Words: George Hedley
Many business owners I work with tell me how their business doesn’t deliver the results they want and has taken total control over their lives. They work too many hours, don’t really make enough money, and never have enough free time to spend with family and friends. In other words, their business has overtaken their life, and they have become trapped in their web of over-commitment as they run faster and faster on a treadmill. When this happens, stressed-out and unfulfilled business owners reach a point where they finally realize their business needs to change, how they do business needs to change, their priorities need to change, and they need to change.
Many years ago, I was in this same place as my business controlled my personal and professional life; I worked too hard, did too much myself, and put my priorities on the back burner. After reading a bookshelf of business books on how to manage a successful business, I decided to go to a workshop to change how I run my business and develop a plan to enjoy the benefits of a company working for me. The next day after the workshop, I got to work early and made a detailed “Priority List” of all the responsibilities and tasks I had to handle and accomplish. Then, I prioritized the activities into three columns – High: must-do priorities, Should-Do: medium priorities, and Not-Important: low-priority tasks.
Then it happened like every other day for the past ten years – several phone calls from customers needing answers, emails requiring immediate attention, interruptions from a project manager wanting approval before he committed to a contract, an estimator wanting me to review a bid due today, a demand from a large subcontractor wanting to get paid, and a request for an emergency meeting with a jobsite superintendent having major field problems. To make matters worse (or better?), one of my best customers called to ask if we could meet at a site to get my opinion and discuss giving us the contract to build a new project for them. By the end of the day, after putting out all these fires and more, I realized I hadn’t even looked at my ‘Priority List.” Now what?
What’s the purpose of owning your business?
The purpose of ownership is to give the owners what they want for the investment and risk they take. Most business owners want their company to build wealth and investments by making significant profits over time and having a strong management team with structure, systems, and processes to allow them to enjoy plenty of freedom and personal time. A business that always works is ‘On-Purpose’ and ‘On-Target’ according to your priorities. It gives you what you want! What will make your business ‘On-Purpose’ for you? I wanted my business to always make a profit, create repeat loyal customers, be 100% run by my management team, grow equity, create wealth, and allow me the freedom to enjoy a significantly fulfilled life. Do you want your business to work for you rather than you working for your business?
What do you want?
To make this happen takes a well-developed written business plan with a clear vision of what you want. Specific targets and goals clearly define how you will accomplish and deliver the results you want to achieve in your business and personal life. Answer these questions to determine what you want:
- What would a perfect business and personal life look like?
- What’s the vision of what you want your business to become?
- How do you want to do business?
- How big do you want your business to become?
- How much money do you want to make?
- What are your financial and equity goals?
- What do you want your role to be?
- Do you want a management team to run your business?
- Do you want to build a great place to work that attracts and retains great people?
- Do you want to be organized and systemized?
- Do you want to know your numbers and job costs?
- Do you want to have accurate pricing and estimating?
- Do you want loyal high-margin or low-bid customers and work?
- Do you want to build wealth and have income-producing investments?
- Do you want to have more free time to spend with your family and friends?
Prioritize and commit!
To achieve the results you want, you must commit to making your vision become reality. To get started building your plan, email GH@HardhatPresentations.com to get your copy of the BIZ-Builder Blueprint worksheets tool. First, make YOU your top priority and commit to fixing and doing something about YOU. Then you can start working on how you improve your business, how you manage and stop micromanaging, how you hire and build a management team, how you stop tolerating poor performers, how you delegate and trust people, how you develop and enforce systems, how you focus on the numbers, how you seek higher margin customers, and most importantly – how you commit to your priorities first. If you keep putting yourself second, things won’t change as you continue to react to situations, problems, and challenges and make other people’s priorities yours.
One of my business coaching clients told me he wanted to stop working too many hours and take more time off. After we discussed his goal, I asked him to be more specific. He admitted, “I would just love it if I could take at least four hours off on Sundays!” Everyone is in a different place. But to get what you want, start by being specific about how you’ll balance your business and personal goals! Make a commitment and say, “I will leave the office at 4:45 pm”, “I will not check my emails or voice mail from 5 pm until 7 am”, “I will not get involved in decisions my project managers or superintendents are authorized to make”, “I will take a three-day weekend off every month.” Be ruthless, stick to your priorities, and start putting your life first.
Be ‘On-Purpose’ and ‘On Target!’ Resolve every day to know what you want. Focus on your personal priorities first and business demands second. Make progress every day towards achieving your personal and professional goals. And don’t postpone your personal life for business pressures.
Get Tickets!
When you continue to put your business pressures first, you tend to postpone your personal life. For example, you want to take your spouse out to a special dinner or concert, but you keep finding reasons to stay late at work. Or you want to take your son or daughter camping, but bids and estimates require you to work over the weekends too often. Or you intend to take your best customers to a ballgame, but you never have the time to get around to it. To put yourself and your priorities first, start buying tickets! When you buy tickets months in advance for events or activities like NFL football games, vacations, music concerts, golf tournaments with customers, hunting or fishing trips, family events, industry events with customers, special dinner reservations, or their day weekends, they become a top priority. When you buy tickets, they’re on your calendar; you don’t miss them, and you don’t schedule business commitments on those dates or times. When asked to meet at those times, all you have to say is, “Sorry, I have tickets!” To work on your top business priorities, put time into your calendar for important activities like management meetings, field supervisor meetings, customer lunches, and times to work on your business systems or strategy areas.
——————————————————————–
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
George Hedley CPBC is a certified professional construction business coach and popular speaker. He helps contractors build better businesses, grow, increase profits, develop management teams, improve field production, and get their companies to work. He is the best-selling author of “Get Your Construction Business To Always Make A Profit!” available on Amazon.com. To get his free e-newsletter, start a personalized BIZCOACH program, attend a Profit-Builder Boot Camp, or get a discount at www.HardhatBIZSCHOOL.com online university for contractors, Visit
www.HardhatBizcoach.com or E-mail GH@HardhatBizcoach.com.
George Hedley CSP CPBC
HARDHAT BIZCOACH
Email: GH@HardhatBizcoach.com
website: www.hardhatbizcoach.com