Contractor Cuts
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Contractor Cuts
Holiday Prep For Contractors
We share a simple plan to keep projects moving while you take real time off for the holidays. From mapping jobs to setting firm boundaries with crews and clients, we focus on clear expectations that protect schedule, margin, and your sanity.
• mapping active, starting, and closing jobs over the break
• building a quick timeline without a formal gantt
• calling subs to confirm workdays, deliverables, and return dates
• aligning homeowner permissions for on‑site holiday work
• stocking materials and tools before stores close
• setting one‑call boundaries and clear escalation rules
• preparing solo operators to unplug without stalling progress
• planning a Monday walk‑through to reset and reassure
Contact me, reach out, go to the ProStruct360.com website and go to contact us and reach out to me. Get signed up for the retreat coming up in just a few months, January 11th through 13th of 2026.
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Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good, the bad, and the ugly of growing a successful contracting company. Welcome to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner, and today it is an episode of Coaching Cuts. These are our shorter formed podcasts that have uh cover topics that I usually cover one-on-one in coaching sessions. So anytime stuff comes up in coaching sessions and multiple people are asking about something, I like to take note and cover them during our coaching cuts podcast. So today we are talking about prepping for the holidays. This time of year, we did a longer forum podcast uh a year or two ago about this topic coming into November. Uh, and we like to cover this topic pre-Thanksgiving because Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, uh, fall or winter break, coming into spring break around the corner, all of these are times that we're taking time off of work uh and trying to rest, relax, be with family. And if you don't do it properly, those times become stressful. You have clients calling, unexpected, unmet expectations from customers, you got crews that are upset. So today we're gonna talk through what you should be doing right now to prepare for Thanksgiving break and what you should be doing a week or two out from any sort of holiday to make sure it goes smoothly and we keep our reputation, we don't lose money, and we can take the time with our families as we need. All right. First and foremost, number one thing you should start doing is planning out the next few weeks of your work. We need to lay out gantt charts of the jobs. And if you don't gant chart, if you don't have kind of the longer version of projections of what you're doing, at least going into these breaks and these periods where you're gonna be off work, take time and at least try to do it uh pen and paper on what jobs you have. So we need to look at your jobs. If you're in ProStruck 360 software, you pull that out and we go through our jobs. What jobs have landed, what are approved, what should be starting, what clients are expecting us to get started, uh, what jobs are currently going that aren't gonna get closed out in the next week or two. Uh I'm looking at what is ext what should be going on during the break, during the time off, what might be getting started right before then, what might be closing out all over those days. And I want to lay out and circle the jobs that will be continuing during that break or starting or need communication during it. So I now I've boiled my list of all these jobs down to here are the seven jobs, here are the ten jobs, here are the five jobs that I have either going, starting, closing out, need follow-up, whatever it is. And I'm gonna start looking at those jobs. Okay, what on these jobs am I doing over the break? So uh my example of Thanksgiving, I'm taking Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off, maybe Thursday, Friday off, and that weekend, whatever it is, I am now looking at, okay, what jobs in two weeks, three weeks am I going to be doing on that Thursday, Friday, and over that weekend? What will be open? Who's gonna be where? Now that I've laid those jobs out, I know what jobs they are, I know what ones uh I can expect to be on. Um, I might have a job starting December 1st that I need to start prepping for, that I need to think about ahead of time. Uh, whatever it is, I'm laying out earlier before the week of or the week before to figure out what is needed for those. All right, so I've got that list, I've got it all laid out, what is happening? Next thing I'm doing, I'm looking at the crews, my vendors, labor, subs, whoever's gonna be out at those projects around that time, who is it gonna be? Uh, non-Americans often that are working for us don't celebrate Thanksgiving. They just want to keep working through that week. Or you might have someone that doesn't celebrate Christmas or wants to just plow through the new year and keep working every single day. Whatever it is during the break, we we need to plan for our jobs to continue without us being on site uh or managing or available those days. So I'm looking at those crews, and the first thing I'm doing is saying, okay, here are my five jobs of these. These are the three jobs that we probably will be swinging hammers doing work at the job site during the break. I'm gonna look at what crews are on these jobs and who's gonna be there. And I'm gonna start calling through these crews. I'm gonna call up Bob's Plumbing, who's doing a full replumb on a property that that week for me, let's say. Bob, hey, this is this is Clark. I want to check in with you. I know Thanksgiving's a couple weeks out. What are your hours? What are your schedules? Where do you think you're gonna be at? What can you promise me will be done by the time you break for Thanksgiving? And when will you be coming back? Let's have a conversation of what the job's gonna look like, what the job site is. And I'm taking notes. All right, so on 123 Main Street, Bob is gonna be out there. He's gonna be uh Wednesday's is gonna be his last day. He'll be back on that following Monday. He's gonna be hopefully to this uh point uh uh by that Wednesday. Who else is gonna be out there? Oh, Steve is gonna be there. He's running um some sheetrock upstairs for us, so I'm gonna talk to Steve. So I'm calling all of my crews two weeks out to say, hey, what does it look like? What are your plans? Are you gonna be working? Are you not gonna be working? Uh if I got a general crew, let's say there's a crew that says, Hey, we're working through Thanksgiving. I don't have family around, I'm just gonna keep keep going. I need the money, I need to get these jobs done. I say, no problem, we can we can talk about that uh as we get there. Let me talk with my client, let me make sure that they're okay with us being in the property at that time. Uh and so now after I understand what the crews are gonna be doing, working through Thanksgiving, taking the time off, uh, or if I maybe I'm planning for a vacation of my own, and so I know they're gonna be working those weeks, I'm talking about what work they're gonna be doing while I'm gone. I want to know exactly while I'm not here, what do I need to prep for? So if there's an issue that happens while I'm taking a holiday or vacation, I I can have it prepared for. All right, so now I've talked to my crews, now I've talked through uh I have a game plan of these are the jobs I'll be on, these are the crews that'll be on site. The last step is calling my clients and saying, hey, listen, this is our game plan. We, you know, Thanksgiving is two weeks away. I want to make sure that we're all on the same page. I know this is your personal house, but we're tearing your kitchen up already. So are you okay with my guys working through Thanksgiving? Or hey, just so you know, we're Wednesday's gonna be our last day, we're taking Thursday and Friday off. Um, this this is uh what you can expect being done by Wednesday. Uh any questions that you have, and oftentimes you get requests that you don't expect, right? Like, hey, I know that you guys are storing all your stuff at this location, but if you can, can you move all that to the garage during uh since you're gonna be gone for five days? Can you make sure that this area is clear? Can you make sure that, hey, I know that you wanted to get that stuff done? Can you go ahead and paint the dining room so I can have dinner in there? I know that's kind of out of order, but if you can get that area squared away for us, right? And so you start having those conversations with your clients about what they need, what their expectations are. And even if they want us to keep working, hey, we're not gonna be there those days, right? So if I am have having a crew work through the holiday or uh while I'm on vacation, I'm saying, okay, listen, what are your plans for Thanksgiving? Is it okay if my guys are here? Uh or that's an investment property. Um, is it fine for us to keep working there? All right, so we know what works happening, we've talked to the crew, the vendors that are gonna be on site. We've now talked to the client and we have a game plan of everything, and everyone knows what's going on. The last step that we do in this is I'm gonna call my crews Monday, Tuesday. I'm gonna say, hey, listen, uh, I'm gone Thursday, Friday. I know you're gonna work through the holiday. That's not a problem, but I'm not working through the holiday. And when you're on site, oftentimes that means I'm working. So here's what we're gonna do for the break. Wednesday, I need you to cut out around three, and I need you to go to Home Depot, go to Lowe's, go to the supply house, buy everything you're gonna need for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I do not want you to be calling me on those days. I think Home Depot and Lowe's are closed on Thanksgiving Day. Um, but I do not want to be working myself. So let's do a walkthrough on the project. I want you to tell me what you think you're gonna be doing. I want to answer every question you're gonna have. And during my break, you are allowed one phone call. Save it. Make one purchase and one phone call. So don't call me every day. You have you're allowed to call me once. So let's talk today, Wednesday, about what's happening Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Give me one call Friday afternoon, Saturday morning, whatever it is. I will answer one phone call from you with questions. Go to Home Depot on Saturday morning and I'll make one phone sale for you for a purchase, or go ahead and make the purchases, keep the receipts, and I'll pay you back for them. Whatever it is, I am prepping them that I'm not available. Even though they're on job site, they are available. That doesn't mean I'm available. So I'm calling my crews, I'm sitting down with them, I'm walking the job sites Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and I'm laying out what they should be doing, what they should be purchasing Wednesday afternoon, and what their expectations should be of me while I'm gone. And I say the same thing to the homeowner. Like, listen, my guys are working here. If something goes wrong, feel free to reach out, shoot me a text. If you have any questions, I'll be back here to walk the job site Monday morning. So we can walk it then, make sure everything is still on track. But I'm gonna be taking some time off and I'll be away from my phone a lot of the break. So uh if I don't answer, it takes me a day or two to get back to you. Just know that uh it you're still important to me, right? And so we're having that conversation with the client, we're having the conversation with the the crew the day before, day two days before that we're taking the time off. If you were doing this as a one-man show or as a company that that is running things, this will allow you the freedom to take these vacations and holidays and that sort of thing. Now, it's a different level once you have an employee, once you have project managers, how we do vacation. That's a if you come in the coaching program, we'll we'll walk through that. We have a full spreadsheet of how you do it and what you do and how you pass off jobs. But if you're a one-man show, a solo preneur that is out there doing work, this is the strategy to do it. I don't, I'm not passing off work because it's all still on my plate. I want to make sure that things keep going while I'm not here and that I answer every question. So Thursday, Friday, Saturday of my Thanksgiving break, I don't have phone calls the whole time. I can just unplug and be with my family. If you have any questions about this, anything to add to this, contact me, reach out, go to the ProShruk360.com website and go to contact us and reach out to me. I'd love to have a phone call with you, talk about it, also get signed up for the retreat coming up in just a few months, uh, coming up January 11th through 13th of 2026. So thanks so much for listening. Hope this helps, and we'll talk to you next week.
