The Number One Piece of Advice.
Business Owners Only.
Disclaimer: This Podcast is for Construction Industry Business Owners who want to hear the truth no matter how much it might sting. If you’re looking for nicey, nicey leadership advice? Go watch a TED talk!
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Number one piece of advice
What do twenty years of experience running small businesses and consulting with small business owners in the construction industry highlight?
Firstly, a company’s ability to perform its specific trade, service, or operation isn’t the reason for its failure or a lack of growth.
Secondly, the will, passion, determination, hard work, or devotion of a company’s owner or senior people isn’t why it struggles.
Thirdly, a company’s inability to find highly skilled, motivated, and qualified people isn’t the reason it ends up in receivership… Oh, and not because all of those traits are readily available, they’re not. But, they’re not available to anyone, including the industry-leading companies either, so they cancel each other out.
The exception
This list could go on forever, so I’ll finish it with one point that could be a valid reason which could actually send a company under, and that is cash flow. Cash flow sucks in the construction industry, and its brutal bias to the prominent GC’s and clients is outright is discriminatory.
Cash flow is an outlier and can certainly cause a companies’ demise. All it takes is the wrong company going bankrupt at the wrong time, and the whole house of cards falls because of it. So yes, it is 100% relevant, but it’s actually rarer than we think. Most companies have a broad enough client base/portfolio to sustain a financial hit (unless it’s during a bloody global recession).
Spit it out!
Therefore, if none of the above are the main reason why most small businesses in the construction industry struggle, what is? What piece of advice could possibly be more beneficial to company owners than something in one of these areas?
Recognizing that running a business is a trade in its own right, and it’s a trade that you as a business owner with a trades background have zero experience or education in.
Most companies struggle because those owners are under the jobsite mentality disillusion that knowing your trade, skill, or service is sufficient to run a business, and it’s not.
But I know Me Joaaab!
Yes, it’s essential to know your industry skill, obviously. However, if you don’t appreciate that running a business is also a skill, you’re going to be in deep shit!
How you run a jobsite is not the same as how you run a business. How you speak to a client when you’re a trades worker is not how your speak to a client when you own the company. Plus, what’s considered right, wrong, and acceptable on the jobsite is not viewed in the same light in a professional environment.
A business owner’s ability to broaden their perspective, knowledge base, attitude, and skill set once they assume the position of a businesses owner is vital.
In conclusion.
recognizing that once you set up your own company, you’re back to being an apprentice is the best way to guarantee your company’s success in the future. Therefore, in this episode of the Construction MPa Podcast, we will discuss the number one piece of advice for small business owners in the construction industry, and most importantly how they need to act upon it from this point forward.
Enjoy!
Program vs. Podcast?
The Construction MPa Program is an entirely different beast than the Construction MPa Podcast. However, it was ultimately built with the same end goal in mind, too:
A) Help small business owners strengthen their businesses themselves via a step-by-step process.
B) To provide a home for small business owners to openly discuss the challenges they face in a sales and bullshit-free environment.
If you want to know more about the Construction MPa Program, check out: Program Outline Page.
Business Owners Only.
“If you want to strengthen your business today. You need Construction MPa.”