Why growth stalls — and how to fix it

By Emma Peterson. 

John Kenney discusses three common contractor challenges and how to build your business beyond them. 

John Kenney has been around the trades and construction industries for a bit. He has over 45 years of experience as a contractor and has become an invaluable resource to professionals in his current position as CEO of Cotney Consulting Group. To tap into his expertise, we invited him to OutdoorCoffeeShop™ for an episode of From the Ground Up™. During the episode, John discussed the topic of scaling your business and shared his thoughts on how to overcome some of the top operational pitfalls that can stunt business growth.  

1 – Avoiding bringing in subcontractors 

The first issue that John highlighted was when contractors hesitate to hire subs. He shared, “I know a lot of contractors who want to be a full-service provider, but they also hesitate to hire subs. Instead, they invest a lot into specialization and trying to do everything in house.” Why is this an issue? By trying to get everything done in-house you run the risk of spreading your crew too thin, and by diving into a specialization, you lose out on jobs and profits if they fall out of the realm of your specialty. 

John’s advice? Find good subcontractors that you can hire. He explained:  

Contractors need to get used to where they're able to manage multiple subs under them so that when they encounter something not in their wheelhouse, they can say, ‘Hey, that's not within my wheelhouse to do in-house, but I can certainly get some trusted subcontractors that I'm willing to oversee and bring in to price this out for what you're looking for.’ By doing so, you are not only bringing in more business and profit, but you are also building a strong reputation for working with clients.  

2 – Missing the big picture 

Another issue he sees contractors encounter is getting caught up in the day-to-day due to a lack of strong structure and processes. He explained, “You will never get to the success level that you want to be at if you establish processes that let you step back... If you ever want to get to the point where you're working on your business instead of in your business every day, you have to document your processes.” 

Where does one start when it comes to a project as massive as documenting each of your processes and organizing your structures? John always recommends going back to the basics, the core parts of your business:  

You start with your estimating, because pricing is the foundation of success. Once that’s sorted, fix your operations and track what you’re doing. You can’t grow if you can’t measure your production... And then guess what happens? Profits are going to grow as you work on building a strong structure and foundation.  

3 – Investing in your people proactively 

And last but not least, John touched on the struggle of labor. This is not a new issue; labor issues go back more than four decades and have consistently given people trouble when it comes to growing and maintaining a successful business. John’s best recommendation for handling this? Invest in the people already there. He explained:  

The problem that we're having is entry level labor is harder to find and harder to keep. And it can be tempting to put all your resources into recruiting. But I argue that you should actually put the resources on workforce training within your company and building career paths. Because people want that, they want to see how your company will help them grow. Not only will this help you retain the talent you have, but it’s also something that will get around and draw in new talent. 

Want more tips on avoiding pitfalls and growing your business? Listen to the whole episode or Watch the recording.