Don’t confuse profit with salary or hourly wages. Your business needs a profit to survive.
Profit - Not a Dirty Word
How to Be Profitable
It’s important to be focused on profitability. You’re in business because you want to keep a roof over your head and food on your table; you can’t do that when your business is losing money.
Can You Be Both Competitive and Profitable?
You can’t lower your price and expect to make up for it by selling more, because there is a limit to how much you can produce. Every job needs to be profitable.
Sales Issues: We Want the Lowest Bid
Some clients want the lowest bid for their project, and nothing else matters. It’s your job to try to educate them.
Markup Worries
Remember, you’re in business to provide a service and make a profit doing it.
Pricing Too Low
It is a fact of life that when you sell construction-related services, you’ll have clients tell you that your price is too high. Bless their hearts. They have no idea what would be a fair price for the work they want done, they just know that your price is too high.
Low-Value Jobs
I read many articles on the construction industry looking for, among other things, information on how the construction industry is doing and what we can expect in the immediate and near future. One statistic that always interests me is the size of the average remodeling job.
It’s Time to Stop Being Superman
In every business, some things we do eat into our profitability. Do you run your business or does your business run you?
Owner Deserves a Salary
I applaud this person’s efforts, helping someone else with the business side of business so the craftsman can continue being a craftsman. But this craftsman is going to have to either learn how to run a business or start charging enough for his work to both feed himself and pay an office manager.
How Much Should a Contractor Charge?
Many of our website visitors aren’t contractors, they’re clients looking for help with a Cost Plus project gone wrong, or wondering if their contractor is overcharging.
What It Costs to Be Lowest Bidder
Why would any serious construction-related business owner want to be the lowest bidder on a project? Let’s look at what that means.
“Thou Shall Prosper”
Rabbi Lapin and I have the same opinion of that message – Horse Apples. He doesn’t say it that way, but I will. Most who prosper financially work to earn what they have.
Pass those savings along?
I read an article where the author talked about passing savings on to clients. This sounds well and good, but place it low on your priorities when putting a job together.
Bigger doesn’t always mean more profitable
Often when I talk with contractors, I hear, "I want to grow my company so I can make more money." Consider this, if size mattered, dinosaurs would still be here.
Your Price Isn’t Negotiable
I heard about a scam a local building owner is pulling on his subs. He has several properties and is apparently worth a considerable sum.
Recover Overhead and Profit in your Labor Rate
There are four basic ways to charge for construction services. These are fixed fee or lump sum pricing, Time & Material pricing, Cost Plus, and using an hourly rate.
Some Jobs You Wish You’d Never Touched . . .
Brian Tracy had a great quote today from Comedian Bill Cosby, "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
What Makes the Most Money?
I’ve talked about focusing your attention on the 1, 2, or maybe 3 things you do well and make the most profit on. Doing a good job of advertising and promoting those.
“Transparency” or Proprietary Information?
Someone once said, “No man’s business is safe while the legislature is in session.” Here is another example.
Run a Profitable Construction Business
Michael takes a minute to talk about the value of making a profit. (video)