A Crafty Construction Business Strategy & Strategic Planning Guide.

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Running a profitable construction company is going to be hard. But you don’t have to suffer. There’s a better way, with strategy and strategic planning. 

It’s common for us to bump up against construction companies that are making some money, but it just feels way too hard. 

The owners feel burnt out. The employees feel underappreciated. The profitability comes and goes. 

Hard work turns into nothing. 

“Makes more sense to invest in the stock market,” some owners think to themselves in the most frustrated moments. 

If this is you or your company, one question to ask yourself is, “What are we doing to win?” You’re an uncommonly great business owner. You have some great people. You’re probably doing some really great things, even if everything isn’t turning out how you planned right now. It’s important for your personal and team morale to remember you are winning a lot already. 

So what are those things? Make the list right now. Take less than 5 minutes. 

Now, if you’re not making the money you want, don’t have the culture you want, or don’t have the time for your family, ask yourself: What’s causing us to lose? What problems do we keep running into over and over again? What is keeping us from getting to where we want to go? 

Make that list. No more than 5 minutes on it. 

Great. Now, instead of ignoring them because they’re scary and sad, lean into your losses and get to work on them. Prioritize the list and work on one at a time. Nothing crazy. It’s time to put them behind you. It’s the only way to start winning more and more. 

For example, one of our clients is a trade contractor with an unbelievable field team. They are truly craftsmen from top to bottom. And they routinely deliver high-quality work ahead of schedule (it’s true). 

Meanwhile, they can hardly ever win a job. Bid everything, but can’t get a scope review. Can’t get a callback. Not unless they are the low bidder. Otherwise, crickets. And they’re not a “low-bidder” kind of company. Like I said, they’re too good at what they do. 

So, their field wins. But their estimating team loses.

Instead of continuing to hit their head against the wall, ignoring the problem, and wondering why they can’t win work, they identified their top weakness and said to themselves, “We’re going to get this fixed. We’re too good to be stuck.” Then they called us for help with their strategy and strategic planning.

Our job was to come in and turn them into professional salespeople who could appropriately sell the value they delivered in the field. Through coaching, training, and practice, they’re getting the highest quality opportunities they’ve had in their business’s history. We’re still in the process of loading up their backlog, but they can clearly see the direction they’re headed. They’re winning more and more all the time. It’s super exciting. 

Winning Principles 

There are a few principles great companies follow when trying to improve: 

• Figure out how you win. It’s not enough to start a business. It’s not enough to say you’re different and better than your competition. You have to actually be different and better. And your clients have to believe it. So, how will you win? What makes you different and better? Get extremely clear on it if you want to build a sustainable, valuable business. 

• Never ignore your weaknesses. If you can spot them, your clients can, too. Your reputation is too important to let your pride keep you from addressing them. 

• Know where you want to go. Knowing your weaknesses without knowing where you want the business to be in 1, 3, 5, or 10 years makes it much more difficult to prioritize which weaknesses to tackle first. 

• Slow down to speed up. Too many companies are “too busy” to slow down and meet as an Executive Team. To identify and address their weaknesses. To build a strategic plan. But if you don’t slow down and put in work ON your business, you’ll suffer way more. Slow down, make a plan, and then speed will come naturally. 

Your next step is a simple strategic planning session, if we’re not already working together on this stuff, then reach out if you’d like some help. It may just be the ignition you need to win more, fast. 

Spark Notes:

• Running a construction company is always going to be hard—but it shouldn’t feel like suffering, and it definitely shouldn’t feel hopeless.

• If you're not winning the way you want to, start by identifying what is working and what keeps dragging you down—and then get to work fixing it, one issue at a time.

• Great companies don’t ignore their weaknesses; they own them, prioritize them, and make real plans to get better.

• When you slow down long enough to get clear on your value, your weaknesses, and where you're headed, winning more—and winning easier—becomes inevitable.