As owners of remodeling businesses, there can be times when we feel utterly overwhelmed by all the responsibilities that rest on our shoulders. We are responsible for supporting our employees, our subcontractors, and our families. And to keep our businesses in operation, we put tremendous pressure on ourselves from day to day. So how can we better manage our businesses and our lives?
The first step toward improving your life and decreasing the daily stress you feel is to better structure your company around business system practices that work. Do you have a successful sales plan in place—one that gets you daily leads? Have you trained your consultants on how to do a proper in-home estimate and sales pitch? Do you have a solid accounting system in place where you can track your daily cash flow?
If the answer is "no," then it is no small wonder you are feeling stressed. Organizing your sales and administrative tasks into a structural system that works will greatly reduce your stress, and you will be better able to deal with the unexpected.
You can take the method of adopting a routine even further in regards to your own life. Do you have a routine in the morning that better prepares you for the day of work? What practices could improve your readiness for work each day? If you make notes for yourself on steps you can take each day to improve your work readiness and follow these steps every day, you will be better prepared for your work and less stressed about doing it.
Another stress reduction method is to learn the skills of delegation. It is helpful to find out what work you are personally good at and enjoy and make that part of your daily work routine and then to find workers who have the skills you lack and to delegate tasks to them. Find workers you can work with symbiotically and as a team your company will succeed.
It's also important to take time away from your work each week to re-energize yourself. Set aside a day to spend with your family or friends relaxing. Contractors often will take on projects that require a seven-day-a-week commitment to complete. If that is the case with your business, then at least set a few days aside between projects to rest and recover.
As it is a gig-based economy for remodeling contractors, it can be a struggle to get an equilibrium in both cash flow and work/life balance. Maybe you’ve had too many days off and there’s not enough money coming in. Under those circumstances, you may feel stressed by the fact that you are uncertain about where your business and work career are heading. To prevent that, it pays to have a marketing plan in place that will ensure there is a constant flow of work coming in. Being an entrepreneur is great if you can find a steady flow of work, but it can be really hard when you are in doubt of where to obtain work.
Also, it needs to be said that when you are in a place where you feel desperate, then that can lead to you offering significantly lower price quotes—quotes that do not take into account your overhead costs and do not adequately price in a healthy profit margin. How you feel personally can create a negative feedback loop in your financial decision-making process.
To get out of this loop, you have to go back to your accounting software and track your business expenses. Find out where you need to cut expenses (hopefully not your marketing) and how you should be pricing your projects so you can always achieve a 30% to 60% profit above the unit costs.
