It’s simple, really, how asking yourself a few key questions can move you forward as you look to grow your contracting business. Since we’re in the business of helping contractors grow their business and improve profits, we think about this a lot. In fact, improving profits and operations efficiency is why we’re in the construction software business.

Question #1: What are our critical business decisions?

Reviewing and reflecting on the important decisions you need to make to grow your construction business is the first step. Perhaps you are not satisfied with your sales and sales lead process, for example, so here the decision might be, first, to make a commitment to improve sales lead generation and sales lead conversion rates. There is power in merely identifying the decision area. You might not have all the answers yet, but writing it down on your list, your decision agenda, can be powerful and motivating.

Question #2: What are the best options to grow my business?

So, from question #1, you might make a decision to grow sales as a step to improve profits. But that decision, while important, doesn’t energize action. This is where coming up with actual options leads to action. Using our “improving sales” decision example, options are the possible choices you have to improve sales. Use some creativity here, and look ahead to the other questions on the list. As an example, options to the “improving construction sales” decision might be…

1. Hire more sales people.
2. Conduct sales training for the people you have.
3. Better organize your sales process and improve lead conversion.
4. Revise your sales compensation program.
5. Consider the effectiveness of your advertising.

See the power of generating options or choices? You may decide to take action on more than one. The magic comes from taking a deep look from with inside to harvest your construction business experience and knowledge.

Question #3: What management tools can give us advantage?

Keeping an eye on the management tools and process that are available stimulates thinking. What are the possibilities? What are the opportunities to use the latest construction management tools? What services are available to help? Reviewing these can help refine your options or choices.

Question #4: What are successful contractors doing?

Talking to colleagues is valuable: ask yourself, “What are the winners doing?” What management tools are they using? What processes, procedures, and policies do they use? And back to our example, how do the best have a humming sales engine?

Question #5: What is our ultimate business goal?

This last question, gets to the bottom line. Take time to think about your most important business goals. What is your ultimate goal? In our example of growing sales, you may not want to grow sales volume, but rather, you may wish to instead maximize the profitability from the sales you already generate.

The point is to get to the basics of your ultimate business goals given your track record, experience, and your construction company’s capacities.

Conclusion:

There you have it. Five basic questions to ask yourself to improve your construction profits. You may have other questions to add to the list. Keep asking yourself these questions, and your colleagues in the business, and your employees. The result will be a more focused and clear business strategy for your construction business.

To explore more tools to grow your contracting business…

About the NIRC:

The mission of the NIRC is to act as the principal advocate for improved legislation and case law to protect the consumers and contractors when dealing with insurance claims through out the nation. The NIRC certified contractors adhere to our code of professional conduct, educate property owners about the insurance restoration processes and give back to the communities in storm damaged areas. For more information goto www.nirc4change.org

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With an increasing number of contractors being fined steep penalties it is more important than ever to understand the difference between an employee and a legitimate independent contractor. Recently the Department of Labor fined three construction companies more than $100,000 in addition to ordering them to pay back wages to almost 100 employees totaling nearly $500,000.

Despite all the confusion and the complexity of the law, there are some very concrete differences between W-2 employees and 1099 contractors that you can use to make sure everyone who works for you is classified appropriately and your company is protected.

According to the IRS, the primary difference between an employee and an independent contractor comes down to who is in control. To make that determination, they look at three kinds of “evidence” that you might not be aware of, including:

Behavioral Control

– If a worker must follow specific behaviors that you outline while on the job site, they have to be classified as an employee.

• They don’t decide what time to start and end the work day, when they take their lunch break, or how many hours they will work each day

• They are required to wear uniforms while on the job site

• They attend training at your expense or are provided instruction on to perform jobs or processes in specific ways

Financial Control

– If a worker has no financial stake in the project other than standard salary or pay, they have to be classified as an employee.

• They have no financial investment in the project

• They incur no un-reimbursed expenses

• They have no profit and loss exposure

Relationships of the Parties

– If the worker receives employee benefits, they have to be classified as an employee.

• They receive vacation or sick time off

• They are provided with health insurance or a pension plan

• They do not have a contract explicitly outlining that they are an independent contractor or the terms of an independent contractor agreement are not being followed.

With the IRS and DOL cracking down on construction companies, it’s worth taking the time to make sure you are protected. Keeping documents stored correctly in a construction CRM software is key. There will always be situations where it isn’t easy to determine which classification is appropriate. To be safe, you should discuss any questionable situations with your accountant to ensure you won’t end up with a misclassification mess on your hands.

Keep All Documents For IRS and DOL Audits in a Construction CRM Software

• Keeping all documents related to work-mans comp insurance on crews, labor contracts on independent sales staff and crews is vital to have on hand and available. By utilizing a CRM software you will be able to keep all necessary documents stored in a safe easy to reach location. Being prepared is key to get past any audit with a least amount of exposure possible.

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