Breaking Down the Hidden Ceiling Killing Contractor Growth

In this episode of Contractor Cuts, Clark and Grant break down the three hidden ceilings that stop contractors from growing — and exactly how to break through each one.

Whether you're:

• still swinging a hammer
• stuck in the “hybrid GC” phase
• or running everything but can’t scale past it

…this episode will show you what’s really holding you back.

They cover:

• why most contractors are underpricing their work from day one
• the dangerous middle stage where you can’t let go of the tools
• how to stop “grabbing labor” and start buying your time back
• why 90% of contractors never break $2M in revenue
• how being the bottleneck quietly kills your company’s growth
• the simple shift from reactive → proactive that unlocks scale

If you feel stuck, overwhelmed, or like your business depends entirely on you… this is the episode you need.

If you're doing $350K–$2M a year in revenue, coaching pays for itself. A 5% efficiency gain alone covers the cost — and that's before we even talk about growth. 

We help contractors stop losing money on crews, change orders, and inefficient operations — and start scaling. 

Ready to have the conversation? Set up a free call at contractorcuts.com

Contractor Cuts is a weekly podcast for contractors who want to build a better business — covering sales, operations, hiring, finances, and everything in between.

🔗 Book a free call: contractorcuts.com 

🔗 ProStruct360 software + coaching: prostruct360.com

Transcript

Welcome And The Growth Ceilings

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good, the bad, and the ugly of growing a successful contracting company. Welcome to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner, and today I'm here with Mr. Grant Dubel. Welcome back to the podcast, Grant. Thanks, Clark. So today we are breaking down the what we've titled the hidden ceiling killing contractor growth. And we've kind of narrowed down to kind of different phases of where you're at in your construction company and when and how you hit ceilings. So we're going to dive into that. We're going to kind of start at the beginning. If you're a guy out there swinging a hammer, doing the work yourself, kind of each phase from there all the way up to, hey, I'm stepping out of the truck, but I keep hitting a ceiling, getting back into it. What what's going on? And then the last phase is now I'm fully out, I'm fully project manager, full true general contractor, but I'm hitting a ceiling here and I can't get to the next level. So each of those three levels we're going to cover today and what you should be doing to break through that ceiling. So let's dive in. First first level, first one we're going to be talking about is I am out working, I am swinging a hammer. I'm trying to figure out how to get out of the truck. And again, there's kind of two levels of this. One starts when we're assessing guys, is going to be looking at how they price their jobs. Because uh until you can really find margin in your projects, you can't get out of that position. Um you've worked yourself into a job. What how do you kind of, if someone was looking at like, how do I get started starting out? I've just got out of college and I'm swinging a hammer for my dad's company, uh, I'm working for a couple of GCs, I'm I'm doing the work myself. How do they start building in the margin that where it goes from a job to a company?

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Um so it's funny, I don't know if this is so much of what we originally said, but um it comes down to a budget at that point, right? So when you're building the budget out and you're putting the estimate together, um at that starting point at the outset, if you don't build enough in, you know, you're you're on the wrong foot already. And so if there's money made into it and there's money enough in the job, you're able to go and do the thing that you plan to do.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Um and the the part that I was saying is slightly out there is like there's nothing wrong with realizing that you didn't build enough in and then still being able to recover from there at a point. For sure. You know, so um there's a there's a time that it happens and then you can easily kind of move past that too quickly.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Um, in the sense of like, I've only got X amount of money in and now I have to go do it myself because I didn't plan in advance to have enough budget for it.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Um but again, you know, it's gonna come around to the same kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah, it's it's the well, I can do that for a thousand bucks, so pay me a thousand bucks. Well, if you're trying to grow a company to where you bring in help and other guys doing it and subcontractors, they're gonna need a thousand bucks to do that thing. And so if you bid it at a thousand dollars, because that's what I need to do the work, and then I go sub it out for a thousand, I've got zero dollars built into this company. You uh all you're done is create yourself a job, not a company.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Yeah, exactly.

Markup Versus Margin On Small Jobs

Ceiling Two The Hybrid GC Trap

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Um, so you know, step one, again, this is basics, but if you're starting out, if you're on that level, look kind of level one, where you're out there selling your time, going out, bidding something, doing the work yourself. The first thing we need you to do is get on a on a software, stop writing it on on paper, stop pen and pencil, stop texting and emailing your quotes just in the in the body of the email or through text. Get into ProStruck 360, get on our basic$89 a month software, but get in there and start building out an estimate and put in the labor what you would do it for, and then put a 30% markup on that. Um, that's a great place to start. Uh there's a lot of debate on how much profitability you need. I I mean we aim for 35 to 40, but start somewhere. Uh some guys are like, well, I can't charge that much. Well, you can, just do it. And and the goal is not to land every job. The the goal is to land the eight out of 10 people that we want to be working with. And if I can land 80% of my jobs, the 20 that I lost because my price was a little higher is well made up for in the profit for the first 80. For sure. For sure. Uh so step one, again, we're gonna this is a bit simplistic on this first one, but it's how are you pricing your jobs? Can you pay someone to do the work, even though you're doing it yourself, and have margin built in, 30 to 40 percent on top of that, sometimes more than that if it's a small project, you know, but anything under five grand that you're bidding for yourself, I'd put 50 percent profit on it above and beyond of profit margin, not just markup. Um so what that means, uh and the difference of margin and markup is if I'm bidding at$1,000, a 50% margin means I gotta bid it at$2,000 because at the end of the year, I've invoiced$2,000 and I've made 50% on that, because a thousand bucks was profit. So on the small jobs, we want to do it that we don't want to mark up. So it's not I'm doing it for$1,000 markup, 50%. That's$500, so it's$1,500. I want a margin. So at the end of the year, when I say, hey, I I'm I'm making 50% on all these small jobs, it's you're you actually are at the end of the day. Um so that's that's kind of getting in the details, but but level one ceiling that that I see with guys um coming in. Next is once you get to that spot, you figured it out, hey, I've kind of got some margin. I think I'm starting to build my company. The next ceiling we see guys hit is when they're running the job and they're trying to get out of the truck and start being a true GC and start subbing out the jobs. Now, this is where a lot of guys live. This is where most guys in construction live and in residential is I'm I'm pretty I'm good at framing, I'm good at you know, tile work and some handyman stuff. I'm gonna bid this whole renovation, I'm gonna sub out an electrician and I'm gonna bring my plumber with me. I'm gonna have, you know, I got a buddy that's really good at she ruck, I'm gonna have him do all my sheetrock, I'm gonna do everything else myself. And so it's this hybrid model where I'm subbing out some stuff, but still working, uh swinging the hammer for myself, right? Where is the ceiling that guys hit when they're in that spot?

SPEAKER_02 6:39

Um so you gotta get to a point that you're able to be comfortable with whatever the number is that is your number, as in like how much you need to make.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Um it's uh the hard one is you see the kind of low-hanging fruit, big inverted commas on that. Like it's low-hanging fruit because you see a couple thousand dollars that are lying around that you could go and grab yourself, except that those are the most costly thousand dollars you could ever go after. So, you know, you agree your number is X. Yeah, use 10,000 for a round number for conversation. So you need to make 10,000 for yourself in that month. What do you do from there? You sit in that space where you're like, I could make 12 if I just go and do the framing myself quickly. No, like you may be good at framing, you probably aren't the best at framing. So someone else is going to be as good or better than you are. Yeah. Rather give that money to them so you can go and focus on building the business out. But like, you know, we're moving from one to two pretty quickly. If you're looking between those two at one, you're kind of needing to make your decision about am I self-employed? As in, like, I left a company, went on my own. You know, there's glory in that, there's bravery in that, there's all those good things. But did you decide to go and just sell your hours or did you go and build a business? Yeah. And if you're going to build a business, you've got to get from number one to number two, where you're then looking at it and saying, okay, cool. So I'm trying to get to a place that I'm building a business out. Um, the next step there is I'm now stuck on the tools and I'm good at it. As I said, probably not the best at it, but good enough to be able to go pick up that extra couple of grand here and there. How do you get to a place of comfort that you can say, I'm good at the 10? Like whatever that number is, I'm good at this amount of money. And now everything else goes to other people to free my space and time up so that I can go work on the business again.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Um so I'd say that's kind of where it sits.

Set Your Number And Stop Grabbing Labor

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Uh 100%. I I I one of the biggest and and really honestly, one of my biggest roles when I'm coaching clients is the accountability side of this and holding them to it. Because what you just said, the I I'll uh one of my first questions when guys are in this spot position is, well, how much do you need to live? Well, uh, you know, I I've got this, I got this bill, I've got the car payment, I got my rent, I got this, I'm I need 10 or I need$8,000 a month to live. If I if I was clear at$8,000, all my bills would be paid. I'm not getting ahead, but uh, you know, I could take my kids to the movies here and there. Like I've got a little bit extra money on that. That's great. And I say, okay, cool. So you would be great making$8,000 a month for now. And then it with a goal of building this company where we can make a lot more than that in the future. Yeah, that that'd be great. Okay, cool. The next thing we do is we say, okay, let's look at what's coming up. Let's project what next month needs to look like. And so we say, okay, you what jobs do you have estimates out there for? And can we get more jobs going? We need to have more than one job running, right? And so normally these guys are job to job, I do one job at a time, move to the next one, move to the next one. I might be starting one at the end of one, you know, finishing up a little overlap so I don't have a gap in in cash flow. But I say, okay, you had$8,000 that you need to make. Let's look at two jobs that we're trying to sell. We it's some of this is strategic, like wait, hold, hold. Okay, cool. You got two estimates that are out there. Let's try to run them both at the same time. And we look at those jobs and we say, okay, if you need to make$8,000 on these two jobs next month alone, you're gonna make$5,000 in profit because we've got our margin, that 30 to 50% markup, depending on what size project you're doing. That margin is gonna bit has five grand for you. So there is a delta between five and eight. There's three thousand dollars that you're gonna be upside down on that you need. So then I look at those two jobs and say, okay, of these two jobs, what is the easiest thing that you can do on any of these two job sites to make three grand? They say, Well, normally I'd be doing the tile, the framing, and also, you know, installing all the trim and baseboard work. Sure. I say, okay, so we're gonna sub out all of that stuff. You're gonna do the tile only. And so on these two jobs, you're gonna do tile on one of the jobs and you're gonna pay yourself$3,000 because that's what we have budgeted for labor, is$3,000 for the tile. And so we look at it say, okay, you're gonna make$5,000 in profit and$3,000 for the tile. And now everything else that you would have done, we're gonna sub out. You're gonna make eight. And they say, Well, I kind of want to do this and I've got time next week to do this. And they want to make$12. They want to make$15 because they see the jobs that they're subbing out to other guys, and like, well, I got free time next week. Let me just do that. Yeah. And where they get stuck, and this is the ceiling, is you need to bet on yourself and sub out and give away that extra four grand you could have made by doing the labor to somebody else, and you're betting on yourself with that four thousand dollars that you can build this company to the next level.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

And so I'm not going to make 12 this month, I'm gonna make eight. I'm gonna pay my bills. That's my pre-committed dollar point that I got to get to. And I'm gonna give away four thousand dollars worth of work to buy my time back to work on this company. Yeah. And that makes sense to guys in conversation. Like, yeah, that's a great plan. That's a great plan. But where this falls apart is the is is the psychological. If I break it down with these guys that are just starting or coming in or having these initial calls, they don't truly believe that they can build a company and they're not worth betting on themselves. Yeah. And it's not because they're not worth betting on themselves, it's because they don't have a game plan to bet on.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

So it's like, I'm gonna give away four grand when I could go get that to build something cool. I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna I got time. All right, it's Monday. Guys are working, what do I do now? And there's no game plan on how to grow the company. Sure. And that's what we do in coaching. I mean, that's the whole coaching side of it is let's build that game plan and let's give you bite-sized pieces of weekly, bi-weekly, twice a week, every other week, once a month. This is what you need to be working on to build the company in those, in that margin, in that extra time that you've built into the company.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Absolutely. And I the to be clear, the number that I mentioned, so when I say 10 is a round number, whether whether it's five, 10, 15, whatever the number is, that's your base.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:49

And then the rest of it is made up on the fact that you go and create the space to build the business that you're taking a profit's share or an owner's share of the profit down the way. Yeah. So it's not to say you'll never get that number back. It's not to say you need to be stuck here. It's to say what's kind of the minimum you can do. Yeah. You know, let's not include vacation money here. Let's go for like go to the movies. I like that. It's like, you know, a bit of stress-free time over the weekend, take your kids, keep them entertained, buy some time. But like remove the vacation from that plan for a while. Yeah. Reinvest that money back in your business. And then the thing that stands out is we all use this lingo, right? We say give away. We're like, I'm going to take the the eight and give the four away. That's an investment in your business. You know, you're literally giving someone else the work to do so that you can give yourself the time back. It all comes back to you, actually. So we say give away, but it's truly not being left. You know, it's uh it doesn't leave your business. You're giving yourself that time back. You almost buy your time.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

It's it's an investment in yourself. Exactly. And guys aren't to be honest, they don't have a company worth investing in because there's no game plan for success. Yeah. It's just I gotta get more jobs, I guess, is how I'm gonna succeed. Um and they're not willing to do that. They in their head they're gonna do that. And then I talked to them a month later, and well, this happened and that crew didn't show up, so I j, you know, just jumped in the truck and it's like, no, bro, you didn't. And so the the goal is when you're starting coaching, if you're in that that spot, is let's build a confident game plan that I that we can show success over the next 12 months. Sure. Because we're not building right now for next month. Our goal is a year from now, we've got a very stable company and we got that money for the vacations. And we've got the the ability to go on vacation where I can actually unplug from the company and not not bring my company to the beach with me. Yeah. Um, but it all starts with with being able to bet on yourself in that phase because I've got to give work away and sub it out to guys when I could go do that work. And honestly, I got nothing Thursday and Friday this week. I could just do that and not sub it out.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yeah.

Buy Time Back With A Plan

SPEAKER_01 14:57

So if you sub it out and you buy those days back for yourself, can we utilize that time to really boost your company? Work on being a general manager for your company, work on project management. Let's lay out a pipeline, let's look at the next three months of jobs, let's start doing some marketing, let's go after and follow up on those estimates. Let's there's so many things you could be doing in that time that you buy back that's building towards the next level of your company.

SPEAKER_02 16:39

Absolutely. And equity, it's like, what am I gonna do in all that spare time? You can either sit down, it's a little bit like going to the gym. You can either arrive and say, today I'm gonna do gym, and then you walk in, you spend 15 minutes trying to figure out what that next or first exercise is, as opposed to arriving with some sort of a plan. Um, when it comes down to what you do with your spare time here, it's you can do it alone. Sure. You can sit down, you can go and figure out a plan, or else you can rely on some coaching, right? And you can sit in a space where it's like the big tickets to focus on are sales, marketing, operations, finance as an example.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Drill a bit deeper on the one you need to go deeper on. And then it's like you mentioned a couple of things, pipeline, is it your uh is it your schedule? You know, is are your templates ready to go? Um, do you did you take something that you learned today, document it so that you don't have to treat that as a a burning fire on the next project? Yes. You know, and like we can really drill down, or you can um you could sit in that space for a whole day thinking, I actually didn't do any of what I should have done in that admin hour.

Build A Bench Of Subcontractors

Drop The Trade With Low ROI

SPEAKER_01 17:41

But I did respond to 12 emails, so that's good. And I revised that estimate, and that's growth, right? And it's like, no, no, no, that's not. That's not what we're saying. That's what we're talking about. Yeah, you're you're exactly right. It's it's and that's part of the coaching side too, is like we he we lay out the 10-step process of project management from first contact to final invoice, including how to onboard subs, how to do client engagement. Like that's the process of our five processes that we do. That's where we always start and live. Yeah. Um, in that process, like you're talking about, hey, all right, Thursday, you got you, you, you bought that day back, you got the subs running, you're gonna start them in the morning, you're gonna come back to your office, you're gonna turn your phone off. And what we need to do is uh I I was coaching last week with a guy, and he's in this exact position. And I said, Okay, what are the two trades on the job that's coming up next month that you normally do that we're gonna sub out? And so his goal in that coaching session for that week was what he needs to do is find three electricians and he needs to find three trim carpenters. Because he does both those himself. Yeah. I'm like, find three of each and we're gonna talk to them. And this is going up to like like you're dating again, walking up to girls in the at the bar, you're walking up to dudes in electrical shirts at Home Depot, introducing yourself. And we're just going to make those connections because we're gonna build your bullpen of subs to where you're gonna talk to three to five electricians and it's gonna end up being one that you're using. That's true. And and so what we need to do is start that process of finding those. So for him, that was what he didn't had to work on in that time. And that was going, driving to gas stations, going to Home Depot, going to Lowe's, uh, looking on Facebook, finding like let's get a game plan to start finding those. Or maybe you're in a different spot, maybe you've got all your crews. Okay, let's work on um how we uh really the laying out um a marketing plan, right? And so we we can go through that and kind of make a game plan. And then there's accountability on the coaching side too of all right, I'll see you in two weeks. I hope you're ready. Like don't don't waste those days that we've bought. Sure. Um so yeah, that's that's kind of those those middle guys.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

And linked to that is, you know, so there's the three trades that you're gonna do yourself, and now you want them to drop one first. It doesn't take much kind of backwork to figure out which one you should drop. Um if you go and look at and you say, cool, so this is a high value in spend, like they may spend more on uh uh framing than tiling.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yeah.

Let Go Of Perfection To Scale

SPEAKER_02 20:06

But if you go and take a look at what your return on your investment is, then you quickly get to the answers to which one you shouldn't be doing.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

You know, so like you're a great tiler. That's cool. If you're only making 50 bucks an hour compared to framing at 150 is random numbers, yeah. Like decide which one's worth your time. Yeah. And then get rid of the one that's actually not paying you as much as you thought it was. Um, just because it brings dollar value in doesn't mean it's money in your pockets. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

You it's funny, you you bring up tiling and doing that. Uh, one of the guys I'm coaching now, he knows who he is probably when he listens to this, is he is passionate about tile. Okay. Like uh obsessive about perfection in Thailand. And uh we were in a coaching session. He was we were trying to find subs for every everything else. And I was like, okay, you're gonna steal tile because you could do it really well, really quickly, high, high-end tile, it's great. I said, but we were looking at uh second quarter, April, mid-June. And I said, by July 1st, you're gonna have a tile guy, a tile sub, and you're gonna be not doing tile anymore. And he's just like, I don't know if that's gonna happen. And I was like, why? He's like, he was like, I just, I, I'm my clients expect me to do it. Like they're hiring me because I'm really good at it. And I said, No, they're hiring your company because they like the result of what your company gives. They don't care about you. Like it, they they love you. You're you might be a buddy of theirs. They don't care who does it as long as you're overseeing it, making sure. I said, So the next three months, what you're gonna do is we're going to find a tile guy. I was like, Do you have anyone? He's like, I got this guy, he works with me, he's he's pretty good. I said, Okay, you're gonna coach him up and you're gonna build him to the best dang tile sub that you've ever had. And you're gonna show him how and you're gonna stand over his shoulder. And by it by July 1st, he's gonna be a better tile as good as you as tile. If not, uh, you'll know the weak spots and you'll coach him up and you're gonna start managing him as your first sub.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

It's like, oh, okay, here we are. All right, all right, we'll try it. And so again, it's like guys think like the excuse is, oh, well, I I'm just the best at this, and I got to No, no, you're not. Like Tile's time. There's plenty of really good and really bad tilers and everywhere in between. Sure. We can train them up, we can get them there, and we can still keep the high level of quality because you've helped train those subs and handpick the ones that that you uh that you want to work with. Absolutely. And it just takes time. It just takes time.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Aaron Powell, and if tiling is this uh creative outlet that you that you have in your life, do it after hours. Yeah. Go and enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

That's literally uh like that's funny. Uh literally the that's probably you've probably heard that too, but it's the I just really love getting my hands dirty. I'm like, cool. Saturdays and Sundays flip a house on the side, and that's all you want to do, you do that on Saturdays. In your spare time. In your spare time.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Not while you're being paid by your business to be doing the best you can. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

And I mean, and there there is it's funny, but there's truth in that of like I I have said verbatim to a guy like, you need to pick, do you want to build a company or do you want to frame walls? Like your your choice. Like I'm sorry, I got some bad news. If we're gonna build this together, you've got to hang your tool belt up for five years. And then after that, we'll have this built, you'll have guys running it for. You go frame houses on the side, be an undercover boss that shows up and on your job sites and no one knows you throwing the company and you can frame out and you could be a sub. That's fine.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

But we've got to sacrifice your wants because it's fun. You're not in college anymore running a landscaping company. Like this isn't about fun making some dollars on the side. We're trying to build into the future something that lasts beyond you, building a legacy of a company that you can sell, pass to a child, uh build a retirement for yourself and your family. And that doesn't happen when you're swinging a hammer. It's not going to.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

And included in that in construction is make money in the project.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

You know, it's it happens that you can exit a construction business. It's not every business that starts that you actually reach an exit. A lot of guys don't have someone to take over. There's no succession plan. You can see it a lot in the kind of older guys in the trades right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Yeah.

Ceiling Three You Become The Bottleneck

SPEAKER_02 24:08

They may be able to pass it over to someone. There's a good chance that they won't. And if that is the case, take the money at the time that the project's happening.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Not unfairly, not overcharging, just a matter of make sure you're making money. And it's not just doing it as a, you know, this is the last leader project because it's going to land somewhere. You've got to get through that ceiling.

Burnout And The Cost Of No Systems

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Yeah. Well, and that's a great transition into the third ceiling that we're talking about. So the the first one was making actually enough money to have a company not a job. The second ceiling is how do I start subbing out and get out of the truck fully and be a true GC. The third ceiling is where most guys get stuck. I mean, I was doing some research about residential remodeling specifically, and it was somewhere between 80 and 90, like close to 90% of contractors will never get to$2 million in annual revenue. The majority of guys are between$250,000 and$1.5 million. And that's because in residential,$2 million is about a max official when you're a single single operator in running through your brain where you're running everything,$2 million is getting close to the max that you can handle by yourself. Right. And so that last ceiling that we're talking about is you and your brain being the main artery, the bottleneck of the company, to where the systems and processes that work really well in your company are all in your head. And you are the systems and you are the processes. And this is a guy, if you're listening, that you've you've probably said before, man, if I could just hire another me, I'd be doubling my money. I just can't find another me. I just can't find another me. And it's true, like there isn't another you out there, but I'll I'll tell you what there is. There's guys that have skills that you don't, that have abilities and areas that you're weak, that if we bring those guys in and we have really well-defined processes of how your brain works, and we train those guys up in your processes, they are more well-rounded than you are. And they are actually better. And I I learned this the hard way in my company where I got to a spot where uh finally I was at a spot where I learned this and did this, and I was like, oh, these guys are better than me at this. This is great, this is perfect, right?

SPEAKER_02 26:17

That takes some uh maturity to admit that someone's better than you are at the thing that you think you're great at. Yeah. And like I was gonna ask you, have you ever been the bottleneck yourself?

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Oh, for sure. For sure. For uh, you know, I was I don't remember who I was talking about with this, but um I was talking about burnout over a fire a few a month or two ago, um, about how the construction world burns you out. Um and I was in it for I mean, I'm started my company 20 years ago, and I was probably 13 years in where I was just like, I'm done. I'm burnt out. And we'd built it, and that's where I stepped out and started this. Um But it was what what got me to burnout was the first seven years, I did everything wrong. I got in millions of dollars in debt. I did everything that you were not supposed to do and made the wrong decisions. My my one, I think my one strength is I'm really good at learning from mistakes and not doing it again and putting some things in place and some guardrails to stop me from making those mistakes. So I made every mistake. But that being said, the biggest mistake was I kept myself the bottleneck for probably seven years and I was I was the bottleneck. And if I would have started these processes year one, year two, year four, and had a coach, and again, I'm not trying to push our coaching. I've built ProStruct because this is what I wish I had those years. Because if I if I would have had a ProStruct in place year two, I would have expedited all of those mistakes to where burnout wouldn't have happened. And I would have the success would have happened a lot earlier and I would have been able to keep growing. And not that I didn't keep growing. I mean, we've after I stepped out and had some other guys in place, we we grew to the Texas and then up to Kentucky. Like it's it's it's going and it's growing, but I got to a burnout spot so quickly because I spent seven years in the loop of me being the bottleneck. And so by the time I got traction, I was halfway to burnout, right? If I would have gotten help in the beginning, I wouldn't have I would have had extra seven years to really put my energy into the growth side instead of the burning out side and the the repetitive on the bottleneck. So I was for sure the bottle bottleneck for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 28:41

I mean, talking into that on this kind of point three section, so it's like you know that you're the bottleneck, not you, like all of us, because I can take another five minutes and tell you my version of my bottleneck, but it's going to be very similar.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Um, you can either realize it, get out of your own way, and start building process around it, or you can fall into the trap. And like maybe this is the short version of mine is like, I'm the bottleneck, I acknowledge it, I say to people, I'm the bottleneck. I don't replace myself. Um, I I grow and so I get this kind of false sense of uh of improvement because, like, to be honest, going from one project to a bigger project is not the hard part. It's keeping it small enough to contain it and make money in it, that's difficult. And so for my first 10 years, I used to advertise this. I grew 70% year in year for 10 years. I'm like, wow, well done. You get to the end of it, and I'm like, I didn't build enough process around it in that pro in the steps getting to there. And so all I did was kill myself in burnout because I got to the end without all of what was needed in project number one.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Yeah.

Hire For Gaps And Train Processes

SPEAKER_02 29:49

And so going back to the beginning of it is like project one and then going to, and now I have two projects because I've recognized that uh one project and then ending and then starting another one is too risky. So I've got to go to two. And then you said it earlier, typically you go one is ending, the other one is starting. Those are two of the most stressful parts of your project. And so you overlap the end of one and the start of another one. While, and we all know there's more than one project, your client knows it, but your client doesn't want to feel like they are the second project. Yeah. So you're showing up as the best project and the best version of yourself every time to get through those two. If you never get yourself off of the tools, you then get stuck in a space that you've not hired enough subs to do the part that needs you to be able to go to the next one. Yeah. And if you then at that point don't ever move remove yourself as the bottleneck, you're then sales, you're then the the, you know, you're the guy that handed the key over at the end, you've got to run the finance at the end, you just land up in a place that you can't actually do the thing that you're telling yourself that you can. And a lot of it is like you need to maturely look at it, but you also have to get out of your own way. You've also got to realize that you're not as great at everything as you think you are. And like the piece you mentioned now that I really like is go replace yourself with exactly you. Your problem's gonna have the same kind of problems that you already have because you don't have the other pieces. And so it's not even specifically replace yourself up front. It's what are your gaps? Figure out what you need to hire around on those gaps so that you can be really good at the things that you are actually really good at. Yeah. Have people support you in the parts that you're not, and so just like subbing out an electrician, sub out finance if that's what it takes. Um, free yourself up for that space to be able to get out of the way so that you can then identify, okay, I'm bottleneck here, I'm solving for what people need to uh supplement what they're not good at, yeah, and then take the learnings, right? So you say you learn your lesson and move on. A lot of people don't. You know, you if you don't document it, process it, and then change it for the next project, you're just in this vicious cycle that keeps repeating on itself.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

That's right. And I I would even say, like when I say that like I I can I brought guys in, I trained them up, and they were better than me. To be honest, like not to toot my own horn, I could most almost every single guy that was a project manager or management in my company, I could probably sell better than them. I could get uh if you put me on a job site with a client, I'm gonna I've I've got a higher close ratio. Sure. And I hear that all the time from guys. Like I just, you know, I I gotta make the sale. And maybe, maybe you're in that position for a while as you're growing your company. But I got to a spot where because I trained and I learned how to train guys on how to do sales, on how do we do follow-ups, on how do we get on the first date before the next guy. I'm on my third date when the next when my competition's on their first date. I all of those sales processes, the front end of our 10-step, all of that stuff, because I've implemented that. Yes, I could probably close 95% of the people I I talk to. And maybe you coming into my company are really organized and less of a salesman, but really, really good on dotting your I's and crossing your T's, which I wasn't good at. I can train you in my processes and you might, it might get you to 85% close ratio and mine's at 95%. That 10% fall off from me to you is made up tenfold on the three other guys that I now have capacity to bring in and train up as project managers. Sure. Right. And so instead of being like, oh, I could have landed that guy. Okay, I'm gonna get back in the, and that's where guys get in their the bottleneck of I got to do all the sales. Oh, well, and I gotta write all the estimates because that guy misses the details. And oh, I've got to do this, and I've got to, all right, I'll I'll handle the money because it's my bank account. So I'll do the info. And all of a sudden, they're doing all the job still. And so they hire someone in. And if you're listening and you've hired someone, I bet this is gonna ring true. You hire an assistant to take uh take work off your plate, and you go from working 50 hours a week to 70 hours a week managing an assistant because you're now have all of the work you were doing, and now I'm teaching him how to do stuff, and I'm coming back and fixing his stuff, and I'm stepping in for him. So it's not a project manager, it's assist an assistant. And so you are still the bottleneck. And hey, uh, what should I do about this, Grant? And what do you think? Okay, cool. Hey, the crew said they want to do this. Is that okay? Okay, cool. Hey, Grant, can you do? And it's all of a sudden I am now working for my assistant, doing all of his job because everything's in my head and I've got the processes and I'm the bottom. And so it is an ego spot. It is somewhere that everyone feels like I'm the man. But I will tell you, it is being the man is not a worthy exchange for a lack of growth in a company. And so once you can get past the ego of enjoying being the man, to where eight, 10, 12 years in when you've been the man and you're like, I can't wake up tomorrow because I'm tired. I can't be the man again tomorrow. I can't be the bottleneck tomorrow. Yeah. Don't wait for the burnout. Get in early and start building these and know like my ego doesn't rest on being the man anymore. It's it it rests on the comfort of being a father and a husband, a Christian. Like, that's where my ego is over here. Like that's what I'm proud of, and that's who I am. And cool, I got a good company that's running. That's great. I don't need people to need me in that company. Uh uh, you know, like I I've flipped on where I get where I get uh pleasure from, where it's like to not be needed is the ego. Like, cool, you don't awesome. You guys got that yourself, okay, great. This is awesome, right? And so it's it's that it's that flip. So I mean, getting back to to that third ceiling, which is which is what we're talking about, is I am a project manager running jobs. And and that the last ceiling is what we're talking about, is being that bottleneck. And so how do you get out of that, right? Where do you start to say, how do I take off the bottleneck hat and start planning out not being the bottleneck?

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Where where would you say that that we always start, guys, at I genuinely think you need to know what you can let go of first, and that starts with what you are not gonna do the best job at. Yeah. It's linked to what really doesn't make you money. So you need to know yourself, you need to know your numbers, um, you need to be okay with uh the fact that someone else is gonna come in there. Um you need to understand that it is gonna take some training for a period. So 50 hours to 70 for a period of time is okay, but you need to know that there's an end goal to that. It's not being done for the wrong reasons. Um, so I would say it's probably identifying those two things first. Like, what do you hire um around? So, like where where are you getting it wrong so you know what you're gonna be doing? Two, you need to be able to um make sure that you um you know what the numbers are in that space. And so go back a couple. You need X amount of money at your minimum to be able to invest the rest into what the next step looks like. Part of that even gets the bottleneck stage of like, okay, cool. So now we know what we're gonna do. We're gonna be hiring someone. Um, we're gonna be working on the basis that for this period of time that's the money invested in my own business. And then it's a matter of trying to remove yourself again once those things are in place. And so when you're getting yourself out for what you've identified as genuinely what you're doing best in the business, um, I I kind of I used this example the other day. I think I may even have spoken to you about it. It's like, how do you get a guy who is everything in the business into a different headspace about what it is? I'm like, call yourself a president in your mind, if that's what it is, and hire a CEO. Because they're one and the same to a large extent, except that you can get yourself to a space that you're bringing someone in that's probably better than you are at the things that you think you're good at. You're not leaving the business that you're not involved at all, but you're far away enough. Um, and I'm I may need some correction in American lingo here, but like I just I see a president as being in a space that you don't have to do all the day-to-day nitty-gritty stuff. Uh, whereas a CEO can come in and really dive into the detail of getting that stuff done and you've built the space enough to be able to kind of step away from your company a bit. To do that, you need processes, you need systems, you need to be automating some stuff, um, you need to have money available to be able to do the plan. Um, those are a couple thoughts that come to mind.

Own One Day As GM

SPEAKER_01 38:11

Right on. I I think get that's that's where we're headed. I think you're you're 100% right of how do we you know when when you say the stuff you're not good at, I I think in my head it's how do we put processes down to train people up in inside of this. And so I can spend more time on that as well as bring people in. Uh I think to get there, the number the very first thing when I when I'm meeting with clients like this that are in that spot and we're trying to coach them up, number one, I need you to start not being reactive but proactive. And I've said that a billion times on this podcast is re proactive, not reactive. What what I what that looks like uh when the rubber meets the road in this situation is I need you to start owning one day a week. That is, I'm taking off my project manager hat, my running jobs, my estimating, and I'm gonna put on my GM hat. I'm gonna put on my owner hat, my CEO hat, my president hat, right? And in on that day, where I always start, guys, is I I got two meetings that I want you to do. And I I set guys up for Tuesdays. I know you do Fridays or thirds, like everyone's got different times. When I start guys, I'm like, listen, pick Tuesday. Tuesday for me has always been the easiest day because Monday's a chaos day after the weekend's over. You're visiting all the job sites, you're figuring out, you're getting everyone started, things are happening. Tuesday, you can you can push people off. And so I get my crews buy-in, I get my clients buy-in and say, hey, listen, tomorrow I got I'm I'm slammed, I got full day booked, I'm not gonna be available. What do you need me to answer today that you don't need tomorrow? I talk to my clients, hey, I'm walking to the job site Monday, Tuesday, I'm I'm I'm unavailable. You got any questions? So I'm setting myself up what those Mondays for Tuesday. So everyone in my life knows, don't bother me. I tell my wife, hey, Tuesday, what do you need from me before I get going? Because I'm gonna turn my phone off and I'm gonna lock in. Um, everyone knows my Tuesday to respect my time, uh, to where when I ignore a phone call from a crew, they're like, oh, it's Tuesday, Clark can't talk. So we got to set our Tuesday up. Then I need you to have two meetings on Tuesday. We start with the general manager meeting in the morning. And in that, it's gonna be different for where you're at. And let's in coach and we can kind of look through what that looks like. But that GM meeting is usually looking at projections. I'm looking at my calendar, I'm looking at the last seven and the next seven days on my calendar. What should we be doing? Or our diary, as you say. Uh but I'm looking at my It is a diary. It is a diary. Sorry, I'm South Africans rubbing off on me. Uh you I'm looking at my calendars of what the rest of this week and next week looks like. I'm emailing some of those people. I'm getting into my projections and looking at what's coming up. I'm doing marketing potentially. I'm doing like there's a lot of stuff that we might do in that GM meeting, um, but I'm not working on specific jobs. I'm not doing project manager stuff. I'm not working on estimates. I'm not responding to client emails. I'm not sending work orders or ordering materials. This meeting is to be a GM. And that's that's what I'm working on in coaching, is like, what are we doing in that time? What what should like what can we be working on one step at a time to where by the end of the year we've we've taken a huge dent in into growth. And so we've we've really captured that time well. And then in the afternoon, I want you to wear your project manager hat and be a really good PM to where we're looking at, okay, I'm asking the three questions that we talk about all the time that I want you to ask on every single job. And we're going through it, planning things out and you know, setting up what materials, okay. I got to do this. Oh, I got to switch the dumpster out on that. Hey, next Thursday, I think we want the granites to be, I want to see if they I can get my client out to the granite yard so they can pick out the grant, whatever it is, the afternoon meeting where I'm still not talking to people, I'm game planning the next one, two, three, seven, twelve weeks of my project. I'm laying out my Gantt charts. I am doing the busy work that you don't have time for on the jobs as a project manager. Because everyone listening to this podcast, if you if you are worth any salt, you can shoot from the hip really well as a contractor. That's why you're at this at the spot that you're at. Is I can just show up to a job site and figure it out on the fly and we're killing it. And that is what kills us in growth because you're that gets us here, but that stops us here. Being able to shoot from the hip. And what I what I always say is, I'm good at running full speed through the forest without hitting a tree. I can just figure it out on the fly, and I don't plan it out, I can just go. And that is what allows us to be successful up to this point. And at this point, we have to shift those gears down and say, okay, pause. Reactive doesn't work anymore. That got me here. And so what I got to do is plan these out. And so the project manager, I'm laying out a Gantt chart for every job, and I hated the Gantt. I hated Gantt charts as a PM. Uh, one, it locked me in. Two was accountability. Three, it felt like busy work because I know when guys need to go out there. None of that is true. And so what planning out the Gantt chart, planning out material, all of that stuff you got to do is the afternoon meeting. But I want you to own a day that you get the morning meeting to build your company. And after you want it to be Friday, it'd be Friday. If it's Wednesdays or Thursdays or better, Mondays you want it to be, that's fine. But we're gonna take a day, we're gonna notify everybody in our life that that day I'm slammed, I'm busy, I won't be able to answer your calls, I'll be checking my phone around lunchtime and again at five. But you know, if you need anything from me, let me know on Monday. Again, being proactive and letting people know it's coming. Yeah. And really laying that out. And that gets you to what you were talking about, to where we can start looking at holes. We can start looking at a process. Because even if I find that hole, like you're talking about, I'm not, I'm really not good at numbers. I can't just hire someone to do my numbers, right? Like I have to understand how to do it. I might not be good at it, but I need to understand it. Sure. I need to lay it out. And then when I eventually can bring in an accountant, I give them tasks of what I need them to do, the busy work for me, so I can be the CFO of the company. Yeah. Right. And so there's still that that in those in those spaces, we have a certain number of boxes we've got to check to be able to build the company to a spot that we can then hire our first hire, which is in residential, gonna be a project manager. Uh in commercial, it's different. Um we'll get into that later. In in trades, it's different. A lot of times your first hire is a tech technician in your trade. But um, it's building to that.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

So the one thing we can absolutely agree on is that you need that day or that time. Yeah. And whether it's a Friday or a Tuesday comes down to what your reason is for it. Yeah. And like have a better reason than either of us as to which day you choose, and then that's your day. Yeah. But the bottom line is don't not do it.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Yes.

Proactive Planning Beats Constant Fires

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Um, and when I talk about those gaps or those spots, sometimes it's not even what you're not good at. Like, in my opinion, I'm one of the best capturers of data into QuickBooks in the world. Should I be doing it? Absolutely not. And so what I was kind of saying was like, you know, if it's an outsourced bookkeeping service, but it frees you the hour, yes, let that be the thing you do. And you're right. It's like you will only get to know the true gaps once you spend time in it, once you really know yourself. Once you get out of your own way, and then you can go do those things. Um, I thought I was having as you're talking on uh proactive versus reactive, and you've this is probably something you've said in the past, but I was thinking about it in in terms of who this audience is. When someone phones you and says, Hey, my house is on fire, come now, you are the most expensive solution to them.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Yeah.

Coaching And Software Invitation

SPEAKER_02 45:35

But when someone says, Hey, my house burnt down, can you come and help me in six months' time? You know, your price is very different. Yeah. Like all of a sudden you you you can schedule it, you can plan for it, you can, you can arrive at the time, you can, you can do everything you need to do, and so you can give a really fair price. And so that cost on you when you're being reactive in your business is far more expensive than the proactive version where you're like, you know, I positioned this time because no one's gonna phone me in these hours. And so it doesn't cost me a sale because I've recognized that most of my sales happen on a Monday, for example, after a customer spent the weekend talking to their spouse, talking about what they're gonna what they're gonna do in the project.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

And so don't not be available then. Do it in a time where it's not as costly to you and you're not like trying to put the fire out all the time.

Final Takeaways And Goodbye

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Yeah. I think that's great. Uh uh, that's a great perspective on it. I I think if you're listening to this, no matter what ceiling you're you're dealing with, yeah. If you want to reach out, I'd love to do a 30-minute call with you and kind of talk you through it. Um, we partner with guys all all the time to help them break those ceilings uh and get to the next level. Um, and it's not a lot of money and it's it's really easy to do, and we love doing it. So if you're interested in coaching, hit us up. If you have questions about what we've talked about today, absolutely love to chat with you. If you go to ProStruck360.com or if you go to contractorcuts.com, you can set up a meeting with me uh where it's actually me on the call if you want to talk to me directly. So go go to either one of those spots and we love to have that conversation. If you want software, go to Prostruct360.com, sign up for it. It's a month-to-month software. There's no long-term contracts, it's a really, really good project management software from estimates to invoices, everything in between, client management. It's a really great piece of software. But we again, our goal is to help build you guys to the next level. If you're listening to this and you want help, we we kind of custom build what we do for people around what their needs are. So reach out and let us help be accountability, let us help be a game planner with you, let us be in the coach's box with you where we're figuring out what the next right move is for your company. Uh, and then mm build the game plan of what the year should look like to where it's worth it for you to invest in your own company. Yeah. That time, sweat equity, uh, and and the sacrifice of subbing out and the sacrifice of spending time building your processes and taking our processes and changing them to fit your your company is what we like to do during coaching. So if you're interested in that, we'd love to talk to you. Grant, thank you so much for joining me again. Sure thing.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

I'm betting we'll see you sooner than later. And uh we could have done this for 10 hours.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

I know that's that was the thing. We're like, okay, so this is a five-hour podcast. How do we how do we narrow it down?

SPEAKER_02 48:13

So exactly. But my pleasure of being here. So thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

Talk to you guys later.