The Profit Builder Unscripted

Get paid what you’re worth

• Vicki Suiter • Episode 67

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Most contractors I meet don’t struggle with the work — they struggle with the numbers behind it. When those numbers aren’t clear, pricing gets off track and profits start slipping fast.

Undercharging not only eats into profits, it can drain your energy, keep you overworked, and make you feel like success is just out of reach.

In this episode, I share the story of two painting contractors, Alex and Joe, who thought closing the doors might be their only option.

What changed everything for them wasn’t luck — it was a plan, a focus on the right numbers, and a shift in how they valued their work.

You’ll hear:

  • Why contractors often undercharge for their work
  • How a clear plan can create control and confidence
  • The key numbers every contractor should track
  • How Alex and Joe turned their business around and started getting paid what they’re worth

If you’ve ever felt stuck, underpaid, or unsure how to make your business profitable, this episode will give you a clear path forward.



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Contractors are some of the smartest people I know. And what's really regrettable,

is most of them do not give themselves the credit that they deserve for how much they do know. And what that often translates to is they do not charge the prices that they should for the value that they bring to those relationships with clients and the work that they do. And what I've noticed is that when enough contractors do this and they end up low balling each other right into bankruptcy. And you know, it just shouldn't be that way.

The work that you do is valuable and it's important. And one of the things that I wanna share with you today is how do you shift that and start getting paid what you're worth? My name is Vicki Suter with Suter Business Builders. And for over 25 years, I've been helping contractors get paid what they're worth and how to be able to position themselves in their business to be able to communicate that value to their clients, get paid what they're worth.

And ultimately make more profits on the bottom line, spend less time working, and really be able to focus on what it is that brings them joy and fun in their business again. And in this video today, I'm gonna share with you some ways that you can start doing that for yourself. But before I begin, I just wanna share a story with you about my clients, Alex and Joe. Alex and Joe are painting contractors that when we first sat down to meet, I'll never forget this, it was our very first meeting, and I had done some analysis of their data before we sat down to that first meeting. When they walked in and they sat at the table, I looked at them and I was like, wow, there's distress going on over there. And their numbers reflected some of that, certainly. And this meeting, I will just add, happened to have been in 2011.

It was while we were still in the throes of one of the worst and longest recessions I've ever seen in my professional career. And they had taken a huge hit in the few years before. And I looked at Alex and Joe and I said, so we're going to talk about your numbers, but is there anything else that is heavy on your mind or really present on your mind that you want to talk about today? And Alex looked at me and he said, well, we've been talking and we're wondering if we shouldn't just file bankruptcy. And as the words came out of his mouth and Joe was over there and his head was shaking up and down, there was this sense as I looked at them and I looked at their eyes of a defeat, ⁓ and of sadness, of sadness like we've worked so hard. They've been in business for 10 years together. They had worked so hard at building this business and they had really not ever wanted to be at this point.

And they were almost, you the other thing they said is they were thinking about giving up. And it was just wrenching because I have seen that. I've seen that look and I've seen that sense of defeat of contractors who you feel like you're kind of beaten down by the whole thing and you feel like you don't have any choices. And that was what was going on for Alex and Joe. And as we talked a little bit, I said, you know what? I've spent some time looking at your numbers and looking at your financial situation.

And I don't think that's the best alternative for you. I think that we can figure out a way out of this and get your business healthy again. And I think that we can do that in a shorter amount of time than it would take you to recover from filing for bankruptcy. So if you're willing, let's just work together to see if we can find a different solution. And as I said that to them, I remember like this sense of relief coming over both of their faces. And I rememberthen like kind of perking up and going, okay, like there's hope. Like it doesn't have to be that we're giving up or that we're feeling, you know, that we're defeated, right? ⁓ So we began by looking at their numbers and looking at what is it gonna take in order to actually get them profitable again, out of debt, financially healthy, getting them paid what they were worth. 

They had both been taking like just a minimal salary out of their business. Neither of them had taken more than four days off consecutively in years. ⁓ They were never gone from the business at the same time. And everything that happened in their business was completely reliant on them. And then on top of that, their strategy for getting through that recession was if they just lowered their prices enough, they would get enough volume. Well, that strategy didn't work.

They were losing money. They weren't getting enough volume and they were operating from this whole mindset of scarcity and a whole mindset of we have to settle for what we can get. And I appreciate the challenge of recessions. I've been through a number of my started my business in the middle of the recession of 1990. I know those challenges that can bring but I also know that when you have a plan for how you're going to ⁓ move your way through it. And also anytime how you're gonna grow your business is the critical piece of helping you stack the odds in your favor of being successful no matter what the economy is doing. And just like a project when you begin a project and this is what I said to them. It's like when you begin a project you don't just show up to the job and then figure out what you're gonna do once you're already there.

You don't operate on a minute by minute basis. You actually have some goal and some vision about what you wanna create. You have codified that numbers in terms of what's it gonna cost to do that work? How long is it gonna take? ⁓ What kind of, what are we gonna charge for that work? And then what's the scope and what are the tools and the resources and the people that we need?

And there is the same principles in doing a project well that you want to apply to your business. How do you in your business identify those things that define the criteria for success? So that's where I began with Alex and Joe. And that is where you can begin in your business if you really want to start getting paid what you're worth. And if you really want to start increasing your profitability, one of the first steps is to create a plan for where you wanna go in your business. And so that's what we did. We began with talking about a revenue goal and how much did they wanna generate in revenue. And then we kind of broke that down. what does that translate into in terms of based on their average project size, how many projects was that? And where were those projects gonna come from? And what was their strategy and plan for marketing to get those projects? And who was their ideal customer? So we had started looking at ⁓ creating a plan that included not just numbers on a piece of paper, but it included who was the customer, who were the jobs, where were they gonna come from. We analyzed some of their previous jobs to look and see, you know, who were the customers who generated the highest rate of return. So we did that, but we also then started looking at their pricing. And we started looking at what do they have to really charge in order to break even.

So they started, one of the key things that happened, so we created an operating budget for their company, but before we did that, we really looked at, do they understand what it costs them to run their business? And to run their business so that they're not getting this meager little amount left over at the end of the year, that they ⁓ was sort of the leftovers from their company and what they did. But how could we plan into it that their work got compensated for, you know, when they were working on projects, they get compensated for that, that they got a salary that they should have that was appropriate for the company that they are, the size they are, and so on. So we built all that into the plan. But then the second piece after the plan, just like with a project that gets run well, is we started looking at what are the benchmarks or what are the feedback systems that needed to be in place in order to be able to have them stay in connection with the results that they were producing. So that ability to be able to see, we started to track revenue by month. We started to track ⁓ their gross profit margin on projects. We started to do budget versus actual on jobs as well as for their company. So essentially we started to implement these feedback systems that let them have a relationship with their results so that they could see where they were compared to where they wanted to be. And they could always see where that gap was. And if they could see the gap, they could start doing something about it. And honestly, it's like, I know I'm throwing a lot of numbers out there, but it was a handful of numbers that they started to track every single solitary month in their business. And when they started to track those numbers, they started to see that they were able to affect a change in the results that they produced. And that translated into them being able to build a more, build a profitable business, first of all. It translated into them being able to get out of debt. And it translated into them being able to ultimately take time off. 

And when Alex and Joe and I sat down, it was a few years after we started working together. I remember they both came into a meeting super excited about ⁓ the fact that they, I remember they showed up in the meeting super excited and I was like, what's up? And they had driven there together from the city and they were like, we just wanted to tell you that we realize that we are having more fun in our business now than probably we ever have.

We love what we get to do. We really are feeling good about the fact that we get to take the time off. We both took off four weeks last year. We both were gone at the same time for the first time ever in our business. We had a big breakdown show up with one of our teams on a project and our lead guy handled it without us having to be involved at all. And we're making more money. We're making the money that we always dreamed that we would. And this is where it started for us.

This is what made us want to do this business in the first place. And we are just so grateful that we get to finally fulfill that dream that we had when we started our business together over 10 years ago. And I got to tell you for me, like it was just one of the best days because that's why I do what I do. I love when people can have that sense of success, but also where they feel like they're in control of their success. And for you,

Your best way to get control of your success is doing those two key things. One, make a plan and put it in writing, because plans between our heads are no more than a good idea. Plans written down are what is gonna actually allow it to happen. And then figure out how, just like a project, right? How am I gonna build that? What does that look like? What's it gonna take to do it? So that's number one. The second piece is, have feedback that lets you see how you're doing compared to your plan. And it doesn't have to be a lot of numbers, you know, it's like we tend to pay attention to revenue, but I'm gonna tell you another key number for contractors, you live and die by gross profit margin. So tracking that number is critical. Have an operating budget for your company. Track how much you're estimating. Track how you're, you know, take a look at how you're actually doing on projects and what's your rate of return on projects.

It will also help you inform what kind of projects are the most profitable for you. just, know, Alex and Joe got really intentional about paying attention to the results in their business. And if you do that, you're going to find that you're able to start getting paid what you're worth because you know this stuff. You actually do this every day. And all I'm inviting you to do is to apply this to your business.

And you're gonna find that you're gonna start to be able to increase your profitability. You're be able to work less, because you're working smarter. And you're gonna really be able to, like Alex and Joe, have more fun in what you do, because you're not gonna feel like you're always chasing after it. I invite you to leave a note down below. Let me know out of this video, like what are you hearing is one thing that you wanna do in your business or that you feel could really help you start to get paid what it is that you're worth and what your value is.


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Vicki Suiter

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