BESPOKE BUSINESS ADVICE FOR THE UK CONSTRUCTION SECTOR (BA4CS).
You're working hard, but your bank balance isn't growing. Perhaps you're constantly short of cash despite having a healthy order book. The chances are your business is leaking profit in places you haven't yet identified. Most contractors don't fail because they can't build. They fail because small profit leaks across the business quietly drain cash until it becomes too late.
Why do busy UK Contracting Businesses still lose money?
There isn't a single silver bullet despite what you may have read or are told. Profit usually leaks from four connected drivers of a construction business. Improve the wrong driver first and you'll see little benefit. Profit leakage starts when the tender is submitted if the price is not the highest the market will bear, then continues through project delivery and with the use of inefficient business systems. Using AI, we have developed a Free Construction Business Profit Quiz for Construction Contractors. Do the quiz to find out which driver is causing your business to leak profit and receive a prioritised action plan suggesting changes you can make to professionalise now. Most people get their report in under 2 minutes.
we’ve helped professionals excel throughout the industry
Our clients are contractors just like you, tradespeople and operational staff who have left corporate life. They are business owners who have built their businesses from the ground up and came to us when they were ready to stop leaking profit and professionalising. Read what they have to say about our bespoke support sessions.
"Before Peter started the program with us, our bidding did not have much logic. He introduced a discipline which now enables us to win profitable jobs, when we need them."
"Peter has opened up a whole new way of finding work which has enabled us to penetrate markets we wanted to get into to grow the business."
"The importance of how the figures informed the management came through so strongly after just one session with Peter that we recruited a finance person."
"Wow, light bulb moment. How had we missed what you said about tender feedback."
"Submitting a public sector bid exposed us to completing the quality section for the first time. Peter identified resources to cover the new elements of this type of contact and we scored highly on quality with his guidance."
"Thank you so much for our session. I thoroughly enjoyed it and now have a clear direction with a great value proposition."
WHAT MAKES OUR BESPOKE SUPPORT SESSIONS DIFFERENT?
Unlike general business coaches, I've learned how to manage UK construction projects and progressed to managing construction project profit centres and regional operations within one of the UK's largest contractors. My career progressed from Setting Out Engineer through Project Manager, Profit Centre Director and Executive Leadership, supported by structured management training and an MBA. Since 2015 I've helped more than 100 owners of contracting businesses improve the way they find new work, manage and deliver projects and professionalise their business to become profitable.
Most UK SME construction business owners go from "worker" to "owner", without ever having any formal learning at supervisory, middle & senior manager levels. They gain scars along the way, making expensive mistakes, some so serious their business folds. Like them, I have gained my fair share of scares but have learnt how they can be avoided.
We work with UK SME contractors and construction business owners who have grown beyond simply being on the tools and now want to run the business professionally. Every construction business is at a different stage of development. Because we've worked with businesses of all sizes, we can usually identify the key issues quickly and focus on the changes that will make the biggest difference first. That keeps our sessions practical, cost-effective and proportionate to the size of your business. You will receive bespoke business advice at a pace set by you. There is no long-term lock in although many owners return with new issues later and many ask for monthly accountably sessions until they gain confidence.
Boom or Bust – your choice
If you have decided to run your contracting business like a professional business rather than be on the tools or supervising a project, where should you start?
The single biggest profit leak occurs before a project even starts. If you consistently win work too cheaply, every project begins with a handicap. As an experienced businessperson I have developed a method for winning tendered construction projects at the maximum profit possible. The method is not difficult to follow. It can be applied to businesses adding overheads and profit by “rule of thumb”, to those with sophisticated tender processes. It simply needs to be applied with consistency and accuracy to be successful. As projects are tendered and won at the maximum profit the biggest profit leakage is fixed. All other profit leaks can be addressed in later bespoke support sessions.
The primary concern should be to stop profit leakage occurring this week. Firstly, turn any “Project from Hell” round that you are working on and stop the profit leaks on live projects. Then ensure that there is a pipeline of profitable work and that it is being secured at the highest price the market will bear. Without profitable work coming in the business will fail but most construction businesses leak profit in four areas:
Pricing and understanding the business numbers.
- By engaging in “the race to the bottom”
- Not knowing a projects gross profit
- Not having business forecasts to adjust the tender price
Finding new work
- Relying on word or mouth
- Working with the wrong clients
- Not capturing client drivers at the beginning
Project delivery
- Variations missed
- Missing recovery of delays and disruption by others
- Not knowing if each element of the project is contributing the expected profit (CVR)
Managing the Business
- Not having enough time to work on the business
- Controlling and managing others
- Weak systems and processes leading to confused communication.
The best way to judge whether our approach works is to read what our clients say. Then take the Free Construction Business Profit Quiz for Construction Contractors to discover where your business is losing profit and receive a prioritised action plan to help you stop the leaks. The quiz is a starting place to help you understand where leaks might be occurring, contact me for a no obligation chat about your result.
NEVER RUN A CONTRACTING BUSINESS BEFORE?
Take our Contractors Construction Quiz to find out where you could improve.
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