Contractor Cuts

The Hardest Step In Growing A Contracting Company

• ProStruct360

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We break down the toughest leap for contractors: moving from swinging a hammer to running projects with foresight, systems, and steady cash flow. We share a practical plan for calendars, crews, invoicing, and client updates that lowers stress and raises profit.

• delayed gratification as the new mindset
• calendar as the core tool three to six weeks out
• weekly rhythm with Tuesday and Friday anchors
• energy-based time blocking and audit habits
• the revenue math of leaving field labor
• onboarding and replacing new crews with standards
• pre-construction as paid risk prevention
• pay-as-you-go invoicing tied to progress
• sub pay based on scope completion, not need
• client communication cadence that scales

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SPEAKER_01:

Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good, the bad, and the ugly of growing a successful contracting company.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner. And I'm Dr. Danger. This is Dr. Jane Danger joining me again this week. So today we are talking about a topic we've covered a handful of times in the past, but uh it's kind of fresh on my mind. I went out uh with a client um and was we're in the process of transitioning him from in the field. Transitioning from him from being in the field and swinging a hammer and and kind of running his job sites to being a full-time project manager in his company. So they've got the work, they've got the guys we're trying to grow them to the next level. So he's transitioning out of the field. And so uh I've spent some time last week with him going through that, and I thought this would be a really good topic to uh to retouch because I've got some fresh eyes on it and some fresh thoughts on it. So today we're talking about how to get out of the truck into project management. Uh it's really the hardest step of growing a contracting company. Out of every every stage from startup to you know multi-state growth, this literally is the hardest transition you can do. The hardest step is going from swinging a hammer to being a project manager, mainly because it's two different skill sets. One is physical on top of things. I'm I'm standing here on site every single day. To I'm not on the job site, and I need to think through the job in a totally different way. I need to communicate differently, I need to have different conversations with clients, I need to have totally different conversations with crews that used to be, hey, come follow me and do what I say. To here's your scope. I need you to execute this stuff without me standing over your shoulder. So every aspect of the job gets more difficult.

SPEAKER_01:

You want to know what I think one of maybe not talked about a lot, but one of the hardest transitional pieces of that is when you're in the field or when you're like any any manual thing that you're doing, you start and then at the end of the day you can see the progress. Yes. And that feels good. That's the dopamine hit. That's like, yes, like we're making progress. When you're project managing and you've got several projects, you might there might be uh progress, but when you walk in as a project manager, pretty much everything you see is issues and things that need to be resolved and problems that are down the road. And that never feels good. It's like the opposite of dopamine.

SPEAKER_00:

It goes from dopamine to stress. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So for whatever it's worth.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and and I think it's if I were, you know, I've got kind of four things we want to talk about today, but if I were to sum it up in like one sentence, it is learn delayed gratification. Because like what you just said of I've, you know, I installed cabinetry today and the kitchen looks so much better. It's all coming together, and so it looks great, and I feel good. I get to go home and I've got that dopamine hit of accomplishment where the delayed gratification as a project manager is three weeks down the road when we get that final check. The client says, Thank you so much, gives you a review, and you know, we're on to the next project. And I got a lot of cash in my account. That's the great, that's that's the dopamine hit of like, cool, we're done, on to the next. This is beautiful, we did it. But it's three weeks later for the hard work I'm doing today. And so I think that's that's some of the transition of everything's thinking about the future and not today. And I think that's kind of number one on my list. Actually, that's number. Yeah, we'll go with number one. So, number one on on what we're changing. So I've got four things we need to change that you're gonna be focusing on. Number one, calendar. I want your calendar to change how it operates. Your phone calendar, your computer when you when you pull it up. Everything is gonna change of how you operate your calendar day one in this transit transition. Number the the biggest point being a guy on site, a a hammer swinger, a GC that's actually out there doing the framing, doing their own work, bringing the guys with them, they are thinking about the problems of today and tomorrow. They're thinking about what, okay, what do I got to buy for tomorrow? What are we doing then? All right, cool, that's gonna happen. And and they're they're literally thinking about the next 24 hours, and that's about it. Project managers need to be thinking about three to four weeks down the road. Project managers, if they're thinking about what's happening today on the job site, that it's it's too late. They're done, they're behind, they they have, you know, the materials aren't there, guys don't know what they're doing, clients are pissed off. So the having a calendar where I can project, look down the road, see two, three, four, six weeks in advance is how you project manage. That's the whole that's the number one thing you need to be doing is managing a project, is looking at when things are gonna happen. How do I tighten things up? How do I go and order that dumpster change out? How do I go ahead and and and source a crew that does the specific type of concrete refinishing, right? Like if I if I don't have a crew that does that and it needs to happen now tomorrow, what what are we doing? Right. And so most guys, when they're hammer swingers, they're they're I'm gonna Google it, figure out, I'm gonna refinish that that that concrete myself and it'll be fine and I'll learn something on it and uh I'll go rent the machine tomorrow. Project managers aren't doing that. It's like, oh, I don't have someone to do that tomorrow. Uh I guess I gotta find someone, and we just delayed a week and a half to I get the right guy out here. Yeah. Right. And so living and dying by your calendar and thinking how far out are you is is this project is is your brain thinking through this project.

SPEAKER_01:

Um we independently take notes, and that was the first thing that I wrote down as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Really?

SPEAKER_01:

Was your time is exponentially more valuable, it's a really hard shift.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You need to be not only time blocking, but like I don't know how to explain this. You need to be time blocking as well as uh proactively time blocking. Yeah. Like you do need to make sure you ha like you're looking at your calendar every day and moving things where they need to be or reallocating things where they need to be, but you do also need to be looking one, two, three weeks down the road and putting time blocks in for yourself where you know maybe it's not gonna be Monday at two o'clock that I do this thing. Yeah. But it's definitely gonna be next week, and I definitely need to probably touch that twice. So let me put it on Monday and Thursday, and then once I get to that week, I might move those things around. Yep. But that's you have to do both.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, it it's I would love to do like a time lapse of your calendar, three weeks out, two weeks out, one week out, the week of. Because like it gets more refined, it gets things get added, things move around, but then it's like filling up. So yeah, I'm thinking about three weeks in advance, but I know like when you come into our program and we're doing coaching, there is a set calendar that we start with. Right, Mondays, we're out in the field hitting every single job site. Tuesdays are in the office doing a bunch of stuff that we've got planned out. Wednesday, Thursdays are free days to do estimates, site visits, going on, you know, whatever needs to happen. Friday's half day in the office. That's kind of our standard calendar, and then we we customize it around you, your schedule, how you operate as a company. That being said, I want three weeks out, my calendar be following that. And I'm also putting out, hey, I know that this is kind of a benchmark walk on this project. I'm gonna be there next uh in two Thursdays from now, because hopefully we'll be 100% done with the cabinet treatment then, or I hope we'll be at this spot. And so it's on there. But then when I'm a week out, it's like, okay, that's actually gonna bump to Wednesday, and I actually need an hour and a half at that job site because the client wants to meet me there. And then come Monday when that's this Thursday, I'm actually gonna move that two hours down because I want to stop by this other place first. And I'm like, and so you're refining it week over week. Like if you aren't having, and let me before I make that statement, how often do you look at your calendar on a daily basis personally?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh it's literally always up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. It's it's a second tab, but so uh the guy I was working with, uh, I was like, we need to have three different tabs open at all times. I want your software open, I want your emails open, and I want your calendar open.

SPEAKER_01:

I take it back. There's only one time when I don't have my calendar up, and that's when I found myself obsessing about the calendar, and I'm hurting the task at hand. And I'll say, click, you need to go away. Yeah. You're always there. I'll I'll see you in a night. I can open you up whenever. But for right now, you need to go away because you're a problem.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, and it's hard to like I'm still trying to figure out as a coach how to drill this into someone's head because they've been Phillip said. Philip perfect. They've been doing their their weekly calendar the same way for 20 years, 10 years, 20, 8 years, however long they've been it in construction, and it's really easy to do in their brain. They know what they do, they kind of have a systematic way that they think about it, and that's just how they they operate. You checking your notes, is this exactly what you're talking about? Your next point. But but to switch it over and to be, you know, thinking three weeks in advance is not a normal thing uh to actually do. Like a lot of guys, like, yeah, I know what if I asked you what are you doing in three weeks, you're gonna be like, oh, we'll probably be blah, blah, blah, and and can and have it some sort of assorted map in your brain as to what three weeks from now looks like. But it's not actually thought through. It's not, well, actually, that shouldn't happen until the fourth week. And so the second week I need to be doing this, which doesn't happen unless you sit down with your job and start building Gantt charts and looking at the timelines and going over everything that you should be doing between now and then to prep for it. And what's my job and what do I need to make sure my painter's job is? What? Let me read this to you. Okay, read read me what you wrote about this.

SPEAKER_01:

All of mine are this is very indicative of Clark and I. Clark's are very like uh practical to the point, and mine are all just very aloof, like emotional statements. You're in charge of all the pieces of multiple projects. You need uh you need what the heck? You need the whatever. You need time to sit and think freely about each project.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Not just bing, bing, bing, bing. Like you need some time to just like sit and think about your project. And that might, oh, we're gonna pull this up, we're gonna pull that up. But uh it's a lot to juggle. You don't want to find your fail point for the way that you used to do things. Because you are so ingrained in this is how I've been operating for this long you don't see yet the need for doing it a different way because you've been successful. Heck, you've you're moving out of this position because of the way that you've been operating, and that's that was your goal. You're doing it right. But it's not something it's not a gradual shift. Yeah, it's an immediate shift. And the only way, like, you know, learning trial by fire, that's it's how everybody learns, but like you don't want to find your fail point while it's your company and you're learning on the job. Yeah. So you need to adopt somebody else's until you can figure out what is gonna fit for you. That's right.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right. That's I mean, that's the whole thing of coaching, is like, let we've done it the wrong way. This is the right way. If I could erase the board and start over, this is how I'd run my calendar, this is how I'd do it. And it took us years of tinkering and oh, this is important. And the more dopamine hits we got because it was happening the right way, the more like, ah, that's why. That's why. That I now I see the the value in it. And we've been doubling and tripling down on it personally with our calendars. One one way I help guys get started this way is I don't need you to run five days a week, eight hours a day, every hour accounted for. Uh, what I want you to do is I want you on Wednesdays and Thursdays to have time blocks of what job sites you're going to, when you're going to do it, what estimates you're going to. I want uh when I have a uh uh a lead come in, we we really want three things on the calendar. And so I want you to have your desk estimate time, which is gonna be on a Tuesday. That's your office time. I want your site visit time, probably Wednesday. I'm gonna go out Wednesday, get on site, get my eyes on it. And then I want a third time block on Thursday or Friday to actually write the estimate and take the time to have space or sit down at my computer and be like, okay, let me think through this. Let me not just churn out some numbers and get it out here, but what else is needed? What am I thinking? What oh, I got to put a cleaning on here. Oh, we need Hall of O, the landscaping. Let me ask them about that. But I want those three time blocks on just one lead that comes in. And so having those times set up where it's like, okay, I'm not gonna, I know on Monday I'm gonna go draw my job sites. I'm not gonna time block down to the minute on Monday of which job sites I'm gonna go to. Now, in a year from now, I want I want to see that. I want you to progress to being obsessive about your calendar. But to get started, let's not start there. Let's start with Tuesdays, I'm gonna plan out my day as to what I'm doing. Wednesdays, Thursdays, I'm gonna own when and where I'm gonna go and make sure I'm not just jumping in the truck to go to a job site. Fridays are half days and trying to plan it out. But let's ease into managing that calendar. Um, two office days per week. Another thing I wrote down, Tuesdays, I'm, you know, laying out, asking yourself the three questions. What can I do to make my software more accurate? What can I do to get closer to the finish line? And what can I push to the client? Those three questions I want you to ask every single day. You sit down at your computer on Tuesdays, you pull up the first job card and ask those three questions. You pull up the next job, ask those three questions, pull up the third job. And by the end of the day, Tuesday, you've looked at every single job and you've thought through how do I make this more accurate? What can I do to get this job closer to the finish line? And what does the client not know that I can send them an email about today? Right. So that's if you do that every Tuesday, just one day a week right now, and then we'll get to two days a week. But right now, just think those through those three questions every Tuesday on every job. You are going to be proactively thinking through your job weeks down the road without even meaning to. Because you're thinking about, okay, what can I do to get this done? Oh, I can go ahead and order this stuff. Oh, I can go ahead and make sure that we have selections picked out by Friday so I can get all my orders in. So a month down the road, we're not waiting on that light fixture that was on back order. Um, and then Friday, I want you to plan, adjust next week's schedule, end of the week updates, emails. Every single job gets an email on Tuesdays and Fridays. On Fridays, I'm looking at this week, I'm looking at next week, and I'm adjusting my calendar for next week. Um, but I'm doing that live. So that's number one, we're going to have a calendar systematically planning out our week, looking at it every single week, looking at it daily, um, you know, installing a calendar app on your phone to where it's dinging you and letting you know. And, you know, one thing that forced me to do this is when I open up my calendar where people can make uh can reserve time on my calendar. Even if you're a project manager, like having a link in your in your uh email, in your name, your signature on your emails that's like, hey, need a 30-minute appointment, click here. That's gonna force you. Because once you're like, oh, I gotta I got this time to do this, and all of a sudden someone books you to have a phone call about a job site. Okay, now I've got it, someone else has control of jumping on my calendar. I've got to plan it out. And that's what pushed me. That's where I started being way better at calendaring. So I had a link as the as the GM of like, hey, have a prom, have a question, click here, let's talk about it. And then I'd I'd be like, oh, I got the afternoon off. It's Friday at three and I'm done. Boom. Someone's got to call at four. I'm like, okay, so I got to start blocking out my Friday afternoons because I want to I want to cut out early. Uh stuff. Literally, it says extra right now. Yeah like extra time on my Fridays. All right, so that's number one. Calendaring, living and dying by that. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I've said this before, but it's something that um I really do think there's value, and it's hard to remember to do it, but retroactively messing with your calendar. Like the other day, I got done a couple things and I had to switch some things around, and then I was about to start another task, and then realized I haven't really been doing anything for this last hour. I've been touching a bunch of random things, I've been looking through stuff. So I went back and I just put a red time block in my calendar from the hour that was just passed that just said like puts in around. Because I want to be able to go back and look and say do I feel successful this week or do I feel successful this month? And then like whether the answer is yes or no, I can look back at my calendar and be like, how much time were you spending doing reactive things? I'll go back and do that. Like if something got dropped in my lap and I I had to move things around, I'll go back and I'll put that took an hour of my time. There was reactive work. I might even put a note about what it was. Arguing about an invoice. Yes. And then you can you can literally audit how much of my time am I spending doing this? Down the road, that can help you make hiring decisions, that can help you make what podcasts do I need to listen to, what book do I need to listen to? You know, things like that that can you can you can glean from a calendar that you've been actually keeping updated in real time of how did I spend my time this day, how did I spend my time this week.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and and if you really want to take to the next level, this is my last like bonus nugget on how to calendar. I always do the stuff I don't like to do in the morning. If it's the you know, like for me, I hate QuickBooks. I hate getting in it. I'm good at it, I know it like the back of my hand. It's just I I don't like accounting. If you I'm gonna work on QuickBooks or update something or get in and assess it and run some reports, if I don't do it before noon, it's not happening. Because it's just not, it's it takes from me. It doesn't, it's not giving, it's taking. Right. And so, like for me, planning out a podcast is is giving. Like I enjoy it, right? And so what's it giving? It's just giving like Is it giving research paper vibes? Yeah. But it's uh but like I enjoy it, right? And so I I will not plan a podcast till the afternoon, and that's like, okay, I'm gonna think through this when I like that's my that's my treat. That's sweet treat. But go ahead. But like in the mornings is when when you have the most battery, most willpower. And that's when it's like, okay, uh if you know, I hate writing estimates. Let's say I'm gonna write all my estimates in the morning. And I really enjoy like uh whatever you like to do, reward yourself in the afternoon with that, because it doesn't take willpower to do that. And by the end of the day, your battery is drained and you have a lot less willpower at three than you did at nine. And so try and schedule around where your where your energy is, where you like, if you if it takes you a while to really get into gear, then schedule that harder stuff at noon. If it's like I like to get up early and get it knocked out, great, because we're all dealing with fire starting around 11, sometimes earlier than that, oftentimes earlier. But by 11 or 11:30 as a project manager, you're in firefighter mode sometimes. And so if I've got really important stuff to do, like an estimate, I'm doing that at 6 a.m. right when I get up before my phone's ringing, before the family gets up, before anything, I'm gonna do that and then get that estimate knocked out, get the kids ready for school, go off, you know, get to the office, starting to get away. Go to the bar 9:30.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, here's how I do it. I wake up at five so that I can start drinking at three.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm gonna put that in here. Start drinking at three. All right. Uh, number two, uh, we spent a lot of time on calendars, but that's good because I think it's it's super important. I mean it's apropos. Uh number two, job site changes. What's changing on the job site? I I wrote two things on this one. Number one, bringing in bringing on crews, new crews needed for doubling revenue and replacing you. So one of the big things when we're talking just the straight math of turning into a project manager is when you are doing the labor, you might be bringing guys with you, so you're not getting 100% of the labor pay, but on a job site, you're making 30% profit. You're making about 40, 30 to 32% profit, you're making around 46% is for labor. And that last 28%. We all know numbers. The 26% is is materials. So when I'm swinging the hammer, and I might be bringing guys with me, of the labor, maybe I'm getting half of that money that I've got budgeted for labor. So I'm I'm making 30% profit, and another 30, 40% of the labor is going to me as well. And so that's 60% of every dollar coming into the company is going into my pocket because I'm doing labor and project management. So so I do$100,000 of work and 40 to 60% is cash in hand left in the bank account. Right? Does that make sense? Those numbers? Or no confusing?

SPEAKER_01:

No, but not because it's probably it's just I have a when you're talking numbers, it's hard for me. I was thinking the whole time you were saying that, you should you should create visuals. Because I'm sure most people just listen as a podcast. That's true. But for when you're doing numbers, yeah. I feel like it'd be so nice to have like a little visual. Yeah. And like AI could help. What else can I do better, James? Um, I don't know. Listen. Um but what else can I do better?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, basically the visuals. All right, so let me I'll let me talk to you like you're a five-year-old.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, let's do this like I'm five, like I don't understand it.

SPEAKER_00:

On any job, let's say you're not bringing anyone with you, you're doing the work yourself. Myself. There's let's say 40% of the job's labor. 25%'s materials, so that's 65%. 65%. And then 35%'s profit. Now we're at 100. That's 100%. When you're doing all the work, you gotta spend 25% of the invoice dollars on materials, and then you get to keep the labor and the profit. So when you invoice$100, seven of the dollars go into your pocket, or$70 of the dollars go into your pocket, and the other$25 to 30 are going out for materials. And so when you're operating that way and you're doing the labor, what only matters is I gotta do enough invoicing to where I can cover my my expenses and make my money. And so you can survive on if you need to you know bring home six thousand dollars for number six, yeah, six thousand dollars, you can survive on invoicing ten thousand dollars a month because six is going in my pocket because I'm doing one job at a time and that labor's going straight into my pocket. So$10,000 a month revenue, you can live on. When you become a project manager, all of the labor money goes away. So I now I got to live on the 30% of profit. And so when I invoice$10,000 at that spot, I'm making three grand a month and I can't pay my bills. And so now I gotta get back and do some labor. Now I gotta get back to that. And so to be able to ramp up to be a project manager, you need to double almost triple your revenue. Because now I gotta do to do that same$6,000 in my pocket, I now gotta invoice$20,000 instead of$10,000.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And so that that ramp up means, you know, I got to bring on crews, and I'm also uh paying them the money that was going in my pocket. So it's kind of a twofold. I've got to manage new guys, I'm making less money, and I've got to double my revenue, the amount of work I'm doing to be able to make the same amount of money I was making last month.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's the the hard part of this transition is chicken or the egg. Do we do I start project managing, but I don't, I'm not making enough money yet. I'm stressed. Like I'm I'm like, uh is this gonna work? That's well, and the thing is that I see these guys that have come into the the the coaching program that struggle. The ones that do are these seasonal guys. They ramp up for the spring. Okay, I'm gonna be project managing. They get into it. They don't do it the way that we're talking about with calendaring and thinking through and growing and the marketing side. They've got all the work. And but they got the work. And so they they put all the the working on the company aside because it's like, oh, we got all this. Yeah. And then all of a sudden winter hits, and they're like, oh, I got no work again. I got I gotta go swing the hammer. I got no options.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's like, well, we didn't do the work six months ago to have the work still coming in now. Right. And so it it's it's the chicken or the egg of like, you gotta bring the work in before you can project manage to have enough revenue to pay yourself. But until you're project managing and you're out of the field, you're not churning up enough work. And so it's like, how do I get the work if I'm out swinging a hammer? Well, you got to step out. And so we got to save up money. We've got to do like the again, I'm they're probably listening to this, but the company that I went to, it's like we have to rearrange the outgoing money. We assessed their overhead and expenses. They moved offices to save a lot of money to go down to a smaller office to to work out of. They've, you know, some some of the owners stepped away for for the next few months because it's like, hey, we need to cut payroll as much as possible so we can make this transition work. And we've been really targeting doing that because it's like we don't we need the money to have you out of the field. But until that happens, uh how can you survive for a couple months without the paycheck? Yeah. Right. And so we've been planning that for almost a year of how do we get there, how do we do that? And so that transition is the toughest because I'm losing money. I'm I'm working double hard because now I'm the hardest uh that you're gonna work with subs is the first time you're bringing them on. Right. When I'm bringing on a new sub to do work that's replacing me, I'm gonna be there a lot. I'm gonna make sure they're good, I'm gonna check their quality, I'm gonna start them at the beginning of the day, I'm gonna be there at the end of the day, day one, day two, day three, day four. I'm stopping in, I'm building that trust to make sure I can trust them. By the time I'm with a crew for six months, I gotta start, I start them at the job site and I'm gonna finish them at the job site. And I'm probably not gonna have to visit them in the middle because we know each other. They get my bar that I've set, they're hitting that. And so it's it's a lot easier six months down the road. But these first transitional months, I've got four new crews, three new crews, two new crews that are coming on that I've never worked with before. And most likely I'm gonna have to fire one of them and I'm gonna have to bring on more crews. And so there's the headache of crew management on top of I don't, I'm not making any money, on top of I got to find more revenue. It's just a pile of stress to make this transition. So knowing that, I've got to change how I do my job sites. I got to change setting the bar differently. And you don't know until you don't know what you don't know. And how to set the bar for a crew is totally different than setting the bar for the guy that you brought with you. Then you're gonna be there all day babysitting and telling him what he needs to be doing. So transitioning that is a whole nother conversation. That's that's what we do in the coaching. Really, we start with like the 10 steps, the the from first contact to final invoice, going through that. But now we, you know, we get into the subcontractor agreements and how do we pitch that and how do we say that and how do we manage them? We did a series a month or two ago about this, about how to bring on a new sub and how to manage them. It's just a lot of work. And so don't get disheartened, uh, disheartened in the first month when this transition is very difficult. Um, know that that's part of the process. Know that the first month, two months, three months of this transition is a grind and you're not getting that gratification and you're not gonna get that dopamine hit. It's just shoveling crap day in and day out until you get ahead of it, until you've got your guys in place, until you're thinking down the road, that that's how the transition ends up happening. You're three to four months down the road.

SPEAKER_01:

Um I have a note here. Uh Knowing how things knowing how things go in the field doesn't excuse the time slip. So like when you've got your new crews, I think they're you just got out of the field. You get it. Things change on a minute to minute basis. Projects always take a little bit longer than you expected. Knowing this doesn't excuse the time slip. Don't don't accept that you should know because you just got out of the field, how best can you support your guys and ensure that they have as few hiccups as possible. Yeah. And I think it is a hard, especially if it's like you've been working with the crew and now you've you're like, okay, I'm gonna set you guys up on a project and now I'm gonna be moving around. Those are your guys. Yeah. Right? And so when they're struggling, you kind of feel that struggle, you're trying to grow the business, you're trying to do better for everybody, rising tides raise all ships, kind of thing. But when something happens on site, there's accountability that you're gonna need to step into to hold those guys to. Yep. And you're no longer part of how how that's actually coming together. You're you're needing to hold them to a standard that you haven't had to hold them to yet.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Yeah. Well, uh it's it's the rules as to how daily operations happen that are written down. Like this is how we start job sites, this is what I want my job site to look like. Like I don't have to talk about how I like a clean Job site when I'm there every day because I'm the one, hey, all right, clean that wood over there and make sure that happens. I'm gonna go clean this. And so it just naturally happens. You leave the job site and you show up the next day because you're project managing now, and it is a wreck because they've been eating pizza and drinking soda and just having a ball. But that being said, the most important thing to implement. First, we have a calendar. The next when we're talking job site is pre-construction phase. When you're swinging a hammer, you don't have a pre-construction phase often. It's very small. It's okay, what do we need to do? How do we get and start? Hey, I need an invoice uh to get, I need that 20% down so I can go ahead and buy some materials and get going. I'm gonna start with framing, so I need some wood, right? If I do a pre-construction phase, I am setting the clients' uh expectations. I'm going through, thinking through how this project's gonna happen. I'm setting the crews up on site, I'm doing pre-construction walks with my electrician and plumber and my framer, making sure we're all on the same page, making sure all of that doesn't happen when you're swinging a hammer. Guys don't spend time doing that. And and the the big transition, and this I probably said this three times last week when I was uh I was doing some training. The biggest transition is that that profit that you're making, they're paying you to be a project manager. Yeah, like that service of I'm doing pre-construction to think through this, you're now getting paid to do that. You're a project manager getting paid to do that.

SPEAKER_01:

So I have a great example of this. Yes, please. We're bidding out this project, we're in the due diligence phase, the guy wants to do uh stone veneer over top his brick house. And a uh crew, you know, when you're talking, hey, give me a bid price for doing a veneer on this brick. And you get the bid back, and you're like, great. The project manager piece of this, the due diligence piece of this, is looking at the pictures, looking on site and saying, what are we gonna do with these windows? What are we gonna do with the window sills? How are we going to the windows are already in place and now we need to do a stone facade over top the brick that's there? Is it gonna interfere with the windows? Are they gonna be able to replace those windows if we put this in there?

SPEAKER_00:

Are we gonna stone them in?

SPEAKER_01:

How what are the other options we have other than doing a stone veneer? Can we just paint the brick once we get to that point? Yeah. So that's one of those details that I think a lot of times, if you're being honest, when you get to the point where the guy's putting the stone on the face and he's like, No, oh. And then you have stone on site, you've got the crew on site, you're working, and you call the client, you're like, Hey, what do you want to do with the windowsills? And they're like, What do you mean? What do I want to do? And then they're stressed because they're like, How did we not? How is this just now? Whatever you normally do. Yeah. I don't well, this is kind of we kind of have to be creative. You wanted to go over top the brick.

SPEAKER_00:

Chat GPT said there's not a good way to do this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a great example of like having that space to think through it in pre-construction to where I don't, it's not the least amount of time I can spend on it. It's how much time, what's the most amount of time I can spend in my pre-construction. Not like, all right, I got 20 minutes, I'm gonna figure out who's going where when. Yeah, I'm gonna look at the project and I'm gonna have a cup of coffee. I'm gonna sit there, think about what's gonna go wrong. What's gonna go wrong? Yeah. And thinking through that stuff.

SPEAKER_01:

If you sit down to look at that and you're already like, okay, I just gotta blast through this. This is pretty straightforward. This, this, this, great. You're not gonna catch the little things that are gonna bite you in the ass. Yes. You're just not because all you're thinking about is the hits. You're like, what are the big hits? What are the big hits? What are the things that I know have happened in the past? Gotta look out for this, gotta look out for this, gotta look out for this. You're not gonna catch the things that are just gonna be sneaking around the corner. Yeah. They're just gonna get you.

SPEAKER_00:

And you can't be just optimistic, like, okay, this is gonna run. I'm gonna send this guy out there. Like, no, I'm gonna I gotta have a pessimistic view during pre-construction of like, okay, what's gonna get? I know it's something's something's worth. Which one are you is gonna screw me? Yeah, that's legit. All right, so number one, calendars. Number two, job site changes, pre-construction. Uh we got two more that that'll be a little quicker. And number three is invoicing slash labor pay changes. When you said these ones will be a little bit quicker, are you asking me to be quiet? These are gonna be James's gonna excuse himself. I'm gonna handle this me in the camera. No. Uh number three is invoicing and labor pay changes. I I think one thing that's different from swinging a hammer to actually being a project manager is I'm not on site with my checkbook in the truck on Fridays where I'm like, okay, everyone gather around. Let's get everyone their checks. And I'm hand-cutting checks to each guy. I'm not standing there with the client saying, Oh, okay, I guess looks like I think we should start cabinets next week. Why don't you give me uh can I get some uh$5,000 as a deposit? I got to get these things ordered. Whatever it is. Yes, yeah. But that's how it uh often works. When you're swinging hammers, there's not a time to sit down and think through your invoice. Think through who's getting paid this week, think through next week, what am I invoicing for that's coming up. Do they need to be paid this?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Have they done it? Yes. Like that's another probably huge one if especially if you're out now and these are your guys. Yes. Do I I know how much they need, but did they get that work done?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I I don't it's switching it from your your guy that's next to you saying, Hey, I I gotta have two thousand by Friday because I got I got my rent due and I need two grand this week. I need you to be able to earn two grand this week. Yeah. Versus saying, hey, you know, we're 25% through the paint, demo's a hundred percent, uh, I'm mark those to those percentages in my software and I've got a check for you for$1,750. Well, I need two grand. Well, bro, did you know that last week? Like I I can only mark so much done. So I'm here's your check for$17.50. And when you steal when I give them that two grand instead of$17.50, now they're gonna be$250 short next week. And now they need more money next week because they you you already gave them the money up front. And you're gonna be like, what kind of baseball cards you got?

SPEAKER_01:

Anything with value? Anything from$76 or earlier?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that with the subpay and doing it in the software and doing it not on site to be able to pay them what they've earned through the work order system, through getting them out of daily and hourly pay. Secondly, we're switching over with how we're invoicing clients. We're sitting down at the computer on Tuesdays and sending them invoices. One of the biggest transitions I do with a lot of guys coming in is the pay as you go model versus the lump sum model. I need 20% down, I need 40% down, and then I'll give you this. We're switching over to weekly invoices, and there's a whole we've probably done a couple podcasts about it already, but why and how to do the pay as you go model. But switching over that to where there's a rhyme and reason of why I'm invoicing. Most guys that are hammer swingers are how soon can I do that next uh we need the next 40%. Why? Well, we're done with demo, we're done with the cabinets, we're done with doing the signing, whatever it is, I need that next draw. And they're just trying to get the next draw where it's like, no, there's no rhyme or reason. You're just trying to get as much money extracted out of your client as possible as soon as possible, and that's gonna screw you at the end of this job.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So can I say one thing about the pay as you go model? I know this is already long. Yes. Um the thing that I think I appreciate most about it is it kind of it gives you the ability to follow the timeline that you've set for yourself and know that the money is there. Yeah. Instead of what you're saying, all right, we gotta invoice something. What can we do? Yeah I don't want to do that yet, but there's money in that. Yes. Yep. It it if you will if you buy into it, you can stop that whole game from playing out because that's what causes 80% of the issues down the road is you did that out of order. Yep. So you scratched the floor, you messed up the trim, now you got to come back in after the fact and f and replace a couple boards of flooring, and that can cause a whole bunch of issues. That's like you follow your construction schedule. Stop going out of order because you need the money.

SPEAKER_00:

Aaron Ross Powell Or because clients have asked. Like I remember back in the day I painted a house because the client kept, hey, when are we starting to paint? Hey, when's paint? Because they really wanted to see their the colors they paint.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a hard one because you like can do it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like we'll go do it. And then we ended up repainting it because we scuffed so many of the walls doing the we didn't uh site finish floor. And I'm sure he paid you extra because of that. Yeah, absolutely. But again, if if I had a construction schedule, I'm like, well, we're doing paint in two and a half weeks once these things are done, as opposed to, yeah, we'll go ahead and get that done for you. So no, I think that's great. Um, all right, number four, the last thing communication changes 180 degrees. It's totally different of how communication works. You can't depend on talking with the client on the job site. When you are swinging a hammer, and some guys are like, you know, I'm running four jobs, I'm on one or two of them at a time, and the other ones I've kind of got some guys on, but I'm coming out there. You're gonna run into the client every time you're out there. And so you're gonna talk to them, you're gonna have that conversation, and you just don't have to think about communication because it's naturally happening when you're on the job sites that much when you're swinging hammers. When you get into project management, you are not on the job site unless there's a reason to be on the job site. You're not just showing up to walk it for fun. Mondays, we're walking every job site every Monday to assess the process, the progress, what happened last week, what are we doing this week, what's going on, how much should I pay the guys this week? What can I invoice for for next week? That's what's happening on Mondays when I'm walking it. You might not run into your client on Monday because you stopped in from 10:30 to 11:15 when they were at work. Well, then I've got five days that I might not be out there. Now the client's never heard from me. But when I'm out there every single day, I'm gonna run into them. They're gonna see me. I'm I'm there till 5:30 and they get home at five and we kind of chat at the end of the day naturally every single day. That communication is naturally happening. And so you feel like I'm running the job site this way and it works. But as soon as you start removing yourself from being there every single day, as soon as you have planned times that you're executing things on site that I'm showing up to do this, I need to meet the cabinet guys here for this, the granite guys I'm gonna meet over there for this. Those are only times I'm gonna be on the job site. And oftentimes the client's not there for that window. So having a structured way that we communicate again, Tuesdays and Fridays, we send emails. We have to send every email, every client an email on a Tuesday, and every client on a Friday. Tuesdays we're invoicing, Fridays we're saying what happened this week, what's happening next week. If you do those two emails only, that's plenty of communication with the client if you're doing it right. If you're sending it saying this is everything you need to know, this is what's happening, this is what's going wrong. I don't like how the paint turned out. I'm having the guys come back and do answering all the questions before they ask them, those two emails are sufficient. If you say, hey, here's your invoice, let me know if you have any questions and send it off. Yeah, I don't like the paint. What's happening with that? Oh, yeah, I'm getting the guys back out there. I don't like that either. Okay, what about the uh cabinets? What are those showing up? Where should I say? Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about that. Like there will be a lot more emails if you aren't good at communicating. But if you can communicate Tuesdays and Fridays, send an email, tell them you're available on Mondays to walk with them, clients are going to be satisfied with knowing what's going on. My my my litmus test has always been if I can call a random client of yours and say, hey, what's happening next on this job? And they can say, uh James told me that paint starting next week. It looks like we're almost done with demo. He invoiced for X, Y, and Z, which makes sense because we're we're about to need to order those materials. Uh, if the client can tell me that on a random phone call, you've done your job in communication. If I call a client and say, I don't know what's happening, I don't know. I've been James, I'm sure, will let me know at some point. That's a failure in communication. And so changing how and making a focus on communication once you're stepping into project management is so important. And not only with them, but also with subs and with crews and labor, and I need photos and I need this and how to go today and what's going on with that. I don't want to be peppered with phone calls all day long from crews. I want one call in the morning, one call on the way home. Hey, what's going on? Hey, it looked good, things are great. I want a text message of the room. Hey, paint's done. There you go. Hope uh tomorrow we're starting on X, Y, and Z. Great, awesome. Send send me that. All of this with the two emails a week, all of this, the bar is set and the expectations are lowered or raised during your client engagement agreement. So all of this communication is laid out to the client. This is what you can expect out of me. I'm not there every day. I'm not there five days a week, eight hours a day. So just so you know, if you don't see me, that doesn't mean I wasn't there. It means you missed me. And I was there when you ran to the store. I was there when you were at work, I was there when you went and got coffee with a friend. I might have popped in. But this is how I get to your job sites. This is when Mondays I'm there every Monday. If you want to walk the job site with me, come and meet me on Monday and we can, you know, shoot me a text on Friday and I'll tell you when Monday I'm gonna be there. Um, that sort of communication level to where you're available for them at for the things that are needed, but I'm just not gonna be showing up every single day to chat with you. Uh and changing that is is huge. And you don't realize it until you start, until you get out and people are don't like you as much. All of a sudden, like your reputation's going down a little bit, and it's like, I don't, man, these people are so needy. I just need to get back out. And it's like, no, you you're not meeting their expectations and you're not setting the right expectations. You're not doing the CEA and then two emails a week. If you're doing those two things, your communication is going to be good with them. Yeah. So those are my four. Those are my top four things that I think the calendar, job site changes, um, invoicing, labor, pay changes, and then communication changes. If you change those four things, you're going to be off to the right way. I I I wrote some other notes. I think we're running out of time, but stuff like quick estimate turnarounds. We're doing 48 hours or less for any estimate turnaround. If I go on site, you will have numbers within 24 to 48 hours every single time. I need to start setting up those expectations of myself because when you're a project manager, you get spread real thin. And every single person, every client, every sub, everyone in the office, everyone at home has a where they want to spend your time. And if you don't have a plan for how you're going to spend that time, everyone else spends your time for you. When I'm working on one to two jobs at a time, swinging a hammer, I know what I'm doing today. I'm showing up that job and I'm executing work.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

If I'm not doing that and I'm a project manager and I don't have any estimates today, I guess I'll just hop in the truck and go, oh, this guy needs that. I'm going to go run these materials out to him because he needs more paint. No, no, no, no. We got to plan out that time. We got to lay it out. I need you to set aside time to write those estimates. I need you to set aside time to build out your calendar and really start focusing on the back burner stuff that you don't have to get to. But if you get to it, it makes your company really, really efficient and profitable somehow. Yeah. That's it. Thanks for joining us this week. And we will see you. Also, if you one last plug, if you want to come to the retreat, we're filling up. We have a few slots left. We're only letting a certain number of companies come. So if you're interested in coming on the retreat, James and I will be there. We'll be we'll be doing a lot of different things planning wise. I think we have a podcast coming up talking about what the what's entailing in the retreat. Um the retreat entails. Does that work? What's entailing in the retreat?

SPEAKER_01:

No, but I think everybody communicated, you know, communications about people understanding, and I think people understood what you're trying to say. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00:

So, anyways, hit us up. Go to contractorcast.com if you're interested in the retreat. You can register there. We love to see you guys in person in Nashville coming up in January. All right. Bye. Bye.

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Clark Turner

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