The Contractor Operating System Step 3 (Part 1): Every Core Process Needed to Grow Your Company

We outline level one and level two of core process documentation, focusing on a 10-step project flow, weekly management, financial management, and product quality. The aim is to scale beyond owner-only decisions, improve cash flow, and deliver a better client experience.

• Seven-step operating system context and focus on step three
• Ten-step project flow from intake to final invoice
• Desk estimate to on-site estimate handoff and role clarity
• Adapting processes by niche while pressure-testing for scale
• Weekly management rhythm and calendar ownership
• Financial management processes versus financial metrics
• Projections, AR, and cash flow planning to avoid debt shuffling
• Product quality: crew onboarding, benchmarks, and client experience
• Benchmark walks to prevent rework and drive clear choices
• How processes interlock to create consistency and profit

If you want to have one of those intro calls, go to contractorcuts.com or ProStruct360.com and go to contact us

Have a question or an idea to improve the podcast?
Email us at team@prostruct360.com

Want to learn more about our software or coaching?
Visit our website at ProStruct360.com

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Step Three

SPEAKER_01 0:01

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

Why Core Processes Matter

The 10-Step Project Flow Overview

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Welcome to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner. And I'm James McConnell. And thank you for joining the Clark and James show. Ooh. Ooh. Not yet. All right. So today we are covering the beginning of step three of our seven steps of our operating system. This is our deepest, biggest, probably 50 to 80% of the operating system exists in step three in terms of planning, processing, thinking through. So we're going to break this into two different parts, actually, probably three or four podcasts. We're going to talk about the first part of step three, kind of level one and two, of what you should be doing process-wise as a company. If you are a larger company with multi-uh employee, listen to this and see what's what's work what's already in place and see compare it to what you've got. If you are a one-man, two-man band, listen, see what you need to put into place. Today, getting going, covering the seven steps. If this is the first time you've listened, it'd be best to go back a few weeks and listen to the one from January, probably three, three episodes, two episodes ago, where we kind of cover what the operating system is. But our operating system is really seven steps of how a construction company should operate. Everyone's got an operating system in their brain. They, you know, the vision and structure, you know where you're going, the job roles, you know what you're doing kind of. It's just not documented and planned out. Uh step three they're covering today, core process documentation, which is you have core processes, you just don't have them documented or documented well, or there's holes in them. So that's that's number three. Number four goes into marketing and uh client acquisition, then you know, financial metrics, then uh the hiring playbook. So there's there's a bunch of different steps that we're gonna go through throughout this this uh first six months of the year. But today we're gonna deep dive into number three, which is our largest step. Make sense? All right. Um with the core processes, there there's we've kind of built it into three levels. And as we said last week, um you kind of hit the level one in everything, and then go to level two in everything. So level one in structure and vision is you know, where I'm at today, what's my vision for the next couple years, where am I headed? Job roles, what am I doing today? Core processes are we need to cover these two main ones first. When you're coming into coaching, we start here. We gotta you can't do everything all at once. I would love to get financial um maturity happening. That will happen once we get these other things started first. So as we grow, just follow along. It's bite-sized pieces. Um on the let me pull it up on here. The core processes. There it is. All right. Um, so core process documentation. Let's talk about the the three different levels. Level number one, where you have to start, is what we call our 10-step project management process. This is the process. A doozy. This is a doozy. Honestly, like this process was the core of our retreats for the first five or six years. Um, all we would do is get guys into the 10 steps of what that means. So I'm gonna deep dive into this one a little bit more next week, uh, where we're gonna have a really deep dive into each each stage. Um, but today, kind of the bigger picture of the 10-step process is it is intake of a client all the way through the final invoice. And so in the 10-step, it is using your job descriptions and who is doing what where. Um, and so, like, a great example. James is a project manager, I'm the head of construction or general manager of the company. When the we have an office manager, and the office manager does the intake and they do it this way every single time. They cue it up in the software and pass it to me. And I'm gonna do the desk estimate. What that means, and we'll we'll dive deep into that. But a desk estimate is putting together the numbers and pricing before we go out on site. It's prepping, it's getting our first date done. So when we're on site, it's the second date. It's really impressing your client at the same time, getting saving your time and effort to really be uh succinct and and and utilizing it well to where I'm spending 30 minutes putting this together, and I'm on site and I'm on site for an hour instead of two hours. I'm not taking notes. We're not gonna deep dive into desk estimate today, but I'm doing the desk estimate. Then I pass it to James, who's gonna now be doing the side estimate. And this is where that transition happens, and James is now the point of contact, and this is how we do that. Now that James is doing the on-site, he's doing revisions, and it comes back where we're sitting down and I'm approving those revisions, and he's talking with the client. Every step from when they call us until they sign the contract, and then we pick out uh selections and we plan out the Gantt chart, then we do pre-construction, then we do construction, then this is how we run the cruise, and this is how we onboard the right crews, and uh this is how the post-construction happens, this is how we close out a job, this is how we do follow-ups. All of that stuff is choreographed and written out. Now you're doing that, right? Like everyone does that. And uh James, yes, James, hi, go ahead. From 10 years ago, how much do you think the first time that we documented our 10 steps, in your opinion, how much do you think it's morphed from then till now in terms of our growth? When it was just the three of us, they you know, at the very beginning to to where it's at now, what do you think the the the change has been? Where do you think we've got it tighter, or do you feel like it's very similar to our original 10 steps? It's definitely not very similar.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

I feel like the natural progression of things because we didn't have ProStr to give us a template. Yeah. It was very much uh here's how we do it. And the first iteration was what could be better? Yeah. That was uh that was like the first iteration, and it's a constant also you're kind of doing that. We should write that down. Yeah. And uh maybe we should uh like you get to a certain section, you're like, there's a lot more detail in here. Maybe we need to break this down instead of it being like one ABC, there's one A, one, A two, A three, yeah. Like it just you start to identify the areas that needs more clarity, needs more steps. Yeah. And but it's also like uh you also don't want it to be something that's not consumable for your for the people that you're hiring. Yep. And so it like free versing a journal entry about how to do a certain thing is great, but you need to uh what's the word? Refine. Refine, but what is it when you're like squeezing olives into olive oil?

SPEAKER_00 7:33

Pressure test? I don't know what I've never squeezed olives into olive.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

You gotta take this whole thing and you're just like and you get the juice out.

Desk Estimate To On-Site Handoff

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like get it defined down to where it's not just like if this then that, but you the idea of the theory behind it is what you're teaching guys. Right?

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Like it's not it's the That's not part of the process. That's the teaching behind the the curtain, which can also be written out, yeah, but it's not something that you can just say, hey, read this book.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Yep. Yeah. It's let me walk you through it, let me show you the why, let me explain how this like there's some in the weed stuff, like they will assign that to you in the software, and at that point you're gonna get a text message notification that the job's on your plate. Then you need to go and open up the job and see what's happening. Like, yeah, there's certain in the weeds, like step one, step two, step three stuff that's there, but then there's also like the bigger picture of the why to understand, like, you know, sometimes we skip desk estimates, and it's not that we skip it, we just don't we skip the meeting with the client because of X and Y and Z. And so it's more of the theory combined with like this is what you're responsible for when it's the balls in in your on your plate.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

I think it makes the biggest changes occur when as far as like how it started for us, the biggest changes occur when like something like a whole new header is added to the thing, like a desk estimate. Yeah. I remember that being kind of one of the bigger things that shifted and it changed it changed a lot of dynamics. Yeah. And so when something on the ripple, yeah, and like you do it a couple times and you're like, okay, yeah, this works really well. I think we are gonna stick with this, but here's where it's clunky. Yeah. And so I think it's changed. I mean, it probably changes every year, like to at least a small degree, but some changes are a lot more uh turbulent than others because there's just like so many. Once you open this door, there's like all these other learning curves that you need to contend with.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah. Uh a couple things about the 10-step. Number one, everything we do in coaching is not because we know better, it's because we've learned the hard way. And so, like with the 10-step, it's we've written all of this stuff and we give you and coach you on this stuff because if I could rewind in 2006 when I started the construction company and I had ProStr, I would, I would, I'm, I would be an absolute like game changer for the company. And so we've built it that way of like we've spent 15 years working on the 10 step and we're still tinkering with it. Fast forward, figuring out on your own, and take ours and then take it from there and keep tinkering with it. Yeah. Uh the second thing about it is when you when you start coaching, I take you through like you're a project manager for us. And I say, here's our core values, and here's our 10 step. You can cut and paste it into your company, but what I want you to do is take it and let's work through how you do this. What about this? And how is that? Okay, so you got that process. That's great. That's great for now. Once you hire someone, though, that's got to change. And let me tell you why. And so it's building your own 10-step with ours as make sure that there's a skeleton there of everything that needs to be covered. But, you know, my a trades company that I coach is a totally different 10-step than the commercial company versus a home builder versus a home renovation company. They they're all different processes and different emphasis, right? Like the pre-construction that is needed on a$10 million commercial ground up build is a lot different than the pre-construction or HVAC company right before we get in there and get done. Like those are two totally different pre-constructions.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

And for commercial, too, and I don't, I don't know this, I'm not like a commercial guy, but it feels like desk estimate is kind of the run of the mill. Like that's not a new thing. They don't do a lot of on-site. It's, hey, we're bidding on a project. Yeah, here's the drawings, here's the specs. You've got 10 guys, and they have a month to put together their numbers.

Iterating Processes Without Bloat

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, the hard part on the on the commercial side is do I spend 30 hours on this bid and I gotta do 10 of them before I land when that's 300 hours. How much can I sacrifice and get like, how do I do it? And again, that's a whole nother podcast about that. But yeah, it's those those things change depending on your target demographic, what your services that you're offering, what you're actually selling. All of that still, these 10 steps are you're still every company is doing it in terms of construction. Um, you know, how you're doing an intake, how you're building estimates, how you're doing revisions, how we do change orders, how we like all of this stuff we're all doing. We need to here's kind of the standard that we suggest for your style of company. And now let's take that and let's mold it. And I don't care if you change every step. What I'm gonna do is pressure test it on does this work at scale? If you hire someone, can you train them on this? Or is it like, oh, that that part of your step is because you make a decision in your brain, and I can't train someone to make the right brain decision. I can give them some like guidance, but like you can't have a step. Well, just pass it to me and I'll decide. That doesn't work. That's how guys run companies. Like, you do all the all the crap work and the important decisions, loop me in and I'm gonna make all those decisions. Yeah, that works with one, maybe two hires. You can't scale, you're still brain dependent on on that owner. So we need to decrease your brain necessity in the company to increase the revenue. And so these processes allow you to do that. All of them. The 10 step is where we start, though, because it's kind of the products.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Not just the 10 steps, but your vision statement does that. Your core values do that, they book they're the filter of how we make decisions. Yep. And you might get to a point where you're with somebody that you're expecting to be the guy, and you're like, they're not getting the vision, they're not getting the core processes or the the the uh core values, and they're really great, but they're just not gonna do, they're just not gonna do that thing. Yep. And so you don't need to rework your processes, you need to reenvision what this person is and what their place in your company is instead of tearing down the woodshed and building a new one.

Adapting The 10-Step To Your Niche

Scaling Beyond Owner Decisions

SPEAKER_00 13:49

You gotta go back to step two, job descriptions. Yeah. What are you what are you doing? Like, why are you doing that? Like, why is uh on my job descriptions in step two, everything that you do ends with, and then bring it to Clark. And then have ask Clark. And like that's that's not a job description. That's you're my assistant, you're not a project manager, right? And it's not really a process. No, no, it's it it the job description at that point is you're my assistant. I'm gonna have you do all the work that it doesn't take a brain to do, and you're really not gonna enjoy this job six months from now because you have no autonomy, you have no free thought here, you have no value that you're building, all you're doing is eliminating 20 hours of work a week, and I'm paying you for 40. Right. And so, and it's really causing me 30 hours of more work because I'm now babysitting you, fixing your issues, dealing with how to manage you, trying to have these hard conversations because I don't have processes like a 10-step in place or my core values, which is part of the 10-step process. Um, so yeah, that's the importance of this. And that's kind of why if you've listened to the last few episodes, why it's so important to kind of go down these seven one at a time and in order, because they build on each other and there's a reason for the order. It's not just, I didn't just Google and look at ChatGPT. What's an operating like this is built out of how you how it works inside of a company in a construction company as it grows. You've got to do it in these orders. So 10-step is the number one place we start. If you come in to coaching within your during the initial onboarding phase of coming into coaching, we are covering this, going over it. And then if you're in our executive program, you will get the 10-step. We build it out because when you make your first hire, one of our staff, me, James, someone, your coach at the time when you're there, there's an option to bring us out and we train your first project manager with you. And I spend two days onboarding training on the core values in the 10-step. This is your job. We make it really, really nice. And and we set the stage where it looks very professional to where your new employee walks away like, oh man, they're they're a legit company. Well, behind the curtain, it's pretty messy. Well, I get it. That's how all these companies go with that first, second, third hire. But we want to lay this out and be able to translate it to that first hire and have a line of demarcation once they get started of this is now your responsibility. Do you agree to this? Now I can hold you accountable to it. So that's what the 10th step is, and that's kind of where we start and a large amount of what we're doing. Level one, the second process that we start with as well is weekly management. Now that's not a process, it's kind of a group of processes. But inside of weekly management, uh, we've kind of identified four main ones. We got the calendar management, we've got time spend and capacity identifiers. That's that's a more accountability of where is time's being spent, how are we identifying your capacity and making you more important for per hour? Um, software management, uh, and then client crew and office communication. That's part of weekly management. Now, client crew and uh office communication, that is in the 10-step, but that's also a process that I want weekly on your calendar of how we're doing this. And again, calendar management being the first one of the weekly management ones is kind of the place you start where we give you Monday through Friday, this is the rhythm that your week should look like as a project manager or as an owner of this company. We have a very defined Mondays on sites, Tuesdays in the office, Wednesday, Thursday open days, Fridays, half day. Like we've got it defined of what you need to do each day. Then we take and say, okay, this is why we do it this way. How does your week work? What's the ideal week for you? Well, I really want my office days on Fridays. I really love office days on Mondays. I really like the I I walk every single job on Mondays. Great. So that's a field day. That's perfect. What about Tuesday? Tuesdays, I'm doing extra like we need to figure out the rhythm of your week. And it's hardest to do this when you're in the field and you're trying to transition out because you get keep getting called back in. So, what I do with guys, if you're a laborer trying to transition out of the field and into project management, where you're actually a general contractor, not just a handyman or a trim guy or a plumber, but you're actually project managing as a general contractor. The first step I do with your calendar is say, listen, I want you to own one day, and it's gonna be your office day. And that day is when you're gonna tell clients you're booked, and before you start a new job, you say, hey, just so you know, Tuesdays I'm not here, or Fridays is often easier. I I've I've got office days, so I can get my invoices together, I can get my crews paid, I can do all this stuff. And I'm taking a day off and I'm time blocking every minute that day. Own one day on your calendar. And what we want to do is start transitioning. And again, this is another podcast on how to transition out of the field, like in the weeds, the transition of we got to find a big job and we're gonna start subbing out to one job, and I'm still waiting tables. If you listen to old podcasts, I'm waiting tables, exchange my time for money, I'm swinging the hammer, but then we start cherry picking stuff that I'm doing and subbing the rest of it out. And it's about cash flow at that point and how much I need to make and all that transition. All that being said, we start owning Monday through Friday. And so, what does Monday look like? What does Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday look like? I'm still in the field some. I can't come fully into project management until I get more revenue coming through here. So Wednesdays and Thursdays are my workdays. So I'm gonna book myself as a sub on Wednesdays and Thursdays. I'll be out doing the work then. But Mondays, I'm walking job sites and doing estimates. Tuesday, I'm getting my software perfect. I'm sending out invoices, I'm getting prepping payments for the guys. Wednesday, Thursday, I'm working, Friday. Anyways, I'm going deep and I'm running fast on it, but all this to say, kind of zooming out, calendar management is part of level one processes. Because until you own your time, everybody else is gonna own your time for you. If I don't plan what I'm doing, my crew's gonna plan, my wife's gonna plan, my client's gonna plan, but you know, my children are planning. Like, hey, I need to be dropped off. Well, I can't. Let's figure out how you're gonna do that. Like, if I don't have a plan for my time, other people will plan it for me. And so owning your calendar is the only way to be able to work on all of this stuff. So the calendar management is number one, software management, how am I doing that weekly, client crew, office communication? That's all stuff that we have to really plan out when we're looking at weekly management. Uh sorry, I kind of di tribe or monologues on that one. It's okay. Um it was really, it was really well spoken. Uh we're James and I are gonna do a deep dive probably next week into calendar management, maybe in two weeks. I think next week I'll do my 10th step. But we're gonna deep dive into how to manage a calendar. James is probably one of the James has inspired and gotten me better at at calendar management. Um it's it's it's it's been something that's always been a struggle for me. And you kind of set the the bar when we were running the companies uh as to how to do it. And I was like, oh yes, yes, yes, yes. And so my calendar now looks like how I've always wanted it, where literally every hour of the week is blocked. Um, and so getting there is not overnight. And so we're gonna talk about that in a couple weeks of how to manage your calendar, how to go through these weekly management processes and how to get going on them. Um, you're not gonna master them day one, but we need to start taking incremental steps to growth on weekly management and your calendar. All right, so that's in the core process, those are the first two. There's eight total core processes that that we're gonna cover. Like I said, this is part one. We're gonna do a couple week deep dives into these, and then we're gonna do part two. So to finish out part one, uh, part one, we're covering level one and level two. Level one was the 10th step in the weekly management. Let's get into level two. Level two are both very important processes that you're doing now, but we don't have them defined. I care about them, they're just as important as anything else, but you have To do the 10 step and the weekly to be able to build time and space to work on these next two, which are level two. So level two, the first one is financial management. Processes for financial management that's credit accounts, cash flow management, that's QuickBooks, receipts, accounts payable management, and that's projecting and planning cash flow and financials for the company. You say, Clark, I thought you had a level in the seven steps that's about finances. We do. It's called financial metrics. The difference of financial management processes and a full step of financial metrics is that the processes are what an accountant does in a company. Financial metrics is what a CFO does in a company. Right. So the processes of gathering, looking at, and having the data pooled and organized are core processes that we have to build. Later on, once we get that and once we get through these processes and we get our um our marketing going, we get into financial metrics, which is I am looking and assessing this data to make decisions day in and day out in this company. I'm saying no to opportunities because the financial data says I should. I'm saying yes to this hire because the financial data says I says I should. So that's it, it gets confusing when there's financial management in the core processes and then a full step of the operating system's financial metrics, but that's kind of the difference. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 23:27

The the financial uh the management, the financial management, it's vetting the numbers, it's making sure that you're you're reconciling everything and that the numbers that you need to look at to make decisions are accurate. Because if you don't have if you're not managing it, the CFO can't do anything with the numbers. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

That's right. It's a um it's also how I'm teaching my office manager. I'm teaching my project managers of how we do receipts, right? There's a lot of like the processes in my head are this is everything I'm gonna teach someone else to where I can step out and all of this stuff's happening, it's good. Now, when I step out, I still need to be looking at the financial metrics. As the owner of the company, and I'm doing a one to twice a month board meeting with my general manager. That's financial metrics. That's I'm looking at the numbers. What do you say? Like, this is telling us what's happening in the company, what's coming.

Level One: Weekly Management Rhythm

SPEAKER_01 24:27

It's like, it's like, and you've said this before a lot on the retreat, but it's a lot like you didn't say this part. It's a lot like using Chat GPT. You need to have a very quick bullshit meter on what is like you put all this stuff in a chat and it s sends you something out that's like construction based, and you're looking at like that's not right because the yes, this should look different if this is true. When you are doing the financial metrics, you need that is where you need that bullshit meter of these numbers don't make sense. This doesn't add up. This doesn't add up. Yeah. Hey, when you did this, uh tell me how you got there. Like you need to be able to have that level of knowledge not to do the like you you don't want to be the accountant anymore, but you need the knowledge of being in that seat to know when there's red flags.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

This is that that's a great point. The the financial metrics and this. Both of those. And I think what you're referring to on the retreat was I really define the question: do I need to hire, can I hire an accountant? Um, and the financial metrics is what you and your company and the knowledge that you have to have. Now, an accountant is gonna help pool that stuff together. They might start helping like uh identify taxes, doing reconciliations at the end of the month to see what's missing or what's wrong with the data. Um, they they're gonna do your taxes at the end of the year. Um, they might even help you pull together some reports for the the metrics. But what you have to know is you need to know what I'm looking at and what the data means, because they can't be those eyes for you. They can't be that brain because then someone else is making all the decisions for your company, and that's how you crash a company. So my accountant is paid to crunch numbers, not to be my CFO. And so to be a CFO, you have to understand the numbers and where they're coming from. So, what that means, like my example was like, I don't need to know exactly how an electrician runs a full panel and win the 220 versus 110 and all like I don't have to know the depths of that, but I do know as a contractor what a panel should look like, how we pass inspection, the distance of that an outlet needs to be from a water source, the height of like all of the basics of electrical. So I can walk through and say, Yeah, that looks good, electrician, that looks good, electrician. Where is the light switch for this? Because when I walk in the room, like, and I can correct my electrician, even though he's more knowledgeable about electrical, because I'm like, hey, actually, this needs to be a three-way because I have a vision for where we're going. The electrician's paid to put the electrical in place for me. Yeah. That makes sense. Is that confusing? No. But but again, most guys are like, I'm not good at QuickBooks, so I'm gonna hire an accountant. And that's like saying, I don't know anything about electrical, so I'm gonna hire an electrician, and I hope the house looks good at the end. You can't run, you will never be successful as a contractor running that way. You have to have some knowledge and understanding of what the final product of the electrical plan looks like. Um, you don't have to know exactly what level gauge wire you're gonna need. That's helpful. And you know, it the fact that I know QuickBooks really, really well is super helpful when I'm dealing with my accountant. Like when I'm coaching guys and they're on the executive level, I get in a meeting with them and their accountant. I'm like asking questions. It's like, wait, why what are you what are you asking about? The more I know about electrical, the better I am as a contractor. That doesn't mean I have to be a master electrician. It helps. It'd be it's super helpful, but there's not that requirement. I can outsource the master electrician. I just need to know the master plan and what the results need to look like. So that's the financial management. Uh, and and again, we got projections, how like how our project managers build out monthly and weekly what I'm gonna be invoicing and why. There's there's a depth to that, not just for our cash flow management, but also my project manager thinking, okay, I committed to invoice$180,000 this month. Week one, I'm gonna do 10, and now I'm going to week two and I'm projecting another 10. So I'm halfway through the month and I've invoiced 20, but I promise you 180. There's a flag here, and we're not at the end of the month yet. So this, like that sort of view, a lot of these things are kind of three birds with one stone of I'm understanding the projections, or I'm I can see my uh accounts receivable and I'm using my accounts receivable, my in my projections invoice this week, and my bank account, those three things combined are telling me my cash flow right now. And so, how are we hunting this money down? Who do we need to talk to? How like all of that stuff needs to be planned ahead of time, not oh crap, I looked at the bank account, we got 12 bucks left. What are we gonna do? Who can we invoice? Right? And that's that is the wrong way to do it, and that's how you don't grow. That's And that's how you end up robbing Peter to pay Paul. That's how you end up.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

So we could invoice this, but that's a hard stop.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

I feel like we can name this podcast Don't Rob Peter to Pay Paul. And if we can just get that point across, you're gonna be halfway there. Yeah. And getting going.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

It is a big battle for a lot of folks.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

All right, so that's number number one or level two. I got so many different numbers and letters. I know. I know. So the the Maybe do animal names for the level numbers. Okay, so we got tadpole. We've got frog, we got egg, tadpole, and frog. Uh level two, tadpole level, financial management is number one. And the second one, again, these aren't in no particular order because they both need to be worked on, is product quality, right? And so that means crew vendor onboarding, crew vendor management, crew vendor development. How do I make the product that my client's receiving better? We coach about two products that you're delivering. You've got the end result of what you're giving them, and you've got the experience of receiving it. Those are two separate products, and that's what we're building here. Most guys think it's the end result. Your kitchen looks good. Why are you complaining? Why this Karen got an amazing immaculate kitchen and still won't pay me. Because the second product was terrible. You never showed up on time. There was weeks at a time that you didn't that you weren't there. You never sent her an email communicating anything happening. They had to hire the electrician. Like the process of getting that product was terrible. And so you're not selling them what they're actually buying, which is that process.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Yeah. If they if the product, if the final, if the final product was awesome, but they were still upset because of the experience. I guarantee you, one of the things that that client is gonna say is I just felt like I was project managing.

Owning Your Calendar To Grow

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Yeah. Yep. They took the wheel, they went moved from passenger to driver and pushed you in the backseat. And now you're part of this, but they're driving the whole thing, right? That that product experience.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

When I hear someone gearing up to say that, it goes slow for me. It's like, I just feel like I'm project manager. I'm like, oh, you said project manager. This is construction 101.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

You know, I was I was on chat GPT the other day, and it says, like, to build a Gantt chart, you should do it this way. Oh. I'm gonna really look into that. Oh, let me take notes. This is my first time ever running a project.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

You know, when I was running piping back in 2020.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

I was in the pipe fitters uh we did it different back in 1998. And when I was running it, okay. Anyways, so there's two products during product quality. We've got the the the product we're delivering. Whether if you're a tradesman, it's the your crews and your technicians that are out there doing the work. Um, and then we the next one down is client expectation setting, managing, and achieving. That's the other product. How is my client experience this? Like James said a second ago, like a 95% perfect kitchen and a 100% client experience gets you referral every time. A 100% perfect kitchen with a 95% experience, the client might think twice about referring you out. Yeah, they were good. I really liked the kitchen's beautiful, but I had to kind of babysit James the whole time. I don't want to put, I don't want my neighbors to have to deal with that. I don't want my mom. James, take that out of your mouth. James, don't touch that. So that's that's those two product qualities. In the middle one, too, of product qualities, job site setup, calibration walks, and management. Again, that's kind of the molding between client management and crew and product uh management is the job site setup, calibration walks, managing kind of the coordination, the the orchestra and and choreography of how the project actually is going. The 10-step really kind of happening there.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Can I talk about benchmarks or is that too deep? No, let's do it. Let's go. So for product quality, I think one of the things that um not only is going to help with your quality, but is going to save your butt on come go back work. I have a great example. Floor flooring is uh it should be so easy to make sure that we are all golden before we put floors down. One of the things that we do for flooring, we've everything's been demoed out, we know there's gonna be some prep work. One of the benchmark walks is after we do the demo, we do the the floor prep, client comes and walks with us, making sure there's nothing because everyone has different sensitivity. Like you could be walking around upstairs, downstairs, whatever, and they feel oh, there's this doesn't this feels uneven here. Okay, great. We could still do some self-leveling. But you also have your flooring guy out there with the 12-foot, you know, uh level and making sure that everything is level. You can show the client, hey, over here, over here, this is all level. Do you feel anything underfoot? No, great. Then when you lay the floors down, even if there is an issue, you've actually walked it with the client, they also blessed it, and there's actually a discussion that can be had there versus In a change order that could be happening.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

In a change order. We need to pour some self-leveling concrete if you want this perfect. Uh it this is an entry standard fine, but if you want it perfect, like you you be the call. And so that way, I I might have a$4,000 change order and they're extremely happy that we're making it that way. Vers well, you're talking about you don't do that, you get to the end, they're like, I don't like these floors, I need you to rip them up and redo it. And now I'm paying for the self-leveling. There's a bump here in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Well, how could we have caught that in the beginning? Well, we could have walked, same with like tile and the walls not being square, and then once everything's done, the right side is bumped out a half inch beyond the left side. Yep. You once you have to make that call at that point in the project, you're talking about thousands of dollars versus hey, we're at the framing stage, we framed this out. It looks like this, we should have checked the wall for square at demo. Yep. And now we're at the framing stage. We can still adjust things. We can still, it'll take a day, but we can take this down, reframe this wall a little bit, and make it all square. But if you don't have a benchmark walk where you are putting it in your calendar, you're putting it in your scope. Hey, we're gonna verify that this is ready for us to move on to the next phase. Yeah, you're opening yourself up for a lot of cash that you're gonna have to eat.

Level Two: Financial Management

SPEAKER_00 35:54

And and bigger picture, what James is talking about, is when we build an estimate, he thinks through, you know, we we kind of have these lines of we need a signature here so we can put something on top of it, right? Like framing, flooring, right before we put the flooring in, if we did new subfloors or any sort of demo, even pulling carpet off and then putting hardwood down. I need them to look at it post-carpet ripoff because it feels different and and stuff like that. Of we need to have these benchmark walks. So he puts a line item in the scope at zero dollars. I'm not charging you to do this, but I want you to know we're going to lose a day or two to make sure that this looks good. And so we're gonna put it on our Gantt chart. We're doing a benchmark walk on Friday. No crews are gonna be out there.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Yeah. And the client needs to be with you. Yes. It's part of, it's a, it's they're part of this experience. It's another buy-in for the client. Like, hey, this isn't just us executing. We need you to be part of that process, making sure that when we're about to move on to the next phase, we're on the same page that this is good.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Yes, the whole goal of what we're preaching and coaching on is I am your advocate and guide to receive this renovation the right way. It's not you're buying a kitchen from me. You're not buying an addition from me. You are hiring me to guide you through the addition process, guide you through the renovation. So, hey, like you would do this with your wife. Like, hey, come look at this. What do you think about this? Are we like, should we fix this or should we keep going? Right. And so why don't we do that with clients? Why isn't there this benchmark walk where it's like, hey, time out, everyone come in here. I think the floors look good. We got a little dip in that corner, but you're never gonna see that. We can fix that, but we're talking a couple grand. Are you fine with it? Do you want us to level it? Like, what's your you make the call? This is your house, this is your project. What do you want? I really thought that that'd be covered. Well, it's it's not. Like, we didn't have any self-leveling in the scope. Um, and this is why we pause here to do this is to make sure that it's the that a 40-year-old house that has flaws in it, you're okay with us building on top of, right? And so you start, and and it's an easy conversation now versus fast forward into the job like this, looks bad, your flooring stinks, you owe me money back, rip this flooring out and fix it. And now it's instead of me getting four grand and making the client happy, I'm now spending eight grand and the client's still giving me a bad review. So, again, benchmark walks is that middle one. So, like the crew vendor management, how to develop them, how to grow them, how to onboard them into your company, how we manage the job site, job site setup, calibration walks, benchmarks, management, and then the client experience, how we're setting their expectations, the client engagement agreement. Again, that's part of the 10-step, but how do we refine that? How do we manage and achieve the client's happiness? Um, again, all of these processes interweave, right? Like the weekly management of how I'm managing the software. And once a week, I sit down and I ask my three questions about the software and send a communication to the client. That's part of my 10-step and my weekly, but that's also part of product quality. And it's also part of financial management because I'm looking at my projections. Like there, there's all of these weave together, but as you start growing and and executing well the first couple, then let's add the other ones in. You're still doing it, but let's refine the next level. So that's that's kind of the first phase one and two. That's our tadpole and frog of the um kind of of core process documentation. We're gonna we're gonna do some deep dives over the next few weeks into those. Uh, and then we're gonna come circle back after we after we cover those and we're gonna go into level three of core process documentation. We're gonna hit the high notes. That's when we're going into hiring. Level three is four different processes. Once you have an employee or when you're getting ready to have an employee, what do we need to process out to bring someone into this? Not not a not a laborer, not a worker. Not I'm hiring a handyman because I have so much work I can just keep him busy, but I'm hiring a project manager, I'm hiring my first office manager, I'm hiring to bring somebody in here as an estimator, I'm hiring my product quality guy. Like there's a bunch of different hires that you can make as you grow. What needs to be in place for each of those? And how do we do that? How do we prep for that to where we excel in hiring and growth of the company and bringing someone in that's gonna be a long-term solution and help us grow this company to the next level? So that's gonna be in a few weeks. We'll cover that level. Um, but over the next few weeks, we'll get kind of level one and level two deep dives into doing this stuff. If you want to talk about this and want to have a free conversation, I'll do, I love to do like a free one hour, let's do a consulting call. Um, it's not a sales call for me. I want to get to know you. I want you to get to know us. I want to kind of show our value. And if I can help you on a free call and in the next few months, what we talk about in one hour gets you momentum, then you're gonna say, hey, I'm making enough money that return on investment, I want to come into coaching. Right. That's kind of my goal. Like it come use me for a free session. If it gets you going in the right direction, awesome. Talk to James for an hour. And if it gets you going in the right direction, let's join up. If it's not valuable, cool, we'll put our money where our mouth is. So if you want to have one of those intro calls, go to contractorcest.com or ProStruct360.com and go to contact us. We'd love to love to have that conversation, help you out for free. If you want to get into coaching, let me know. I like to start with that conversation either way. Um, some guys aren't ready for coaching, and I do not want you in here unless it's it's a really good fit for both sides. So let's have that conversation. Let's start the like it's not a commitment to have a conversation. It's more getting more information of when the best time to make a decision to partner up with us is. So we'd love to talk to you guys about that. Love to uh have a Zoom with you and hear about your company. All right. We'll talk to you guys next week. Bye. See ya.