EP154: Why Contractors Get Stuck In Their Business

That's bullcrap. I don't care what you say. It's bullcrap. It's a lie. That's a lie. 100% lie. Now, I'm not saying that's not a true statement. I'm saying it's a lie that you believe it affects your business. It's a true statement that there are people that do work cheaper than you. That's a true statement. There's always been someone willing to do stuff cheaper. Always. It's never gone away and it never will go away. The lie is that you believe it affects your business. That's the lie. That's the word track. that you have playing in your head. When you go hang out with your buddies, the other contractor, and you go to the bar after work and, you know, drink your miseries away and you share war stories about, man, you should have been, you should have seen this one customer I was working with. And, you know, they,

Yeah. I mean, screw those guys, man. Everybody's cheap. I wish you guys could like see into my world. I really do. It's a broken record of excuses over and over and over. I get a contractor. You'll send me a message. Hey, Brad, I'm struggling in my business. I need some help. I'm like, yeah, man, what's going on? Well, I just can't charge enough because the guy down the street, you know, he's cheaper than me. And people are just cheap and nobody wants to pay for quality. And I'm like, hold up, stop. You're the one millionth person I've heard say that. Your situation is not unique. You believe it's unique. I'm telling you, it's not unique. Your situation is the most common situation that everybody deals with. The difference is the people who refuse to believe the lies and succumb to the fear and those who live in the fear and succumb to bankruptcy or burnout. That's the only difference. It's not a financial problem in the world. It's not a geographical problem in the world. It's not a demographic problem in the world. It's not a political problem. It's not an economic problem. Contrary to what you may think, it's none of those things. And we're going to dive into what it is here in just one second. So hang out with me. I promise. So contractors believe they can't raise their prices, right? And so they feel stuck. That's the first place they feel stuck. I need to make more money. I can't raise my prices. The only way I can make more money is to hire more people. I have a business with 10 employees and all my employees still make more money than me because I have too much overhead and blah, blah, blah, blah, because I can't raise my prices. The only way I can make more money is to do more quantity and to be more efficient. So I spend tens of thousands and $50,000 on tools to be more efficient. But then the overhead and upkeep on that eats into any efficiency profits that I have. This is the cycle, guys. over and over and over. The second thing, they can't work less hours because they're not going to be able to pay their bills. This is part of the crazy cycle. The third thing is they believe they have to hire more people in order to do more jobs, in order to make more money, which is what I just said. One of the biggest mistakes that contractors make to try and grow their business is to try and hire for profits. In other words, they're trying to hire more people to make more profit. just to have a profitable business. And that is the wrong way you do it, guys. You max out your profits first as a one-man show or as the smallest footprint possible. And that will give you the money to hire more people so that you can magnify or multiply what the profits are that you're making. I know plenty of contractors that are one-man shows that make six figures good money. have the life they want, and they're super happy. And I know guys that have, you know,10,15,20 employees, and the owner barely makes, you know, $50,000. And I can tell you, you know, the one man show guy has a much easier and happier life than the guy who has 10,15 employees only making 50K. But the badge of honor they use is, I have this huge company, because as long as everyone on the outside thinks I'm doing successful, then, you know, My worthiness is there. I feel worthy because I have a million dollar a year overhead in my business, but my company and me, I only make about 50,000. I built a million dollar business, Brad. It's like, okay, yeah, what's your net profit? Well, I don't, you know, I'll put all that money back in the business. And that's when the excuses start coming out. Guys, don't get, don't get allured by the top line number. Gross revenue does not matter at all. Just telling you right now. You see the gurus on social media talking about, I built a $50 million business. And you go look at their numbers and they really, I mean, yeah, maybe they're making a couple hundred grand. Don't get me wrong. They might be doing well, but $50 million does not translate into the owners making millions of dollars. If you look at some of these businesses, they have extremely high overhead. They're making a lot of revenue. but they're bringing home very little dollars. So you can't believe what you see on social. Back to the contractor who's frustrated, who feels hopeless, who feels stuck in his business. They believe all these things. And the reason they may believe some of this stuff is because they've tried it. You know, I've had contractors say, Brad, I've tried raising my prices. I say, yeah, man, have you ever raised your price? You tried raising your prices? Yeah, dude. I tried raising my prices and it didn't work. I started getting a bunch of no's and I had to provide for my family. So I had to go back to my old pricing. I get it. I get it. A hundred percent. I get it. I'm with you. I understand. Is it possible that you didn't do it right? Is it possible that you just simply didn't sell your higher pricing correctly? Is that a possibility? Most people say, yeah, it's a possibility. I don't see how, but I can, I mean, I'm sure it's possible. Okay. So if it's possible. then that means it's probable. Because if somebody can do anything one time, then anybody else can do it. And Roger, I think it's Roger Bannister or Roger Banning, I can't remember his last name, but he was the guy that broke the four-minute mile on track. Prior to that, nobody was able to break the four-minute mile. They did not think it was possible whatsoever. Roger broke the four-minute mile, and the next year... And in the same year that he broke it over the next 12 months, I think like 12 or 15 people broke the four minute mile. All it took was one person to show that it's possible. And that paved that paved the way for everyone else to do it. So if one person can raise their prices and make more money than anybody can raise their prices and make more money. And when we talk about pricing, I'm talking about getting a 50 percent or better gross profit on your jobs. OK. If you're not getting it 50% or better, you have opportunity to raise your prices. And no matter what excuse you make, I'm not going to listen to you because I have contractors that are handyman that make 80% gross profits. I have contractors that do millions of dollars that make 50% on big projects. I have contractors that are landscapers, remodelers, general contractors, post-frame builders. electricians, painters, flooring guys, you name it, just about every trade, they've all made 50% or better in cities of less than 5,000 people, in cities of millions of people, does not matter the demographic in blue states, in red states, right? Whether they are religious or not religious, it does not matter. Guys, the profit sales system works. The profit blueprint works. The stuff I've developed works. And the reason I know it works is because I built it for myself in my business. Everything I teach is what I did in my business. I know it works. And I have evidence across the U.S. and North America that it works for everyone. So the problem is not that it doesn't work. We've just established that it works. We've established that you can raise your pricing. The next thing you may say is, well, I can't find good help, Brad. I can't find good help. Now, again. That can be a factual statement, but it's also a lie that you believe. It's a scapegoat. Are there fewer people in the trades? Yes. Is it more difficult to find good help? Yes. Is it impossible? Absolutely not. You just haven't done it the right way. Part of the reason is because you won't pay more. Hey, just a quick timeout from the show. In the next 30 seconds, I'm going to tell you exactly how you can transform your contracting business. Imagine being part of a community of winners where you can find out exactly what they've done to be successful. That's exactly what you get when you join the Profit Club. But it's not just a community. You get lifetime access to all of my course-related material, including all future material that I add. But wait, there's more. Each week, you'll get access to three group coaching calls to talk about sales, marketing, and business problems and answer any questions that you may have. Still not convinced? How about personalized one-on-one coaching to help you overcome your limits? And here's my promise to you. I guarantee you will double your investment within 90 days or I personally will work with you one-on-one until you do. So don't wait. Elevate your game with The Profit Club today. Now let's get back to the show. Another thing I hear a lot or see a lot on mostly on Facebook posts and the groups of contractors that are all the blind leading the blind in the post goes something like this. Hey, I'm just struggling to find good help. I have a guy who, you know, he does, he's a pretty good worker, but he just, he tells me I'm not paying him enough. And if I can't raise it, you know, if I can't pay him more, he's going to leave. And I'm just curious, like, what's everybody charging? You know, what's, you know, I'm paying them $16 an hour. He's been with me for two years. And, you know, when I started, I only made $10 an hour. So I just can't justify paying more than 16. And I know you're, you're laughing with me because you've seen those posts and heard those conversations. It's like, bro, I was charging $20. I was paying $20 an hour for people that had no experience. like zero experience and you want somebody with like three to five years experience and you want to start them out at 16 because that's what you started out with 20 years ago. Like you have to get in your brain. Like it's ridiculous. When things change in the economy, you have to change your strategy. So now you have to pay 20, $25 an hour just to get a greenhorn in there. You have to pay your lead guys 30,35,40 or more an hour. to run your cruise. You're not going to find this 20-year veteran who's absolutely amazing clone of you and pay them $25 an hour so that you can sit Mai Tais on a beach somewhere. That's craziness. It doesn't matter if they have it easier than you. There's no rite of passage. You have to realize in 20 years, the people that are with inflation, people that are starting are probably going to make $30 an hour brand new. Never picked up a tool. In 50 years, it's probably going to be $40 an hour or 50 bucks an hour for brand new. You can't live off what you were paid when you started 20,30 years ago. That's nonsense. But here's the problem.

Yes, because you're not charging enough to begin with. Guys, everything comes back to profit. You have to have a profitable business. You have to have money. You have to. It's not negotiable. You have to. If you want to hire better quality people, you have to pay more. If you have to pay more, you have to have more. In order to have more, you have to charge more. You see how this works? You have to charge more. So we get back into these beliefs of like, I can't charge more. I can't find good help. I can't do this and this and this. Now, here's the problem. Here's what's keeping you stuck. We're going to get into it right now. You hear people say, well, as long as you have passion and desire, if you're passionate about what you do, you'll never work a day in your life and everything comes easy and blah, blah, blah, blah, and all the bull crap that we know is not true. Now, is there some truth in like things can be easier if you're passionate about it? Absolutely. But listen, we don't have a lack of desire, right? Everybody has desire. We all want to be successful. We all want to have the seven, eight, nine,10 figure business and the big house and the a hundred acres out in the, you know, in the woods and the farmland, the hunting land and the trucks and the side-by-sides and all the stuff that blue collar workers want. Right. So we can have, so we can live like a hermit out in the woods somewhere on 50 acres or a hundred acres,200 acres. So we can hunt like everybody wants that. There's no lack of desire. So if it's not a lack of desire, what's the problem? See, desire is the gas pedal for your business. When you step on the gas, your vehicle, your business, your car takes off. We all understand that. It's basic understanding of how vehicles work, right? Your business is a vehicle. It's designed to take you somewhere. It's designed to take you to success. Everybody has desire. Everybody understands stepping on the gas. Everybody understands that. When you're working 70,80,90 hours a week. That's you stepping on the gas more and more and more because you believe that you need to work harder. Your dad told you you got to work hard if you want to have anything successful in life. You have to work hard, son. And we believe that. And again, there's some truth in that, but it's also a lie. Working hard does not mean you have to like be on the tools. It doesn't mean you have to be the one doing the work. It just means that you have to put in the effort, right? And some efforts are easier than others. But you have to put in this effort. And so nobody, I've never seen a contractor, maybe, I don't know, maybe one or 2% just don't have desire. Like they're older, they don't want to, they really don't want to work more. They've kind of given up on life. They've come to the realization that they're never going to be successful. And it's just their, the cards that they've been dealt. And so they're just going to live out the rest of their life in quiet desperation, always being frustrating. frustrated with their business, but at least able to provide enough to, in their mind, live comfortably until whoops, when you're 70,80 and all your money's gone because you didn't have enough to save. But until you're 65,70, when you do quit working, you're able to survive. You just can't survive past retirement. And so that's the people you see who are 90 years old that are in Walmart greeting people because they didn't make enough money in their life. to be able to sustain retirement. Yeah, there's maybe 1% to 2% of you, you know, contractors that are like that. And there's nothing I can really do. Like they don't have the desire. I can't make them be hungry, right? Those people are, they've succumbed and there's nothing I can do. The other 98,99% of you, a full upside potential. Nothing can stop you except fear. See fear. is the brake pedal in our business, in our vehicle. So we don't have a problem with desire. We're stomping the gas. We're trying to do burnouts, man. We want to go 100,200 miles an hour. Let's get this thing launched. We have no problem with desire. But while we're stepping on the gas, we got our left foot on the brake. That's the fear. We've got a left foot on the brake. And so I don't care how hard you stomp on the gas. If you guys have ever done this, unless you're trying to power brake and burn out, you know, your tires, when you step on the brake, you get four brakes that will overpower an object that's not in motion. Occasionally the brakes will break free and you'll get a little bit of momentum, right? Like, so you can push on the gas all the way as hard as possible. And you may. be able to depend on, you know, what kind of vehicle it is and how much horsepower you may be able to overcome the brakes a little bit to where you start moving very slowly, but most people are going to stay stuck. If you got your left foot on the brake and your right foot on the gas, you're not going anywhere. You more than likely burn up your engine, i. e. burnout. See where that comes from? You're burned out because you're trying to go as hard as you can, but you're not going anywhere. You're not transferring that energy. That's how burnout happens. It's funny how that metaphor works, right? Bankruptcy on the other end would be running out of gas. You just run out of gas. So the car's not going to go anywhere because you have no gas left. So how does fear? Like, I mean, what do you, yeah, I get it. Fear. I'm not scared, Brad. Like, I'm not scared of anything. I would challenge you on that. If you're listening to me right now and you're saying, I'm not scared of anything. It's just because I can't find good help. That's fear. Well, I hear what you're saying, Brad, but listen, my situation is unique. You don't understand. In my town, fear, I'm just going to put the hand, talk to the hand, hand in your face, fear. Yeah, but here's the thing. In my industry, you can't charge for consultate, fear. No, man, I hear what you're saying, Brad. I really do. But listen, I'm telling you, I've tried it before. I've had people call me. And say, you know, can you come out and give me an estimate? And I say, I charge $50 to do estimates. And they go, that's crazy. I'm never going to, you know, I'm never going to pay that. You're a crook. I've tried it three times. And all three times they told me I was a crook. I hear you. I hear you loud and clear. It doesn't work, right? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It doesn't work. Wrong. You completely did it wrong. You sold it wrong. You provided zero value to the customer and you've gave them no reason to pay you money. See, this is why you guys need training. This stuff doesn't come naturally. Most contractors that join the profit club think they're good salesmen. And after about six months, they usually say something to the effect of, I didn't realize how bad I was at sales until now. Because most of you are not salesmen at all. You're good talkers and you're good order takers. But you're not salesman because sales, true sales skills don't even start until you get your first no or objection. See, the reason why you can't sell an estimate for 50 bucks is because you've given them no value. I would not pay 50 bucks for an estimate. And I teach this stuff. But if you're going to come out and consult with me. And you're going to give me all the ideas that I need. You're going to answer all my questions. You're going to provide me with a detailed estimate and a firm price. And you're going to be my confidant. And I'm going to take this information, even if I don't hire you and potentially go to another contractor and have them do it. If I have all the information that I need and you're going to spend a couple of hours with me, I'm definitely willing to pay money for that because there's value there. So it's not a problem of it doesn't work. It's a problem of the fear. Right. And you have fear that it doesn't work because you don't know how to do it. And so ignorance in this state, in this in this situation is what causes the fear, because maybe you've tried it, but you didn't do it right. If I said, go out there and kick the soccer ball into a goal, I'm going to go out. I'm going to put the soccer ball. You've all seen these like on basketball and football stuff. They have like challenges at halftime. Right. You have the guy at the halftime basketball. They shoot from the free from the midcourt. And if they make it, they get like, you know, a thousand bucks or whatever. If I if we had a situation like that and, you know, we're in it doesn't matter if it's a basketball court, football court, whatever. If I said, if you can score from midcourt, right, then I will give you an extra one hundred thousand dollars a year in your business. And you go out there and we're doing basketball. Let's pretend like we're doing the basketball. And I hand you the basketball. And then you proceed to kick the ball with your left foot, your right footed. You set the basketball on the ground and you kick it with your left foot and it goes sideways over into the bleachers. And everybody in the stand starts laughing at you. You can say, I tried it and it didn't work. You could say that. And that would be a factual statement. But then you could also say that you just completely did it wrong. Like you use the wrong technique and you use your, the, the weakest, you know, of your two feet. If you're going to kick it, use your left foot when you're right footed. Like we can break this stuff down all day long. It's not that the prod, the system doesn't work. It's that you didn't do the system correctly. And you let that fear fester inside you because the fear is that you don't want to disappoint people. You don't want to be embarrassed. You don't want to be the guy at the half court who kicks it with his left foot and goes to the left and 20,000 fans and the 2 million people on TV are watching you and they start laughing. And you become the meme for the next two months online. For some of you, you would probably rather die. I mean, like literally, you would rather die than have that experience. And so for you, the safety. The safety of that fear is not even trying. You hear me here? The safety for you is not trying and using external excuses as to why it doesn't work. The brain's number one priority is to keep you safe in life. That's it. It's to keep you safe. And so if you are afraid of embarrassment, if you are afraid of financial ruin, if you are afraid of disapproval from your parents, maybe from that dad who said that you were never going to be anything from that teacher that said you were the class clown and you were never going to amount to anything, right? The fear of that actually happening is what's paralyzing you. It's what's holding you back. When you step on the gas and you're ready to freaking take off in this, this ride and your brain is saying, no, man, no, what are you doing? What are you doing? You're going to put us in a situation where we're going to be embarrassed, where we're going to fail. You can't do this. You can't. Remember when we talked to John and he said he tried charging for estimates and he got laughed at by the customer and then left a bad review that he was trying to rip people off? We can't afford that, man. We can't afford to have that situation. We have to stay in the safe zone. Just trust me. Trust me, bro. It's okay if we just idle along at one miles per hour. We're still making progress. Eventually, we'll get the big break. Eventually, we'll land that big job that changes everything for us. Eventually, we'll find somebody that we can hire that's going to do a good job for underpayment because we can't afford to hire them. Eventually, sometime. That's what your brain does. That's the fear. The problem is not that you don't work hard, guys. The problem is that you're burning your engine out or you're running out of gas. You can't pay to put gas in the tank because fear is holding you back because you have your foot stomped on the brake twice as hard as the gas. But here's the beauty of this. Listen, this is the most important part of this whole thing. If you take your foot off the brake, if your right foot is stomping the gas and you remove the left foot, the brake, at once. What happens to the vehicle? It freaking burns out and takes off, right? I mean, you go from zero to 106 seconds or less. It just, on its own, it takes off. So all you have to do is remove the fear and the vehicle, your business, will take off on its own. You don't have to work harder. You just have to remove the fear. That's it. And how do you remove the fear? You remove it through confidence. If you're extremely confident in your sales ability, you will charge for consultations. If you're extremely confident in your pricing and what you need to make, you will raise your prices. Those things will happen on their own. But how do you get confidence? You get confidence through competence, right? When you're competent in something, you're more confident. When you were a kid riding a bicycle, riding a bicycle was terrifying. And then you learn how to ride and you're like, okay, cool. This is now I can ride to my friend's house, Jimmy's house. And then you ride to Jimmy's house. And then when you're at Jimmy's house, he's like, Hey man, have you ever went off a jump? Oh, I can't do a jump. That's scary. Well, let's here, let me show you. And he goes off a jump. You're like, well, that's not too bad. And so you go off a jump. Like, that's fun. Let's get a bigger jump. And before you know it, right now you're going off of like 10 foot jumps and freaking doing freestyle BMX at the skate park because you built your confidence. You built your competence. How did you get to the competent level? Through repetition. You get it through repetition, through doing more. You don't go from riding a bicycle today to hitting 10-foot jumps tomorrow. You ride a bicycle today, and you ride it for two months, and then you go off a little tiny jump, and you do that for two months, right? You do that 200 times, and then you keep graduating. And the only way that you continue to do the repetitions is through discipline. It takes discipline to wake up every day and say, today I'm going to do three role plays with sales training so that I can get better at sales, so that I can sell jobs at a 50% or greater gross profit, so that I can make more money, so that I can hire better staff, so that I can get off the tools, and so that I can have the life that I want. But as long as you have fear, you will never do that. I hope you hear me on this, guys. I hope you hear me loud and clear. You don't have a desire problem. You have a fear problem. I don't want to take out a loan to join your program, Brad. I don't want to put it on a credit card because I'm a Dave Ramsey fan and he says debt's bad and you shouldn't do this. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to try and save up money. I've never been able to save money ever. But somehow, miraculously, I'm going to try and save up money for the next four months so that I can join your club and then I'll be set. I'm like, okay, so you've never made, you've never saved more than three grand in your life in one month. But now you're just going to change how you do everything and somehow miraculously come up with money and then save it up and then you'll be able to join. Yeah, that's the plan. All right, good luck to you, man. Appreciate you jumping on this call with me. You'll be burned out in the next six months to a year. Good luck in life. I'm not even joking. Like, that's my thought when I hear people say stuff like that. That's fear, guys. That's all fear holding you back. That's fear. I'm not telling you to go in debt and be reckless. But I'm telling you, I've had calls with people that I know 100% I can change their business. And I tell them how much it costs to join. And they go, man, I don't have that money. I was like, what do you mean? You're like, you know, what's going on? Well, I just bought, I just spent $8,000 on parts for my side-by-side. I was like, what are you, what? Yeah, my side-by-side needed some parts. So I just spent 8,000. So once I pay off that credit card, then I'll be able to join. I'm like, wait a minute. Why don't you just sell your side-by-side? Oh, I could never do that, man. Never. That's what my family and I do. That's our fun. That's how we decompress. I need that for my mental health. Gotcha. So we buy toys that we can't afford to decompress from the realities that we can't run a business, but we won't invest in ourselves and our business through proxy so that we can do much better and actually have a much better life. an enjoyable life, an enjoyable business so you can have more time with your family to do more fun things because we can't sacrifice a side-by-side in the short term. Like, what if you sold that for 20 grand and you had enough money to join the coaching, get all the training you needed, that allowed you to change your business, and in six months you were making... two to three X more revenue and profit in six months that you could go buy a brand new side-by-side. You could go buy two side-by-sides and you could continue that trajectory. But it's more important for you to not give up the lifestyle that you have temporarily so that you can live in misery and frustration and hopelessness into the foreseeable future. Please explain that logic to me. Please explain it to me. Guys, I can't make you see the value of investing in yourself. I can't do that. I can give you these podcasts. I can tell you these stories. I can give you case study after case study after case study. I can share with you my own frustrations and successes I've had. I can do all of those things. But if you let fear hold you back, you will be in the exact same place today. a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, if you don't succumb to burnout or bankruptcy first. Now you tell me, what do you think's easier? Doing the same thing and getting the same results or simply taking your foot off the brake and letting the desire you already have launch you forward? Guys, you know where to find me. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. Just search for the Hammer and Grind podcast. I hope... That this motivates some of you to stop sabotaging yourself, to stop stomping on the break, to stop living in fear and take action. If you want me to help you in your business, I'm more than happy to. Just reach out to me. Links in the bio or in the links are in the show notes. You can find me anywhere. And until next time, guys, remember, profit is not a dirty word.