Boosting financial growth in your construction business, with Dominic Rubino

Transforming your construction business can be a challenging yet rewarding process.

Is it time to scale up? Well, you've got customers to deal with, suppliers to find, building codes to follow, and a team to keep on point. 

All these moving parts directly affect your finances. Things can get chaotic fast, and if you neglect any of these areas, it can really hurt your financial stability and growth.

So, how do you keep everything on track in your construction business? 

What areas should you focus on to boost your finances? 

And what strategies can you implement to make sure all parts of your operations align with your financial goals?

In this episode, Dominic Rubino and I discuss strategies to elevate your construction business, from specific operational improvements you can make and the financial planning and analysis you need to support your expansion goals.

Dominic is a construction business coach and host of the podcasts  “Profit Tool Belt”  and “Cabinet Maker Profit System”. He is also a serial entrepreneur, a proud husband and father, and a horrible fly fisherman. In both shows, Dominic shares lessons, tips, and tricks from thought leaders in the construction industry. With Dominic, you’ll get reality, not theory. He uses real -life stories and colorful anecdotes that help you see what the next level looks like and know how to get there. 

He’s been a business coach for over 23 years and an Entrepreneur for 25. Over the years he’s had companies in Construction Trades, Contracting, Mail Order, Pharmaceuticals, Real Estate, & Business Coaching. His commitment to you is that you’ll learn more in this interview than most businesspeople do in a year. And he wants you to go and apply it!

We discuss: (timestamps) 

02:22 Common problems in construction businesses before coaching

03:26 Key issues for construction businesses aiming to grow

04:39 The benefits of having the right team

07:46 How changing your mindset can drive growth

08:52 Real-life construction case study example

16:25 Business alignment & focus

24:29 Addressing operational problems in construction

25:52 Implementing time tracking for better planning

29:53 Explaining new processes to your construction team

31:18 Actionable steps to boost construction business growth

Resources:

Dominic Rubino, Construction Business Coach and Podcast Host, BizStratPlan Profit Tool Belt
https://profittoolbelt.com/
https://cabinetmakerprofitsystem.com/

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicrubino/

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ProfitToolBelt

Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKVBkA9GmALX_J7W3iGIy6g

Podcast:
https://profittoolbelt.com/podcast-dom/

Podcast:
https://cabinetmakerprofitsystem.com/podcast/

Kathy Svetina, Fractional C

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Chapters

• 2:22 Common problems in construction businesses before coaching
• 3:26 Key issues for construction businesses aiming to grow
• 4:39 The benefits of having the right team
• 7:46 How changing your mindset can drive growth
• 8:52 Real-life construction case study example
• 17:38 Business alignment & focus
• 25:42 Addressing operational problems in construction
• 27:05 Implementing time tracking for better planning
• 31:06 Explaining new processes to your construction team
• 32:31 Actionable steps to boost construction business growth

Transcript

Kathy (host):
Well, hello there, and welcome back to another episode of Help! My Business is Growing, a podcast where we explore how to grow and build a business that is healthy and sustainable. I'm your host, Kathy Svetina, a fractional CFO and a founder of a company called NewCastle Finance, a company where we believe that everything that you do in your business will eventually end up in your finances. And to get to healthy finances is to have a healthy business. Well, the question is, how do you get there? Well, this is where this podcast comes in to help. Today's episode is going to be very industry specific, and we're going to be focusing on the construction and remodeling industry, because running a construction company is like operating a complex machine. You are dealing with customers, you're finding suppliers, following building codes, making sure that your team is doing everything right. It has so many moving parts, and they all have a direct impact on your finances. Things can get chaotic and can go wrong quickly, and neglecting any of these things will harm your financial stability and growth. So the question here is, how do you prevent this from happening in your construction and remodeling business? How do you prioritize the areas that will improve the finances, and how do you even pick the things that you need to prioritize, and what are the strategies that you can use to make sure that all the parts of your operations match your financial goals? So this is going to be a very full episode that is going to look at construction and remodeling business from different angles and highlight all of the things that will impact the finances. You can find all the links and the detailed topics in this episode's show notes. My guest today is Dominic Rubino. He is a serial entrepreneur, a proud husband, father, and a horrible fly fisherman. Oh, Dominic. You might already know Dominic from the two podcasts he hosts: Profit Toolbelt and Cabinet Maker Profit System. In both shows, Dominic shares lessons, tips, and tricks from thought leaders in the construction industry. Join us.

Kathy (host):
Dominic, welcome to the show.

Dominic (guest):
How are you?

Kathy (host):
Great! Thanks so much for being here. You know, we're kind of doing a little bit of a podcast exchange, because I was on your podcast, actually two of your podcasts.

Dominic (guest):
Twice. That's right, you're so good. You were on twice.

Kathy (host):
Oh, thank you. And now you're on mine, so I'm returning the favor.

Dominic (guest):
Thank you.

Kathy (host):
And originally, when we connected, we connected because we both serve the same type of client. We work with construction and remodeling businesses, but we work with them from different angles, so I focus on the financials. And as I always say, you know, on this podcast that everything that you do in your business is eventually going to end up in your finances. So this is where you come in, because you come in before everything ends up in your finances, and you fix all the other stuff. So the operating stuff, yes, all the operating stuff. And you know, construction and remodeling and the contracting businesses, compared to other businesses, in my mind, they're pretty complex, because there's a lot of things that can go wrong. Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about this, because I'm sure that you see a lot of common threads that businesses run into before they start coaching with you. But let's talk about this. What are some of the common problems that you have seen with businesses?

Dominic (guest):
Well, so as you mentioned, I specialize in contractors and construction. And first of all, contracting and construction is the best industry in the world. Even though it has problems, those problems are also opportunities, because fewer people own a ladder, you know, people have like, a toolkit, maybe from Walmart, and then they're working in jobs where they can't afford to get home and be handy, and they don't want to go up on a ladder and fall off it. So contractors are more in demand than ever, but the most common problems are just what you said. It always comes back to the operations issues around time, time management, around the people. Who out there has a problem with the people on their team? Does anybody want to put their hand up right now while they're driving listening to us? Right? Yeah, yeah, right. Then we've got money, and that's the real intersection where you and I come together, although you're more, you know, you're that forward-looking finance professional on the growth side. One of the things that we get called in a lot for is profitability, because people are busy, crazy busy. But no matter how hard they work, they're not profitable, which is frustrating. And then you've got the strategy that people have, especially with family businesses or somebody who's in a growth mode. And then, of course, as you would expect, with a business coach, marketing, to get the right customers and sales to win the right deals. Other than that, that's it.

Kathy (host):
That's it.

Dominic (guest):
That's it.

Kathy (host):
You know, there's a lot of things to unpack here, obviously, people, money, strategy, marketing, sales. Is there anything that you think is more prevalent in the specific stages where the business is, let's say, at a million dollars right now? They want to get to that next level, to 5 million, because by that time, you have already done some sales, and you have done some marketing, and you really need to, like, fine-tune it a little bit. But I think from what I've seen from my experience working with these types of businesses, you know, they're really growing and pushing, like 5 million plus, the thing that breaks a lot is the operation side, yeah, and having the right people.

Dominic (guest):
Oh, you just nailed it right there. Yeah, yeah, that's the magic right there. Because right now, sorry, Kathy, to cut you off, but you just said it. It's the people, because you can get to a million by just being a superhero on your own, yep, just stubbornness. I mean, some people might call it dedication and determination, but let's call it stubbornness, right? Like just pure will to succeed, and yet, at some point you have to build a superhero team, because you can't do it all on your own. You simply, it's not humanly possible at some point. And so the operational problems are, what I hear is getting translated to what you and I are saying. So what I hear is, "Oh, my God, Dom, we're dropping the ball. Things are falling through the cracks. Customers love us or they hate us, right? Like, on some jobs you do fantastic, and on some jobs you just, people hate you." And it's just the way things fall. You can't get that consistency and predictability out of your business. And it starts to feel like, and maybe you hear this too, it was so much easier when it was just me and I was small. Yep, yeah, you nailed it. People.

Kathy (host):
Yeah. And I've had some businesses actually backtracking and saying, "I want to go smaller," yeah, because this is just too much. And it's so sad because this can be fixed. It's not going to be fixed overnight, but it can obviously be fixed.

Dominic (guest):
Yeah, yeah. And it can be fixed, yeah, not overnight, but it could be done in months. Because if you do find the right person, you know, I'll use the language of contracting, if we get that right project manager or an estimator, it's somebody who can take five, six hours a day off of your plate. Oh, there's people right now, exhaling, going, "Oh, I wish. Oh, that would be so nice. But Dom, you don't know what it's like to hire people today, but Dom, I can't afford those people," and which is where you come in, right? "But Dom, but Dom, but, but Kathy," like change your questions to be forward-looking questions. And so instead of saying to myself, "I can't," or "The world won't let me," or "I wish it was easier," scratch all that and just change the way you ask yourself the question to say, "How can I hire a project manager?" Or start your sentence with, "What if? What if I created a simpler estimating system so somebody who's moderately trained could estimate the way I want them to?" So those two questions, "How can I?" and "What if?" That, in itself, is a massive change.

Kathy (host):
I love that because it is forward-looking, and also it starts to change your mindset around it. Because eventually what ends up happening, if you're for every single solution that the person is trying to give you, it's like, "No, but I can't, but I can't, because of this," there's always going to be something. So if your mind is open to the possibility of what needs to happen, then you can start building that. It might be that you have to start doing the different processes and different systems. You might have different software that you need to put in, and then it gives you those ideas. It sparks the ideas that you need to do to start building the business that you actually enjoy working in, versus one that's just a chore.

Dominic (guest):
Yeah, yeah. And you know, if I start my sentences with "I can't, because…" then there's a box inside your brain and you just locked it. But when you ask the question, "How can I?" then you're like, "Okay, wait, I could do this. I could do that." Not all the ideas are going to be great. Some of them are going to be bad. That's okay. We only need one idea, well implemented, to work. Have lots of bad ideas. Be happy with the bad ideas. Tons of them. No big deal. I've got lots.

Kathy (host):
So let's, let's put this in more of a, I guess, kind of like a case study, if you will. Okay, someone is listening to this and says, "Okay, I get it. I need to change my mindset. And I get it. But how do I really do this when I am super busy, my profitability is low because my project management is terrible, and people, you know, keep buying things and things get lost or whatever. Like, how do I even grapple with this? Like, where do I even begin? How do you start peeling this onion?"

Dominic (guest):
I think you're going to be very happy with the answer, and other people are going to be confused at where I start. You ready for that?

Kathy (host):
Yeah, let's hear it.

Dominic (guest):
Let the data be your guide. Numbers don't lie. Numbers don't care. I don't like numbers, but I'm not a numbers person. Kathy, you and I couldn't be more opposite in that, but the numbers tell a story. I just have to read the story. And so if I'm really honest with myself and I start tracking my numbers, it'll tell me what I need to go look at. So you used an example of a project manager, and you know, people listening might say, "Well, my problem's an estimator," or "My problem's like a really good lead carpenter," or there may be in another business as well. That's fine, but the model still works the same. Start to track things. Start to measure things. How much time do you spend in project management? How much money is spent on go-backs and on punch or punch lists? How many problems are you tracking that could have been solved months earlier during the sales process or the engineering process, or early on in production? And once you have that data in front of you and you're tracking it, let's say weekly. Say weekly, right? These are the operational metrics that you and I just, we, for. You know, I'm doing that. What's that hand movement? I'm doing…

Kathy (host):
The hand movements with the fingers?

Dominic (guest):
Yeah, like am I a happy, happy hamster or something? I've got some… But when I have that information, I can make decisions purely based on logic, not emotion, and then I can have confidence in them. So let's say that you're running a $2 million business and you're project managing that. You're like, "Well, how can I afford to hire a project manager?" Well, I already know that you have a ratio of $2 million per one project manager. So what would it take for you, or what does it cost you now to produce a $2 million job? And how do we start to work that money in so you can afford a project manager? And ultimately, folks, everybody listening, the world is going to pay for your employees. And people like Kathy and I can show you how to make that happen. We're just stewards of the money. You don't have to afford a project manager. The world's going to pay for that. And people like Kathy and I will show you how to bring that money in, manage it properly so you can afford that person.

Kathy (host):
I like this. This is, I've never heard someone say that before, but it's really true. The world will pay for it if you let it. And also, the other thing too that I'm seeing here as well is if you're constantly running the business to the bone, like you have no cushion set aside, then you're basically, what you're doing is you're not being able to grow because you cannot afford those people to bring them in, right? You know, if I'm making $100, $90 goes out and I constantly make $10, but then I'm not putting some of that aside for the future, or maybe I don't have a line of credit, or I can't invest, sign up somewhere. Yeah, you can't invest, and you can't really invest back into the business. Profit, the reason why profit is so important, is because you want to be able to invest some of that back into the business so that you can make more money and more money and more money.

Dominic (guest):
You asked for a case study. Can I give you one? I won't share names, but I can share industry, if that's okay. So this is a fantastic couple, and they run a remodeling business in the center of North America. I don't want to say any more. They've been guests on my podcast a couple times because they're a success story, but they were in a problem, and the problem was that the owner wasn't getting paid. He took project profits, and I've been trying to get him money, like, to be on a regular salary, but he was resistant to that. And, you know, they get by. They're doing okay. He takes a bit when he needs it, right? And project profits is what you've probably seen, Kathy, like, they just finish a renovation. It's a $100,000 reno, and they're like, "There's six extra $1,000 here. Let's not do anything with it, but let's go. If it's still there in two weeks, let's take $2,000," and that was… Yes, Kathy's laughing. For those of you who can't see it, Kathy's got this massive smile and laugh. But so many of us do that, right? And so the problem here actually has a whole bunch of spikes on it, or, like, think about a hub and a spoke. The business owner wasn't taking a regular salary, and because of that, he couldn't afford a mortgage because the bank won't lend him money. Well, why does he need a mortgage? Because he needs a showroom. Well, why does he need a showroom? To increase his average sale size, which is Dominic and Kathy, boring expert talk for "sell bigger jobs," because the higher-end clients who purchase things as if they're trophies, who want to have a beautiful kitchen, beautiful reno, because it's a celebration of the fact they've succeeded in life. Isn't that a great customer? They want to buy that kitchen reno, but they want to come to a showroom to do it. So now you can see we've got all these things all over the place, like, what's Rubino talking about? The owner's not taking a salary. How does that relate to average dollar sale? Well, his market rate for estimating a job is based on the formula of labor, materials and subs. Very simple estimating formula, right? We use it all the time. Labor, material and subs. In order for him to take a $100,000 salary, how much, and Kathy's going to do this in her head, folks, so you can watch the magic happen, or see the smoke come from your ears. The question then becomes, very much like a high school teacher, how much does Kathy have to increase her hourly rate so she could pull a $100,000 salary after all expenses and profits and still not impact clients in the field? Well, it turns out, not much. But then they've got somebody like me and you behind them saying, "Well, if you're going to increase your salary, why don't you figure out how much it is to rent, to rent a place in the meantime?" So we added that too. So $2,400 would get them the rent right now until he qualifies for a mortgage. The short answer, folks, is it changed his hourly rate for estimating by $5 per hour, so from $83 to $84-$85-$86-$87, $88 in the field, 88 bucks per hour. But having that information and knowing which form to use when, that's where the real power goes, and that's why you and I get along so well. We've had three, this is our third podcast now. We're basically just agreeing with each other.

Kathy (host):
Yeah, exactly. And, I mean, and this is, you know, in the financial world, this is called financial analysis. You're looking at what needs to happen, and you're using a spreadsheet, or even if you want to do it on paper, like you're doing these "what if" scenarios. I want to get to this, what needs to happen? Do I need to increase my sales? Do I need to increase my pricing? What needs to happen to that so that you can get to where you need to be? And a spreadsheet or a piece of paper is a safe place where you can have those calculations and figure out, "Hey, this is actually doable."

Dominic (guest):
It's workable, yeah. And so what Kathy just said right there is the definition of working smarter, not harder. Exactly, that's it, right? So contractors, you know, the people that I work with, we started on the tools. And we've all got these great stories of starting on the tools. I started digging ditches. I started taking the clamps off foundations. I did that, by the way. You don't want to know what's in the water around the foundation of a building, and it's not nice. But you start on the tools, you're used to working with your hands, and so we know those tools, but at some point we have to understand the business tools, the tools of wealth creation, the tools of profitability, the tools of working smarter.

Kathy (host):
Yeah, and that is also, you know, in the business world, it's called working on the business, and in the business. There's a difference when you're working on the business, and if you do that well, when you work in the business, you're going to be able to work smarter, not harder. I mean, we want to work hard, but also the problem with that is too, when you're just working harder, harder, harder, you only have 24 hours in a day. You gotta sleep, you have a family, you have to eat. There's not that much time that you can dedicate more to your job. It's not healthy.

Dominic (guest):
I have an analogy that's a really good picture, and it came up with an Amish client of mine. So I know this doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'm really big in the Amish community, and of course, they get around by horse and buggy. And so I was trying to explain the working harder versus working smarter analogy, and we were stuck a little bit, and I said, "Okay, Amos," because his name's Amos, it's an Amish name, "I want you to imagine there's four horses, and they're all chained, yoked, and chained to a massive, massive cinder block. It's thousands of pounds, and all of those horses are chained up with proper gear, and they're pulling as hard as they can. They're sweating, they're digging into the ground. The handlers are nudging them along and the block will not move, no matter how hard the horses pull." And so there's a business coach in the background. He walks up and he says, "Hey, Amos, what do you think about facing all those horses in the same direction?" Right? Because they had them set up, north, south, east and west. No argument about working hard. Cannot possibly work harder. But the problem is the focus has shifted. And this happens a lot, Kathy. You probably see it. Multiple owners, multiple decision makers, or no clear leadership. We have to get people focused and pulling in the same direction. Now I just sound like Good to Great. I sound like Traction. I sound like the E-Myth. I sound like all those books because they're right.

Kathy (host):
I mean, really, there are universal principles of business. You want to have everyone rowing in the same direction as much as possible. Because if, you know, if you have three people going forward and then five people are going backwards, you're not gonna, you're gonna be stuck. Yeah, exactly. So we talked about the people side of it. Let's talk a little bit more about the people side of it, because I think that is such an important part - making sure that you have people rowing in the right direction. So if you're having people issues for whatever reason, you might not be finding the right people, or the people that you have right now are not really doing what you expect them to do. What would you say someone can do to fix that? What have you seen that works well?

Dominic (guest):
It's a little different all the time, and I hate to say that, but as you know, there are different variables, right? Because it'd be different if you are hiring a lot of family or if you're hiring people from the outside, but how we hire and bring people into the company is really, really important. The one thing that I've learned in years of coaching and years of being in business is that millionaires train people the same. Like the millionaire owners of businesses, they train everybody the same. So Kathy, if they're going to hire a CFO, or if they're going to hire somebody at the loading dock, everybody gets an understanding of who's our client, what do we do, what's the problem we solve, what's our culture, what are our values - all that goofy stuff that you think a business coach would say, except it's goofy to everybody, except the millionaires and billionaires, because they'll tell you, that's the glue that holds the company together. So when you or I are very clear on what our company stands for, it also becomes very clear what you won't stand for. So if I have a top technician, the best technician in the field - let's switch, let's switch trades completely and just say he's a locksmith, it doesn't matter, okay - but he won't show up to work on time. How can I enforce showing up to work on time with the rest of my team if my top technician won't do it? And if I can't enforce showing up to work on time, what about showing up to a customer site on time? What about finishing a job on time? What about fulfilling our promises? Which, every time somebody signs a contract with my company and my name is on it, I've made a promise to that customer that I'll fulfill that promise. And so if you can't fulfill the promise to show up to work on time, I get that you're the best locksmith in the world, you're going to have to go do that somewhere else. It doesn't matter. It's competence versus commitment, and you don't have the commitment, you can't be on my team.

Kathy (host):
I think this also goes back into some aspects of the jobs that are trainable, and you can actually train people in them. But there are other parts of the jobs where it's important that they have those skills, but you can't really train them in it. For example, for a project manager, you need them to be very detail-oriented. But if that's not their natural skill, their natural tendency, it's very hard for them to get trained in details, because it's just not going to click. But you can train them in project management.

Dominic (guest):
You can, but you have to train the right person. And so this goes back to the hiring, right? I went down the path of you've got a perfect technician, but before you hire that project manager, and it doesn't have to be a project manager, it could be a bookkeeper, it could be the next senior technician - write down on a piece of paper all of the characteristics of the best, I'll say, project manager you've ever worked with. For a project manager, they're probably unflappable, like their mood doesn't go up or down, even-keeled, right? Very chill person all the time. They're probably very organized. They're detail-oriented. They are an effective and clear communicator. So they don't have a lot of drama, because we don't need drama coming back to us, and we don't need drama going to the client. I'll stop there, but once you put that on paper before you've even run the ad, or before you've hired a recruiter, everybody you hire has to go through that filter. If they're not unflappable, if they're not detail-oriented, if they're not, you know, a good communicator, if they're not, if they're not, if - then they don't get to be your project manager. If they are, then you hire them, and then you got to train them and support them to be that great project manager.

Kathy (host):
And I think this is the other piece that's so important - even though you might have a person that's a great fit on paper, characteristics, their job experience - you still need to train them. And you need to train them in the way how you do things and how your company's values are, what your culture is, how you actually do it in the business. Because I have seen this happen, too, and this is what can bury businesses. When you go and you hire people, people come in and they say, "Oh, but in my previous company, we did it this way, so I'm going to be doing it this way," and then you have another person who does the same thing, and another person who does that. And then you have 10 people in the company doing something completely different. There's no quality assurance. There's no quality management. It becomes chaos.

Dominic (guest):
Yeah, and those are the horses pulling in different directions. Those people are all working hard, but they're not working on the same system. And so that's where we as owners have to be really clear on what it means to work on our team. And now the hard part for everybody listening is they'll be saying, "Kathy, Dom, I don't know where to start." Well, I don't know where you start either. I just know that you have to have a plan, and you have to pick away at it. You know, one of the things that we do in coaching, and it works with all of the contractors I've worked with over the last 24 years, is we don't focus on hitting home runs every time we have a coaching meeting. We just want the client to hit singles, like every week. Make one change. By the end of the year, your business will have changed in 52 small, little, tiny ways, but your competitor across the street hasn't changed at all. Now you take that way of thinking and you extend it over three years, five years. Now you give it on to your kids as a way of looking at the business, and that next generation takes it forward. 52 changes a year. 52 changes a year. Imagine the difference at the end of two years, three years, five years - it's incredible, and that's how businesses grow. It's never an overnight success, right? We want it to be, but it just takes the, you know, the unsexy work in the background, just doing little things every week.

Kathy (host):
And if someone is trying to implement this in their business, and they say, "Well, how would you go and do this? Would you document? Would you sit down and say, 'Okay, I'm going to dedicate two hours to this today, and I'm going to think about my business, where my problems are, what do I think I need to do to fix it?' And then pick one of those things." Like, how would you suggest people do this?

Dominic (guest):
Well, in all the coaching that we do, there's a strategic plan, and the strategic plan is nothing more than downloading the owner's brain onto one piece of paper. That's all we're trying to do. And there's, we've got fancy tools for that. You know, this works, and this works this way, but at the end of the day, we're just trying to take a USB key, you know, those little thumb drives your kids take to school, or maybe they used to, now they all use Google Drive. But remember back in the old days, four years ago, when we used thumb drives, right? But all we're doing is we're taking that thumb drive, we're stuffing it in the business owner's ear and downloading everything. And what we like to do as business coaches is that becomes our boss. That's the master plan, and we keep shoulder checking that master plan when we're not sure what to do next, or when we've finished a task. Let's say that we've just implemented time tracking. We're like, "Okay, we did it. We're the greatest company in the world. We now track time against jobs." Your business coach, me, or somebody on my team will go, "Well, what's next?" And we shoulder check. We go, "Oh, the master plan says now we go look at estimating or vendor relationships or whatever it is, right?" It's the next thing. It's always the next thing.

Kathy (host):
Yeah, yeah. And as you grow there's going to be more other things. So it's always, in the corporate world, they call this continuous improvement, because you're constantly improving things. It might not be a big thing, but it's small things that add up, like you've said, you know, every week you do something. As you mentioned, time tracking. And this is a specific problem that I know a lot of people might have. If you want that particular data, how much, you know, you're spending on particular jobs or what people are doing, not in terms of because you want to keep tabs on them, but because you want to have that data so that you know where the effort and the time is going, so that you can do better planning, and then you can do better staffing in the future. But you haven't done time tracking before, and now you're starting to implement it in the business. What would be the best way that you have seen people do that? Because I've seen employees push back on it, the change in culture, and it can be a real problem. What have you seen that works well?

Dominic (guest):
Yeah, this, I mean, this is where your business coach comes in. Because imagine you get to have this conversation in private and practice it before you roll it out to your team with all of the "what if they say this" and "what about that", right? At the end of the day, you raise a really good point. We have to understand there's going to be natural resistance. Because we all have resistance to change. That's what's kept us alive as a species for this long, right? So people are going to resist it, and you're going to hear "You kidding me? You want me to walk all the way to the other side of the shop just to punch in my time when it takes me longer to do that than to do the thing? Are you kidding me? Every time I pull up to a house, you want me to track my time? What are you trying to, is this a micromanagement thing? What are you doing?" And you've got to have your answer. I'm not going to go into every how, where, when, what, why, but as leaders, we have to lead. And what I want to do is I want to keep you guys busy. In order to keep you busy, we have to estimate efficiently. Because if we get killed in the field every time I do an estimate, there's going to be a day I have to lay you off. I don't want to lay you off because you take that check home to your family, and I want your family to be confident that daddy goes to work or mommy goes to work in a place where they know they're going to be working next week. So you might think time tracking is me micromanaging. No, I'm trying to be efficient with our estimating so we're not overcharging the customer. That's one example of a line of logic and reasoning. It's just one example, but I have to, if I don't have the conversation, then I'm going to suffer for that too. And we'll never track our time. We'll never know where the money is going. We'll never know where the time is being used.

Kathy (host):
Yeah, it's essentially, it's selling it to your employees, but in a way that also benefits them. Because eventually, like anything and everything that you do in your business, if you do it in the right way, it's all there to propel the business forward. So if you're all win, it's a win.

Dominic (guest):
You just reminded me of something. If people are driving, don't write this down. But if you do, if you do have a chance, please scratch down this radio station. Everybody needs to tune into this radio station. It's W radio station, W-I-I-F-M, have you heard of it?

Kathy (host):
No, I've never heard of…

Dominic (guest):
Oh, you've never… I'll do it in my best FM radio voice. Okay. Tune into W-I-I-F-M, broadcasting 24 hours a day in your head. All about you. What's in it for me? W-I-I-F-M bringing you your hits all the time. How was that?

Kathy (host):
I love that.

Dominic (guest):
I got a face for radio, as they say. But you actually brought up the point. So I'm glad you did. I have to say it to my team. You know, we're talking about time tracking here, but it could be about keeping the lunchroom clean. Doesn't matter. It could be about keeping the truck clean. What's in it for that other person? And so you heard me in that talk track saying, "I want you to know you've got confidence in this job because your son plays travel hockey or your daughter does travel for dance. She's going to Disney next week, right?" "Yeah." "Well, I want you to be confident in the wages you pull out of here so you can sign your daughter up again. And I can't do that unless we're time tracking. I'm doing this for the team. Do you think we need the extra work in the office? No. But if we want to grow as a company and consistently put jobs on the board for you guys to do, this is the next step." It has to be what's in it for them, not what's in it for me.

Kathy (host):
Yep, exactly. And I think this also shows the growth of leadership and the growth of management, because as you're starting to get more people in the business, your job, your number one job, is going to be making sure that the business is going to still be there in the future, so that it's healthy and sustainable. And the second job is going to be managing people and being a leader. And this, this is a hard transition to make, because if you started just as yourself, as a solo person, and then you started, you know, increasing more people, more people, you have to start taking that leadership position. And there's that mental switch that you need to make. It's not just about me anymore. It's about the company.

Dominic (guest):
About the team. Yeah, and I find that so often, so many of the people that listen to my podcast or that do coaching with us, have a real servant leadership attitude, like they're just good, solid people that want to contribute to the community. They want to employ lots of people, you know, they want to have an impact. And I often remind the people on my show, the work we're doing today is eventually going to put turkeys on the table at Thanksgiving. It's going to put gifts under the tree at Christmas and heck, if you wanted to put a motorboat on the lake during summer vacation, you could do that too. But what we do as owners is important, because we're allowing other people to live the lives they want by the salaries and the wages they take home from the work we're putting in here. It's a big deal. Being a business owner is a massive deal. It gets overlooked.

Kathy (host):
Yeah, and it's also a responsibility as well. So Dominic, we've talked a lot about a lot of things, and I know, you know, we're 30 minutes into this conversation, and people might be thinking, "Yes, I get it. I get it, but I still have no idea where I can start." What is the next thing that someone can do in the next week or two that's actionable, small, but it propels the business forward? What is one thing that you would tell them to do?

Dominic (guest):
Can we do an exercise right now?

Kathy (host):
Sure.

Dominic (guest):
All right, here it is, folks. I'm going to ask you a question that has three answers, and they're your answers. We're going to use the date today. Kathy, if that's okay, it's 2024, right?

Kathy (host):
Okay.

Dominic (guest):
Folks, so here's the question. I don't want you to overthink it. I just want you to go with your gut and give three answers. Please finish this sentence. In 2024, I achieved all of my goals because I… So just say what comes to your mind right away. In 2024, I achieved all of my goals because I 1, 2, 3 - what are those three things? If you're not driving, write those three things down. Okay, there's a second part to this exercise. So I'll say it one more time in the first part, it'll help on the second part. In 2024, I achieved all of my goals because I 1, 2, 3 - what are those three things? Now here's the second part of the exercise, and this is where the vise starts to get a little tighter. In 2024, I failed to achieve all of my goals because I failed to… I want you to write those three things down. Now I live in the space between those two questions. That's what myself and my team as business coaches do. But if people want to know what to do next, I don't know, because I'm not there. I'd love to talk to them, and I'm sure you would too, but you already know what you need to do. It's one of those three things, but it's not one of the last three things. Was that good?

Kathy (host):
That was awesome. Thank you. That made me think about my business too. It's not just applicable if you have a construction or contracting business, it's also if you have whatever business you have.

Dominic (guest):
Me too. Me too.

Kathy (host):
Yeah. Dominic, thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you?

Dominic (guest):
Thank you. Yeah, so you can find me on the Profit Toolbelt podcast, and it's spelled "profit toolbelt," you know, not like church, like money, "profit toolbelt." And if they want to shoot me a text message, like, the world doesn't have to be too complicated. My cell phone number is 315-903-7853, and then just say, "Dom, let's talk," and we'll talk.

Kathy (host):
Awesome. And we're gonna have all of that in the show notes too. So the phone number and the link to Dominic's podcast. And also, I know that those two questions were really, really valuable, so we're going to put that in there too. So go ahead, look it up. It's in the show notes. Thanks so much, Dominic. It's been a pleasure.

Dominic (guest):
Thanks, Kathy. Thank you.