do it , though , Okay great .

31:15

I'm going to add that in my processes . That's how we do

31:17

it . Every time I we wrote

31:19

down I want 80 photographs

31:21

from every job site . What

31:23

? Why that many ? Well , because

31:29

if you get 80 , there's nothing you're going to miss , right ? And so when me and you were running it

31:31

, we take a ton of photographs , Cause that's like we want to do that yeah . And when

31:33

someone starts and we look at their job . I got three

31:35

photos of a doorknob .

31:36

Yeah , it's like where ?

31:38

how can I assess this as your boss and look

31:40

and help you make sure you're not ? Missing stuff if I can't even

31:42

see the job , I'm not driving out there , Right ? And

31:44

so constantly refining that

31:46

process , the office process . That

31:49

is what level two is doing . It's that first

31:51

hire , making the hire and then post

31:53

hire . Let's refine and set up

31:55

.

31:58

Which is , honestly , you wear all the hats because

32:00

you're the owner . Yeah , that's the COO . That's

32:02

the . You wear all the hats because you're the owner . Yeah , that's the COO . That's the operations person . The operations

32:04

person is constantly looking at what are we doing

32:06

, how are we doing it and is there a better

32:08

way ? Yeah , right , and you're looking for

32:10

bottlenecks . So , when it comes to the 10 steps , there's

32:13

a lot of variables of change . We went from one project

32:15

manager to now we have three . Does it still apply

32:17

and work Right ? Did our company

32:20

change that we need to adapt this to ? Did the industry

32:22

change Right

32:29

? Is there things happening in our economy and then the housing industry that make this different ? Right

32:31

. And so you know , you're constantly adapting that , making

32:33

sure that it's a living document and it's

32:35

up to date with how you currently work .

32:37

Yep , we're also introducing some more stuff

32:39

like level . Two is where we start suggesting

32:41

getting into more social media . When we're going

32:44

into the marketing side , you know you

32:46

can do it as early as you want , but

32:48

by now you need to have some sort of social

32:50

media . You know we always

32:52

say Instagram is the new , like photo

32:55

book to show you my work . Right , we don't

32:57

share photos . I mean , I remember forever

32:59

ago when I first got started , I had a

33:02

portfolio of jobs

33:05

that you could flip through , where I printed out photos

33:07

from my actual film from

33:09

the camera , right , like

33:12

going modern . People go to your

33:14

Instagram . People go and look at your social

33:16

to say , let me see what they can do and what they

33:19

do , so we want to be updating that . There's a bunch

33:21

of stuff like that that we start adding in here , but

33:23

again , bite-sized pieces . Don't worry

33:25

about that yet . Don't get until you need

33:27

to do that . Let's not worry about that , and

33:30

that's the beauty of the system .

33:32

I can't tell you how many people that I've said or you've

33:34

said to them uh , you

33:42

want to pay for leads right now . You don't have a product to deliver . Yeah , you don't have

33:45

a system of how you actually do the work . What ?

33:46

are you selling ?

33:46

you're not . You have nothing to sell , right ? You

33:48

want more work to come in and bog up your

33:50

system . Yeah , yeah it it's

33:52

.

33:53

It's easy sitting on the other side . It's hard sitting in the middle

33:56

of that because it's like I just need more work

33:58

. I just need more work , and so that's that's the beauty

34:00

of having a coach , is that we sit there and say listen , that's

34:02

let me . From an outsider's

34:04

perspective , this seems weird that you're doing it Right

34:06

, right , and so that's that's the beauty of this

34:08

, that , that we love helping our , our , our

34:10

partners out with . So that's level two

34:12

. That's that's kind of the long and short . Again , this

34:15

is going through level

34:17

two . You start with no hires . You end with at

34:19

least two project managers and an office

34:21

staff and we walk through every

34:23

single hire and how to do it throughout level

34:26

two . And level two is a longer level

34:28

. It might take you a year , two years , three years

34:30

to get through it . But again

34:32

, this is a bite by bite . It

34:34

shouldn't take you three years but it can , and that's okay . Well

34:36

, hiring never goes perfect , yeah

34:39

, when I say you hire two project managers , it means you're

34:41

hiring four , and two won't be with you right , that's

34:43

right , that's kind of how it goes in the beginning . But

34:46

that's level two . That's

34:48

kind of the long and short of base

34:50

stabilization and then growth

34:53

of what we're coaching you through . If

34:55

you want this information , we love to talk

34:57

with you about it . Go to ProStruck360.com

34:59

. We'd love to share this with you . Like

35:01

we said , if you're a complete

35:04

level user in the software

35:06

, we do the baseline meeting for free

35:08

with you . We

35:13

want to get you going and get you to the next level , to where we can really double down and help you

35:15

potentially in the future with coaching and level one and two stuff once

35:17

you get there . So sign up for that

35:19

. We'd love to hear from you again . Ask

35:21

about that . Once you sign up , shoot us an email

35:23

. We'll . We'll email you . Jared emails you as

35:25

soon as you sign up and so

35:27

you can reply to that email about getting set up for this

35:30

. But we love really

35:32

helping you guys get to that level and being

35:34

able to give away as much as we can for free

35:37

, Really kind of to get

35:39

everybody in this fraternity of contractors

35:41

.

35:41

Check and see how good you are .

35:43

Yeah , yeah it's . It's fun doing this as a group

35:45

and and having each other to

35:47

be able to go down the path together . Right All

35:49

right , thank you guys . So much for listening and we'll

35:51

talk to you next week , see ya .