Clarity Starts With Your Numbers

Many contractors stay away from their numbers because they’re afraid of what they’ll uncover. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

In this episode, you’ll hear the story of a remodeler who found himself in that exact spot — worried about his profit, unsure what was working, and guessing his way through decisions.
The turning point came when he finally looked at the data. What he found wasn’t scary… it was freeing.

You’ll discover:

• The real reason many owners avoid the numbers
• The moment clarity replaced uncertainty
• The simple shift that showed him exactly where to focus
• How this change boosted his confidence and improved his results

If you want more control over your profit, job costs, and bottom line, this episode gives you a clear place to start.

🎥 Click to listen now — and see how looking at the facts can change everything in your business.

Take the Business Health Assessment - https://suiterbusinessbuilders.com/business-health-assessment/

Resources:

• Want to increase your profitability? Grab my book “The Profit Bleed.“
• Looking to grow your construction business? Check out our exclusive group "The Contractors Collective.”
• Want employees to take more ownership? Check out our course - “Build Your Dream Team.”
• Are you struggling to hire the right people? Check out our “Contractors Hiring Blueprint” course.

Connect with Vicki on social media:

• YouTube: Vicki Suiter
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickisuiter
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SuiterBusinessBuilders

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Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding the Importance of Numbers
• 2:54 Gaining Clarity Through Financial Data
• 7:29 An invitation & Get your Business Health Assessment

Transcript

And today I wanna talk about your numbers or more specifically, I wanna talk about your maybe unwillingness to look at your numbers because you don't like what they have to say. And, you know, I've seen this over and over again over the years of working with contractors that a lot of times you have a tendency to not want to look at the results when they're not good. I mean, that's true for all of us, right? Like we don't like necessarily leaning into and looking at the things that make us feel bad or it's bad news or it's not what we said we wanted to do or we didn't hit the mark, right? All those things that have us sort of want to shy away from or not look at it because we already know it's not what we wanted the results to be. But the thing that I found is that when you start to look at your results, you look at your data, whether that's your profit and loss statement or it's job cost data against your actual, you know, your bid that you did.

Or it's looking at any kind of data in your business that gives you feedback about how effective you are. While there's this sting initially of, I didn't hit the mark, the thing about looking at the data is that what it'll tell you is a story. It'll tell you the story of, well, how big of a gap was it between where I was and where I said I wanted to be? Or what is it that didn't work about that that I can improve it? Because the thing is, if you can't see it, if you have no ability to be able to have that clarity about the numbers, you're not going to have the confidence to know what actions you need to take differently next time in order to produce a different result. I'll give you an example. I was having a conversation with my client, Joe, a couple of weeks ago, and we started looking at his financial data for the last five years. And we just pulled up a profit and loss statement out of his QuickBooks software.

And we compared it year over year. And I started to notice some things. You we were looking at revenue and then we were looking at gross profit margin. We were looking at overhead expenses. We were looking at net profit. And I said, you know, we just started to notice what was the story the numbers tell. What was the trend? Where was, know, was there overhead going up really high or was the revenue dropping or was there a gross profit margin dropping? I mean, there were certain key numbers that we were looking at.

That as we started to look at the numbers, like the light started to go on for Joe and he started to talk about, ⁓ I'm beginning to see where I need to focus my time and energy in order to affect a different result on the bottom line. Because ultimately, if you're in a for-profit business, right, then there's a certain number that you want to make on the bottom line. There's a certain profit you want to make. Well, the only way that you can get that clarity about what are the, you in that confidence to know what actions are to you want to take to make a difference in that bottom line is to have a relationship with that data to look at those numbers and look at that feedback in order to be able to see what's working, what's not working and what needs to be different. And what was great with Joe is he was, you know, and he said to me at some point in the conversation, he said, you know, I resist looking at my numbers. I don't like I know they're not what I want them to be, but now I'm starting to see that when I look at them, I can have a greater sense of clarity about what's working and what's not working so that I have the confidence to know what I need to change and what I need to do differently. 

Because up until this point, the other thing that Joe shared with me is he goes, I just operate out of this sense of angst and anxiety and this, this trying to like, you know, run really fast and stay in front of it and hopes that it'll turn out differently and hopes that there'll be more money in the bank at the end. But the thing for you that you want to look at in your business is how do I lean into looking at the data so that I have a greater sense of clarity, so I have more confidence about where I specifically need to change? you know, Joe said to me, goes, I feel like I don't necessarily like what the numbers that we just went over showed me.

But the thing that I am finding interesting right now is I have a greater sense of calm about what I need to do next. And I have a greater sense of confidence about what I need to do next. Had we not looked at those with Joe, there's like he would have not had that. He would have just kept on that cycle of, you know, just that angst of trying to stay in front of it. Can you relate to that at all? Like, does that happen for you? If it does, or even if you're just like you're you're you're avoiding looking and maybe that's not necessarily your experience, but you avoid looking. I'm going to tell you that I have seen this so many times over the last 30 years as I've worked with contractors that when you look at your numbers, when you look at your data, when you can see the gap between where you are and where you want to be, then you can have a much greater ability to impact your results because you have that clarity to give you the confidence to be able to take more powerful actions.

So I invite you to go look at your numbers and lean into the bad news, or maybe sometimes it's not even as bad news as you think, but lean into looking at your results because it's the key to your freedom and your peace of mind. And it's your key to being able to have more control, quite frankly, over the results that you create in your business. One thing that you might check out, if you're not comfortable reading your profit and loss statement or your balance sheet for your business, you're not really sure how to do that.

Make sure to go check out my video on, I have different topics here on my blog and also on my YouTube channel. One of them is getting confident in your numbers. Go check out that category of playlist ⁓ or blog category. And there's some videos on there that will actually teach you how to read and interpret your financial data. So that might be a good place for you to begin just to start to get that greater sense of clarity so that you have more confidence about how can you impact your bottom line.