Consulting for construction businesses
Construction Business Consultant for Small Contractors
Construction rewards good estimating and punishes everything else with a delay of about ninety days.
The situation
What we usually find in construction trades
Small construction companies usually know their direct costs reasonably well and their overhead recovery poorly. That gap is where the year gets lost.
Cash is the second problem. Jobs consume working capital before they return it, so growth without a billing discipline can be more dangerous than a slow quarter.
Overhead recovery
If markup only covers direct cost plus a little, every job technically 'makes money' while the company loses it.
Job costing and estimate feedback
Closing out jobs against the estimate — labor, material, sub cost, schedule — is what makes the next estimate better.
Subcontractor management
Sub pricing, scheduling reliability and scope clarity drive both margin and schedule risk.
Change orders and scope control
Verbal changes performed in good faith are a permanent tax on profit.
Draw schedules and working capital
Front-loaded draws, deposit policy and supplier terms determine how many jobs you can run at once.
Backlog quality
A full schedule of low-margin work is a slower way to the same problem.
Where this leads
Related services
If the issue is pricing and margin, see the profitability review. If it's scheduling, delegation and daily flow, see operations consulting. If the same mistakes keep repeating, start with process improvement.
Other industries
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