bespoke business ADVICE FOR THE UK CONSTRUCTION SECTOR
As a construction business owner, 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 struggle because small profit leaks across the business quietly drain cash until the problems become too serious to ignore.
If you want to stop those leaks, improve your profits and run your business more professionally, you're in the right place.
Take our free Construction Business Profit Quiz to discover where your business could improve. You'll receive a personalised report with practical suggestions and a prioritised action plan, usually in under two minutes.
Why do busy UK contracting businesses still lose money?
There isn't a single silver bullet, despite what you may have read or been told. Profit usually leaks from four connected areas of a construction business. Improve the wrong area first and you may see little benefit.
Profit leakage can start before a project even begins, if you price too low to win the work. It can continue through project delivery and be made worse by weak financial information, inefficient systems or poor management.
We've developed a free, AI-powered Construction Business Profit Quiz to help you identify which of these four areas deserves attention first. Complete the Quiz to receive a report highlighting potential profit leaks and suggesting practical changes you can make now.
what our clients say
Our clients are contractors like you: tradespeople and operational professionals who have built businesses from the ground up, often without formal training in running a business. They come to us when they want to stop firefighting, improve profitability and run their businesses more professionally.
Read what they say about the practical, bespoke advice they've received.
"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."
why work with me?
Unlike general business coaches, I've learned how to run construction projects and businesses from the ground up. My career progressed from Setting Out Engineer to Project Manager, Profit Centre Director and executive leadership within one of the UK's largest contractors. Along the way, I gained structured management training and an MBA.
Since 2015, I've helped more than 100 construction business owners improve the way they find work, price projects, manage delivery and run their businesses profitably.
Many UK SME construction business owners make the transition from “worker” to “owner” without formal training in supervising people, managing projects or running a business. They learn through experience, sometimes making expensive mistakes along the way. I've learned from my own share of scars, too, and use that experience to help others avoid common pitfalls.
I work with construction business owners who have moved beyond simply being on the tools and want to build a better-run, more profitable business.
Bespoke advice, at your pace
Every construction business is different. The right solution for a small contractor may be quite different from what a larger, more established business needs.
We start with the issue you want to address and the result you want to achieve. I'll help you identify the changes most likely to make a difference and work with you on practical ways to put them into action.
You choose how much help you need. You might want a single session to solve a specific problem, a few sessions to put changes into practice, or regular monthly support while you build confidence in running the business.
There is no fixed programme, no minimum number of sessions and no long-term commitment. You can return whenever you need further advice as your business develops.
My aim is to help you achieve the result you need and leave your business in a better position. You decide when you've had enough support.
Boom or Bust – your choice
If you've decided to run your contracting business professionally rather than spend all your time on the tools or supervising projects, where should you start?
One of the biggest opportunities to protect profit comes before a project even starts. If you consistently win work too cheaply, every project begins with a handicap.
I've developed a practical approach to pricing tendered construction work at the highest price the market will bear. It can be applied by smaller contractors who add overheads and profit using a rule of thumb, as well as businesses with more sophisticated tendering processes. The important thing is to use the right approach for your business and apply it consistently and accurately.
Getting your pricing right can address a major source of profit leakage. Other issues can then be tackled in the order that makes most sense for your business.
The immediate priority may be to turn around a “Project from Hell” and stop losses on work already under way. You may need to build a pipeline of profitable work, improve tender prices or get better control of project delivery.
Without profitable work, the business will struggle. But winning work is only part of the answer. Profit can also leak in four key areas:
Pricing & understanding your business numbers.
- Competing in a race to the bottom on price.
- Not knowing the gross profit each project should make.
- Not forecasting the income and profit the business needs.
Finding new clients
- Relying entirely on word of mouth.
- Working with the wrong clients.
- Failing to understand what matters to a client before preparing a bid.
Project delivery
- Missing or unrecovered variations.
- Failing to recover the cost of delays and disruption caused by others.
- Not knowing whether each part of a project is delivering the expected profit, using Cost Value Reconciliation (CVR).
Leadership & management
- Having no time to work on the business rather than in it and struggling to manage others.
- Weak systems and processes that lead to confusion and poor communication.
- Not keeping on track to achieve turn-a round, growth plans or exit plans.
The best way to judge whether our approach works is to read what our clients say. If you'd like to understand where your own business could improve, take the free Construction Business Profit Quiz and receive a personalised report with a prioritised action plan.
The Quiz is a starting point, not a commitment. If you'd like to discuss your results and the challenges facing your business, get in touch for a no-obligation conversation.
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