Contractor Cuts
Join the ProStruct360 team on the Contractor Cuts podcast as we delve into the ins and outs of building and sustaining a thriving contracting business. Gain valuable insights and actionable tips from our experts who have successfully grown their own contracting company from the ground up.
Our show is dedicated to helping contractors like you unlock the secrets to increased profitability, efficient organization, and seamless processes within your company. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, our episodes cover key topics essential for your business growth and long-term success.
Make the most of your time between job sites by tuning in to our podcast and learn firsthand how to navigate the challenges of the contracting industry. Get ready to transform your business with valuable information that can potentially change the trajectory of your success.
Don't miss out on this opportunity to gain the knowledge and strategies you need to take your contracting business to new heights. Subscribe to Contractor Cuts today and empower yourself with the tools and insights to thrive in the industry.
Contractor Cuts
Why Your Contracting Business Feels Different in 2025
The construction landscape of 2025 looks vastly different from years past, with labor shortages, material volatility, and regulatory changes creating a new normal for contractors. We explore what's changed, what will remain different, and how successful contractors are adapting their businesses to thrive in this environment.
• Labor shortages will continue as 40% of trades workers retire by 2031
• Material costs remain 36% higher than pre-COVID with no signs of returning to previous levels
• Volatile interest rates are causing project delays and financing challenges
• Successful contractors are buying and storing materials upfront to lock in prices
• Building relationships with inspectors is crucial as regulations increase
• Insurance coverage is becoming more confusing and expensive
• Focusing on specific niches rather than being a generalist contractor
• Forecasting your pipeline through December helps avoid desperation moves
• Creating "Kevlar" processes to protect against market volatility
• Maintaining profit margins is non-negotiable in today's environment
Visit ProStruct360.com to learn about our coaching programs designed to help your contracting business navigate 2025 and beyond.
Struggling to grow your contracting business? The Foundations Program is designed to help contractors break free from the chaos and build a business that runs smoothly. You’ll get a customized training program, 1-on-1 coaching, and access to a full paperwork database—including contracts and the Client Engagement Agreement. Join the Foundations Program today! 🚀
Go to ProStruct360.com or schedule a meeting with Clark at Have a question or an idea to improve the podcast?
Email us at team@prostruct360.com or text us at +1 (678) 940-5747
Want to learn more about our software or coaching?
Visit our website at ProStruct360.com
Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good, the bad and the ugly of growing a successful contracting company.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner and I'm James McConnell. Thanks for joining us again this week. So today is week two of the future of construction. The future, the future is here. The future of construction what Epic, epic Schwartz impression. Thanks, bro, thanks, all right. So today we're talking about why your business feels different in 2025 than before. Is this just a hiccup that's happening right now? Is this the new norm? Is this the way things are going? Did she change? Did you going? Did she change?
Speaker 1:Did you change what happened?
Speaker 2:You're not love anymore what's happening. You just woke up one day and it just wasn't the same. It just wasn't the same. So today, let's talk about that, right, let's talk about what has changed from even last year and the year before to now, and what of that is going to continue to change. What if it's kind of the new norm and what and what of that is going to continue to change. What if it's kind of the new norm and what of it we hope is going to go back to normal.
Speaker 2:So, running through that, I think the number one change that I have seen in 2025 is a labor shortage, not necessarily not being able to find guys, but I feel like there's twofold. We are. You know, one of the stats I pulled was not being able to find guys, but I feel like there's twofold. One of the stats I pulled was by 2031, 40% of the current trades are going to be retired. Most trades are older 60s, late 50s guys that have been doing it forever. There's not a lot. I think there has been an upswing, though, in kids, young 20s going into the trades. I think people see that what's happening and I think we're going to have a five to seven year gap of very expensive, hard to find good trades. Again, that's my guess, but I feel like there's a lot of guys that are retiring. I don't know any. I think the majority of the trades that I know guys doing this are over 50. Do you know any under 50 electrician plumbers that you work with?
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, but they are not the norm. Yeah, that's definitely a breed that is not readily available.
Speaker 2:Not a ton of 32-year-old plumbers. Yeah, again, there are. They're out there. They're listening to the podcast right now. We're not saying you aren't there.
Speaker 1:Well, and here's one of the problems is when you're hiring out subs, a big something that everybody's looking for is like the cheapest price and that's not necessarily, maybe, what we want, but it's. We know. What our client wants is the cheaper price. The younger, the younger trades have a better sense of their value. They have a better sense of what it costs to run stuff because honestly, like social media, you can follow along like hey, I'm a plumber, I'm a tradie that does this, you know every day, here's how I do it. You're getting a better glimpse of how to operate your. You know your one man show business and understanding where the costs are. And so to get these younger dudes that are more communicative, more savvy on the computer can handle hey, can you send me that invoice? It doesn't take them five weeks to get it to you. There's a cost with that and those guys know their value and so it's not always necessarily they're not out there. They're more expensive by by pretty good margin than the next guy. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's worth it usually In my opinion. And I think, on top of that, you know, there's I think that there's going to be a gap between the 23 year olds that are that are getting into it now, and the 63 year olds that are getting out of it now yeah, to it now and the 63 year olds that are getting out of it now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, in a perfect world you could get, you could marry these two people and say take over that company, just like, work together please, because the 23 year old, they might be really good, communicative and all that, but there's a lot of knees that they haven't skinned. That this guy is is like in the on the sideline, Like, yeah, do it. Yeah, yeah, see what happens?
Speaker 2:You're switching that panel out for $2,000. Okay, yeah, do it. Great, well, you'll be out of business. Yeah, so I think that is happening. I think that there is a you know another stat that we looked up one in four laborers in construction right now are illegal immigrants and politically that is kind of upended right, kicked up a lot of dust with deportations and other things like that. So there is a thinner crowd of labor to pick from right now and I think people are scared to work or not coming to work if they're, you know, if they don't have papers and they're illegal. So I think those two things combined it's harder to find the right crews and to stick with them and at the same time, the crews that are good, that fit in, that can handle it, are really busy, right, and so my best crew I don't have availability with, but then I don't have the whole bullpen of backup crews that I used to have. So I think that's one of the changes that I see happening right now when it comes to labor.
Speaker 2:I think materials on the other side I mean talk about material volatility. I'm not surprising anyone who listens to this type of a podcast that materials have been all over the chart. So right now, costs are 30% 36% higher than pre COVID pricing. And so since COVID shot it up, you know everyone has increased their prices during COVID. When you don't have to anymore, everyone's used to spending that. So I'm going to keep my prices high and I'm going to keep making money. Yeah, and newsflash, it's not coming back down. It's not, it's not. And so that also comes into effect when we're talking with new clients, because even though we're adjusting our prices, people's expectations haven't adjusted along with it.
Speaker 2:We had a we, we had a job in Atlanta that we bid in 2021, no 2019. It was 2019 that someone bid an addition on their house. They called us back this month, last month, and the original bid was like $180,000 for this addition. And we went out there and it's like $230,000. It's like $240,000, $250,000 to do this exactly the way that we bid it in 2019.
Speaker 2:From all sorts of different reasoning, a lot of this materials and labor is most of the reason that the price is going up. But again it's like they went from we saved up, we got our money, we're ready to go to. Oh no, we got to save another $60,000 to do exactly what we wanted to do. Y'all are ripping us off Right, and so there's a lot of that that I think the consumer hasn't caught up with our need to increase pricing and and, honestly, some of the the more fly by night contractors haven't increased their pricing either, to where we're getting undercut majorly by some, some competitors that I'm like there's no way they can do it.
Speaker 2:They're just like we'll talk to you in three months when that person screws you and you come back to us because that's the price that you want to pay and they're going to do it for you just to get the deposit, and so we can't do that. We know what the cost is. So I think that's one of the biggest pull and pushes with customers these days is our materials and our labor are going up, which means our profit also has to go up to go along beside that. So across the board, pricing is going up and there's nothing I can do about it.
Speaker 1:If you're in that boat, stay the course. If you're going to play the game and go down on your profit because you need to, you know, keep up with these guys that are undercutting. You. Do something else because you won't make. If you know what your profit needs to be and you can't charge that, then you can't work. You're not. You're wasting your time completely. You're just keeping something afloat. That's just like bleeding down the road. Yeah, I think you stay the course. You let people make those mistakes and the way that you land those clients is you show them how much you're educated on this topic and once they have everything in front of them, you even feed them. That last line like please, before you make any decisions, make sure that we're apples to apples. I'll look over your other quotes. Like totally, I'm not. I can't make you make any decisions, but I don't think you're getting the full picture from from these other bids.
Speaker 2:I know what I'm putting across. Yeah, well, and in the coaching you say that yesterday I was on a coaching zoom with a guy who was like my last three bids, I just got under bid by a lot. I was like, well, let's dive into that. What does that mean? Like he wasn't landing much and we looked at it, he paid like $58,000 for a job. He lost it to someone that did it for $39,000. Like $20,000 less than him, about a third less than his price. And he was like A I don't know how they did it, they're doing it for that price. And be like, what's my argument to the customer? Like, yeah, a thousand dollars is one thing, but $20,000 difference on a $60,000 job is is unreasonable. He was like, am I way off? Like can you look at my numbers? I'm so confused.
Speaker 2:And what I always tell guys is this is the whole reason our processes are in place for the front end client engagement agreement, how we do our desk estimates, how we do our revisions and our site estimate, because I want to be present for that realization by the customer that that price is 20 grand less than what you're telling me, clark. So I don't understand what's going on If I am on a phone call or a Zoom with a customer when that information comes out, I can navigate that conversation. If I send them a quote through an email and hope that they call me back, I'm never gonna hear from them again. So part of this is your sales process and your education process. For the customer Number two, the thing that I always give in these situations is I will tell any customer, hey, I might be 5% more than the next guy and I'll tell you why. This is the service you're getting, this is what we're offering and if you want the best service, it's about 5% more than the cheapest guy that's going to be out there.
Speaker 2:If it's more than five to 6% difference from his quote to my quote, it's not apples apples. There's no way that my you know that my bid for the concrete at $80,000 is apples apples to his $30,000 concrete bid. There's no way that. That's not that he missed something or I added on too much, but let's get to the bottom of that one line item. There's no way that I can be 30% more than this guy.
Speaker 2:I'm not just tacking on 20 grand of extra profit. There's no way that I can be 30% more than this guy. I'm not just tacking on 20 grand of extra profit. There's no way he's actually going to be able to do it for that price. So either he's missing stuff and you're getting change ordered and you're going to end up paying the 58 that I quoted you to this guy after he drains you, or I missed something and I overbid it and I thought you wanted something different than what you wanted. So let's dive into both the quotes and let's go apples to apples on it. That conversation with your client will save you every single time, because then we're going to get to the same page. There's no way that we're that far off If I bid it at 58 and the guy next to me bid it at 56.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You're going to pay two grand extra, but you're going to get to, you're going to get way more than two grand in value out of working with us. We're this, we're this, we're this. This is how we operate. Let me show you our processes, let us talk you through what your experience is going to be and you make the best decision of what you want. And so that's number one, when we're talking of getting under bid, us inflating our pricing to match the increased labor and materials and competing with the guys that are keeping their pricing low because they might be doing the work themselves and they're actually now working for less than they were a year ago because they haven't increased their prices, but cost of living has gone up with inflation, right. So I think that's that's the conversation to have and to make sure that we're apples to apples when we're looking at numbers with customers. Sorry, a little tangent about pricing, it's okay, I think.
Speaker 2:Another issue that's changed in 2025, interest rates, obviously, are all over the place. I heard on the news literally today that there's a lot of speculation in mortgage rates going up to 9%, 10%, 11%, 12% in the near future. It's just all over the place with China and all this stuff, all these factors, I think, the volatility across the board, from tariffs to materials, to supply chain with China, to everything that's happening. It is so difficult to know what's happening next. Yeah Right, I think that's the unsettling part. It's not like just show up and do business, it's. You know, is this gallon of paint going to go to 120 bucks a gallon all of a sudden on me? And now I'm screwed, yeah Right.
Speaker 2:So I think one thing we talked about in solving some of the volatility issues is, if I'm bidding a job, I'm talking to the client and I'm dealing with a little differently, where I want to buy all of my materials the day we sign the contract or as close to it as possible. So a new thing that you might be doing in 2025 is putting a line item on for a pod storage unit at their house or if they have space in the property. We're going to have a staging space for materials and what I want to do is instead of buy materials as we go along in the project. I know we got a demo frame, plum electrical all before I put in uh, put my sheet rock up, right, so I might not need sheet rock for three months.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go ahead and buy all of it and have it in a storage unit. Today I want to have that on site and I'm going to tell the customer like I need the money up front to buy all the materials and we're going to be paying 200 bucks a month for this pod storage unit in your driveway or you can risk it and you're going to be. You know this is our price per board right now and if it goes up you're going to have to pay that difference. Yeah, and having those conversations and the educational side of it with the customer and inviting them into those decisions really helps sell us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and not only that, but that gives the client an incentive, which is hard to do. That gives the client an incentive to actually have all of the selections made before the project starts, cause it's that will affect your bottom line price for this project. Is you having all those selections so we can purchase them all and save them from being marked up in the middle of the project?
Speaker 2:I think one thing to be able to do that I've when training a contractor, to be able to be proactive that way, it takes a lot of organization and planning to know eight months out what materials I'm going to need and that's something that I think we really hit hard in the coaching side and how you run your operations and how we do selections, our selections workbook, how we talk through the quote and then also how we Gantt chart and plan out the project. In ProShark 360, the software that we use, it has a Gantt charting function that as I'm assigning out work, it drops it on the Gantt chart and you can move it around and plan out the whole job. So I can see a 12-month job laid out on a calendar or on a Gantt chart before I start and by doing that I can go and see what materials I'm going to need. I can start planning that out. No-transcript estimate where you're going to charge five grand, 10 grand, eight grand, depending on the size of the project.
Speaker 2:We had one for 22 grand for a large new build. It's okay to charge for that but say, listen, this is what I'm gonna do during this time. I'm gonna buy all the materials. We're gonna have it on site. We're gonna make sure that your price doesn't change throughout this project because I'm gonna go ahead and lock in all of these materials. Now, dealing with lenders is a different story, but I know that, especially if it's a great, like a credit union or a smaller lending, local lending you go to them and say this, like I want you guys to like. They say well, you, we only do X, y and Z. Great. I'm going to approach them, I'm going to sit down with them and say listen, this is the volatility. I'm going to go ahead and buy it so you guys aren't on the hook because we get screwed down the road and can't afford to finish this bill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and if they, and if they still say no, we don't do that, it has to be installed before we're going to remit payment for it. Yep, Say, that's great. Any change orders that pop up I'll submit to you and there's going to be an additional fee for the all the paperwork that I have to do in the backend to not only submit it but also to work on my scope and charge them for that time, because they would charge you for that time.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, and I'm not a lender. So I'm not going to just buy 40 grand of materials and wait to invoice it in six months from now. I'm not a lender. That's not what I'm going to do and I don't think you. Even if you got the cash sitting around and you want to do I, I'm going to charge interest if I'm doing that I got. I'm not a lender to do that for you.
Speaker 2:But what I would do is I'd approach the homeowner and say listen, your bank doesn't want to put the money up front to buy the materials and this might end up costing you five to 10 grand in change orders in the future. I don't know what's going to happen. Yeah, I don't think tariffs can continue the way they're going and our distance from China and supply is going to continue the way. But if it does legit, you got 10 grand of change orders coming your way if this continues down the road. So I go to the homeowner and say do you want to lend us money until your bank pays for it and I'll pay back the loan.
Speaker 2:Do you want to buy all your materials? Give me a $20,000 check, I'll buy the materials we need and then, when the lender pays, I will pay you back that money. Now you got to make sure you do it right and I didn't even let the lender know you're doing it. We don't want it to look like some sort of fraud that's happening with our mortgage, but being able to to bring that to the customer as being their advocate, their helper, and leading on the job and saying listen, I'm trying to save you money. If you want to do this, this is the way to do it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And let's say it. Let's say it all boils down and it doesn't happen. They're not willing to pay, the banks not willing to pay.
Speaker 2:It's a totally different change of conversation at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when it happens, they're going to be frustrated and they're going to probably try and point their finger at you in some way, but you'll always I. We talked about this at length. Here's 30 emails between you, the lender and myself. We talked about it.
Speaker 2:Here's the price I would have on my quote the price per square foot of sheetrock, and have that preset as that's what we're agreeing to, because if it's gone up $8 a board in the next six months and I can go to you and say, listen, this is what we quoted, this many dollars per board, and look at the current price, we need 280 boards for this property or for this basement that we're doing. So it's eight times that, eight times that, and so I've covered myself, and now I'm their advocate and the bad news is their fault, not mine. And so setting that up, even if they don't do it that way, that change order, is now their fault, and so you can avoid that conflict in the future. I think something else that's happening is permitting delays. Some permit offices have gotten better, honestly, I think in the past year to two years post-COVID. Some of the permit offices we've worked with are better than they were.
Speaker 2:But I also think there's a lot more regulations now than there were in the past. There's a lot more of like the green initiatives and greener building codes that you have to abide by, that they're checking. There's a lot more from my experience and I'd love to hear your experience, but inspectors I bet you would. I would love to hear your experience. I'd love to hear your experience, but inspectors I bet you would. I would love to hear your experience. Inspectors that are being a little more meticulous and spending more time on sites is something that I've noticed. I don't know if you felt that at all, but it seems that there's more building codes now than there ever were before. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 1:I have a lot of thoughts on inspectors and building codes. I have a lot of thoughts on inspectors and building codes. The first one that comes to mind is do you remember in COVID when they were allowing us using third-party inspections? That was awesome. That was so great. That was awesome.
Speaker 1:Third-party inspection should be something that every city should look into. Fire all the city inspectors and shop that out to third-party because they are willing to work with you and as, like I guess as the homeowner, the thought is that that's not good. Like, you want the city someone that has no skin in the game, but they don't. Most of my experiences with city inspectors is pretty negative. Yeah, and we try very hard to do everything by the book. Like I don't want to deal with any headaches in terms of you should have done it this way. That's not the right way to do it. Like, tell me exactly what you want and I'm going to do it that way. Yeah, having a third party inspector would be great.
Speaker 1:I feel like inspectors end up being guys that have been in the field field, that guys have been in construction. They age out, they don't want to do that anymore. They get into inspections and then they start hitting back from all of, like, the bull crap that they had to deal with when they were building and it's like it's this never ending cycle Hurt people, hurt people. You know, yeah, the best thing to deal with inspectors is whoever's dealing with those inspectors your project manager if they are a people person, you're going to be good. Yeah, because it's all relationship. At that point, even like the real prickly guys, you get in a good rapport with them and they might still be prickly, but there'll be like, yeah, just do this, do that, do this, and we'll be good. Some of them will be like, send me a picture, then we'll be good. Yeah, like that's. There's not a great way to approach them.
Speaker 2:If you want to change an inspector's mindset, you change your own. Where you change the mindset from trying to get away with whatever I can to from trying to get away with whatever I can to hey, what do you want? Cause I want to. I want to make it exactly what you want, right, and that that's you're going to do it their way. Either way, changing your mindset of trying to get away, slip through.
Speaker 2:Do we have to call it in? Do we really need to do this? Do I have to just permit it all? Go for it Like hey, I want to do it, this is what I think I need to pull. What do y'all think I'm going to do? This, this and this? I don't think we need this inspection. If y'all want it, I can call it in for sure, but this is why you know, and trying to call it out and work with them and show them everything, as opposed to being like do I have to send you my blueprints Because I don't want you to see everything we're doing. Learn that stuff and lean into that side of it and charge for it too. Yeah, but do it the right way.
Speaker 1:So one thing that I've noticed in the last year and a half, two years and I feel like this year is going to be, I hope it's not the case but insurance has been a concerning thing. It has seemed like not just with, like, homeowners insurance and those claims not being honored in in any capacity, but, uh, like, what are we covered for? Yeah, like, with our builder's risk and workman's comp, it's very confusing to know what you're actually covered for and why you have the insurance, and I feel like we all probably need to spend a little bit more time understanding that. And I've gone to the. I'm trying to work with a new insurance person. It's going to take a little bit of time to get that worked out, but I'm using a like a boutique type of place.
Speaker 1:Broker, yeah, broker, yeah, broker. Because I'm like, I need somebody to explain to me and it doesn't have to be, I'm not talking with you every day, every week I need somebody to explain to me in detail, at the jump, what I'm covered for, what I cannot do and what the cost is if I want to do that thing that I'm currently doing that I shouldn't be doing and I feel like nobody, nobody knows, nobody knows including like nobody Nobody knows, I remember last year I remember being I was in Texas on a consulting trip and me and you being on the phone and you being like, so what are we covered for?
Speaker 2:I was like I don't know, you're like, you've been, we've been covered since when I was like I think I got my first insurance package in 2006. You're like, well, what's included? I I'm like I think if we burn the house down, I don't, I don't know. And it was just like I'm gonna get to the bottom of this and a year later we haven't found a bottom. Like we kind of know, we've seen the policies and they make it gray so then they can get out of paying it. It feels like it, just it. It seems like a cesspool, like it seems like this is not, this is not a safe place.
Speaker 2:But you need it you need it, and if you want every coverage, then now I'm paying 10 grand a month in insurance, which I can't do.
Speaker 1:So it's like again that helps you identify your niche. Like, yeah, if you're into a bunch of stuff and you find out that one of those things isn't covered by your insurance, well, either drop it or figure out is that the niche that I want to be in? And then you might drop something else and focus on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or I had one guy I'm coaching. His insurance only covered up to like a million dollars on any property that they're working on, and so they broke the job into three different projects. Yeah, and they were hired to do the grading foundation pour and that and that's all that contract was for. They signed another contract for the framing, the grading foundation poor and that and that's all that contract was for. They signed another contract for the framing and so, breaking it out, it's three separate projects that they're working on, three starts and finishes and payments yeah, but that's what he was doing to make sure he stayed within his insurance bounds as well as some of his permitting. You know his license only had certain levels of stuff that he can anyways. There's creative ways to do it, but also Just as ambiguous as the insurance itself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, forgiveness over permission, we'll out-ambiguous you, I can do it too. So I think that has been a little grayer and also way more expensive. Insurance has been spiking with everything that's going on with wildfires and the natural disasters, I think has been spiking it across the board. I think when I'm looking at 2025 and the future and where we're going. We covered this some last week in the podcast, but I think getting and owning niches is something that is a new movement moving forward. Right Last week. We're talking about ADUs, barnuminiums, tiny homes, servicing those niches. There's a ton of different niches, whether you're an electrician, you're a painter, maybe you're a paint company and you want to really get into. Try to get in roads with Walmart and so I can go across the country and paint 200 of their stores.
Speaker 2:Right, figuring out I'm going to service this industry, I'm going to be really good. I'm going to train my crews up for that. I'm going to do restaurants and I'm going to be trained and kind of known for overnight work or paints or updates and that sort of thing to where my crews show up at 11 pm and we leave by 6 am and that's all we do. Is we do restaurants. Whatever the niche is, there's a big enough market right now that you can handle it. So last week we were talking Barn Dominiums. Ten years ago you could not be a Barn Dominium building company. There was not enough happening in most locations. Now you can do nothing but Barn Do's and have a full calendar for the next three years and if you're in the right niche and you get the right connection. So I think moving forward, not just being a general general contractor but really trying to find the niches that you're serving yeah, be a specific general contractor, a specific general.
Speaker 1:I'll give you general specifics later.
Speaker 2:But finding that target market that you're going after, how do we service them? How do we build our website and marketing towards them? How do we make them, when they show up to our, our website or our Google my business, really see, oh, this is the guy I'm looking for. Yeah, right, when I go to your website and it's like we do painting, carpentry, flooring, roofing, additions, basements, basements, kitchens, siding, I can also pressure wash like your jack-of-all-trades master of none. I don't trust you. I might have you do some pressure washing, but you're not doing a new kitchen for my house, right? And so what is what are you servicing? And let's move towards that niche, let's get educated in that niche and let's start. You know, if you are doing barnum innings, that first barn doe that you land. We're going to hire a photographer. We're going to get some before, during and after photos from professional photography and that's all going on my website. So I'm going to really double down on that stuff. But let's service and try to aim towards a specific niche that you're servicing, because niches are now full-fledged companies and so I think, moving into the future, that is, the more niched that a business is, the more, I think, footprint that they can own and really be the go-to person in your city, in your area, for that niche. So, things to start doing today to work towards doing this stuff.
Speaker 2:First off, with 2025 being so volatile the number one goal and I've done this with probably three or four guys that I'm coaching right now I want you to lay out what the next from now through December put on a spreadsheet April, may, june, july, august, september, october, november, december, if you choose and then on the left-hand column, put all the jobs that you're doing, and then, on the left-hand column, put all the jobs that you're doing that you sold, and then all of your open estimates that you think a higher than 50% chance of landing and I want to put percentages of landing it and I want you to put month over month when do you think stuff's going to land and how much. I want you to forecast the rest of the year and what your pipeline looks like. If I didn't land any other jobs outside of these on this list, what am I going to make? What am I doing? And this is going to start helping us, looking at this year with the volatility to say, okay, I have a lot of jobs starting in July. I've got a bunch of signatures for July starting, but May and June I got nothing. So I need to start selling some small jobs, right, I can't go advertise to new construction if I need jobs. Next month I'm going to go do more, pushing towards kitchens and bathrooms and basements and small additions and paint jobs and roofs, because that I can jump on and start next week.
Speaker 2:And so understanding your pipeline and what's happening this year is going to give you that confidence to continue and to know this is where I'm going to be in trouble, this is where I'm going to be underwater because I have too much work starting, and then I can start promising jobs to customers. I can say, hey, listen, I know we have you starting in August. Can I bump you up to June? I've got some open space. Can we move that around? And I'm going to try to fill my pipeline from now through December. That's something that you can do today, literally today.
Speaker 2:Sit down, look at what jobs are on the books, look at what's coming and project what each month is going to be. I think that's a great to really a great exercise to be doing monthly, um, to be updating that. Going back to do you I know you track a lot of projections, uh, in our different offices that you run the. How are you? How are you looking at projections? How often are you looking into that? How much are you doing? How much are you, your project managers, doing? What's give me some insight on, on projections that you do?
Speaker 1:Give me some insight on projections that you do. I'm always doing projections. My calendar and my kind of my big board are two screens that are kind of always up because questions pop up and leads come in that I'm always wanting to reference. Where are we at? Because if I've got, for your example, I've got August full up or whatever the case was, I'm going to say August, june, july. We can't start anything until September because my jobs in August are going to bleed out here. So now I'm going to move my pipeline to September and my next one I'm going to do for the month after that because I can do more than one job at a time. But I'm going to stagger these people because I'm not going to say I'll do you in September and I'll do you in September, because, worst case scenario, you have a job in September, you have a job in September and then a job in November and I'm not making all of the money right here. I'm going to span it out over here and hopefully I'm getting smaller jobs or additional jobs that are coming in that I can either double up here or extend them out. But I'm looking for what is my baseline. But I'm looking for what is my baseline. What do I need to survive? And fill in those slots first and map those out. Okay, this is enough for the next three months for us to operate as a company using this one job. Great, yeah, that's the only one I'm concerned with right now.
Speaker 1:Two months later, starting another job. Two months later, starting another job. Okay, now we just landed another one. Let's bring it back to this month. So you're kind of you're playing this game, making sure that you're, uh, getting your needs met first, and then you're doubling up on a month and saying, okay, we're gonna work harder this month because we're gonna, we're gonna stack a bunch of cash because the coming two months we only have one job in each of those and hopefully, again, you're landing stuff while this is going on.
Speaker 2:I think it also changes your mindset towards open estimates too, cause it kind of makes you be a little more of a sniper Like oh, that would fit perfectly for the end of May. All right, let me call this customer and explain to them how they fit so well into our calendar.
Speaker 1:Hey, can I upgrade you? You have a framed shower glass in here. If we could start you this next month, can I? I'll upgrade you to a frameless shower surround.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to keep my guys busy. We're slammed at the end of the summer and so I want to get these things rolling. If you're ready to get going, you know I'll give you that upgrade up to this the frameless just as a thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, something you know and it's not going to cost you much and you can do it straight at cost or whatever. But um it just any way to uh, so long as you're you're making profit that you need to make, you know, don't, don't give people, don't just work just to have guys working. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, and, and the goal of this projection for me too is, with the volatility that's out there, you know, people have started saying the word recession on the news. We're not in one, but as soon as the R word is used, everyone starts freaking out, markets freak out, and so we're in the middle of that right now. I have, and what's great about coaching guys across the US and Canada is that I can see kind of patterns that are happening across the board, and there have been more in the last two to three weeks of of contractors who have customers that say, hey, you know what, we're going to do this work. I'm going to wait to see what's happened with the market, because you know that's more of the bigger jobs. You know, if someone's spending $180,000 on a renovation in their, in their house, most people aren't just liquid 180 grand, they're usually cashing out some stocks or they're loaning against some of the money that they have, and all of that's more expensive right now. To pull out money out of the stock market is gonna cost you 20% more than if it was two months ago, and so that sort of thing is causing people. That I thought, or that our contractors think, is a slam dunk. They already said yes, they're doing this too. It's a yes, but not right now.
Speaker 2:And so these jobs on our projections that we had starting May, june, july, august, running through all summer, are now. We might start in August, so you might have a good fall, but we just lost a large project for the summer, right. And so as soon as we can get signatures and get financing moving, I can then lock them in and know that they're going to be on my calendar. If it is a job that's starting, they want to get started in August. If it's a large job, I'm starting now, let's go ahead and lock it in. Let me do all of your selections, let me get all of the line, everything lined up. Let's get it to where the day you want to start, we're starting. We're not three months out of planning, planning phase, and so trying to get signatures, trying to get people moving sooner to where we can look at our projections and lock stuff in, I think is super important to be doing right now.
Speaker 1:I think back to stuff that you can be doing today and, like, even going back to the insurance, uh, you need to get less cute, like stop, don't, don't try. And uh, like, when you're trying to do all of these things and service several areas, even if they're similar, uh, there's different requirements for all of these things. There's different insurance requirements, there's different front end, there's different backend, there's different hurdles in all of these things. There's different insurance requirements, there's different front end, there's different back end, there's different hurdles in all of these, and the less of that you need to deal with, the tighter your process can be. So, if you can, if you can take down your processes and all of your overhead to the, this is what we need. The Spartan existence, this is what we need in order to operate, and you can add things from there if needed.
Speaker 1:But don't be, don't get cute with it. Know exactly what the requirements are for the thing that you specifically are trying to go after, because it'll make everything easier. It'll make all the decisions easier, because you've got does this, does what we're talking about here? Does that serve this purpose? And if it doesn, you can put it to the side. You don't have to like trash it. It might be something valuable for you later or valuable to somebody else that you know, but it doesn't need to be for you just because it could work. Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 2:That's good. Thank you, good boy. Thank you. Yeah, I think I think the main thing is we're all on like this rollercoaster and we're all trying to just hold on, to survive and and and to make it to the end. And I think we all everyone wants is the dust to settle and go back to like feel like five years ago, 10 years ago, pre COVID, it was always like just the norm, you just operate, and now it's like well, rate, and now it's like well, really, 2008,. It all started getting crazy with with uh. Ever since then, I feel like there's been rollercoaster seasons. Maybe that's because that's my adult life and so when I was in high school and college, I didn't realize the yeah, the volatility. That's something that I asked my dad about. But, all that being said, I feel like what's that like?
Speaker 1:what asking your dad about stuff, what Asking your dad about stuff.
Speaker 2:All right, we're going to Dr Phil. So you said that your dad was a distant guy. Oh man, I love you, just so you know. All right, so ending this podcast 2025, I think why things feel different. Some of it's going back, but I think most of it isn't. I think moving forward, this is the new norm in terms of volatility, in terms of building out to where you can survive this.
Speaker 2:Let's get your company Kevlar to where we have processes of change orders.
Speaker 2:We talk to customers during the client engagement agreement about pricing changes and material changes, labor changes that might happen on these longer jobs, on a 12 month job.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you what January 2026 is going to look like when I'm buying materials or labor or anything.
Speaker 2:So how do we approach that ahead of time, as opposed to commit to a job six months in? The customer thinks a and you're actually going to do B, cause I need, I need, we can't afford a right, and so talking through that stuff ahead of time and being proactive in that, uh, and then search, searching for niches, servicing a certain specific niche that you're going after within your industry, and then also planning out your finances, laying it out, understanding what's coming up and knowing that, ok, I've got, I got at least my rent paid for the next six months. I know I can build out my pipeline and my job is to fill that calendar up as opposed to okay. So what are we doing next week? And not knowing until week by week as to what's coming in, because then you're going to hit a two to three week period where nothing's there because you weren't planning it out and all of a sudden I'm in a financial crisis right and that's when you start taking jobs you should not take.
Speaker 1:You have no business taking Giving discounts Giving discounts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could do a roof, even though you've never done a roof before. Stuff like that, trying to sell blood Bodily fluids yes. So anyways, that's what we feel going into 2025. If you guys have any comments, questions, if you think that we're wrong about any of this, we'd love to hear from you. Go to ProStruck360.com If you need help navigating 2025, if you're getting your company launched, if you've been in business for 20 years and are scratching your head while you're not growing, I love to talk with you.
Speaker 2:Go to ProStruck360.com. Go to the. Contact us. I love to have that conversation as to how to get your company to the next level, how to prepare your growth for 2025, to where, by January 2026, you're coming on the winter retreat with us and we are growing your company to the next level. So reach out. We've got all different levels of coaching. We've got some new foundations program that just started in January this year, which is kind of our base level, when you're not ready for coaching yet, but it's paperwork and support and some training and launching. And then throughout the year, some random, some coaching throughout the year not a standard coaching practice that we do, but we've got all different levels. So if you're interested in any of that, reach out to us. We'd love to talk to you. All right, see you guys next week. Bye, bye you.
