The Profit Builder Unscripted

How Data Brings Peace of Mind

• Vicki Suiter • Episode 62

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Ever found yourself stuck in that anxious loop — wondering if you should keep a team member or cut costs.

Or maybe its that your worried about where the next job will come from, and unsure which move is the right one?

In this episode, I share a real story about a contractor who found himself in that exact spot — overwhelmed, uncertain, and on the edge of making a big decision.

The breakthrough came when he stopped guessing and started looking at the data.

You’ll discover how a simple shift — focusing on what you can know — can bring more clarity, confidence, and peace of mind to your decision-making.

If you’ve ever felt trapped in that “what if” spiral, this one’s for you.!

Resource in this episode:https://suiterbusinessbuilders.com/backlog-tracker/

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If you find that you spend a lot of time worrying and being concerned about what might happen or struggling to make certain decisions in your business, you're going to want to make sure to listen to this episode because we're going to be talking about what are some ways that you can have more peace of mind, more clarity, more confidence so that you can take more powerful actions. Hi, I'm Vicki Suiter Welcome back to the Profit Builder Unscripted.

I got this urgent message from a new client earlier this week that said, I really need to talk to you because I'm kind of freaked out about the fact that I don't know if I should keep this employee or if I should let them go. Can you take some time out to chat with me? And I was like, sure, no problem. And as we got on the phone, Frank started to describe like, all right, like I'm working really hard at selling more work and trying to make sure that I keep my staff busy and that I know that I've got enough work that it makes sense to keep the number of people that I have, but I don't know if that work's gonna come in and I'm just not sure what to do. And he was just like, and then the more he talked, kind of the more he spiraled, right? He was like, I just feel so overwhelmed and I'm doing everything I can in terms of marketing and business development.

And I'm waiting for that to bear some fruit or for people to come back to me and say, yes, we want to move forward and we want to work with you. But he said, in the meantime, you know, like I got cash going out the bottom line. Like I am struggling with keeping people busy enough and I'm worried about cashflow and I just did billings. So that's good. But now I'm like. I'm not sure what's going to happen. a little like, I'm just foggy about what decision to make.

If you're watching this or listening to this, can you relate to that story? Have you ever had that experience where you're like, know I need staff, I don't know if I should cut that staff or I know I need to be doing that marketing, but I don't know if I should have cut the expense and the profits not where it needs to be and the cash flows tight, right? We kind of get into this spiral of worrying and not knowing how exactly to move forward because there's the consequences, right?

If I let them go, then, you this is what Frank said. He goes, if I let them go, but then the work comes and who's going to do the work. And that means it's going to be me and I got to hire a new person. Or he said, you know, like if I keep them, then I'm going to continue to lose money on the bottom line until I get enough work. It's kind of a catch 22. And he said, it feels very complicated. And I said, I totally appreciate that. It does feel very complicated. And I'm going to share with you.

What is the one thing that you can do that will help you have more clarity so that you have more confidence so that you can know how to take that next action in a more powerful way? he was like, great, I'm all ears. And I said, well, first of all, said, do you know what work you have in front of you in terms of what work is coming up of work that you have in contract?

And he said, well, I kind of have some idea. I know that it kind of goes until January. And I go, well, do you know exactly what that dollar amount is? And he said, no. I go, well, that's the first thing you want to figure out. Go figure out how much is remaining on the jobs that you have in process and put some numbers to it over those next months until those projects are finished. I said, then I said, sit down and do a budget. Figure out what it's going to cost you to run your business based on what everything that you know right now, right? So sometimes, you know, he started to say, but I was like, just do this, just do this one thing. I said, if you just do a budget and figure out what does it cost me to run my business every month? What are all those costs? I said, and then figure out what percentage of that time of my team, what percentage of it is billable and what percentage of it is not.

That's part of what goes to your overhead, the percentage that's not. And then look at how the numbers flow. And then look at, once you see that, when you see a gap, right, I said, you're probably gonna see that there's some gap of how much work do I have versus how much do I need to make sure that I'm not losing money or that I am making money. I said just sit down and do a little bit of math. said, because even if you don't like the numbers, you'll be able to see where the gap exists between where you are, just based on what you know today and where you wanna be. Because when you can see the gap, then you can go, it stops being this like big overwhelming, my God, I just gotta go sell work, I gotta get more work in, do I let them go, do I not let them go? It shifts that conversation and it shifts it into one where you're actually looking up and you're going.

All right, well, I need $50,000 or 100,000 more in the next 60 days or whatever that is. So once you know what that number is, then you can get more, then it's not, I just got to sell, sell, sell. Then it's like, all right, can I get $60,000 more? Are there change orders that I know are gonna be coming through? Is there other small work that I can do to fill that in?

That has what I call low hanging fruit, right? You've had a bunch of conversations with people and maybe it's not your ideal project, but you're like, okay, how can I be creative about getting that amount of work? So at least at that point, before you have to make a decision about do you keep them or do you fire them, look at the numbers, because the numbers will always tell you a story, but it'll also help you see, all right, can I get that much work or does it just do I really just have somebody who's, you in this case, Frank has a junior person who's not as experienced and they have a senior person who's not fully billable that I was like, what would happen if you gave more work to the senior person and let the junior person go or have the junior person do what a subcontractors do? Like when you can see the numbers, now you can start to get more creative about your solutions.

But when we operate in with no data, it's overwhelming, right? It just sends us into this spiral of, I don't know what to do next. And I have to tell you, I've been doing this for over 30 years. And every time I sit down with somebody and we have this conversation and we just look at the data, the data always gives that information that lets you know that gives you that clarity so that you have more confidence so that you can move forward in a more powerful way to know, all right, what actions can I take that will impact that bottom line? And, you know, the thing about so many times when we look at data, you know, why do I say a budget or why do I say go look at your backlog or what work you have coming in front of you?

So many times we're just looking in the rear view mirror, right, at what happened historically. Maybe we're looking at the profit and loss. Maybe we're looking at the balance in the bank account. Maybe we're looking at how did jobs do so far. That's all great. It's helpful information. But having information about where am I now and where am I headed? What are my goals? Where do I want to be? How much do I need to make? When I start to set some goals forward, and I start to look at the future, now that data allows me to see, okay, where do I have a gap? Where do I have to make an adjustment? Now I have some runway to be able to do it, or I have some ability to be able to impact that future before its history. So data is always, always, always gonna be the thing that's gonna help you have more confidence and more clarity and more confidence to take more powerful actions. So my question to you is, where is there a place in your business that you could use more clarity or more data to help you make better decisions? And if you're like Frank and you're like freaking out about like, I don't know what's coming in front of me, there's no magic crystal ball any of us have about how much work is gonna close, right? When we put bids out there, we reach out to people, we do marketing, we do business development.

You know, there's all kinds of strategies, but there's no guarantees. Doing all those things is important in order to keep the flywheel moving and keep bids, you know, keep the pipeline full and get, you know, where opportunities coming in really important, but there's no guarantees to it. So then you got to deal with what are the places where, what do I know? Because the more comfortable I can be with what I can do something about and what I can know then helps me be more strategic about the piece of what do I not know, right? How much more do I have to sell? And even if it's just the revenue side of it, I encourage you to do that. Go look at your backlog. I'm gonna share down below in the show notes, I'm gonna share with you a couple of resources. One of them is a backlog tracker, right? Go look at your backlog and...

And there's instructions on there about how to use it, but it's you know, it's basically a spreadsheet where you're to list out, all right, what, what work do I have? You know, am I planning on billing for the next, you know, several months or however far out your projects go. It's a really great place to start and it's free, you know, just grab it and do it for yourself. The more you can have ways that you can have that clarity will give you more confidence it's really gonna make a difference in terms of your sense of peace of mind. And I've seen this time and time again, ⁓ that it really works. And so I hope this has been helpful to you. Feel free if you have questions about this to reach out to me, make sure to grab the resource below. And if you find this, if you find this, how to do this contact to be helpful today, make sure to subscribe or join the channel.

I do videos like this all the time, every week that are on different topics, whether it's about profitability or it's about building great teams, but it's about helping you build a more sustainably successful contracting business and allowing you to have more profits on your bottom line, more time in your day and more joy and fun and what you do again. So make sure to grab those resources below. Thanks for being part of this community and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Profit Builder Unscripted.


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Vicki Suiter

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