I believe in you guys that you will be successful and its awesome Austin has hung in there, from what we have been able to see you guys are shaping up and building a great team. Glad for the new content and videos been patiently waiting 💪🏻
Thank you for providing an update, interesting to watch. Something I'm wondering, do you find that your market has a ceiling/resistance point on the labour revenue per employee? A point where it is easier to bring on another person to distribute overhead, then it is to grow the $$/field-worker coming in the door? If so, how have you dealt with that - and the added risk growth brings?Do you push the productivity and invest that way OR take on more risk by establishing another crew and increasing the volume of work? Question 2: With the high turn over, how to you record/calculate your production rates for new estimates? Question 3: Are you estimating jobs or quoting out a fixed price? (Can't remember if you covered this prior, with variable soil conditions quoting has proven to be a problem for us... )
I am all about in house crews. I want total control of the process. You can’t have that with legit subs. Revenue per team member should be between 200-250k. To get to 4mm, I expect to be pushing 20 FTE’s With turnover as high as it is we have not ever been able to establish reliable production rates. That is hurting even today which is why we will continue to struggle to make money as long as this continues. That’s why it is important to pay more for good labor and quit trying to get cheap help. Pay your team well!! We estimate everything and that will never change. Pricing by the foot is a sure fire way to mediocrity at best.
Hi I saw a video of yours on lump sum bids. That's how we bid. but what do you do/say if the customer wants it broken down? thanks, keep the videos coming
We would be happy to break down the bid for you if you would like us to work on time and material basis. Otherwise it’s $5000 to do the job and $0 not to. I’m happy to give them the specifications of the material that were using and tell them how we’re going to go about the project, but I will never give them a material list with a material cost and show them how much I’m bidding per man hour. It’s simply won’t happen. There’s nothing good that can come of that and you will lose every time. People that want their bid broken down are looking to beat you up any way they can. We politely explain to them that if we provide a bid, we are locking in their price and they will not be charged a penny anymore unless they change the scope of work. While they not might not be able to see every factor that we used to prepare the bid, they do have the convenience of knowing exactly how much the projects going to cost.
Great video, is that about the same crew size that you started stepping back at Olson fence or swi Wyoming or is this something you learned with growing the Wyoming side as big as it is?
Similar. With Olson Fencing I was always running a crew. It took about 5 years for me to step out of the production roll in SWI and that really helped the business grow. As great as I am as an installer, that is the worst thing for me to be doing. Everyone suffers if I’m in the field.
Like Mark said, they were there for a paycheck. You don't need people like that. You want team players that want to be there and grow with you. Keyword "Grow" with you. As you grow and they become an asset/part of the team, you move them up or pay them more. We slowed down during the holidays. 6 of my guys were let go that felt they no longer had to put in an effort. Left the jobs dirty and quality of work was declining daily. Too comfortable made me uncomfortable. With my company 80% of the time advancements are made with-in company.
I was more than loyal. At some point they need to carry their weight and provide value and if they can’t do that they don’t get to be on the team. I believe they call this “being cut”.