0:01

Welcome to Contractor Cuts , where we cover

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the good , the bad and the ugly of

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growing a successful contracting company

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.

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Welcome back to Contractor Cuts . My name is Clark Turner , I'm

0:15

Jared Fall . Thank you guys for joining us again this

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week . So today we

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are diving into why you can't

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get ahead in this business . We

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have coached a

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lot of people , a lot of different companies .

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We hear a lot of stories .

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We've got a lot of friends in the industry and

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it feels like there is a

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especially for some reason right

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now because economy slowed down

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, lending has slowed down , the ability

0:41

to get funds for renovations or new

0:43

builds have slowed down that

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people keep coming back saying what

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am I doing wrong ? Why

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am I in this position again ? And so what

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we want to talk about is people

0:54

contractors in this

0:56

industry wanting things to be different , and

0:59

then they're not changing . How do we actually

1:02

say , hey , I want things to be different and now

1:04

, this is what I'm going to do differently

1:06

to make things different . So we're going

1:08

to start today talking through what

1:11

we've heard from contractors spots where contractors

1:14

get to , where they say one of

1:16

these mindsets that they land in . So the

1:18

first mindset we see with guys is I

1:21

give up , this isn't working Like I've been

1:23

running , I'm not doing that I'm doing everything I can

1:25

possibly do . I'm ready to give up . I'm

1:28

tired of this roller coaster , right Like I'm killing

1:31

it and I'm killing it , and then six months later , I'm

1:33

back to square one . What's going on ? Okay

1:36

, now I got to kill it , kill it and I'm back to square one and I can't grow

1:38

revenue . I can't get ahead .

1:39

That roller coaster feel . You have

1:41

those moments where you feel like , hey , I'm

1:43

doing this , and it's that it feels

1:46

like two steps forward , two steps

1:48

back .

1:49

Yeah , right .

1:51

And sometimes two forward , one back and you're making forward progress

1:53

. Sometimes that roller coaster is like how

1:55

am I back in this spot ? Two steps forward , five

1:57

steps back .

1:58

Why am I ? Why was I better three years ago

2:01

financially than I am today ? I've been working

2:03

my butt off . I've been working harder than I've ever worked

2:05

, which kind of goes along with the next one that we hear

2:07

all the time . I just can't push through the ceiling

2:09

. Like I am putting in 80 hour

2:12

weeks and I have maxed out , and so

2:14

this is where I'm at . This is all the money I'm going to be

2:16

making and I'm not making that much and I'm working

2:18

my butt off . I just can't get through that

2:20

ceiling . It's

2:22

not worth it because I'm putting too much

2:24

time in and not getting enough return and I've

2:26

maxed out what I can do .

2:28

Well and honestly , in that spot , a lot , of , a

2:31

lot of standard mentality is

2:33

all right . So I'm just going to give more of myself

2:35

. I'm going to work harder , I'm going to put in later

2:37

nights , I'm going to not go to my

2:40

kids things , I'm going to work on Saturdays

2:42

. I'm going to work on Sundays and you end up putting

2:44

in 60 , 70 , 80 , 90 hour

2:46

weeks , right where you're just killing yourself

2:48

and you don't see any difference

2:51

. It's just the same thing , right

2:53

? I'm not making any more money , I'm just

2:55

working harder .

2:56

Yeah . So another spot that guys get

2:58

to when they come and we sit down with them

3:00

is they feel like they're on an island because

3:03

in this industry everybody's

3:05

against us . You got a customer trying to

3:07

get over on you , trying to beat you down . You got crews

3:09

that are trying to get as much money as they can

3:11

and beat you down . You got employees sometimes

3:14

that are just draining you because you're carrying all of

3:16

their burdens . You've got

3:18

everybody's dependent on you and

3:20

you're just the one person standing there holding

3:22

everything together .

3:23

Well , and you've also got other contractors around

3:25

you that are not helpful . They're

3:27

coming in and trying to underbid , undercut

3:30

you . It's a competitive

3:32

world as well .

3:34

The last one that we had listed out is I can't

3:37

get any good help . I hear that one a lot All the time

3:39

I've made a hire . I've made

3:41

two different hires . They didn't work out . I

3:44

just can't find any good help or I can't find

3:46

any good crews . The crews are terrible . Every

3:48

guy that I bring on to my job site ends up

3:50

screwing it up . So I just end up back in the truck , getting

3:52

out there and getting it fixed where

3:54

it's like . Why am I doing this ? Why

3:57

am I trying to grow ? Because I make some hires and

3:59

it just costs me money . This is dumb .

4:01

Well , I hear people say all the time nobody

4:05

wants to work anymore . Everybody

4:07

just wants to show up and get a paycheck . There's

4:09

no ethics anymore . Nobody wants to actually

4:12

go out and put in a good day's work to make

4:14

money . Those days are lost and

4:17

there's nobody out there anymore that's willing .

4:19

So all of those mindsets that

4:21

people come in with , that we sit down and talk with

4:23

them , or that you're feeling right now , always

4:26

ends with a I've got to do something

4:28

different or this isn't going to work anymore

4:30

. I mean , honestly , it's funny

4:32

. People come to us with coaching at that spot

4:35

and we're like listen , come

4:37

before you get to that spot . That we can help you at

4:39

that spot , yeah , but let's get ahead

4:41

of it , as opposed to ending in that location . But really

4:44

, when you come , comes down to it , it's like either

4:47

something's got to change or I'm out . Yeah

4:49

, I can't be doing this anymore .

4:50

Well , a part of the reason why we're talking about this is that

4:52

currently it's rolling towards

4:54

the end of the year and that's where we hear

4:57

a lot of this stuff , where people are kind of taking

4:59

inventory when am I

5:01

? Well , crap , I meant to do this . Beginning

5:03

of the year I said I was going to do this , I was going

5:06

to have this many hires , I was going to be making this

5:08

much money . I was all the different . You

5:10

know goals or things that I wanted to

5:12

accomplish and you get to the end of the year and you're like all

5:15

of these things apply yeah , right , this

5:17

isn't worth it anymore . There's nobody willing to work

5:19

, I can't make any money , this is too hard . And

5:22

a lot of people at this time

5:24

of the year , at the end and towards the

5:26

beginning of the year , get to this Just

5:28

kind of downtrodden space of

5:30

like I just it's not worth

5:32

it anymore . Yeah , Most of the time it's

5:34

because you know

5:37

, we've all heard the definition

5:39

of insanity . Right , it's doing the same

5:41

thing over and over again , expecting

5:44

something different to happen , right ? And if

5:46

you look back and you're honest with yourself and

5:48

you go , okay , so what have I really done

5:50

to actually make change ? I'm just

5:52

going to dial in and work harder and be better

5:54

, right . And everyone knows that's not going

5:57

to work right . So

6:00

that leads into the next box .

6:01

Well , I read a book and I started

6:03

doing it this way , but then I got too busy , right

6:05

, I started doing this . I got super

6:07

into having a really tight schedule . I

6:10

got into the numbers and started trying to keep my quick

6:13

books accurate , but three weeks in I

6:15

just I had to run a job site , so I got too

6:17

busy for it , right , that's kind of the mindset

6:19

of . I want to change , but

6:21

I'm not willing to put the time in and the effort

6:23

in and the self-control in

6:25

to actually push that change

6:27

to be part of the new norm .

6:29

Yeah Well , and a part of the purpose of this

6:31

podcast is identifying

6:34

yeah , I'm in that space , right . And

6:37

if you can't get yourself out

6:39

of that thought process , it's

6:42

either not going to work or you're going to end up in the exact same

6:44

space , right ? And so the

6:46

point is of this , of like , let's identify

6:48

, let's be honest with ourselves yeah , I'm in that spot

6:50

.

6:50

Yeah , I'm frustrated .

6:52

I'm angry . What do I ? How

6:54

do I change my perspective and

6:57

go a different direction ?

6:58

And even with that , even if you're not

7:00

in that spot , we've all been in that spot . We've

7:02

all been out of that spot , right , and so we've been all around

7:04

. One thing that I always

7:06

say to guys that they're like no , things are fine , things

7:09

are going fine , I'm good , I've got

7:11

my bills paid . There's , you

7:13

don't have to be broke to

7:15

have a broken system , right , you , it's okay

7:18

that things are going decently

7:20

and good . That's because you're

7:22

juggling it right now . But , but something's

7:25

going to hit to where the system doesn't work , and

7:27

so what we need to do is fix systems

7:29

, even in a season that's not

7:31

broken or doesn't feel broken . Right , I

7:34

don't , everything's working fine . Well , it won't work

7:36

as soon as you take on two more jobs , because then you're going

7:38

to be back to the

7:40

spread too thin across the board . You're not

7:42

going to be able to handle the stuff you need to be doing . So it's systemized

7:45

that stuff , so you don't go

7:47

broke , so you don't get into that bad spot .

7:49

Well , when , when , when things are going smooth

7:51

, everything's fine . You have that , how things

7:53

on ? Yeah , everything's fine . You know we're , we're

7:56

, our bills are paid and all this stuff Turn

7:58

the pressure up right Of

8:01

money problems , client problems , crew

8:03

problems , employee problems , any of those

8:05

things that are turning the pressure up on your company

8:07

, and valves are going to start popping

8:09

, of the things that are broken right

8:12

. Just because , like you said , because

8:14

it's not , you're not broke , it

8:16

doesn't mean there's not something broken that needs to be

8:18

looked at , and make sure that when the pressure does

8:20

go up , it can hold up Yep .

8:21

So , if you're in that place , today

8:24

we're talking about the five things you need

8:26

to start pushing towards , and this is going to be

8:28

more of like a 30,000 foot view where I need

8:30

to need to start organizing . And

8:32

then next week is the second part of the series , where

8:34

we're actually getting into the weeds what

8:36

you can be doing today , three

8:39

things you can do today to start moving forward . So

8:41

today's podcast , though , is about kind

8:44

of the general ideas of what you need to

8:46

be looking towards and where your mindset

8:48

needs to be changing , changing the perspective .

8:49

And then next week is going to be .

8:50

This is how we , when the rubber hits the road Some

8:53

executables . That's right , yeah , so in

8:55

that list of things , the first thing that we always try

8:57

to push guys to is accountability , accountability

9:01

, and it seems like , oh yeah

9:03

, I had an accountability partner at church and high

9:05

school . What is that Right Like there's ? What

9:07

does accountability mean ? Because we all started

9:09

company , so we didn't have to have a boss , right

9:11

, and so it's . What do you mean by

9:13

accountability , jared , if I was a

9:16

contractor in a spot that I'm struggling

9:18

? What do you mean by

9:20

I need some accountability .

9:22

Well , I actually

9:24

had this conversation with a specific guy that I coached

9:26

recently . The

9:28

problem with not having

9:30

accountability and outside

9:32

source accountability is that I'm

9:35

only accountable to myself . Yeah , and

9:37

that's all that matters . You know , this guy specifically

9:40

also doesn't have family , kids

9:42

, you know any of that stuff . So he's literally

9:44

only accountable to himself . So if

9:46

he doesn't do the program , if he doesn't do the systems

9:48

, if he doesn't do this and just , I'm just going

9:50

to do a different way , it doesn't matter , it doesn't

9:53

affect anything . Yeah Right , yeah Right

9:55

. Accountability is spelling

9:57

out . Here's where I want to go . Here's what I want

10:00

to do . I want you to

10:02

ask me questions about it , whether it's

10:04

weekly , monthly , every other week , like

10:06

sitting down having a lunch , whatever it is

10:08

, it's somebody that can help

10:10

you stay on track with

10:12

what you decided you were going to do . Yeah .

10:14

And that's what I mean . That's what our coaching is . That's what the coaching

10:17

program is is there's different levels or

10:19

different amounts of meetings . There's once a month or twice

10:21

a month . There's a bunch of different ways that we build it around

10:23

people's specific needs Right , but

10:25

at the end of the day it is hey , I know

10:28

, in six days I got to sit down and talk

10:30

with Jared about what I said

10:32

I was going to do . Where am I going to find time to get that done

10:34

? So when we sit down next

10:36

Tuesday , we can actually I

10:39

can show him the progress and we can start on the next thing .

10:40

Yeah Well , and when I'm only

10:42

accountable to myself , it takes

10:45

incredible discipline to

10:47

stick to the things that I

10:49

said I was going to do . Especially

10:52

in this business , because there are so many

10:54

fires and emergencies , it is very

10:56

justifiable , on the day that I was

10:58

planning on a three hour sit

11:00

down with myself to work on an

11:03

employee manual , an employee handbook

11:05

or hiring process , whatever

11:08

some kind of process that you're working on your

11:10

company and you

11:12

know what this client's a little unhappy , so I'm

11:15

going to put that off and I'm going to go do this other thing .

11:17

I'm going to hop on the truck and drive out to that job .

11:19

It doesn't matter , right , because I've

11:21

got to do it . It's easily

11:24

justifiable , yeah , right , but if

11:26

I have somebody who's going to ask me hey , you

11:28

said you were going to get this paperwork executed

11:30

because our next step is this , and if we don't

11:33

have that , we can't do this thing , right

11:35

, if you've got somebody that's going to ask you that question , it's

11:37

going to help you keep you on track . Yeah , nobody

11:39

likes accountability . Nobody wants somebody

11:41

coming in and meddling in their business and having

11:44

feeling like you have to justify yourself . That's

11:46

not what this is for . This is if

11:49

you found yourself with the . I

11:51

keep back in the same spot , I'm

11:53

on the hamster wheel , I want off , I want

11:55

growth and I just can't get over .

11:58

This is a key piece , yeah , what

12:00

kind of continuation of accountability

12:03

is the second thing that we have , because without

12:05

the second thing , there's nothing to be accountable for

12:07

. So the second thing that you need

12:09

to start looking at is I need to eat

12:11

the elephant one bite at a time , yeah . And

12:13

so when people say , hey , I need to , okay

12:15

, next week , next Monday , I'm going to take two hours . I'm going to wake

12:18

up early , get up five to seven

12:20

. Am I'm going to work on my company ? Yeah , I'm going to

12:22

get down at five . And they say , all right

12:24

, what should I do ? I'm going to check my emails . I'm going to update

12:26

my signature on my email . That's great , that's

12:28

something I needed to do . Oh , I need to pay that bill . And

12:30

so they start going through a task

12:33

list that needs to get done and

12:35

that is not working on growing

12:37

the long term benefits

12:39

and systems of the company . So eating

12:41

the elephant one bite at a time is we have

12:44

like a 280 point checklist

12:46

that we go through our 18 month program

12:48

with our guys and say , all right , step

12:51

one . I don't , you don't need to worry about all

12:53

300 items that are on this

12:55

list . These are the two things you need

12:57

to be working on in the next two weeks . Can you handle these

12:59

? Let's look at this . Let's look at this . Oh , you already have that done . Great

13:01

, let's move to the next one . And

13:05

it's bite by bite to know . Listen , I don't need to solve

13:07

all the world's problems today in my company

13:10

. All I need to do is get these two main

13:12

things done and then that will set

13:14

up the building for the next two things I got

13:16

to do in our next meeting . Right ? So

13:19

the accountability is not saying hey Jared , how's

13:21

it going with business ? Are you working on the business ? Are you doing

13:23

good there ?

13:24

Yes .

13:24

Yeah , that's not accountability . Accountability is all

13:27

right , listen to . By two weeks from

13:29

now , I need you to have these three

13:31

things done . Can you do that ? Let's talk about this third

13:33

one , because it's going to take a lot of time . The first two , it's

13:36

setting up a number . The second

13:38

one is setting up B . That's great . Those take a 30

13:40

minutes .

13:40

You said you're ready to hire a project manager

13:42

two months from now . Well , to

13:45

do that , we've got to get these things done .

13:46

Yes .

13:47

You're not making forward progress on that , you're delaying your

13:50

hire or your raising

13:52

the risk of hiring the right person Exactly .

13:54

So , whatever the next spot in

13:58

the growth of your company which

14:00

we kind of look at and plan out what's going

14:02

to be next coming up , that

14:04

is what we need to be preparing for . I don't need to be writing

14:06

an employee handbook if I don't have systems

14:08

of how the job site runs .

14:10

I got nothing to put in the employee handbook .

14:11

I'm not going to hire anyone until my

14:59

job sites are actually clean , running well

15:01

and my crews are giving good product . I've got

15:03

a good list of customers coming in with

15:05

a pipeline . If I have all that set up

15:08

, then we can start talking about hiring . But let's not start

15:10

building out an employee handbook when

15:12

we're eight months away from hiring and so because

15:14

of that people get sit down and think , oh , I

15:16

know , I said I need to do this , I need to do this , and

15:18

they just start kind of going off on rabbit

15:21

trails on tasks that don't actually

15:23

need to be done today . But it's just stuff

15:25

that they've heard that you've got to do this for your business . I

15:28

know I need to do marketing . You don't need to do marketing

15:30

yet you don't have anything to market . If you had

15:32

10 people call you tomorrow , you can't say

15:34

yes to those 10 people . So understanding

15:37

one bite at a time

15:39

is how we eat the elephant to get the systems

15:41

in place , and that's an 18-month process with us

15:43

right , it's not by tomorrow . And

15:46

with that being said , what is the most

15:48

important bite you need to take today

15:50

? That's going to help for tomorrow's bite

15:52

.

15:52

Yeah , well , and one of the things that I

15:54

actually in our list here , of these things

15:56

that we're going over . I want to take one of those and bump

15:58

it up the list . That

16:01

will actually go in front of one

16:03

bite of a time how do we eat an elephant

16:05

? And that's get out of the weeds

16:07

and start looking at the horizon

16:10

. What that

16:12

means is where am I going

16:14

? Where is my direction

16:16

? What do I want to be at the end of the year , two

16:18

years from near five years from now ? What's my exit

16:21

strategy of the company ? Do I want to sell it ? Yeah

16:24

, right , and so knowing

16:26

where you're going is going to help dictate

16:28

the actions of what you need to do , so

16:31

then you can take that and reduce

16:33

it down to small , bite-sized pieces . So

16:37

figure out , get out of

16:39

the weeds . And another thing that we

16:41

mean by this is that it's very , very

16:43

easy , and most of the people who , at the end

16:45

of the year , find themselves like I'm

16:47

still in the same space If they look

16:50

back . They spent the majority of

16:52

the year head down grinding

16:54

, doing what needed to be done to

16:56

pay the bills . Yep , right , and there's

16:58

nothing wrong with that . That's great , but that's

17:01

not conducive to growth , that's

17:03

just conducive to paying bills . And

17:06

so you've got to plan strategic

17:09

times . To where

17:11

am I going ? Get your head out of the weeds for

17:13

a minute , one hour , right where

17:16

you can back away , turn your phone

17:18

off ? Nobody's calling you . And where

17:20

am I going Make a plan of where I want

17:22

to be at the end of the year and then back that back up

17:24

, back it out to 12 bite-sized

17:27

pieces Every month . Here's the stage

17:29

that I need to be going , and then you can go

17:31

even further than that . Which is what our growth path

17:33

checklist does , is that it actually

17:36

takes those down into very specific

17:39

action items that need to get accomplished

17:41

.

17:41

And this ties into the other thing on our list being

17:43

we're changing from reactive

17:45

to proactive . And so changing

17:48

from reactive to proactive alongside

17:51

getting your head from looking down of

17:53

what's happening today and tomorrow to what's happening

17:55

three , four , five , six months from now , and

17:58

then having a game plan to eat the elephant one

18:00

bite at a time , and then accountability

18:02

to wrap that all together . So that's kind of the process

18:05

that we're laying out . But , that being said , the

18:07

reactive or proactive , what

18:09

we see people do is they get super

18:11

excited about changing . Ok , I've got to do this . I've

18:13

got to do this because I need jobs . I'm out

18:16

of jobs . I've got three things jobs running

18:18

right now , which I can be running seven

18:20

jobs if I had the customers coming

18:22

in . So I'm going to change things , I'm going to get organized

18:25

, I'm going to do this and we see this

18:27

day in and day out with

18:29

people signing up for a software . So people will sign up

18:31

for the software in a desperation . I've got to get

18:33

organized . I've got to do this . They get in

18:36

, they spend two days on it and then all of

18:38

a sudden , poof , they're gone for three weeks

18:40

. I'm like , oh , that's weird .

18:41

Ok , that person is not using

18:43

it Literally in the meetings with them

18:45

, of onboarding meetings , like , oh my gosh , this

18:47

is exactly what I need . This

18:50

is going to help me so much . I can't wait to make

18:52

this . This is going to make such a huge difference .

18:54

Yep , and then poof they're gone and

18:56

then three weeks later they come back and say , OK , I'm ready to

18:58

do it . Sorry , I got busy . And the problem

19:00

is it's the mentality of my

19:03

long term vision for my company is

19:05

two weeks , that's the longness I've

19:07

got . I need to find jobs now . I need to stay busy

19:10

. Maybe two , three , four weeks worth of jobs

19:12

ahead of me . Great , Check those

19:14

boxes , Relax

19:16

. Ok . So I've got that . Now I've

19:18

got to execute that work .

19:19

And if I've only got a two week vision

19:21

, proactive

19:24

things have a lower priority

19:26

than the reactive it just

19:29

does , because proactive means I'm going to get to the

19:31

end of two weeks . It doesn't matter

19:33

. The value of spending

19:35

that proactive time is less in

19:38

your brain . But if my direction

19:40

is 12 months out and I know where I'm

19:42

going and I've got to get there , the

19:44

only way I'm going to get there is by taking these proactive

19:47

steps . The value of those

19:49

things go up in your head and you'll work to

19:51

stay more committed to them

19:53

.

19:53

That's right . So again , we're talking kind

19:55

of theory of where your mindset

19:57

needs to go and , with all that being said , kind

20:00

of walking through what we just said . It all

20:02

starts with self-awareness Because , as Jared

20:04

was just saying , I need to be able to step back

20:06

and think , OK , what is Clark

20:08

missing ? Right , Not just living

20:11

in the moment , but stepping out as my own boss

20:13

, as the outside owner of this company

20:15

, versus the manager of this company , trying

20:18

to get self-awareness of , okay , if I

20:20

was his boss , how am I changing him ? What

20:23

am I going to hold him accountable to ? Once

20:25

we can start seeing ourselves in that way and start

20:27

distancing ourselves from the weeds

20:29

in the moment , we're starting to look how do

20:32

I be proactive ? What's six months from now look like

20:34

? And how do we get there ? What's 12 months ? What's my

20:36

five-year plan ? Looking at that , now I've

20:38

got to be proactive on building that out

20:40

. So reactive still has to happen because

20:42

you're still in the fires , because your systems aren't set up

20:44

. So I'm going to have reactive time and I'm

20:46

going to have proactive time and try and start changing

20:49

the scales to where it's less

20:51

reactive , because there's less fires , because

20:53

my systems are working Right , and so

20:55

going through that , having white-by-white

20:58

pieces that you're going to be working on and

21:00

then bringing in some sort of accountability

21:02

. If you're not ready to hire a coach like us

21:05

for the consulting side of things , find

21:07

someone to keep you accountable . Find another person

21:09

in the trades that

21:11

you're in to sit down and say listen

21:13

, let's work through this together . We have very

21:15

, very effective and

21:18

build your own programs

21:20

with Pro Shrugged Alliance . So if you're interested

21:22

in talking to us again , this feels like a big commercial

21:25

, but that's what we're here for .

21:26

This is what we do .

21:28

So , from that winding

21:30

this down , there are really three stages

21:32

that we want to find you in , and so when you

21:34

get to a spot to where you feel like you can't get ahead

21:36

of your business , you're often in level

21:39

one . And again , we have different

21:41

levels for different things , but for us , what

21:43

we're talking about is these are the three levels of

21:45

recovery . When you're in a spot

21:47

where it's like I'm paycheck to paycheck , I

21:49

don't know how bills are going to get paid . That

21:51

is level one of recovery

21:54

. What I am doing in that stage is saying okay

21:56

, how are my bills getting paid this

21:58

week and this month ? Where's my money come

22:00

in ? Where's my money going ? How am I going

22:02

to make this work ? Do I need to borrow money ? How is

22:05

this going to happen ? That's a level

22:07

one recovery stage .

22:08

Writing systems and processes at

22:10

that point Doesn't help .

22:13

Your goal when you're in that spot is how

22:15

do I fill the coffers for the next four weeks

22:17

? How am I going to have enough jobs to pay

22:20

the bills and keep the lights on ? Once

22:22

you get beyond that , you're in level two . Level two would say

22:24

okay , great , I know what's happened this month . What's

22:27

the next two to three months look like .

22:28

Well , level two is I have gone

22:30

through level one and gained

22:32

myself some space . Yes , right

22:35

, I've gained myself some time that

22:37

I'm no longer in a triage

22:41

, emergency code blue . I'm not

22:43

in that space right now . I've worked

22:45

to get out of that and now I've got

22:47

a little bit more breathing room . So

22:50

what's next ?

22:51

Level two and if I don't go to level

22:53

two with what we're talking about , the

22:55

second phase you're back in the

22:57

same boat as phase one , level

22:59

one . So level one is triage

23:01

. Right it is . I am bleeding , I can't

23:04

sleep because I don't know where money's coming from

23:06

. We got to figure it out . If you're in that space

23:08

, all your goal , your goal to do

23:10

, is to fill . I mean , you're hitting marketing

23:13

, you're doing the grind list . We have

23:15

a full podcast on six things you can do today

23:17

to turn up work called a grind list . You're

23:19

doing that stuff to try and at least have

23:21

the money to buy you some runway .

23:23

Yeah .

23:24

Phase two . Level two for us is

23:26

all right . I've got that planned down . Now

23:29

I need to look at what's the next two to

23:31

three months look like how am I going to fill

23:33

those up and how am I going to manage those jobs

23:35

? And that's still kind of the hunting

23:38

jobs marketing Facebook , whatever

23:40

you're at , google , whatever you're doing . I

23:43

got to bring in jobs Once I've got a

23:45

three month pipeline . I know what's happening

23:47

. I know what's going on in my company . I know we

23:49

can last for three to four months with the jobs

23:52

here .

23:53

Now we're going into phase three level three

23:55

In phase two

23:58

, one of the other things that you're

24:00

assessing . In that spot again

24:02

, you've given yourself some breathing room . Why

24:04

did I end up at the triage

24:07

? Why did I end up in a code blue

24:09

? What caused that to happen

24:11

? You've got to fix that

24:13

thing . During that period of time

24:15

You're working to fill

24:18

the pipeline , to give yourself some more

24:20

space , some more breathing room , money coming

24:22

in . But if I don't fix the

24:24

crack in my process that

24:26

caused me to go to this space , I'm

24:29

going to end up back there .

24:30

Well , that's kind of going into level three , because level three is

24:32

assessing the systems . Level

24:34

two is like I need to keep that space

24:36

going . I need more runway . As

24:39

we're getting more runway , that's when we're shifting into

24:41

thinking about the cracks in the holes

24:43

that got us there . Level

24:45

three is I feel like we

24:47

are on track in terms

24:50

of we are safe financially

24:52

and we've got some jobs and I'm good . Now

24:54

I'm going to shift to where

24:57

are those cracks ? What's broken ? How

24:59

do we get there ? What systems do I need

25:01

to change to make sure we don't drop back ?

25:03

in that this is that place where the statement

25:05

that you said earlier , just because you're not

25:07

broke , doesn't mean that it's not something broken , right

25:10

. And that's a place where people get to where

25:12

they're out of it , they're back in financial

25:14

stability and they feel like , okay

25:16

, good , I'm finally now . I just need to keep

25:19

going . I did it .

25:20

Good , we're there , and it's this cyclical

25:23

. After you might work up to

25:25

phase two , to where you've got this three month

25:27

, and then you think you've arrived

25:29

, and then you're back at phase one and three

25:31

months from now . Right , and

25:34

so it's . You're not fixing the problem that's causing this

25:36

. All you're doing is temporarily bandaging

25:38

it , but you're not treating the actual

25:40

problem , which is the epitome of the

25:43

roller coaster we talked about earlier .

25:44

Yup , yup , right , that's what Up , and down and

25:46

up , and down , and up and down , I'm doing great Things are good .

25:48

We're killing it . If everything goes as planned

25:50

, I'm going to make so much money this year and

25:53

then , all of a sudden , that job drops , that project manager

25:56

messed up , three jobs at once right , all

25:58

sorts of things can happen to make you slide

26:00

back , and so the goal is I've got some

26:02

structure , I've got some some jobs coming in . Now

26:04

we need to look at how to ensure the systems

26:07

that we have in place keep

26:09

us very , very , very streamlined

26:12

to where there's no holes in the bucket

26:14

. We start looking at that and we start looking at continuing

26:17

that pipeline from three months to six months . So

26:19

that's kind of the three phases we want you to go through

26:21

. If you're in a spot that we've talked about , this

26:24

is the direction you need to . You need to be thinking

26:26

big picture . I need to be looking

26:28

at this stuff . Next week , we're

26:30

going to be talking about how to do this

26:32

, what three things you can start today

26:34

doing . That's going to walk you

26:36

down these paths , to get you to these spots

26:38

, to where it's building accountability . It's

26:40

building the ability to take the

26:42

bite size pieces to be able to start

26:45

going towards your growth . It starts allowing

26:47

you to get proactive versus reactive

26:50

, and it's literally take notes next

26:52

week because you can do these things right

26:54

away . And this is the first step , the

26:56

baseline fundamentals

26:58

that we have in terms of if

27:00

I'm going to grow systems that are going to

27:02

keep me and my company growing and safe

27:04

, these are what have to be baseline

27:06

happening .

27:07

Every one of our coaching clients that comes

27:09

in . This is where they start . That's where we start with them

27:11

.

27:11

If you guys want to talk with us , we'd love to chat . Go

27:14

to ProStruck360.com and

27:16

hit contact us . If you want some software

27:18

, go there as well . We've got a free version . We've

27:21

got some paid versions as well

27:23

. If you want to add on and upgrade and have

27:25

QuickBooks integration and email integration

27:27

and vendor payment integration

27:30

, a bunch of other stuff , so if you're interested

27:32

, please go to ProStruck360 . Love to have you

27:34

on the software .

27:36

If you like our content , hit like subscribe

27:38

, hit the bell , all the stuff that helps

27:40

us out , that's right ?

27:41

Thanks so much . We'll talk to you next week . See you , bye

27:47

.