Four Steps to Sustainable Growth (10+10=0)

All contractors go through different stages of growth.

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
Share

 

Leadership Tools: 10 + 10 = 0

Growing contractors face an overwhelming amount of problems and opportunities as they move through the different stages of growth. There will never be enough resources to work on all of them, especially with the shortage of talent facing the construction industry.  

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Abraham Lincoln

The equivalent for the leadership teams of growing contractors is to spend a significant amount of time truly identifying the #1 bottleneck or opportunity in their entire value stream.  Then breaking it down into an actionable objective with key results that everyone can align around rather than a broad vision.   

This seems simple but in reality is VERY challenging, especially as a business grows. This is an area where experienced 3rd parties can add significant value because they don’t have all the biases that are inevitable with management teams who are looking at the myriad of problems and opportunities every day.  

Learn more




Incentive Compensation for Contractors - Alignment
One of the most challenging aspects of incentive programs is communicating demonstrated success in such a way that every functional group believes they have direct impact on their incentive outcome and that it is fairly applied across all stakeholders.
Collections and Retention Trend Metric
Assuming that a contractor’s project team has done an effective job of aggressively billing the project, the biggest variable that remains for cash flow is the effectiveness of collections.
Cash Flow Tip 3 - Contractual Details Matter
The reason we are called contractors is because we work off of a contract that defines the scope and terms of what we build. How we negotiate and manage the contract determines cash flow.