Contractor Cuts

The Contractor Operating System Step 1 & 2: Vision, Structure, & Job Roles

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Most contractors already have an operating system — it’s just undocumented, unduplicatable, and holding them back. We break down the first two steps of our operating system: write a usable vision and build a structure that supports hiring, training, and growth. Clear roles, documented handoffs, and a simple green-yellow-red task audit turn chaos into a plan you can execute this quarter.

• three-year North Star with a locked one-year plan
• using vision as a filter for yes and no
• opportunity cost of misaligned jobs
• structure before growth and future org chart
• splitting one owner into multiple role buckets
• mapping processes to roles and handoffs
• partners assigning clear ownership of tasks
• green-yellow-red exercise for task transfer
• revisiting job descriptions every six months
• preparing to hire without burning cash

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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 James McConnell. Thank you for joining us again this week. So today we are diving deep to start the almost full year series of diving into our seven steps of our operating system. We covered it last week, talking through all seven steps of the operating system and the importance of it. And really the operating system for us is how companies actually function. It's what you're currently doing. It's how we structure it so you can duplicate yourself and grow. When we're looking at the operating system itself, uh really there's there's seven steps that we covered last week. It's the vision and structure, the role definition, core process documentation, marketing and client acquisition, financial metrics, hiring playbook, and then duplication scalability. Bing, bang, bing, bang. That's all seven of them. So with that, that being said, one thing that we like to kind of circle on this is everybody does these things. Everyone's got this stuff. Today we're covering the first two steps, which is vision and structure as well as job description. Everyone has it. Everyone's got a vision of what where they're going. I can ask you, why did you start your company? Where is it going? And you can tell me, most likely. Like you can say, well, you know, I hope by next year I have a couple employees and I'm doing a couple million and blah, blah, blah. Like you, you kind of know where you want to go when you start a company. You kind of, what's your job description? Well, you know, normally I'm doing estimates usually on nights and weekends. Most of the days I'm out working or I'm, you know, I'm running crews, I'm doing whatever your job role is. You can tell me what your job is. You don't have a written job description. So what does that mean? How do we do that? How do we make it for duplication and growth? Uh, and then you go in like number three, which is our largest uh really category of anything in this, which is our core process documentation. We have eight different processes that you have to have documented that you can duplicate, train, and grow on. Uh, and so that's really the bulk. So today we're covering number one and two, uh, vision and structure, as well as job description. Next week, we're gonna start diving deep into uh number three, which is core process documentation. We're gonna spend a couple weeks there, really define it depending on what level of company you're at, whether you're a one-man show kind of getting started, or you've got multiple employees and you're trying to really duplicate and rebuild the plane mid-air so you can keep growing the company. Um, so we're gonna cover all of those over a few weeks and kind of deep dive into some of them that of making sure that it's set up. Um, operating system, though, is not something magical or new, right? Everyone's got one. And and for what you're doing, our goal is that what we say, 80% of it, you're like, yeah, I've got that. The last 20% is how do we make it duplicatable? And that's what the coaching side is. That's what we come in and help you with in terms of if you partner with us on in in ProShark 360 as as coaches, as um really coming into the software or just getting, you know, whether it's the foundations or the growth or the executive level of our coaching, our goal is to really get you to 100% in all these. Is we need to have a defined vision and it needs to make sense. We need to have structure in the company and where you're going so we can start building those job descriptions so you can hire people into those jobs. We need to have the core process documentation because that's how we train people. We get it out of your brain, you know, like the core process, uh, what we call our 10-step process, which is from intake to final invoice with the with a customer. You do all of that stuff. Yeah. How do we document it? How do we write it down? How do we make it trainable? And how do we make it to where there's checks and balances, and I can have someone out there running, representing my company, where I have still a full trust and control that the job sites are going to run the same way.

SPEAKER_01:

So I mean, to the when you were talking about the vision statement just a minute ago, and you're like, everybody has one, it's like on a good day, everybody's got those days where they're like, man, I'm banging on all eight. I know exactly where we're going, I know this, I know that. The vision statement I think is really helpful for the days in between the good days that you don't have a lot of clarity and there's uh a lot of ambiguity in the day-to-day, and it's like that's the spot where you can lean back into your vision statement and use it as a tool instead of just this thing that's like, ah, yeah, yeah, we got a vision statement. It's we wrote it on the wall or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And and a vision statement is not a woo-hoo, look at us, let's use this for marketing. It can be, you can use it for that. But the goal of like everyone's got a vision, not everyone has a vision statement where they've actually put it pen to paper on it and thought through it and spent time on it. And when I talk to a lot of guys, like the one-man shows that are like, I yeah, I get it. I know where I'm going. Like, I don't need to spend an hour figuring this out, like I'm good. Like, you're right. You don't. You don't need to. You can keep running how you're doing it. But the real growth is when you start acting like the companies that you want to become, right? Like dress for the job you want. Dress for the job you want. And and a lot of like there's a lot of like um imposter syndrome feeling, or like, I'm not there yet, I don't need to do that. The the truth of it is it's you you act the way that you want to be and you start becoming that, right? If if I want to be a more respectful person to my wife and I'm just acting that way, that just becomes second nature, and that's who I am, right? If you want something and want to grow to something with your company, you have to put everything in place before you get there. You don't get there and arrive and start hiring and get to five million a year and then figure out what our processes are. It doesn't work that way. Like you have to start defining this stuff as before you grow and acting bigger than you feel. Um, and that's how you kind of build the foundation and then we can grow on top of it. So diving into the vision and structure, what does this mean? What does vision and structure mean? Um, talk talking about when we're looking at a vision statement, and we're gonna kind of cover what that is and what that should look like. Your vision statement is I, you know, a lot of people look five years from now, this is where we're gonna be. And I like that. And I like I want that to be part of the structure. I like a two to three year plan. Five years from now, like think back five years, like 2021. My life was different, and what I'm doing now looks so much different. We were just off of COVID coattails. I mean, and five years before that, 2016, right? Like it five years has a lot of life and growth in it. So it's very difficult to lay out five years. What I like about thinking five years out is North Star. I know I want to go this direction. I know I need to be that way. So when I'm looking at a vision statement, I like a three-year plan with a really executable one-year plan. Um, but one year vision has to be locked in. What am I doing? Because what we like we did on the retreat is this is our one-year plan. And we break it down to okay, if I'm gonna get there, what's quarter Q1? Quarter one, by April 1st, what's success look like? So if I want to get X, Y, and Z done, I gotta at least do X by quarter one so I can start on Y in quarter two. Yeah. Uh and so we we lay that out, and that vision is making our decisions of where we're spending our extra time. When guys say, hey, I want to work on my company, not in my company. I'm like, cool. Are you time blocking? Do you got a space that you're actually spending two hours doing that? Like, yeah, Friday mornings. What do you do Friday mornings? Well, I sit down, I kind of check emails, I start responding to estimates, um, I follow, like, no, you're working in your company, like you're not working on it. Um, what we're trying to do as coaching, as consultants, is define what you should be working on now before next week. And next week is a different bite of the elephant. So we're working on that. And the following week, let's be working on that. And so the whole goal is work on what you need to work on now. Let's not work on you know, six months from now's problems. Let's work on today's problems so we can start building that foundation. Um, that being said, looking at the vision statement, a one-year to three-year vision statement is what I'm going for. A three-year vision statement with a one-year goal. Um, a vision statement, I wrote it this out, is a clear picture of what you want your company to become over time. It's the future you're building, written in a way that gives you and your team a target to aim at when this decisions get hard. Right. So a vision statement is this is what we're all committing to, especially if you have a partnership. If you and your wife are running it, if you and your buddy have you know 50-50 in the company, if you got employees, especially if you got employees, this is buy-in from everybody to understand what what's in your head that you is just assumed of how we do things. The vision statement is this is what I believe we're gonna do together. Do you all agree? Do you buy into that? Is do you think this is achievable? What?

SPEAKER_01:

This is what we're doing. You guys agree? Do you guys like do you guys like that? Am I good? Am I good enough for you? Is it good? Can someone tell me that they love me and I'm their son?

SPEAKER_00:

So uh uh it's getting that buy-in, though. Where uh you know, one thing that we talk about we did on the retreat on the leadership breakout session with the uh executive level guys was talking about the our vision for the company and our measure of success is different than our employees. Our employees or our you know, anyone that's working for us, their vision of success is we're part of that journey for them, but our journey is not their success. My company hitting$10 million doesn't mean my employee is successful. It means for him, success is I want to execute X, Y, and Z. I want to be here, I want to raise, I need to get the six figures set some point in the next three years for my pay. Like there's a different measure of success for that. And so a vision statement is saying, hey, we're all agreeing, like this is where we're going, and this is success for the company. Um one thing we want with the vision statement is that for it to be written, shared, and reinforced. Uh, I want you to write it down. I want you to show it to your coach. I want you to show it to a business partner, your wife, your husband. Uh, have some sort of buy-in from someone else that keeps us accountable. As entrepreneurs, we got the shiny ball syndrome and we just see something like, oh, that'd be cool. Oh, that's great. Let's run after that. Oh, I'm gonna start that. What we want is this to be a filter for us, a checks and balances for us. So the vision statement is written, it's shared with someone. Ideally, if you're in coaching with us, you share it with us and we talk through it, we help refine it. And we also say, okay, let's let's we're gonna use this as our rules of engagement when you're trying to make decisions in the future. Um, your vision statement should describe the future in plain language, right? So, who are you serving? What's your clientele? Like what's your ideal client? Uh, what you're known for, your reputation, your specialty. What's what is your company known for and why are you doing what you're doing? What kind of company you're building, right? Size, structure, culture, what's happening in this company, where are we, where, where's our end goal here? I want to expand to five different states in the next five years by doing that, blah, blah, blah, blah. I want to grow to be the number one remodeling company in the state of Georgia. I want to be the best company in Phoenix, Arizona, right? Whatever, whatever it is, the kind of company you're building, uh, what success looks like, goals, capacity, lifestyle, impact, and also include how it feels to run. So freedom, stability, clarity, stress, levels. So we want to wrap all of that into a vision statement. I've got a very clear uh vision statement kind of um uh outline, what'd you call it? Uh structure to of how to write it. A madlib. A mad lib. It's great. So it's we execute to blank. Exist.

SPEAKER_01:

You're right. We exist to be. What are you taking? Uh I'm not even doing this from memory, pal. I'm just reading.

SPEAKER_00:

We exist. I'm bad at reading and talking. Other than that, I'm amazing. All right. We exist to blank, and in the next blank years, we will become blank, which is who you'll be, by blank actions to get there. So that's blank, which is results you're known by. All right, that was confusing, especially if you're listening, you're driving down the road, you're like, Yeah, that's a lot of blanks that don't make sense. So let's let me give you an example of one. We exist to deliver premium remodeling experiences, and in the next three years, we will become a focused, high-margin boutique builder by refining our systems, tightening our project selection, and building a dependable core team so that our work stays excellent, predictable, and profitable. That's a well-rounded statement, right? We exist to blank. We exist to deliver premium remodeling experiences. That's that's why we exist. That's what the company's doing. Premium remodeling experiences.

SPEAKER_01:

And so, in using this like a tool, if you have a vision statement, you just basically take wherever you've input your blanks and you can say, Am I doing this? Is the decision I'm making supporting our vision statement, or is it not supporting it or uh detracting from it? And if it's rubbing up against your vision statement in a bad way, then you really need to think about what you're doing. And maybe you even take the job. Maybe you take the job that doesn't fit your vision statement because you need the money. That's uh gonna happen. But you need to at least be honest with yourself about okay, I'm taking this job, and because it doesn't fit our vision, it might not fit the processes that you have. Yeah. So you might need to look at that job and say, what do we need to do differently here because it doesn't align with our vision. It doesn't align with our processes. I'm gonna do it anyway, I'm gonna bite the bullet, but you need to be able to have something in place to help you identify where are the gaps that you're gonna need to fill because this isn't our regular thing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. Yep. I I think like the statement that we just gave is very similar to a lot of a lot of guys that we coach. Um, we exist to deliver premium remodeling experiences, and in the next three years, we will become a focused, high-margin boutique builder by refining our systems, tightening our project selection, and building a dependable court team so that work stays excellent, predictable, and profitable. That that statement says in the next three years, we're going to tighten our project selections. So you're right, I might say yes to this job today because I don't have dollars to pay my bills next month, and that makes sense on a micro scale, on a macro, on a big picture, on the full year. This is gonna be the last time I say yes to this type of job because we're gonna move towards the uh towards whatever my my next move is. Um we look for, uh look ahead on the operating system. Number four is marketing and client acquisition. This is gonna tell us how we're gonna market. I can hand this vision statement to my marketing team, and they can put together ads on Facebook that really target my demographic that I'm aiming for, what we do, why we're doing it. And that's gonna start building what we're talking about, right? So everything we do in the future, my pro my core process documentation, how we run our processes are gonna dep are going to reflect how this ends up. So uh a boutique, what where was it, boutique, high margin boutique builder has different processes than someone doing fix and flips and turns between tenants. Totally different processes. You have two different products that were selling there. Uh and so if you're not, you know, A, I'm gonna say no to that quick fix and flip that's low margin and in and out with a different level of finish and cruise than a high boutique uh builder, um, a high margin boutique builder. So by knowing this and looking at this, A, I'm making, I'm filtering those decisions, right? I'm saying, you know what, uh I got an investor who's flipping an apartment complex, he wants us to go in, there's a hundred units that we got to turn. It's about 12 grand per unit, it's but it's 120 grand. But I can go in there, I can turn it out. Great, that's that's an opportunity.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And how and how long are you gonna spend on that? Because if your actual vision is to be this high end service high-end boutique, whatever, whatever, yeah, and you're gonna be doing these flips, well, you're spending all of that time not doing the thing that your vision statement says that you're gonna do. And so not even are you not doing that, but the marketing that you get from doing those fixing the the boutique, being able to do that job, have pictures of it, of the process, of the client review, you're not getting that either. Like that's a that's a big opportunity cost that you're not thinking about when you're taking on this opportunity, you're doing away with this other opportunity that's actually going to grow you more opportunities. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It's it's the way that contractors feel like they're doing the same thing year in and year out is because they're letting their opportunities that are presented to them guide the direction of their company. And so a a year later, I feel like I'm in the same spot. Well, yeah, you spent six months flipping an apartment complex and you're trying to be a high-end. Of course you're in the same spot because that was six months of not working towards the case. But you haven't even heard the name of the apartment complex.

SPEAKER_01:

It's it's a it's Magnolia Manor. Oh, okay. So watch before before you start saying stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Apology accepted. Uh no, so when you're like, I just you know, I get it, I get it, I need a vision, I need to say no to opportunities, but I need to pay my bills, and so I'm gonna do it. And it's like you have to understand when you're saying yes to an opportunity that doesn't align with your vision, that what's the opportunity cost on that? It's the time I'm spending, it's the next four months that I'm learning about codes for apartments versus the houses that I do. It's me learning about how to call in inspections and how to get around inspections on an apartment. It's me dealing with tenants that are turning over and that you know, on a hundred unit complex and they've got 60% occupancy. How am I getting in there to do those? We're moving tenants between like there's so many things that you're now having to deal with and get processes in that you'll never use again.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey man, we got a problem over here at 3B. Uh iguana, iguana got loose. It was tenant's pet, 70-year-old iguana. Uh his name's Carlos, if you could just call for him.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and and legit, you're spending your time doing that. And and again, you need money. Great, go get a job at Home Depot. Like, if you when you're doing a job like that, it's a side gig. It's nights and weekends, it's it's it's waiting tables because I need dollars. That's different than building the restaurant that you're gonna own is waiting tables at this other thing. And so that's okay. In growth, you're gonna have to wait tables to pay the bills as we build this restaurant. But what I want you to do is as you're waiting tables, I want to peel off time and say, okay, let's talk about your restaurant. How are we getting the food in the back? How are we, you know, what type of waiters and waitresses are we hiring? How are we getting the orders into the bar? What's the point of sale system that we're gonna use here? What's the flatware that we're gonna do? What's the table? Let's plan out that while you're waiting tables. And then let's start bringing one person at a time into that restaurant. Let's start sitting them with that vision of where we're going. So it's okay that I'm saying yes to waiting tables as long as there's growth going towards your vision and and not. Saying, hey, I'll continue building and planning out that restaurant in six months when I'm done waiting tables because I can make some money over here. Okay. That's just so you know, you're gonna go backwards six months by doing that. And if you're fine with that, that's great. Don't complain that you're not growing as a company because you're not. You're saying yes and you're collecting dollars. That doesn't help your company grow to independence, to duplicating, um, and where you're going.

SPEAKER_01:

So you know it's always hard though, is the doing, it always feels better than the planning. Yeah. Because when you're mapping all that stuff out, like what how are we gonna do this? How are we gonna do that? What's this gonna look like? It can be kind of demotivating because you're like, that's not where I am. I'm frustrated about that. This is obviously what I want to be doing, and so that's why breaking it off into those bite-sized pieces, like you were talking about. It's like I don't need to look at the full picture. I don't even want to look at the full picture. Yeah, I just know I need to work on this part, and it still for me is hard. It's still hard to like be working on the thing that I want to be doing because I just want to be doing that now.

SPEAKER_00:

And there is a big difference for entrepreneurs, instant gratification, instant moving forward, getting stuff done feels you get that dopamine hit as opposed to, well, I'm planning up my restaurant that's gonna open in six months. In six months, this is gonna feel real good, right? Like the the hard work and the gains that that companies that are passing you in growth is because they understand delayed gratification, that I don't have to get this today. But I will say a very, very hard truth that guys don't want to hear or believe is that a lot of this when guys come into coaching is not about not knowing what to do or the direction they want to go. It's that they don't have confidence that they can do it. Right? It's it's the guys that say, Yeah, maybe I'll get into apartments, maybe that could be something I can do well at. Start another company. Yeah, because it's like, well, I kind of hit my ceiling, I don't know what else to do here. And it's a confidence killer. It's a I don't know what I'm this this this kid that's 10 years younger than me surpassed me already, and he's now doing five million and I'm stuck at 800,000, and like he's been in business for three years, and I I've been in it for 12, and I just like I that's the that's the honest story that I get from guys when that finally let their they let their guard down in coaching, and it's like, cool, great, that's where we're starting. But let me show you like you just need to know the next steps and you need to zoom out of the weeds. I'm not smarter than you as a coach. I just have a non-emotional tie to your company to where I can be like, that's dumb and that's good, and you need to do that. And why are you doing it this way? What if you tried it this way? And it's like getting out of the weeds and in kind of a 30,000-foot view of your company, like, yeah, I can do this. I now I see the next steps. And if we can build that confidence in yourself and the direction you're going, that's that's how you start delaying that gratification. That's how you start saying, you know what, I can do this, and I'm willing to bet on myself to say no to this job because I know if I run this way, I'm gonna get more jobs in the future. But guys are scared to bet on themselves. I'm just gonna say yes because I need this cash, I got to collect it. I don't trust that my future is actually gonna happen. Right. And so I think that's the hard part of this is helping, like sorting through confidence versus not lack of knowledge of next steps versus maybe you should be doing like maybe your brain, your company, and your setup is best for flipping apartment complexes. That's a great industry. Like, let's build that, but let's not say yes to stuff because it's available. Let's say yes to stuff because it fits our vision statement. All right. Have we hammered this hard enough? Let's go back to the beginning. All right, so that's that's number one. Vision, vision and structure is number one. The second part of vision and structure is job roles. Structure. Uh we just talked about vision. We're going into structure. Job roles is next. Job roles is number two. So vision and structure at number one. Trick question. Sorry. I'll set you up better next time. Um the word between structure vision, what is it? Vision. And structure. Yeah, you got it, James. Good job, man. You are on it. Uh it's an ampersand. It's not even a word. All right. So structure, what does that mean? You know, when you sit down and we're like, all right, we start, hey, draw an org chart. Well, so it's just me. So I'm gonna draw a big circle. There, I'm done with my org chart, right? Like, I'm the only person working here. Um the structure that we're talking about is not like tell me all your employees, like, draw out, you know, you've got 18 employees, draw out who what everyone's doing. If you've got 18 employees, that's where we start. Like, let's look at the structure and let's make it a duplicatable and growable structure where you're not the center brain, the main pivot point for the company to where when your brain is removed, the company stops. That's the structure. But as a one-man show, as a three-person operation, as a husband and wife team, what does structure look like and how do we do that? The question that I hear, I'm a one-man show. Why do I need to figure out my structure? And the goal is I need to see the blueprints before I pour a foundation. I need to know the structure I'm building before I can lay a foundation for it. If it's a single ranch home that's gonna go 8,000 square feet, it's just going very far, that's a different foundation that you're pouring than a seven-story duplex that you need an elevator shaft in the middle of, right? Like there is a big difference of foundation depending on the structure that we're building. And so, what structure are we building? What, how are your hires gonna go? Who's doing what? What's your job in a year from now? What's your first hire gonna be doing? What's your second and third hire gonna be doing? Are you hiring labor or are we doing all 1099 subcontractors? Like, there's so many decisions on structure that you in your head you know, like, I mean, I'll probably hire some handyman guys in the next year because it once I get enough work that I can keep them busy and I'll probably have a accountant because I don't know anything about QuickBooks and I don't want to learn, so I'm gonna hire that part out. Like, guys have an idea of what they want, but they don't know why, and the smartest way to do that. And so that's part of what we do in coaching too is like, let's lay out the structure that it should be. Let me show you like every hire to duplication, and let's start building it around your company, right? So we always start. If you're a sole entrepreneur, a solo entrepreneur by yourself, what question I want you to ask? I'm sorry, that's that's getting the job roles. For the structure and your by yourself and your one-man show, I want you to look at all right, what am I doing and what's my first, second, and third hire, and what in three years from now should the structure of this company look like? And we're gonna start heading that direction. Um, this is the last thing we do before we move into number two, which is job roles. Because in job roles, we start defining within that structure who's doing what and who's what you're not doing, right? So structure, vision where we're going, structure who's gonna get there with me, how are we gonna get there? What does it look like on the journey getting there? And then we go into step number two, job roles. Job roles. Got it. Got it. So job roles, James. How do you like coaching a guy, getting into it? Where do you start with someone who comes in one man show? Uh what do you mean job roles? It's me. I do the jobs, like I do everything. Like, what do you do coaching-wise with that person?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I would I would go back to the org chart and say, What's the what's the one-year plan? If there's no hires in that plan, great. If there is, great. Maybe we look at three year, but essentially breaking your job out into those actual jobs and say, okay, these are my roles as the G. Or I'll do it like I'm gonna be the GM, and then I have uh project manager side of me, and I have an admin side of me, and maybe that's how you start. Yeah, and you break those out into three different job roles, and you're still doing all three, but at least on your calendar, maybe you have different colors that are associated with those job roles, and you can map out your calendar to say these are this is how I'm gonna spend my week. And that's where I would start. Yeah. You have to know this is one of those, this is one job role, and this is a completely different job role. And in doing that, you're actually laying out um uh you're playing the game before you actually have to play it. Yeah. You're like, okay, does this work? Oh, this actually didn't work. I really need to think about this. What does the handoff look like between estimator to project manager? And then once they go on site, do they have to hand it back or are we working together on that? How do I do this? Because it's just me right now. But when I have other people involved, what does that actually look like? Because that's where the balls get dropped, and that's where the leads get missed.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and that's where you become not a person hiring a project manager, but you're hiring an assistant because I'm still doing all the jobs, just go and take five hours off my plate by doing this part of my job for me and then come report back to me. And don't ask questions, just do what I say. Yeah. But I think you're 100% right. Like I want to lay out. Well, uh in what you just said, we we look at the next step uh on the operating system, which is core process documentation. Core process documentation is how do we get an intake, desk estimate, put some numbers together, get on site, do a revision, talk to the client, sell them, do a client engagement agreement, get final revisions, convert it to a quote, start pre-construction. All of those steps are such defined interactions that we have, right? So my my GM is looking, you know, doing an in or my head of construction is doing the intake and the desk estimate passive. The project manager is going on site, who's then gonna have the admin file this paperwork. Like there to define your core processes and who's doing what and how it's working, go back up the seven steps. I gotta have where we're going, the org chart of who's doing what, the job roles of it, and then I can define what job roles are doing what. Right. And it this feels very overwhelming. It's not. You sit down and say, okay, I'm gonna journal for the next two weeks and I'm gonna have all my yellow pad on the front page is gonna be everything I'm doing. What am I doing? Is this a project manager job, or is this my head of construction where I'm in the office helping manage it? Is this me as an owner of the company making a decision? Um, you know, I I went to the bank to start a new bank account. That's an owner GM role. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01:

That's I bought a I got a hundred dollar visa gift card to drop off to a client.

SPEAKER_00:

That could be anybody's job. You could do who, but who do you want to do it? We've had and we've had all we've had all of our job roles do that. We've had the GM step in, we've had the project manager step in, and we got to a point where office manager was writing letters and sending thank you notes, and that like that was part of the process. And so when the job was done, the PM hands it to the office manager and says, Hey, is this a is this a client that loves us and we would need some reviews? Is this a client that we screwed stuff up and we need to send them a, hey, we know it was tough. Thanks for bearing with us. You know, we we hope blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, there's different sorts of that sort of communication, but who's doing it and why? Right. And how do we make it duplicatable? Again, it feels like wasted time. You're investing that time into next year, into when you are going to make that hire, when you're in that spot. So planning this stuff out doesn't have to be done for success today. It has to be done for success tomorrow. And until you start laying out these job roles, it doesn't help. Uh or there's no growth. Uh, you can't hire, you can't start going that direction. Um, secondarily, if you are a partnership, employees, spouse, if you've got people on staff already. Um, and when we talk employees, I'm usually meaning non-labor guys. I'm meaning project managers, admin, office, um, that sort of level employee. We really need to start defining the role. So, what I want, if you have, if you're in that, if you got a partnership, I want everyone to lay out what they're doing and who's doing what and what has to be done in the in the company. I want every task on one person's plate. Because what I hear a lot from guys is well, you know, James and I are partners. He does more the admin and office. He's really like he's kind of accountant brain, and I'm more run the cruise and get make sure things happen on site. Okay, that's a good beginning of division of responsibilities. What happens when there's a return and we need a receipt for that? Who's dealing with that? Well, I it kind of depends if James has it or if I have it, and then that's happening. What happens if a crew doesn't get paid? And is James cutting the checks? Well, no, I'm walking around the job site cutting checks. So he's not doing all the financial and the admin, right? No, I mean I'm cutting checks and I'm doing and so it starts getting real muddy the more we dive into who's doing what. So what I want is I don't want a crew to be calling both me and James. I'm in charge of the I'm I'm the project manager here. James is gonna be the head of construction general manager, and I'm in charge of these things. And as soon as one of these things pops into James's plate and he tries to step into it, I got full uh authority to say, hey James, that's that's my job. What why did you feel like you need to step into that? Because I feel like that's on me. Sorry, Clark, I was just trying to help. We, you know, like it seemed like you were overwhelmed. Really good impression of me. Hey guys. Really good impression. Hey guys. Is that better? Your high-pitched voice.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey guys, uh I really feel like you're stepping on my toes.

SPEAKER_00:

But but again, it's if I know what you're doing, what I'm doing, there's no argument or like, oh, I'm stressed because James keeps doing this and it's bothering me. Like, no, there's it's black and white, and there is what we're each doing, and do we need to put this on someone else's plate because it doesn't work. Um also with that, we we have a um we uh we an exercise, I guess you can say, when I have partners that come into this or you know, uh I have uh parents and kids that are running a company together type stuff. What I want is everyone to sit down, write out everything they're doing on a page, task-oriented. I don't want big picture marketing. I'm doing this, like I kind of do this, and I, you know, I do all the marketing for the company. No, I want I post on Instagram twice a week, I manage our Facebook page, and then I come in to um, I do all our Google ads, right? Like define what you're doing task-wise for the company. And then we sit down as a team and say, okay, that should stay on your job. Mark it green. You're gonna stick doing that. Those three things, the marketing, you're great at it, that's gonna be on your plate, turn those green. Ooh, this task, I think you should do with this, but I think by the end of this year, it should be on my plate, or we should hire for that. So make that yellow. You're gonna continue doing it, but it's gonna fall off your plate this year. Game plan is that will not be part of your job January next year. Red is you're gonna stop doing this immediately. Why are you emptying the trash cans? What we have a cleaner that comes in. Well, I just like to have a whatever it is. That's a dumb, dumb example. But like this task. I'm glad you said it. Why are you responding? Why are you in charge of following up on estimates when I'm the one sending the estimates? Right? That type of task, like, well, because Clark, you forget doing it. Well, let's let's use the software and the next client contact. Let's set up when we're gonna follow up with stuff, and that should be on me. So immediately yours is red, and we're gonna move it to mine. It's gonna be green on my list. And so we're gonna build job roles by sorting out everything that we're doing. And should that be on your plate? Should that be on my plate? Should we hire for that at some point? Is that gonna get to my plate once I get totally out of the field? Like laying out keep doing, stop doing, or transition this year out of doing. And green, yellow, red, uh, and and and color coding it will really help you start laying out the job roles within the company. We uh you're doing everything. Like there's stuff that will be added in the future that you're probably not doing, like pay dads or something like that. But everything you're currently doing is a job of somebody and you're wearing multiple hats. So you've got seven hats on. What hat is it are you is that job role going into? Make sense? Totally. Um if you've got employees, your job is to make sure that every employee knows what they are responsible for and what defines success and failure in every task on their job description. It's one one thing that we've missed the mark on um growing growing our companies, is we give someone a job description, and a year later their job is totally morphed into something else, and we haven't revisited it. Um, and so one thing I'd like you to do, especially with a growing company, is every six months, pull out the job description that you were given or that you gave to someone and say, Hey, what am I doing? What am I not doing on this? What is success and failure? Um, clarity is kindness with your employees and letting them know exactly what past fail is allows them to feel comfortable with the job they're doing. So let's lay out their job description. Say, hey, you know what, we kind of hired you for this and you were really good at this. So we moved you kind of this way. Let's let's redefine this job role. Let's set it up, let's set new goals, new targets. You're doing commercial a lot heavier now than you were when we started. And that's a different, different job role. Um, really being being clear on who's doing what as you're bringing in employees. Um, every person in the company has to have that defined job description, including yourself. So it's not like, okay, this is what my project manager is doing, this is what my admin is doing, and I'm gonna handle everything else. I need you to have a written job description so you stop stepping on people's toes because you're the boss and everyone's not gonna say anything to you, but you are the one driving them away and making a bad company culture because you keep stepping on toes. So job descriptions for everybody. We're accountable to it. We hold each other on it. That's it. Those are our first two steps vision and structure, job description. Final thoughts on those, James. Oh man. No. I mean, uh here's the the truth of it. Those two things when you're looking at the seven are things that should and could be done in the next three weeks. Right? Like you can do it by the end of next month. It can be done. Step one and two, check the boxes, we're done. Let's move on to step three. This is just time management and willpower to sit down and do this stuff. And it it can be done quickly. Like the vision and structure could be done in an hour. Like just sit down and do it. The job roles, let's sort it out, let's make sure it's good. Over the next couple weeks, let's write it down and start start separating it into different hats. The more time you spend on it, the better it is. And let's get that defined. Now, we said this last week, but but part of this is we go through the six steps. The seventh step is duplication. But every single step kind of grows in stages. So after we get through job roles, core process documentation, we're doing marketing, we got the HR playbook, we've got financial metrics that we're doing. Uh all of that stuff that we go through, we then loop back. Is our is our vision the same next year? It like have we kind of changed course? Do we need to redefine that vision? Our org charts growing a little bit differently than we thought. So let's let's go with level two on that. What is what does the the structure actually look like now that we're into this a year and a half?

SPEAKER_01:

And did is it a positive change? Do we need to revisit our vision and double down and redo some things, or do we need to edit it because it's going in the right direction and we need to change our vision because of that?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Yeah, exactly. It's we're constantly revisiting that level two. And then level two on on uh on your core processes. There's we there's three levels of core processes. So level two is more product quality. How are we getting the cruise train better? How are we making our product even better? It's the financial metrics of level two on core processes, which we'll we'll cover next week. But it's it's the how are we you looking and capturing every dollar to where we have a dashboard. Board of Finances to make decisions about.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like you don't know what you don't know until you know it. Yeah. And so you have to go back and revisit and look at it from this new lens you have. You have a new perspective.

SPEAKER_00:

That's part of the beauty of the annual retreat that we do in January, because every time you come back, if you we did we don't, we switch it up every year, but if we did the same retreat every single year, it'd be a totally different experience because I've now kind of gone through matured level one. And now I'm going through level two and it's a different experience because I haven't even thought about this stuff because I didn't even realize I was there yet. Uh you know, as you go through the levels, marketing in level two is a lot different because we're getting into paid stuff as opposed to just making sure your Google My Business is set up for level one, right? And so as we go through these, you kind of go all the way through them and you start over. And now let's redefine this and let's go through them. And so it's a constant growth of the company. Coca-Cola's still doing this, right? Like every single year. What are we doing differently? What's our new strategy? How do we change things? Are polar bears played out? Yes. Are we still on are we still rep and Santa? It's every single company that is smart and that's growth and that is successful does this, it has an operating system. Ours is just built around construction, and ours is built around the way that we coach and model that that is a proven system to work. You've got an operating system. It's just, it's not written, it's not defined, and there's probably a large amount of holes in it. So our goal is to team up with you, get it, give you the structure, and then we build together your your body around the skeleton that we give you. Um, so yeah, if you want that, if you want to talk to us, go to ProStruct360.com, go to contractorcuts.com. We've got some openings. We're about to start our foundations program. We do that kind of quarterly where guys can come into foundations. It's kind of getting all of our paperwork getting going. Um and the goal for us on foundations is to get you up into coaching one day when you're ready for it, when we get you to the next level, once you get some of the basics locked in. If you want to get into coaching, let us know that too. If you're thinking about hiring someone right now and you and you're nervous, you don't know how to do it, this is the time before hiring them to get into coaching and let us give you the structure of the paperwork, the processes, make sure that everything in your foundation looks good before going forward.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, because hiring somebody, everybody is burning cash. Yep. Because you bring somebody in and then you build them their room. Yeah. And we want you to have the room set up, the dresser where it needs to be. Everything needs to be set up for somebody to come in and take off because that's going to be affecting your bottom line.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Figuring out how to run a P trap for a sink is what you do when you're getting started. Like, I I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna Google some stuff, I'm gonna look at YouTube, I'm gonna figure out how to do this thing. You can't do that with hiring. That's that's a hundred thousand dollar mistake that you're making by figuring out hiring from uh like I think I know I'm just gonna hire someone and they're gonna help me out. That is gonna cost you six figures. I promise you. We've done it. We uh we we had a board like 64 different times we've hired the wrong person and had to fire them or they've quit or left.

SPEAKER_01:

It's it's always gonna be a gamble.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. But there are ways to make a better bet. Yep. Increasing the odds of success. If we can get you to 90%, this is gonna be successful. There's 10% that that's a gamble. But most guys are going 50-50. I'm gonna flip a coin and I hope it works. And if this guy has good systems in his brain, he can run my company the way he wants to run it. Versus I need to teach this guy our systems and processes, our our the job role that he has to do now and how he's doing it. And that's the successful way. So if you want that, if you're looking at hiring, if you're looking at starting a company, if you've been doing this for two years or 20 years, we pick up where you're at. And so if you want to team up with us, we'd love to, we'd love to have that conversation. I I like to do a 30-minute uh intro call first, hear about your company, tell you about us, see if we're a good fit. Um, and you know, we're not here to talk people into coaching. If it's a right fit for you and it's it's gonna be helpful, let's do it. Um, so hop on a call, proshuck360.com, hit uh contact us, and we'd love to talk. All right. We'll see you guys next week. Bye.

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Clark Turner

Host