Profit First for Contractors

Book excerpt: Construction industry business coach, speaker, and author, Shawn Van Dyke, has taken the core concepts of Mike Michalowicz's Profit First and customized them to address the specific needs of the construction industry. Profit First for Contractors addresses the major struggles contractors face and provides clear and actionable guidance on how to overcome them. Shawn shows contractors how to go from simply getting by to becoming permanently profitable. This book is for every construction business owner who dreams of prosperity. Using Van Dyke's Profit First for Contractors system, readers will learn how to break out of the "craftsman cycle" - the seemingly never-ending loop of urgent tasks and responsibilities that keep contractors from gaining traction toward their important goals. He guides construction business owners how to understand their financial statements and how to use them to determine the markup and margin that lead to profits. You will also learn hot to develop solid rules of thumb for the operation of your construction businesses, and how to implement an effective cash management plan that simplifies accounting and leverages normal human behavior. Using real-life stories from actual construction business owners, step-by-step advice, and his conversational twang, Van Dyke puts permanent profitability within reach of every construction business owner.