Contractor Evolution

To apply for a Breakthrough Academy Business Assessment click: https://trybta.com/PCEP59 As we say all the time on the Contractor Evolution show, business is a game you have to play for the long run. One situation you are inevitably going to face at some point, or many points, is an economic downturn. Or Recession. Or Meltdown. Whatever you (or the media) wants to call it. You get what I’m saying though. Business isn’t just about winning when the times are good and everyone is fat and happy.  You also need to know how to play the game when things aren't so flush. Now I want to be clear. We are not economists. We don’t have a crystal ball. We’re not in any way trying to guess what the market is going to do.  However, we do try to stay current and provide value to our listeners, and lately this conversation, around the market, what's ahead, and what to do, seems to be coming up a lot with our contractors.    While we’ll be the first to tell you we have NO IDEA what’s going to happen, I think we can all agree there are a lot of flags on the field right now. There are a lot of scary headlines, and that's making people nervous.  Fair enough. In this episode Igor and I are going to go over: Why a downturn isn't a bad thing and how to look at it from a new perspective How to identify true revenue drivers vs 'nice to haves' Why you need to create 2 business plans and 2 budgets when times are unstable, and what the 2 plans should look like The true costs of laying people off (which is beyond the loss of ROI) What reserves should you keep in place to make it through a rough period? What percentage of monthly revenue should you put away for a rainy day? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

To apply for a Breakthrough Academy Business Assessment click here: https://trybta.com/PCEP58 Download your free Budget Tool for Rapid Growth here: https://trybta.com/PCDLEP58 Today’s Episode is a case study with Curtis and Channell Murray of 180 Kitchens: A kitchen cabinet refacing business based in Vancouver BC.  Listen carefully now okay?  In one short year, they accomplished the following.  -They increased their top line revenue by 250%  -They moved their net profit from an already healthy 15% to a world class 22%  -They doubled the size of their team   - And they both work 15 hours a week less than they did before - Oh and just as a side note, they did all this with 3 kids under 5. So the obvious question is HOW?  That’s what we’re going to unpack here over the next half an hour.  We’re going to get into the story of how they tamed the chaos in their business, and most importantly they’re going to break down the three most crucial systems that underpinned this tremendous growth. Why, despite having a clear vision, Channell and Curtis struggled to make any gains towards it. What the first year of Breakthrough Academy was like and the unexpected learnings The first ‘big secret’ that led to a significant shift in how work got done at 180 kitchens 3 of the ‘big picture’ management tactics Channell and Curtis changed to create massive growth in 1 year How 180 Kitchens use GSR's to keep everything running efficiently and significantly reduced the need for BS meetings What life looks like now vs 2 years ago for Channell and Curtis See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you'd like to apply for Breakthrough Academy click here: https://trybta.com/PCEP57 To download the Hiring & Recruiting Tactics, click here: https://trybta.com/PCDLEP57 About 2 months ago we put on our first digital Contractor Evolution Summit where we focused on recruiting and hiring. We had so many questions during the live event that we couldn’t get to them all so here are an additional 9 questions that were too good not to respond to. By the end of this episode you’ll know: Whether you should focus on recruiting "lifers' or also consider people you know will stay only a few years? If it’s a good idea to hire someone that aspires to run their own business The percentage of annual revenue that you should allocate to recruiting How do you get a high volume of applicants from your job ads and drive traffic to your ‘Work With Us’ page How to market to people that are already employed but not steal employees from your competitors When we recommend personality testing to determine culture/role fit in your company and how it can save you a huge amount of headaches See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Interested in working with us? Let's chat: https://trybta.com/PCEP56 To download the Hiring & Recruiting Tactics, click here: https://trybta.com/PCDLEP56 When it comes to solving business problems there will always be hundreds of theoretical or formulaic sounding answers floating around out there.   There is certainly value in these more textbook concepts, but one of the best ways we entrepreneurs learn is by simply listening to how other entrepreneurs have solved the same problem. The problem we’re going to dissect in today's episode is a recruiting and hiring one.  Today on the show we’re excited to have Brett Farrington, owner of Renova Exteriors and Holiday Spirit Lighting.  In the late summer and early fall of 2021 Brett was faced with a massive recruiting gap. His projections for the year's sales and production clearly showed he would need about 16 staff to get through his busy season and execute everything.  This created a pretty real “Oh Shit” moment for Brett, because at the time Brett only had 4 people on payroll.  Now what's cool about this epiphany, and the steps he took thereafter, is his complete refusal to blame external factors or feel sorry for himself.   Brett faced a seemingly insurmountable problem and instead of comforting himself with the all-too-often used excuses (millennials suck, covid ruined the workforce, no one wants to work) he put his head down and got to work.   Now I don’t want to give away too many spoilers cuz I really want you to hear it from him, but some of the highlights for me were: The game plan that Brett came up with to eliminate the labour challenge he was facing How to methodically establish the #'s needed to run a successful recruiting strategy How Brett reverse engineered who he was trying to hire and how that played into the job ads descriptions The web and visual assets every contractor should create before running a recruiting campaign How Brett implemented a unique and highly effective incentivized employee referral system The mind-blowing results that Brett got by changing his recruiting tactics from ‘old school’ to ‘new school’ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you'd like to apply for Breakthrough Academy click here: https://trybta.com/PCEP55 You can find the Building Business Youtube Channel From Job Nimbus here: https://youtu.be/dg25mpaz7eM If you took a survey of contractors right after the implementation of their first CRM or Project Management tool, many of the responses you’d get would sound something like: That was awful My head nearly exploded Truly the worst 6 months of my life for me and my team I never want to go through that again Technology and software are supposed to make your business life simpler and more efficient.  So why do most entrepreneurs talk about the adoption period like veterans talk about the war or mothers talk about childbirth?   This whole “tech overwhelm” thing, especially for contractors, is something we’ve been wanting to get some answers on for a while now, which is why we are so excited to have Ben Hodson on the show today.  Ben is the Co-Founder and CEO of JobNimbus which is one of our favorite pieces of contractor software, and we thought who would be better to teach us how to implement technology headache-free, than the guy who builds it.   We’re fans of Ben and JobNimbus for a couple of reasons. It's super customizable and integrates easily with everything. It's relatively simple to implement compared to other CRM’s and they have a dynamite customer support team that is super hands on.  So if you’ve purchased a CRM and barely used it, if you’ve been frustrated by your tech stack or lack thereof, or if you’re still managing your business on a spreadsheet but you’re ready to take the leap… this episode is a must listen. By the end of this episode you’ll know: The difference between contractors that struggle to implement new systems vs those that find it pretty easy How to use an “I.C.E.” decision making matrix to ensure you select the right CRM to begin with How to avoid the common “employee pushback” scenario and foster adoption of any new tech system How to identify all of the problems you face in business as one of two factors which then become easier to solve The elements of the trades and contracting sectors are ripe for disruption and what you need to be getting ready for The things that a serial CEO Ben Hodson wished he had learned earlier when running businesses See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you'd like to apply for Breakthrough Academy click here: https://trybta.com/PCEP54 To get the Team Event Planning Checklist click here: https://trybta.com/PCDLEP54 The interconnectivity of the individuals on your team is a huge predictor of success.   When people know and trust each other they’re more likely to collaborate together on important work, they’re more likely to be honest with each other when it counts, and your business will be better for it.   Your employees need to form deeper relationships than simply “someone I work with” in order maximize productivity and truly love their work; and part of your job as a leader is  to foster this.  In this episode of Contractor Evolution Igor and I discuss how to breed infectious team culture through better team events.   We talk about how to plan and execute gatherings and get-togethers that your staff will rave about and thank you for. By the end of this episode you’ll learn: Why quality time off site with your team is so important to the quality of work getting done Things you as the leader should consider before planning a team event to get the most out of it Dozens of ideas that you can use to create team events that are fun, unique, and have a positive impact on your team, the business and the community How often you should be running team events depending on the size of your company How much you should budget for team events and what can you expect for ROI Some of the positive signs you will notice if you run team events for a year or more that go beyond profit See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you'd like to apply for Breakthrough Academy click here: https://trybta.com/PCEP53 To get the Contract Checklist click here: https://trybta.com/PCDLEP53 You want to keep your A$$ out of trouble.  All ventures, big and small, face some form of legal risk and whether you realize it or not, the business of contracting is on the riskier end of the spectrum. You put thousands of hours of work every year into growing your company, not to mention the millions of dollars that get spent in the pursuit of growth. To do all of that on a shaky legal foundation is like building your dream home on sand. Because of this, smart entrepreneurs put effort and money behind proactive, preventative legal work, so that they can feel confident that the effort and money they are putting in is working to build something that will last.  Our guest on the show for this episode is Trent Cotney, Partner at the firm Adams & Reese.   Trent has been practicing construction law for 23 years and runs a large team of lawyers within the firm that specialize in various specifics of construction law.  He’s written two books related to OSHA defense for contractors and is the General Counsel for the National Roofing Contractors Association. Needless to say, he is the best in the business when it comes to protecting yourself, and all things legal in our industry. In today’s conversation, we get into: Some of the most typical legal risks that a contractor faces and how to prevent them What a contractor needs to know about corporate structure and how to protect themselves Why when you cut and paste contracts from google you could be seriously screwing yourself How manuals and SOP's in your business serve a much bigger function than just getting the work done How to cover your butt when it comes to safety on site Why you need a crisis management plan and what goes into one so chaos doesn’t break out when things go sideways See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Free Trial for CompanyCam: https://app.companycam.com/signup?email=If you'd like to apply for Breakthrough Academy click here: https://trybta.com/PCEP52 In this week’s episode of Contractor Evolution I sat down with a guest we’ve been trying to pin down for awhile, Luke Hansen. Luke is the founder and CEO of a CompanyCam, our favourite photo storage and site management app. Company Cam is purpose-built for contractors - it’s an intuitive platform to help you snap, store, sync and share photos of your jobs so that you, the owner, can better understand what's happening on site.  No, I’m not getting paid to say this, I just really believe in what Luke and his team are doing. It’s so much easier to empower your crews to make decisions and drive production without having to get in your truck and go out and see them if you have great photo management. Plus, it covers your butt if anything goes to the lawyers. Luke in particular is one of my favourite CEOs in the contracting space. Not only because his product rocks but because he has a really unique perspective on life and business It's important to mention that before building a software and pitching venture capitalists, Luke was a roofer working for his family business White Castle Roofing so he understands the lived experience of the contractor because that was him not that long ago. In this episode with Luke Hansen we unpack: The problem Luke saw in his own business that led to the creation of CompanyCam How photo sharing empowers your staff and requires far less of the owner's time The 3 traits that separate a dreamer from a visionary with traction When it’s ok to look stupid in front of your peers How to know when it's time to delegate and elevate tasks as a leader Why perfection can easily be an enemy of something good See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

 If you'd like to apply for Breakthrough Academy click here: https://trybta.com/PCEP51 To download the Active Listening Framework, click here: https://trybta.com/PCDLEP51 There is one skill out there that very few people engage in, but when executed well leads to stronger social connections, increases your ability to problem solve, makes you a more interesting person, builds trust, and increases your effectiveness as a leader. That skill is active listening. I realize that listening seems like a no brainer, and you might feel the desire to skip over this topic, but if that’s what you’re feeling then this episode is probably exactly what you need right now. Active listening isn’t as easy as you think. In fact it’s one of those skills that can take YEARS to perfect. Which is why I want to run through a bit of a ‘Crash Course’ on how to improve your ability to get more out of your conversations simply by being a better listener. In today’s episode we’ll cover: How to maintain intense attention during a conversation, especially when you are naturally distractible The kind of body language, eye contact, and verbal cues you need to display to show you are open to listening to what a person has to say The best way to empathize with the person you are talking to so they feel comfortable opening up What you need to say after they’ve completed their statement so they feel they’ve been heard and understood The kind of detailed follow up questions you SHOULD be asking to keep the conversation interesting and yourself well informed The exact cues you need to be looking for that tell you you’re doing a good job See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you'd like to apply for Breakthrough Academy click here: https://trybta.com/PCEP50 To download the Canadian Immigration Roadmap, click here: https://trybta.com/PCDLEP50 Have you ever considered bringing in skilled workers from abroad? Think about it… you as an entrepreneur can’t find the people you need at home, so the next logical step is to seek help elsewhere. If overcoming the labour shortage and growing your business is something you care about, immigration and foreign worker programs are things you NEED to consider.  And the sooner, the better.   A surprising fact here in Canada is that our current demographic modelling shows that by early 2030, our population growth will grind to a halt and large scale immigration is likely the only way to fix that problem. Therefore, bringing in foreign help is quickly becoming NOT optional, and this applies to individual businesses and the economy as a whole. When done correctly, recruiting and integrating foreign workers into your business and community is a win/win. And it's something that you, the evolving contractor, need to have on your radar. Our guest on Episode 50 of Contractor Evolution is Brooke Finlay, Managing Partner of Whistler Immigration. Brooke is an entrepreneur and a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant. She and her team help over 200 clients a year navigate the immigration process.  Her firm connects business owners in construction and trades with the international talent and human capital they desperately need.  Quick caveat. Brooke’s firm services Canada only (except Quebec). This conversation and the trends we discuss are still super relevant for our many American listeners, but we would advise you to find a local immigration consultant. By the end of this episode, you’ll discover: Why the need to bring in help from abroad exists in the first place The viability of using immigration as a tool to keep up with your recruiting needs What you, as the employer, are responsible for when bringing in a foreign worker How much it costs to bring in foreign labour The pro’s and con's of bringing in foreign workers Success stories of contractors who've brought in foreign workers PS - To get in touch with Brooke Finlay and Whistler Immigration, visit https://whistlerimmigration.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.