Are you frustrated with the construction industry? If that’s the case I completely understand, I have been involved in the industry for 20-odd years and understand what you are facing. I have also built my own construction business from the ground up and it’s not easy.
When you first started out on your entrepreneur journey it felt exciting. But after a while, the daily grind and pressures and problems start to mount up. The initial joy fades and you start to question if it is it all worth it. All the stress and risks that you have to take, then the pressure of trying to make payroll or the VAT bill can cause anxiety. And then you’re working all the hours under the sun and you start noticing it’s affecting your family time, your time away from your wife and your kids. And you start to think, is this worth it? And then worse still, you’re working that hard, really grafting buy you’re not making that much money. You can’t give it up though, because what else are you going to do?
I was exactly where you are right now if this is what you are asking yourself. I was there and realised that I needed some help to break free of this cycle that I seemed to have gotten myself into.
Bill Gates famously said in the opening words of his Ted Talk “everyone needs a coach”.
I’ve had consultants and coaches throughout my business life and career and the pay-off has always been huge. It has saved me from making big mistakes and sometimes it’s just nice to bounce things off someone who has a different perspective. A coach can often see things in a way that you can’t or they might have worked with another company that has more experience in things you have not. They can also have a level of honesty that your friends or employees might not feel comfortable talking to you with.
So if you are frustrated with your business and the construction industry in general then can I make a suggestion? Get a construction business coach.
Now I will be honest here, coaching construction business owners to help them is my passion. So I may not be totally unbiased when I’m telling you it’s a good idea. But in this article, I am going to tell you a bit more about my journey to where I am today, from owning multiple successful construction businesses to helping other construction owners to start bringing in £5,000,000+ to their construction business.
So in this article, I will talk about:
- My story
- What are some benefits of having a construction business coach
- How I can help you to grow your business to
So let’s start with my story, how I grew two businesses and learnt all I have to bring to my construction coaching business.
My Story
As I mentioned earlier I can feel your pain with the frustrations of having a construction business. I’ve really been there. I know the struggles of running a small construction business. And the reality is, to be honest, it’s really tough. It’s hard work. But like you, I stuck with it, not really having anything else to get into.
But then one day I decided I had had enough. I had enough of not succeeding. I had enough of constantly struggling. And I knew the only way I could earn more money and have more time, more freedom, is if I grew my business. I believed if I could grow my business to £1 million a year, if I could get it to that level, that would give me enough money to employ a small and efficient team around me which would give me more time and freedom. And I believed that if I got to £1 million a year, I would also be earning a good wage. That’s all I wanted, just to earn a good wage and spend more time with my family. But I think I really didn’t know how to get there or what strategies to put in place.
So I started reading. I consumed book after book on business. I read autobiographies on successful entrepreneurs who’ve had the same struggles. I probably read hundreds of these types of books. Spent hours and hours on it, from Good to Great by Jim Collins to the Four-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris. You name it, I’ve read those books. I’ve read them all, and then I took lots of courses. Lots of courses on best business practices, social media strategies, Facebook, advertising, paper, click, all that sort of thing. Hundreds of hours I invested in development, personal development and business development in order to grow my business.
And then with everything that I learned, I then had to put it into practice. But the first thing I did was make the big decision to split up with my business partner. That was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make. However I was really determined that if I was going to grow this business, I was going to do it on my own terms. So I split from my business partner and then I really focused on growing the business and applying the strategies that I’ve learned over the years. Now at the time I remember our partnership, we were doing about £600,000 a year. Which is OK, you know, we were busy, but it’s not a lot really. When you break it down, you think there’s two of you that’s, like one man doing £300,000 a year. Nothing special, but it was OK.
Trying to develop the business, I managed to do £700,000 on my own that year. That was great. And then the next year increased revenue by 70% and I hit 1.2 million in sales.
I was really earning really good money. But if I’m honest, I was working like a dog. I’d just get burnt out if I carried on like that. So I knew I had to get a good team around me. That was the only way I could carry on. And the good thing was I had funds available because I was turning over so much money and I could bring people on board.
My team grew and we got our turnover to 3.5 million in two years. So we were really growing at a rapid pace. I had mastered the marketing and brand message, and the sales side of things was soaring. However, I hadn’t really mastered the art of winning the right type of clients and I also hadn’t mastered the art of the operations side of things because we’re going so fast. I found it become obvious very quickly that I didn’t really have the systems in place to keep control of it all. And as we grew, the bigger we got, the more problems we started to experience and the more clients became dissatisfied because I was losing control.
I was on a downward spiral very, very fast. And the final icing on the cake for the business really was that we had a dishonest client who ended up defaulting on me for a lot of money at the time. And because we were getting behind on payments and pressure from suppliers we sought some legal advice and we were told that we had to stop trading, we were effectively bankrupt.
It was an awful time. You can imagine when you build up a business over many years and then you lose it overnight and I’ve never ever felt so much pressure in my life. I lost all my ongoing contracts, lost a lot, and I upset many of my subcontractors. I had to let office staff go and then personally I was in a lot of personal debt.
I had to decide what I wanted to do? Should I get out of construction? Should I do something else? But I knew that I was really onto something quite good with the business. I knew I was onto a good thing because I had mastered sales and marketing. I knew I had the confidence I could grow a company rapidly, but what I needed to learn now and apply was how to control that growth so it was sustainable. So I got my head down and I worked out a strategy that I was going to apply to my next business. And the next one I did, I knew I was going to do it right and I called this strategy: Develop.
It’s a seven-step process and then once all these steps are in place, I can honestly say it’s like having a company that’s being run like a well-oiled machine. So I thought long and hard about this and got this down on paper and all the experience I’ve learned over the years and started up again from zero and then the first year I had 1.5 million in sales and this time I did it right.
The right marketing strategy was in place and most importantly, I had the right operating systems in place to be able to sustain business growth like that in one year. And one of the biggest things is that I now fully understood my numbers and my data. And that enabled me to grow in a controlled way. And I also knew then how to attract the right type of clients. So I must say that the second million-pound company that I’ve created was much easier to start and run than the first one.
Having these experiences have given me a unique perspective. This perspective is one of the benefits of having a construction business coach work with you. Let’s look at some of the other benefits for you and your business.
What are the benefits of having a construction business coach?
Different construction business coaches can help you in different phases of your business. Some are best for start-up companies, a coach like myself is more suited to an established business with a growth mindset that are looking to grow. Other coaches will have the skill set to transition into a large company, Whatever stage you are in it there are some benefits that apply across the board to having a construction business coach. Here are five benefits:
- 1. You will experience faster growth – Working towards your goals and reaching milestones is a lot easier when you have an experienced coach working with you.
- 2. Fresh perspective – Seeing things through another person’s eyes can highlight areas that need improvement, and also help with creative solutions that you may not think of.
- 3. Accountability – Having a construction business coach can make you accountable to doing things that may be scary and to stop procrastinating.
- 4. Expertise – having a construction business coach can help you to close any knowledge gaps that you may have and benefit from tried and tested techniques built from experiences like mine.
- 5. Navigate challenges – Investing in your career with a construction business coach can help you to navigate any challenges that stand in the way of reaching your goals.
How can having a construction business coach help you
Could you see how growing your business from where it is now to £1,000,000 a year or even just doubling your business from where your business is now?
Can you imagine how much happy you’d be if you could take just a day or two away from the office every now and then and let your team run things?
How would that make things easier for you if you’ve got to spend more time with your family or your kids, or you’re just able to have a few afternoons off now again for around the goal for two? How would that make a difference in your life?
How would you feel if you were earning double what you’re currently earning? Would that make a big difference in your life?
Well, all of that is possible if you grow your business in the right way. And a construction business coach can help you get there. With Develop coaching we’ll work on a program together where we work through the Develop principles 1 by 1. We will analyze your current company situation in detail and talk about it honestly.
We will look at:
- Your roadmap and what your next 12 months should look like
- How to identify your USP
- Your branding and message
- Business processes
- Building a loyal team
- Software systems
- Profit and loss and understanding figures
Around these seven areas, we find a custom solution that works for you. If you want to expand your construction business, then I’ll just say to you now – you need to take action. You don’t have to do it on your own either, we all need help. We need guidance for people who have been there and done it before. Construction business coaching is a great way to see how to manage the frustrations we spoke about earlier, and grow your business so that you can have more freedom, time and money.
If you would like to learn more then feel free to get in touch for a free strategy session. I’d love to talk to you and show you how I can help you transform your business. Get in touch here, and start making a difference to your business today.