[cairnstone]

I am in a state of growing pains. I am at the stage where my clients are used to me showing up and doing the job. Well I have hired a few people and they are not me. Also now I regularly get asked to bid larger projects and when I send guys to the work I find there resume is embellished.

How does everyone deal with growing pains.

 

[brunothedog]

yours is a basic problem found everywhere, I have found 1 person who I treat as a son who I hired, I pay him extraordinary amounts of money, I can leave at any job and not worry about a thing.
Good luck

 

[Flag ship]

I am in a state of growing pains. I am at the stage where my clients are used to me showing up and doing the job. Well I have hired a few people and they are not me. Also now I regularly get asked to bid larger projects and when I send guys to the work I find there resume is embellished.

How does everyone deal with growing pains.

Just giving more wont work. Value based on action does. Come up with a pay/quality reward scale and make it known. Also make it known that you give 3 shots a bad work/actions and your gone.

 

[TNTRenovate]

During any growth period you have to remain in control. I never would allow anyone to work on my job until I work along side them for a few projects. During that time I test them constantly. They will be left alone for periods of time. This is a good indicator as to their work ethic and how well they can manage their time.

Also popping in unexpected is a great insight. You will either be impressed or disappointed. Correct bad behavior and reward good. If a guy is a hard worker but over stated their experience or skill level, they may be a keeper.

And remember, we all think that we know what we think we know until we find out we don't.

 

[toluene_hawk]

And remember, we all think that we know what we think we know until we find out we don't.

Too early in the morning for a sentence like that.

 

[CarpenterSFO]

Good advice from TNT.

Don't allow people to make decisions above the skill and judgment level that you have personally verified. If they display poor judgment, either fire them right away, or only use them in completely supervised situations.

If you have multi-trade work, find good subcontractors - you shouldn't expect to train employees to be good at multiple trades.

Raise your prices. You must cover your overhead and you must have a real profit margin.

 

[fast fred]

Good advice from TNT.


Raise your prices. You must cover your overhead and you must have a real profit margin.

there you go

myself and some other friends are all in the same boat, help, qualified trades people, etc, are all non-existent right now. Anyone who is worth a dime is working

The bottom line is do not GROW your business unless you have a plan and the right people along side you. Most of the contractors I know, myself included are saying NO to customers more than yes these days. Why? Because they don't want the headaches of multiple jobs and finding help is impossible. Funny how things changed over night for my area but last year was good and this year is off the charts for everyone.

I just cleared a 30% profit on a 10k job, I'm not ripping customers off, but my prices are now at a place where I can live comfortably for the first time since the summer of 2008. (side note: it seems like contractors and trades people are not suppose to live comfortably, just job to job for some reason because our services are undervalued) I lose a lot of jobs these days because my prices are "too high" but I have enough work for months.

 

[CO762]

I just cleared a 30% profit on a 10k job

and ignorant people will say, "Wow, you made $3500!"
Now let's say you get on ten grand (!) job a month during 'the contruction season of 8 months. You just made 28 grand for one year.
That's ten grand UNDER the median income for your state....oh, and you're living in a very high cost of living town in a state with a very high cost of living.

And I'm assuming in order to subtract all your costs from that 10 grand (!) you also deducted things like your health insurance, workers comp insurance (aflac?), business insurance, work related costs such as tools and consumables, rental expenses for any shop/warehousing, and of course if you don't take the time to calculate all of these, then also deduct the price of an accountant/cpa.

People that don't understand this, we can take the time to educate them.....or just ignore them and move on. I do the latter as life's too short to be constantly dealing with ignorant people.

 

[TxElectrician]

and ignorant people will say, "Wow, you made $3500!"
Now let's say you get on ten grand (!) job a month during 'the contruction season of 8 months. You just made 28 grand for one year.
That's ten grand UNDER the median income for your state....oh, and you're living in a very high cost of living town in a state with a very high cost of living.

And I'm assuming in order to subtract all your costs from that 10 grand (!) you also deducted things like your health insurance, workers comp insurance (aflac?), business insurance, work related costs such as tools and consumables, rental expenses for any shop/warehousing, and of course if you don't take the time to calculate all of these, then also deduct the price of an accountant/cpa.

People that don't understand this, we can take the time to educate them.....or just ignore them and move on. I do the latter as life's too short to be constantly dealing with ignorant people.

Any money made (profit) on a job is after ALL expenses have been paid, including my salary.

 

[Jeff G]

and ignorant people will say, "Wow, you made $3500!"
Now let's say you get on ten grand (!) job a month during 'the contruction season of 8 months. You just made 28 grand for one year.
That's ten grand UNDER the median income for your state....oh, and you're living in a very high cost of living town in a state with a very high cost of living.

And I'm assuming in order to subtract all your costs from that 10 grand (!) you also deducted things like your health insurance, workers comp insurance (aflac?), business insurance, work related costs such as tools and consumables, rental expenses for any shop/warehousing, and of course if you don't take the time to calculate all of these, then also deduct the price of an accountant/cpa.

People that don't understand this, we can take the time to educate them.....or just ignore them and move on. I do the latter as life's too short to be constantly dealing with ignorant people.

Here is a fact of life in this business (or practically any other business for that matter): These same ignorant people, you've referred to, do NOT have to pay your bills, period. You know full-well (or we each should know full-well) what it takes for you to pay all job costs (labor and materials, or any other costs associated with a specific job, which includes your own wages), all overhead costs of staying in business (which drastically vary from one business to another), then your mark-up and profit you have calculated for you to continue to stay in business, and remain viable.

Far too many times we see others, even so-called experts (bankers, etc) telling us what we should be making in order to stay economically viable. Once again, the problem is: these folks, none of them, are not burdened with having to pay all your bills!

Sorry for the small rant, but I always find this price/costs determination by others utterly amazing!

 

[blacktop]

and ignorant people will say, "wow, you made $3500!"
now let's say you get on ten grand (!) job a month during 'the contruction season of 8 months. You just made 28 grand for one year.
That's ten grand under the median income for your state....oh, and you're living in a very high cost of living town in a state with a very high cost of living.

And i'm assuming in order to subtract all your costs from that 10 grand (!) you also deducted things like your health insurance, workers comp insurance (aflac?), business insurance, work related costs such as tools and consumables, rental expenses for any shop/warehousing, and of course if you don't take the time to calculate all of these, then also deduct the price of an accountant/cpa.

People that don't understand this, we can take the time to educate them.....or just ignore them and move on. I do the latter as life's too short to be constantly dealing with ignorant people.

any money made (profit) on a job is after all expenses have been paid, including my salary.

here is a fact of life in this business (or practically any other business for that matter): These same ignorant people, you've referred to, do not have to pay your bills, period. You know full-well (or we each should know full-well) what it takes for you to pay all job costs (labor and materials, or any other costs associated with a specific job, which includes your own wages), all overhead costs of staying in business (which drastically vary from one business to another), then your mark-up and profit you have calculated for you to continue to stay in business, and remain viable.

Far too many times we see others, even so-called experts (bankers, etc) telling us what we should be making in order to stay economically viable. Once again, the problem is: These folks, none of them, are not burdened with having to pay all your bills!

Sorry for the small rant, but i always find this price/costs determination by others utterly amazing!

thank you!

 

[I Mester]

my favorite these days is.. "economy is slow, you can find contractors willing to do the work for 30% less than before" gotta love that. like our costs went down at all??

 

[fast fred]

and ignorant people will say, "Wow, you made $3500!"

I know it doesn't work that way of course, I lost my butt this spring on a job, worked for $2.00 an hour covered no overhead. But paid out all the labor and materials. I made a mistake on the bidding and estimating, you live and you learn


Now let's say you get on ten grand (!) job a month during 'the contruction season of 8 months. You just made 28 grand for one year.
That's ten grand UNDER the median income for your state....oh, and you're living in a very high cost of living town in a state with a very high cost of living.

I do a solid volume of work 8 months of the year, a 10k job is a small fraction of income per month, yes there is 4 months of "slow", but I'm always busy for the four months, this winter is look very good



And I'm assuming in order to subtract all your costs from that 10 grand (!) you also deducted things like your health insurance, workers comp insurance (aflac?), business insurance, work related costs such as tools and consumables, rental expenses for any shop/warehousing, and of course if you don't take the time to calculate all of these, then also deduct the price of an accountant/cpa.

cost of job 10k: 20% covers overhead, I bill myself out at $30.00 per hr when I'm working on that job, add up material and subcontractor invoices and then subtract....................

People that don't understand this, we can take the time to educate them.....or just ignore them and move on. I do the latter as life's too short to be constantly dealing with ignorant people.

I also just cleared a 1.5% profit on another job I wrapped up last week.
I know the $1500.00 was not much, but it was cleared profit, I bid the job out over the winter and every sub seemed to get busy over the summer so sub costs and building materials went up more than I expected this summer..... my bad

I just bid out two nice little jobs and the price was "high" in the customers view I'm sure, but I don't care, they said they will "get back to me" so I know their out shopping the job around, do I care, no, I'm sick of working for the bottom line.

I do random jobs and I easily know that someone else will come along and say they can do it for 1/2 the cost. I don't care. I'll give you great a great product and stand behind it. Lets say the deck is 8 ft off the ground, I"m using treated wood, the other guy is sticking with hem fir cause it's a 1/3 of the cost........... you get what you pay for

 

[fast fred]

my favorite these days is.. "economy is slow, you can find contractors willing to do the work for 30% less than before" gotta love that. like our costs went down at all??

and I say go find em, there is a reason those contractors are slow


material costs are just below 07 08 levels right now, they spiked and have leveled off