August 4, 2025 • 40 mins
Proper projection planning is the key difference between struggling contractors and those who build consistently profitable businesses. We share how planning out your work calendar for the coming months transforms both client satisfaction and profitability.
• Most contractors operate job-to-job, causing poor client experiences and lost business
• Laying out detailed project timelines with realistic durations prevents schedule problems
• Scheduling critical path items (like shower glass and countertops) helps accurately project timelines
• Understanding financial implications of project timelines affects cash flow management
• Effective projection planning starts with just one hour of planning before each project
• Using a tracking spreadsheet for jobs with 50-90% likelihood of closing helps manage future workflow
• Weekly PAL (Project Manager Action List) meetings ensure accountability and cash flow visibility
• Communication with clients about timeline changes should happen immediately, not at project end
• Project managers should complete 80% of their work before the first hammer swings
• Change orders must be addressed immediately when scope changes occur, not at project completion
Ready to transform your business with better projections? Visit ProStruct360.com to schedule a free 30-minute consultation about your business challenges.
Join us January 11–13 in Nashville for the Chart the Course 2026 Planning Retreat. Sign up now and get three free coaching sessions before the event to finish 2025 strong and hit 2026 with a clear game plan. At the retreat, you’ll tackle systems, hiring, marketing, and leadership alongside ambitious contractors, leaving with a blueprint for growth. Spots are limited—visit prostruct360.com to learn more!
Have a question or an idea to improve the podcast?
Email us at team@prostruct360.com
Want to learn more about our software or coaching?
Visit our website at ProStruct360.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good,
the bad and the ugly of growinga successful contracting company
.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to Contractor Cuts.
My name is Clark Turner.
I'm James McConnell.
Thanks for joining us againthis week.
So today we are A in a newstudio, which is nice if you're
watching us on YouTube.
Welcome to the new studio,james.
Thank you.
This is palatial Palatialcompared to our old gray walls,
(00:33):
old one.
But today we are talking aboutprojections and what that means
for us.
When we talk projections, we'retalking about projecting the
next few months of business andwork.
And how do we lay out business,uh, moving forward.
One thing and what triggeredthis is when I'm talking with
guys during the coaching uhsessions, most guys coming into
(00:56):
the into coaching with us areworking for the job.
That's happening today.
Right, it's.
It's like a.
I'm working on my currentproject.
I got a couple people that said, yes, that I'll call when I get
done with this to see who I'mdoing next.
And it's not a well thought out, planned attack on your
calendar.
It's not laid out, it's notfilling up your calendar for the
(01:17):
future.
Uh, and as a one man show,sometimes that can work right.
Then most guys kind of operatethat way.
I've got three or four bids outthere that I know I'm going to
land one of them, so I'll justcall them when I'm getting close
to the end of this one, whichis fine If you're a one man show
and you're not trying to grow,if you are trying to get your
company to the next level andgrow to the next level.
This has changed dramatically,so we're we're going to talk a
(01:41):
little bit about how it's done,what you should do, and then
kind of more real life examplesof how we do it in day to day,
as well as kind of what, as youstart growing and bringing
project managers on, what thoseguys should be doing on a weekly
, monthly basis to support that,as well as to really be
thinking through the future,thinking past today's jobs, be
(02:04):
thinking through the future,thinking past today's jobs.
One thing, though looping backto contractors coming in and
doing coaching and the guys thatare going job to job.
They try to sell everythingright.
They get every single job, theysay yes to everything, and all
they do normally is I'm justgoing to get five, six, 12 yeses
and then kind of pick whichone's next, and then, when they
(02:26):
do that, there's 11 yeses thatare waiting for you, that are
calling, that are hey, what'sgoing on, and so the client
experience on every singlecustomer coming through there.
For from you, with you, isone's going to get a good
experience.
And the other 11 that you saidyes to were like you know, I
haven't really heard from James.
Like he said, I'm going to givehim a call.
Well, he hasn't answered mycall in three weeks.
(02:47):
I guess I need to find someoneelse.
And then all of a sudden youcall and it's like hey, yeah,
we're ready for you.
Oh well, I'm okay, that's fine,right, and so there's not a
great customer experience, firstoff.
Secondly, they're going to pickother people.
Um, they're going to pick otherpeople.
You're going to lose clientsthat way.
You're not going to keep upwith them.
(03:07):
But mainly the mindset of let meknow when you're available
mindset for contractors thatthey're talking to homeowners is
not the way to do it.
So, moving on from that, james,what would you say if it's a
guy that's a one man show, he'sjust him running jobs.
(03:29):
If he needs to get a little bitmore organized today, where
would you start with that?
What would be your advice tosomeone like that?
Just to not do it the way thatwe're doing and we're about to
talk about, because that's'skind of you got to really get
there and start.
It's kind of level 10 in termsof how we run projections and
lay it out and think through it.
(03:50):
But a guy that's swinging thehammer, that has a couple hours
a week at most in the office,what's kind of the minimum you
would want to do if it was you.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I don't think it.
I don't think it's all thatdifferent.
I think that, setting up theway that you want to do things,
you need to be looking at firstof all, the profit that I am
bringing in.
You need to be looking at whatis the overhead requirement for
(04:25):
every month that I'm working,yeah, and when a job comes in,
how long is that job projectedto last?
What's what's reasonable?
What are my uh, what do youcall them?
Critical path items?
So like shower glass orcountertops or cabinets, things
that you know you have like twoweek lead time on this or a
(04:49):
three week lead time on thisafter template.
But I have to get to this point.
It's going to take three weeksto even get to template.
So I know that my job's atminimum five to six weeks.
So I'm at minimum a month and ahalf.
So a month and a half ofoverhead.
So I'm at minimum a month and ahalf.
So a month and a half ofoverhead.
What kind of profit is comingoff of this job to tackle that
(05:09):
overhead?
So when I'm looking at, if I'mjust a one-man show and I've got
just one job running and I'mhoping that this next one lands
(05:30):
ideally the goal.
Don't play footsie with me.
It's real cute.
Ideally, you've got a couple ofjobs lined up, and if you don't
, what you really need to belooking at is how long of a of a
of a leash do I have until thatbecomes a serious problem?
It's already a problem becauseyou, you need to be looking two,
three, four, five months downthe road.
Once you get to a, a placewhere you've got a lot of guys
(05:50):
working with you, a lot ofproject managers under you, you
need to be really considering,like, okay, if, if we don't have
jobs at this point, we need to.
We need to be looking atlayoffs yeah, and that's a
terrible spot to be in, yeah, soif you bring it all, the way
back.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The worst spot is not even knowing that that's coming
, not even knowing.
The Grim Reapers next Monday.
Yeah, Because you got nothingright.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
And the way that I think you avoid ever getting to
that spot is having that mindsetas a one-man show.
And I know you don't have asmuch time, but again, you don't
need as much, you don't need asmuch work, yeah, so even if you
only have a couple hours, itdoesn't take a lot to be to be
able to be a man of your word ora woman of your word.
(06:37):
Yeah, you let your client knowhey, I'm excited to do this
estimate for you.
Uh, it's going to be three daysuntil I can work that up, or
it's going to be three daysuntil I can get on site.
So long as you are being theproactive communicator, that's
going to be the number one thingthat everybody says.
(06:58):
Oh, yeah, contractors, theyjust I'm waiting for.
Two guys said they were going todo an estimate for me, but no
one's responded.
They haven't gotten back withme.
If you're at least getting backwith them, let the chips fall
where they may.
At that point, you can only dowhat you can do.
You do have to focus on thework that you have going on, but
so long as you're letting themknow, hey, here's what I'm going
(07:20):
to do that, and then you followup and do that.
Yes, that's what.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I'm going to do that, and then you follow up and do
that.
Yes, that's, it's really thatsimple.
Well, and going back to thefirst thing you said, which I I
agree, what you just said is isyou need to lay out the next
couple of weeks and like and mytimeframe is five to six weeks
on this, and so I know what'swhen.
When do people do that?
Right, guys, guys, don't takethe time and effort to start
thinking through the project.
(07:46):
I would say, with what you justsaid, the number one thing for
a one-man show is to take onehour before starting a project.
It's not going to take you twodays.
We're going to lay out a miniGantt chart, a timeline of like
okay, this is going to happen,this is going to happen and this
is going to happen.
So you're looking at when youthink you're getting done.
(08:07):
Not, I don't know, this is afour to six week job.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, you like sit down with your scope and go line
by line, and the way I do it isthe scope is in linear order.
So demo, framing, meps, thewhole thing, yep.
And so, as I'm looking down thething, I'm like, okay, demo,
that's going to take one to twodays, so I'll block out three.
(08:31):
So I'll block out three.
Yep Framing, that's going to betwo days.
Yeah, I probably won't blockout three there because I've
already fudged here.
So, like I want to give arealistic timeline, timeline,
but I also want to make surethat I'm accounting for all of
all of those things.
And then, once I have thattimeline, that's you're not done
.
Then you say, okay, let's thinkabout purchases, that's what
(08:53):
I'm saying.
Materials, think aboutmaterials.
Are there going to be leadtimes on that?
Do I have any?
Like the flooring, we justordered nine thousand dollars
worth of flooring.
We literally this this morning,kind of resolved this issue.
We have a $9,000 flooring order.
It's the VA job.
Va does not allow you to getany money up front.
(09:14):
They also material has to beinstalled in order to be
compensated for.
Yeah, and then on top of that,they hold back 20% on every
invoice.
So, knowing and this is an$80,000 job, so knowing that,
(10:31):
okay, our money is going to betied up for this amount of time,
and that's if we invoice andthey accept it, which they
typically do.
The VA is very easy to workwith once you get working with
them, but there's all thesebarriers to making that very
easy for a lot of GCs to workwith them.
Long story short, it's lookingat not just the timeline but how
(10:54):
long is my money tied up?
Yeah, and if the new job comingin, can I even start that job
until I get my invoice from thisguy?
Yeah, because that's a lot ofpeople get really hurt when they
are just trying to grab all thestuff.
We go back to the fruitmetaphor.
(11:15):
You grab all the fruit, butthen you don the fruit metaphor.
You grab all the fruit, butthen you don't even have the
cash to get this job started.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Well, so you go get a deposit from the next job that
you think you're starting, yeah,and then you take that to
finish the yeah and it goes backinto that same same old ugly
routine.
But I think, with like lookingat the future and projections
when I'm looking at you knowI've got five to six weeks on
this job.
I need to put my orders in onthese times.
Like I need cabinets and that'sa three week lead time, so I
(11:43):
need to order that by nextMonday and I need this
whiteboard for this.
Yeah, seriously, but laying itall out, I think, also how you
said, before you get started.
I'm just going to look at my,my demo.
The ProStruck 360 software islaid out that way.
You've got two tabs the jobitems, which is all of your list
of everything you're doing, andthe timeline tab, which is the
(12:06):
exact same page just laid out inthe timeline.
So all you do is click and dragand say okay, demos, these
three days, framings, these fivedays.
I'm going to start myelectrical here, I'm going to do
my plumbing here, and you canlay it out and you hit save.
I'm going to start myelectrical here, I'm going to do
my plumbing here, and you layit out and hit save, and it
sends everyone the work ordersfor those times.
And if you're doing it yourself, no problem, it saves it.
And now I can say hey, insteadof telling the next guy hey, I
can start the first week ofSeptember.
(12:29):
I'm looking at it sayingSeptember 26th is when I'm going
to be done with this.
I can start lining up thosenext people, not just giving
them a it might be and what,even though it's like it's fine,
they're, they're good withwaiting on me.
You know, I'm great, and sopeople wait for me.
That's fine.
They don't enjoy working withyou.
They don't enjoy that, right?
You're killing your reputationby doing this and like, yeah,
(12:50):
I'm not going to refer you to myneighbor because you're kind of
a lot like I've got to manageyou.
Yeah, but I'll still use youfor myself, right?
So you're losing that momentumof growth for your company
because you're you're notenjoyable to work with.
You are a pain to work with.
I've got to, I've got to huntyou down.
You say September 1st and nowit's October 1st and no one's
here.
Still, yeah, you know, and it'sjust stress and annoying.
(13:12):
And you're going to field 17calls from that client that you
said September 1st.
Right, they're calling you thecouple of weeks before.
They're calling you the day of.
They're calling you that week.
Well, can we do it next week?
What about the?
And?
So now you're spending hoursmanaging this person who you
promised something, or ignoringtheir calls and deleting their
voicemails because you justdidn't take five minutes to lay
(13:34):
out your job.
And when am I going to actuallybe done?
Yeah, right.
So I think projections.
The hidden part of that isclient satisfaction.
More importantly, though, it'swhen am I going to get money?
Am I going to be able to getthings done?
Am I going to have work in thefall?
Right, can I lay out the nextthree to four months of work?
(14:00):
That being said, I think on topof that, let's talk about
project managers.
Let's talk about when we'rerunning, when you start scaling
up a little bit beyond just aone man show, the way that we
want to do.
There's another reason we wantto do projections.
It's great for customer servicereason we want to do
projections.
It's great for customer service.
It's great for making sure thatyou've got work coming up and
for expediting getting thingsdone and making your life easier
, because I know when stuff'shappening.
(14:22):
I can promise people jobs.
I'm not dealing with phonecalls all the time Once you have
project managers coming in theother.
The other hidden bonus of doingprojections is they now have a
timeframe of when they've got toget done, and every day that
we're on this job site is a ismoney lost, right?
(14:44):
If, if, if they turn a two weekjob into a three week job, I'm
not invoicing more.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, I lost a week of invoicing because I can't
start the next job and the thereason that I I want to double
down on this and the reason thatI don't think it's very much
different from going from aone-man show to having project
managers stuff is you need to,as the, as the lead dog or
whatever you are, you need tounderstand what the
(15:10):
ramifications are of not hittingthose timelines.
Yeah, you need to understandwhat the downstream effects are
of not hitting your timelines.
And this even goes into likechange orders.
Like when a client changessomething, even if it's not a
material change and when I saymaterial, I don't mean like what
type of flooring?
(15:31):
They move a wall six inchesafter it's framed?
Yes, it's like same.
Well, not even that.
Like they're changing a concept.
It hasn't even happened yet.
Yeah, you still need to then getwith your crews.
You might need to orderdifferent material.
You might need to meet back outthere with the plumber or the
electrician and be like is thisgoing to affect this?
(15:52):
Or, worst case scenario, yougot to meet back out there with
the engineer or the architectand say, hey, we need to redraw
this.
It might not be a cost, likeyou might not have to pay
anybody for those things, butyou're going to lose a couple
days and you might forget totell that client okay, we lost
this day, we lost this day, welost this day and, best case
(16:30):
scenario, you lose a week Ifit's a smaller job.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
That's a significant amount of time, that's a
significant amount ofopportunity costs that each of
those.
That's 10 weeks of unpaid work,right, that's 10 weeks that
you're not.
That's two and a half months ofnot getting paid when you, when
you should be invoicing jobsbecause you weren't efficient,
you didn't order things, youdidn't get things laid out.
Most of the time it's on you.
Most of the time I couldexpedite this.
(16:53):
Most of the time, even thoughwe failed that inspection, I'm
going to go ahead and double upthese crews because I've already
ordered that and I've alreadydone this, and so it really is
hurting you financially bymismanaging it.
And when you're running aroundputting fires out constantly
because you're causing all thefires, it's stressful and it's
it's not fun.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It's not fun at all.
You know how I fix that.
If I have like 10 days and I'mout, right, what I do is I start
waking up at like three in themorning and I start my first.
My first day starts at threeand then goes to seven and then
my next day, so I'm going to getactually three days out of each
day, right?
So every week is 21 days for me, so what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Well, you're waking up at three because of the
stress?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Well, maybe that I am going to the bathroom and
there's a lot of blood comingout.
Is that normal?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Sorry, that's good.
So let's look at how we dothings right.
So, first off, when I'mcoaching a guy on starting
projections, I don't need somebig fancy board of a bunch of
things going on.
And I don't need some big fancyboard of a bunch of things
going on.
I don't need three hours everyday to lay this out.
(18:02):
What we need is we've got aspreadsheet in ProShort360 that
we give you in the coachingprogram when you get to the spot
where we want to start trackingthese projections, which is
fairly early.
But that's not where we start.
It's usually a couple months inthat we start doing the
projections together.
On this sheet we lay out yourjobs, we lay out if they're
closed or any.
Really.
We put any job that's over a50% possibility of closing.
(18:23):
If I think, at least more thanlikely, I'm going to get the job
, I put it on this tracker andthen I've got and we mark them.
They're either approved, 50%,75%, 90% chance of landing.
Approved, 50% 75% 90% chance oflanding.
And so we can kind of varyunder varying levels of
commitment from clients but alsobuild a layout Okay, these are
what we think we're going to get.
If it's over 50%, this is when.
(18:45):
And then it's month by month ofwhat we're doing each month,
and so you might have a hundredthousand dollar job you just
landed.
Well, next month I'm invoicing10 grand.
The following month I'minvoicing 30.
The following month.
So we lay those out At thebottoms.
We can kind of see ourprojected revenue not kind of
you do of what the next six to12 months look like.
And what's really cool is wecode it to where, if you've got
(19:08):
project managers in your company, you put the project manager's
name beside it and so it willpull all the data at the bottom
saying okay, project manager A,if of the approved jobs has
120,000 next month of all thejobs that you think you're
landing, they've got $250,000 ofwork next month.
So that raises the flag sayingwhoa, that project manager is
(19:29):
not doing 250K next month ofwork.
Let's figure out what jobs thatwe haven't said yes to yet that
we can reschedule and let themknow.
Hey, they told me they wantedto start September 1st it's.
I'm looking at the calendar.
There's no way I can start thisjob Right, and so we call those
clients.
Hey, I know you said inSeptember we don't have a signed
agreement yet.
Our calendar is kind of bookedfor September.
(19:50):
Can we start you October 1st?
Let's look at your account andwe can start having those
conversations to where theclient's like, oh, that's great,
oh, man, I should have signed.
Yeah, I'll go and sign now sowe land it, so I can reserve my
spot on the calendar.
But we utilize it that way, orvice versa.
The other way that we're lookingat those projections is I
literally had a client last weekthat we went over this.
We looked three months ahead.
(20:13):
They had, like one of their PMshad like $380,000 of work
supposed to be done in threemonths from now.
We're like, well, that's nothappening.
We wouldn't have known thatuntil two and a half months from
now, when we're trying to sayyes to all this stuff and the
person's underwater and all thejobs fall apart because there's
too much going on.
But because of this, we saw itand I said, okay, listen what I
(20:33):
want you to do going on.
But because of this, we saw itand I said, okay, listen what I
want you to do, which one ofthese jobs and the other thing
to note is next month he haslike 20 grand of work.
They had a job, like two orthree jobs that were big, that
pushed two months, and so theyall kind of stacked up into the
same month.
So I said, okay, what jobs here?
Do you think they'd say yes tonext month?
And so we started calling thoseclients?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
which one?
Which ones would be okay?
Pushing to next?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
yes when that we had scheduled out three months.
Can we pull up sooner?
Um, and if they can't get any,we first start calling through
those people.
Oh, who can we start sooner?
yes, yeah because next month wehad 20 grand and in three months
we had 380, something like that.
So I was like call throughevery single person that starts
in three months and say, hey,can we get you going?
Like, we got some openings nextmonth, can we get you rolling,
(21:21):
can we get it started?
And if none of those people cando it, next thing we're gonna
do is start saying, listen, thatmonth you're double booked.
So either we start now or we'regonna have to push you started.
I'd love to move you up on thecalendar, but you had other
people signed before you thatactually reserved those dates,
right, and so I'm trying to movepeople around, help them
understand what's going on.
Then, if that didn't work,we're going to call through
(21:44):
every single job that's notapproved but between the 50 and
90% approval that we have markedon there.
So we have a bunch of jobs thatare potential maybes and like
call through them.
We only got 20 grand of worknext month, so call through
these guys, offer them a 10%.
Like do whatever you got to do,cause we can't say yes in three
months, right, we're going tobe booked for the next six
months.
Next month we got openings.
(22:05):
Let's call through these guysand give them discounts.
Let's start moving.
And so we were making all ofthese decisions over the next
six months of the company justbecause he laid out when the
jobs were he believed were goingto be invoicing.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Here's another way that you could utilize that, and
this might be controversial,but we all know what happens on
the last stretch of a job thelast 10% is just a bear, it's
all the little piddly things.
And then you have a client giveyou a list of like.
Here's everything that I don'tlike, that I haven't told you
(22:41):
guys about since day one, that Iwant fixed.
And you're like, oh boy, okay,not really what we talked about,
but hey, we're going to makeyou happy and you've got $20,000
this month that you're going toinvoice.
That's not going to hit youroverhead.
And then you've got all thesejobs about to start.
So, depending on where we're at,depending on what the necessity
(23:04):
for the company is, if I'm inthat situation, I might even
look at that and say, hey, we'regoing to spend this month
finishing these jobs out reallystrong, really tight, because
they've already pushed.
I've got the money in the bankwe're going to, we're going to
invest in, in making sure thatwe keep our name tight, we keep
(23:27):
our reputation tight.
We're going to exit.
We're going to exit well.
And so instead of saying, hey,who can we bring into this month
, I'm going to say, let's killthis month.
Let's look at that $380,000month and let's see how we can
spread those people out and noteven touch this month.
Who can we do the next month?
Who can we push further downthe road and say, hey, things
(23:50):
are pushing, and peopleunderstand when they have enough
time to make the adjustmentsnecessary for their schedule,
when things push, and theyappreciate getting a three-month
heads up.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Three months in advance, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
The week before.
I'm not going to start your jobwhen we thought but we're three
months away from that.
Here's what's going on.
They're going to be like great,no problem, thanks for giving
me the communication, greatheads up.
So yeah, I might be burning alittle bit of cash, but I'm
saving my project manager.
Heartache, headache, everything, I mean.
(24:27):
You know how that goes.
You got two jobs that areclosing out that are going to
take all of your attention, andthen you're trying to start
these other two jobs that need alot of your attention and
you've got all the equityalready built up with the client
.
Instead of burning cash andburning equity, let's just burn
cash, keep the equity and getthose jobs finished out well.
(24:50):
And then, while you're doingthat, if you have an office
person, if you are not runningjobs anymore and you're in the
office, you can spend some ofyour time helping get those jobs
that haven't started yet, buildthem out well for your project
manager.
These are when I think weshould do the orders.
Here's the timeline, here's thecrew.
I'm going to get a couple othercrews to give us estimates, see
(25:11):
if we can work a little bit onthe budget there and make some
more profit on this job.
We got some time to massagethose numbers.
That might be another way toapproach it, but you don't
always have that luxury.
Not everybody has, you know, astack of cash sitting there for
a situation like that.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Well, I tell every single guy that I coach and it's
legit 80% of the work you doshould happen before swinging
the first hammer, beforeanything happens.
As a project manager, if you do80% of your job before the job
starts, 90% less fires happenduring the job.
(25:49):
It's very easy to.
You're lining up everything andso all you're doing is knocking
those ducks down that you'vealready lined up Right and so
like that, just like that.
Thank you, the.
By doing that, though, byprepping it, that means hey, in
three months we've got this bigworkload this month.
You're kind of slow right now.
Let's approach those clients,let's pull permits, let's
(26:12):
finalize all the drawings, let'sstart picking out your material
, like all the stuff that, onceyou hit, go.
You guys mostly most guys arestarting to do october 1st for
the job that starts in october,yeah, you can plan all that
stuff out.
Hey, I'm gonna go walk my crewand figure out on site where are
we dropping materials, whereare we cleaning brushes out.
(26:33):
Let's prep as much of thatstuff as possible.
So October 1st we're notstarting to think about it,
october 1st we're swinginghammers and executing.
So the job doesn't take sevenmonths.
It takes five months, because Ispent two months in the front
end planning and getting it alllaid out.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah and hey guess what A pod costs 120 bucks maybe
.
Like, if you pitch that to yourclient like, listen, we're going
to, I'm going to have, and youdon't even need to have a pod on
site for them, you can have apod delivered to your office,
fill it with the material forthat job that the client's
paying for, ship it back off topod, have it dropped at their
(27:16):
house when the job starts andpull all that material out and
put it in the garage or leavethe pod there.
You should have alreadycommunicated with the client
about where we're going to stagestuff, but you could very
literally have all the materialthat you need so that your crews
are not waiting on you.
There's not 15 trips to HomeDepot and Lowe's every week to
pick up odds and ends, likethey're going to have to go
there to get the right screw orthe right nail that they use for
(27:38):
their nail gun or whatever.
But you can have all that stuffset up.
And if you don't typically dothat, this is a good opportunity
to say, hey, instead of justbum rushing this, let's slow it
down, let's get really prepared.
Because if we can close thisjob out, what?
What's your numbers If you canclose it out two weeks early,
(28:01):
two weeks earlier than you wereanticipating 10% If you take one
day off per week 10%.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Four days instead of five Yep off per week 10%.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Four days instead of five Yep.
So 20%, Whatever bath that isfor a $20,000 job.
$30,000 job, $120,000 job.
It's a significant amount ofprofit that you stand to gain by
just being prepared in bonus.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
The clients are always happier when things move
smoothly like that.
Yeah You're.
You're making a better name foryourself as well as making more
money and getting things donequicker Like I don't.
I don't know why people don'tdo it more.
I get it.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Procrastination pays sometimes but and it's and it's
not easy.
Like it's not an easy, thatthere wouldn't be a.
We wouldn't be talking about itif it was like an easy thing to
manage.
It's like it.
If it was like an easy thing tomanage, yeah, it's like doy,
but like, sometimes you needthat reminder.
Like slow down, like what wouldyou tell like one of your
project managers if you're the,the head guy and you've got a
(28:59):
project manager just like runaround like a chicken with a
head cock?
Hey, stop, yeah, think aboutwhat you need to do next.
Don't just think about what,where you can go to spend time.
Hop in the truck and go.
Yeah, what can you do right now?
That's actually going to helpyou, yep.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
So I think that's good.
I think moving on to havingproject managers, I'm not ready
to move on.
I really want to take any.
Keep going.
No, you're good.
Now the with, with what we'redoing.
The.
The last step of projections ishey, we've grown, I've brought
in a project manager.
The last step of projections ishey, we've grown, I've brought
in a project manager.
The last step of this is we puton our project managers to build
(29:35):
out projections and bring themwith them weekly to our PAL
meetings.
We meet with them once a weekwe suggest doing it on Fridays a
project manager action listmeeting, a PAL meeting.
In that meeting, the very firstone of the month, I want them
to lay out what they're going toinvoice that month.
What's coming next month, whatdo you think is happening for
(29:56):
this month, and tell me why andhow you got there.
Secondly, every single weeklymeeting, I want you to tell me
what you're invoicing this week.
I need to know for two reasonsOne, accountability.
Two, cash flow.
I need to know what's coming in, what's going out, how much I'm
spending, how much I'm making,so I can manage my company and
know, hey, they're sure thatwe're getting 20K from that
client.
They might be able to invoice30.
(30:17):
We'll see.
That's good for me to know so Ican budget to spend 20 on
paying the line of credit off.
They're doing that and, ok,that money is going to come in
for payroll and then I've gotthis money.
So that's the big reason forprojections.
But the secondary reason for itis your project manager is now
thinking through what's comingup For the first time, sitting
(30:38):
down like, okay, tomorrow in ourpanel meeting I've got to get
projections.
Okay, so this job I need to beinvoicing.
I got to invoice something fromit.
I'll do five grand.
Oh, I'll go ahead and order theflooring.
Great, order the flooring.
Invoice five grand, spend fourgrand.
We just made it like that'sgreat, figure out what you can
do.
And now they're starting tothink through next week and the
rest of the month.
(30:59):
And what am I going to get done?
Stuff starts happening quickerand more efficiently and tighter
oh, I forgot to even call thatguy.
Yes, tighter, oh, I forgot toeven call that guy.
I need to get him out there,yep.
And on top of that they bringthe projections to you and they
sit down and say, okay, on thisjob, I'm doing five grand.
And then you, as a, as the headof construction owner of the
company, look at it back overand say try again, make that 10
(31:21):
and I'll show you how right.
And so you get to coach them.
This is the probably out ofevery part of the pound meeting,
the most coachable time of themeeting of all.
Right, let let me see how yougame planned your jobs and let
me come at it from a differentangle.
Let me come at it from a 30,000foot view that isn't stuck in
the weeds on the job like youare, and give you some coaching.
And this is where you sit down.
(31:42):
It's like, hey, what if you didthis?
Hey, have you ordered that?
What?
Have you switched that dumpsterout?
Have you started having thoseconversations, looking forward
at each of these projects thatyou think, okay, I should have
it 100% invoiced by the end ofthe month.
And I say you haven't evenordered cabinets.
There's no way this is going toget done.
So let's reframe when you thinkthis is going to get done.
Let's pull out your timeline,your Gantt chart.
(32:03):
Let's look at when you think,because it's not going to be the
end of the month.
You think, because it's notgoing to be the end of the month
, let's look at your completiondate and communicate today to
your client that it's not goingto be, because I'm guessing
yesterday you told the client itwas the end of the month, just
like you just told me, right.
And so this is where the clientcare comes in, this is where
the planning comes in.
This is where the um, really thecoaching up your PMs come in,
(32:23):
is looking at what they think isgoing to happen and saying,
okay, confirmed, you're right,good job.
Or hey, no, that I don't seehow that can happen.
Explain that more.
Let's dive deep into it.
So the projections with a PMare the last thing we do.
Right, we train them up, welearn everything, and the last
thing I usually introduce thePMs is doing the projections,
(32:44):
cause that's that's.
Uh, take some mental gymnasticsto understand exactly how to do
projections and to look forward, but it's not that hard.
It doesn't have to be down tothe dollar, it doesn't.
We've had guys show up that arelike, uh, $19,343, I'm
invoicing next week.
I'm like, okay, I don't care.
Uh, you know like I need roundnumbers.
(33:06):
Yeah, I need round numbers, Ineed why, I need how.
And while they're doing that,the timeline is getting shorter
or longer every single time, andso we're going to communicate
every Friday after that meetingto every single client confirm
what's going on.
This is what's happening.
Hey, just so you know.
I think we picked up a coupleof days at the end of this, but
I'll let you know in a few weeksto make sure we're still there.
Hey, your timeline slippedabout a week because X, y and Z
(33:31):
and remember the tiles youwanted are discontinued at floor
and decor.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
So now we gotta go pick up new ones.
I think that, right there isamong the most important parts
of that.
Well, I don't know, clientswill not ever remember all of
the things that they did toaffect the timeline in a
negative way.
Yeah, they will remember allthe positive effects they made
(33:57):
on the time I took this off thescope and I brought this
material on site and I helpedyou guys do this.
I'm kind of managing the wholething if I really think about it
.
Yeah, they never remember thethings that they did to affect
it negatively.
Like a month into the projectchanged the entire plan.
Like that's a real thing.
I, that's a project that wewere working on, but you hadn't
started that room yet I know wehaven't started it.
(34:18):
I had to re-talk to everybody.
I had to talk to the, I had totalk to the architect, I had to
talk to the engineer.
I had to go back to the city.
I had to change the trade.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
You went from subway tile to a high-end design from
Italy, tile that has all thesediamond shapes and all this
detail that you want in it.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
That's four days.
We had a client choose probably13 different selections of tile
.
Beautiful tile yeah.
Four of them were theterracotta style, where you have
to soak all the tile and thenyou have to.
They're all differentthicknesses, they're all
(34:55):
different thicknesses they allhave.
They're not the grout line.
You need to be prepared.
The grout lines are going to befunky and you have to seal them
before you grout them, likethere's a two-step sealing
process, so it's like all ofthis stuff.
They didn't give us that listuntil we tile started showing up
right and so then we're likewell, number one, this is a
(35:16):
change order.
There's.
This is not grid style, whichit says in all of our scopes.
This accounts for grid style orbrick pattern tile work.
None of it was that we hadrework, that we had to look
through all of the directions.
It was a 15-page packet of tileinstruction.
Hey, this is a significant timecrunch thing, because now we
(35:38):
have to redo due diligence onhow we're going to do your tile.
We have to go talk to the tileguy.
What's the increase going to beon this?
Probably changing which guy I'musing for tile?
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot ofchanges.
Which guy I'm using for tile?
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot ofchanges.
And if you don't address thosethings on a weekly basis or as
the project is unfolding, you'renot going to go at the end of
the project five months down theroad and say, well, yeah, we
(35:58):
are three weeks behind, but doyou remember when you did this?
Do you remember when you didthis?
It sounds petty at that point.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
The tile fiasco at 2025.
You don't remember this.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
You don't remember the tile fiasco.
But if you're bringing it up asyou go.
It can be professional, like weare going to lose some time
because of the tile changes.
We are going to lose some timebecause of this, but I'm happy
with the timeline still Likewe're good.
These are some change ordersthere.
Because of that, there's a wayto bring that up.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Well, and you said change orders In the PAL
meetings.
I don't know how many timessitting in those meetings have I
said, hey, they asked you to dowhat with the tile.
That's a change order.
They're asking us foradditional labor.
You need to talk to them today,as opposed to most contractors
at the end of the job say, well,it took us three extra weeks
because we had to do some extrastuff, so I need an extra 10
grand.
And the client's like I'm notpaying you anything.
(36:44):
Nah, pal.
I'm going to rip it out?
Nah, pal, well, I'm going torip it out.
Yeah, exactly, and that's whereit ends up, and you've lost
your reputation because theclient changed their minds on
what they were doing.
And so if we're doing it alongthe way, like Well, that's not
fair.
Exactly, yeah, that's what theysay.
And so if I'm going along theway and I'm saying, hey, listen,
if we're going to have to dothat next week, that's going to
(37:05):
extend the timeline.
We can't invoice anythingbecause we got to figure this
out next week.
So there's no projections ofnext week.
Let's look at our timeline,let's look at what has to change
and we need a change order.
We can't just do an extra twoweeks of work because they
changed their mind.
And we need to have theconversation today.
Because if I tell them today andthey say, oh, I didn't realize
that we're fine with the brickpattern, we didn't realize it.
(37:25):
We were just trying to thinkthrough and I saw something on
Etsy and I really liked thisthing on Pinterest.
Cool, I'm fine with it, brickpattern, if it's going to change
the price, right.
And so they have the choice tospend the extra money.
If I do it at this time, atthis time where, if I just do
what they say and send them aninvoice for an extra five grand,
at the end they're saying, hey,I'm not paying, I didn't know
that that was extra.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Or I didn't know that that was extra.
Or even two weeks later, oreven one week later.
It's like you have alreadystarted going down that road,
and not only if they say,actually, if it's going to be
more, we'll just go with thebrick pattern.
Well, you've already spent thattime reworking it, talking to
the crew, getting organized onthe front, and then you have to
(38:05):
undo it.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
It's like talk to them about it right then and say
that I walked with my tile guyalready two weeks ago.
He's prepared, he's blocked outhis calendar.
I now have to push him becausewe got a special order and soak
these.
It's going to take a couple ofdays.
We've got to.
All of that stuff happeningmakes sense before I do it, yeah
, After the fact it's like, ohyou just suck at your job and
(38:29):
you're just looking for money,yeah.
So again we're talking aboutchange orders and and issues
that happen.
This all bubbles up to the topwhen we're looking at
projections.
Yeah, because when I look at aPM and he's like, uh, this month
or this month I should invoice110,000.
I say, great, month, week threeof four in that month.
And they're like, uh, this thisweek I should invoice 110,000.
I say, great, week three offour in that month.
(38:50):
And they're like, this week Ishould invoice another 10.
And I look at their numbers andI say, so, if you do 10 this
week, it'll be the end of themonth and you'll be at 20,000
for the month.
What's going on?
You projected 110.
Well, this client made me do.
And all of this stuff bubbles upas to what's costing us time,
what's costing us energy, what'scosting us labor, what's
(39:12):
messing up our timelines and allstuff that we can change order
for or help coach our PM to dobetter next time.
We're doing this.
So please start looking atprojections If you want our
paperwork, want to look at itand really kind of work on how
do I plan out work to where Idon't have seasons of rain and
sun, and you know it's a great.
You know I'm killing.
(39:33):
I got all these jobs, althoughall of a sudden I look up and
there's no jobs.
If you want to get out of thatmess, talk to us.
Come to go to pro truck three60.com.
Go to the contact.
Us set up a time.
I love to have a conversationwith you, whether you're ready
for coaching or not.
Let's have a call, free, 30minute phone call.
Love to talk to you about yourbusiness and if you're ready,
we're here to help.
(39:53):
So if you want to jump in withus, go to pro shot 360.com.
Hop on a phone call and I loveto chat with you.
All right, thanks so much forlistening and we'll talk to you
next week.
Bye, thank you.
Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good,
the bad and the ugly of growinga successful contracting company
.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to Contractor Cuts.
My name is Clark Turner.
I'm James McConnell.
Thanks for joining us againthis week.
So today we are A in a newstudio, which is nice if you're
watching us on YouTube.
Welcome to the new studio,james.
Thank you.
This is palatial Palatialcompared to our old gray walls,
(00:33):
old one.
But today we are talking aboutprojections and what that means
for us.
When we talk projections, we'retalking about projecting the
next few months of business andwork.
And how do we lay out business,uh, moving forward.
One thing and what triggeredthis is when I'm talking with
guys during the coaching uhsessions, most guys coming into
(00:56):
the into coaching with us areworking for the job.
That's happening today.
Right, it's.
It's like a.
I'm working on my currentproject.
I got a couple people that said, yes, that I'll call when I get
done with this to see who I'mdoing next.
And it's not a well thought out, planned attack on your
calendar.
It's not laid out, it's notfilling up your calendar for the
(01:17):
future.
Uh, and as a one man show,sometimes that can work right.
Then most guys kind of operatethat way.
I've got three or four bids outthere that I know I'm going to
land one of them, so I'll justcall them when I'm getting close
to the end of this one, whichis fine If you're a one man show
and you're not trying to grow,if you are trying to get your
company to the next level andgrow to the next level.
This has changed dramatically,so we're we're going to talk a
(01:41):
little bit about how it's done,what you should do, and then
kind of more real life examplesof how we do it in day to day,
as well as kind of what, as youstart growing and bringing
project managers on, what thoseguys should be doing on a weekly
, monthly basis to support that,as well as to really be
thinking through the future,thinking past today's jobs, be
(02:04):
thinking through the future,thinking past today's jobs.
One thing, though looping backto contractors coming in and
doing coaching and the guys thatare going job to job.
They try to sell everythingright.
They get every single job, theysay yes to everything, and all
they do normally is I'm justgoing to get five, six, 12 yeses
and then kind of pick whichone's next, and then, when they
(02:26):
do that, there's 11 yeses thatare waiting for you, that are
calling, that are hey, what'sgoing on, and so the client
experience on every singlecustomer coming through there.
For from you, with you, isone's going to get a good
experience.
And the other 11 that you saidyes to were like you know, I
haven't really heard from James.
Like he said, I'm going to givehim a call.
Well, he hasn't answered mycall in three weeks.
(02:47):
I guess I need to find someoneelse.
And then all of a sudden youcall and it's like hey, yeah,
we're ready for you.
Oh well, I'm okay, that's fine,right, and so there's not a
great customer experience, firstoff.
Secondly, they're going to pickother people.
Um, they're going to pick otherpeople.
You're going to lose clientsthat way.
You're not going to keep upwith them.
(03:07):
But mainly the mindset of let meknow when you're available
mindset for contractors thatthey're talking to homeowners is
not the way to do it.
So, moving on from that, james,what would you say if it's a
guy that's a one man show, he'sjust him running jobs.
(03:29):
If he needs to get a little bitmore organized today, where
would you start with that?
What would be your advice tosomeone like that?
Just to not do it the way thatwe're doing and we're about to
talk about, because that's'skind of you got to really get
there and start.
It's kind of level 10 in termsof how we run projections and
lay it out and think through it.
(03:50):
But a guy that's swinging thehammer, that has a couple hours
a week at most in the office,what's kind of the minimum you
would want to do if it was you.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I don't think it.
I don't think it's all thatdifferent.
I think that, setting up theway that you want to do things,
you need to be looking at firstof all, the profit that I am
bringing in.
You need to be looking at whatis the overhead requirement for
(04:25):
every month that I'm working,yeah, and when a job comes in,
how long is that job projectedto last?
What's what's reasonable?
What are my uh, what do youcall them?
Critical path items?
So like shower glass orcountertops or cabinets, things
that you know you have like twoweek lead time on this or a
(04:49):
three week lead time on thisafter template.
But I have to get to this point.
It's going to take three weeksto even get to template.
So I know that my job's atminimum five to six weeks.
So I'm at minimum a month and ahalf.
So a month and a half ofoverhead.
So I'm at minimum a month and ahalf.
So a month and a half ofoverhead.
What kind of profit is comingoff of this job to tackle that
(05:09):
overhead?
So when I'm looking at, if I'mjust a one-man show and I've got
just one job running and I'mhoping that this next one lands
(05:30):
ideally the goal.
Don't play footsie with me.
It's real cute.
Ideally, you've got a couple ofjobs lined up, and if you don't
, what you really need to belooking at is how long of a of a
of a leash do I have until thatbecomes a serious problem?
It's already a problem becauseyou, you need to be looking two,
three, four, five months downthe road.
Once you get to a, a placewhere you've got a lot of guys
(05:50):
working with you, a lot ofproject managers under you, you
need to be really considering,like, okay, if, if we don't have
jobs at this point, we need to.
We need to be looking atlayoffs yeah, and that's a
terrible spot to be in, yeah, soif you bring it all, the way
back.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The worst spot is not even knowing that that's coming
, not even knowing.
The Grim Reapers next Monday.
Yeah, Because you got nothingright.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
And the way that I think you avoid ever getting to
that spot is having that mindsetas a one-man show.
And I know you don't have asmuch time, but again, you don't
need as much, you don't need asmuch work, yeah, so even if you
only have a couple hours, itdoesn't take a lot to be to be
able to be a man of your word ora woman of your word.
(06:37):
Yeah, you let your client knowhey, I'm excited to do this
estimate for you.
Uh, it's going to be three daysuntil I can work that up, or
it's going to be three daysuntil I can get on site.
So long as you are being theproactive communicator, that's
going to be the number one thingthat everybody says.
(06:58):
Oh, yeah, contractors, theyjust I'm waiting for.
Two guys said they were going todo an estimate for me, but no
one's responded.
They haven't gotten back withme.
If you're at least getting backwith them, let the chips fall
where they may.
At that point, you can only dowhat you can do.
You do have to focus on thework that you have going on, but
so long as you're letting themknow, hey, here's what I'm going
(07:20):
to do that, and then you followup and do that.
Yes, that's what.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
I'm going to do that, and then you follow up and do
that.
Yes, that's, it's really thatsimple.
Well, and going back to thefirst thing you said, which I I
agree, what you just said is isyou need to lay out the next
couple of weeks and like and mytimeframe is five to six weeks
on this, and so I know what'swhen.
When do people do that?
Right, guys, guys, don't takethe time and effort to start
thinking through the project.
(07:46):
I would say, with what you justsaid, the number one thing for
a one-man show is to take onehour before starting a project.
It's not going to take you twodays.
We're going to lay out a miniGantt chart, a timeline of like
okay, this is going to happen,this is going to happen and this
is going to happen.
So you're looking at when youthink you're getting done.
(08:07):
Not, I don't know, this is afour to six week job.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, you like sit down with your scope and go line
by line, and the way I do it isthe scope is in linear order.
So demo, framing, meps, thewhole thing, yep.
And so, as I'm looking down thething, I'm like, okay, demo,
that's going to take one to twodays, so I'll block out three.
(08:31):
So I'll block out three.
Yep Framing, that's going to betwo days.
Yeah, I probably won't blockout three there because I've
already fudged here.
So, like I want to give arealistic timeline, timeline,
but I also want to make surethat I'm accounting for all of
all of those things.
And then, once I have thattimeline, that's you're not done
.
Then you say, okay, let's thinkabout purchases, that's what
(08:53):
I'm saying.
Materials, think aboutmaterials.
Are there going to be leadtimes on that?
Do I have any?
Like the flooring, we justordered nine thousand dollars
worth of flooring.
We literally this this morning,kind of resolved this issue.
We have a $9,000 flooring order.
It's the VA job.
Va does not allow you to getany money up front.
(09:14):
They also material has to beinstalled in order to be
compensated for.
Yeah, and then on top of that,they hold back 20% on every
invoice.
So, knowing and this is an$80,000 job, so knowing that,
(10:31):
okay, our money is going to betied up for this amount of time,
and that's if we invoice andthey accept it, which they
typically do.
The VA is very easy to workwith once you get working with
them, but there's all thesebarriers to making that very
easy for a lot of GCs to workwith them.
Long story short, it's lookingat not just the timeline but how
(10:54):
long is my money tied up?
Yeah, and if the new job comingin, can I even start that job
until I get my invoice from thisguy?
Yeah, because that's a lot ofpeople get really hurt when they
are just trying to grab all thestuff.
We go back to the fruitmetaphor.
(11:15):
You grab all the fruit, butthen you don the fruit metaphor.
You grab all the fruit, butthen you don't even have the
cash to get this job started.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Well, so you go get a deposit from the next job that
you think you're starting, yeah,and then you take that to
finish the yeah and it goes backinto that same same old ugly
routine.
But I think, with like lookingat the future and projections
when I'm looking at you knowI've got five to six weeks on
this job.
I need to put my orders in onthese times.
Like I need cabinets and that'sa three week lead time, so I
(11:43):
need to order that by nextMonday and I need this
whiteboard for this.
Yeah, seriously, but laying itall out, I think, also how you
said, before you get started.
I'm just going to look at my,my demo.
The ProStruck 360 software islaid out that way.
You've got two tabs the jobitems, which is all of your list
of everything you're doing, andthe timeline tab, which is the
(12:06):
exact same page just laid out inthe timeline.
So all you do is click and dragand say okay, demos, these
three days, framings, these fivedays.
I'm going to start myelectrical here, I'm going to do
my plumbing here, and you canlay it out and you hit save.
I'm going to start myelectrical here, I'm going to do
my plumbing here, and you layit out and hit save, and it
sends everyone the work ordersfor those times.
And if you're doing it yourself, no problem, it saves it.
And now I can say hey, insteadof telling the next guy hey, I
can start the first week ofSeptember.
(12:29):
I'm looking at it sayingSeptember 26th is when I'm going
to be done with this.
I can start lining up thosenext people, not just giving
them a it might be and what,even though it's like it's fine,
they're, they're good withwaiting on me.
You know, I'm great, and sopeople wait for me.
That's fine.
They don't enjoy working withyou.
They don't enjoy that, right?
You're killing your reputationby doing this and like, yeah,
(12:50):
I'm not going to refer you to myneighbor because you're kind of
a lot like I've got to manageyou.
Yeah, but I'll still use youfor myself, right?
So you're losing that momentumof growth for your company
because you're you're notenjoyable to work with.
You are a pain to work with.
I've got to, I've got to huntyou down.
You say September 1st and nowit's October 1st and no one's
here.
Still, yeah, you know, and it'sjust stress and annoying.
(13:12):
And you're going to field 17calls from that client that you
said September 1st.
Right, they're calling you thecouple of weeks before.
They're calling you the day of.
They're calling you that week.
Well, can we do it next week?
What about the?
And?
So now you're spending hoursmanaging this person who you
promised something, or ignoringtheir calls and deleting their
voicemails because you justdidn't take five minutes to lay
(13:34):
out your job.
And when am I going to actuallybe done?
Yeah, right.
So I think projections.
The hidden part of that isclient satisfaction.
More importantly, though, it'swhen am I going to get money?
Am I going to be able to getthings done?
Am I going to have work in thefall?
Right, can I lay out the nextthree to four months of work?
(14:00):
That being said, I think on topof that, let's talk about
project managers.
Let's talk about when we'rerunning, when you start scaling
up a little bit beyond just aone man show, the way that we
want to do.
There's another reason we wantto do projections.
It's great for customer servicereason we want to do
projections.
It's great for customer service.
It's great for making sure thatyou've got work coming up and
for expediting getting thingsdone and making your life easier
, because I know when stuff'shappening.
(14:22):
I can promise people jobs.
I'm not dealing with phonecalls all the time Once you have
project managers coming in theother.
The other hidden bonus of doingprojections is they now have a
timeframe of when they've got toget done, and every day that
we're on this job site is a ismoney lost, right?
(14:44):
If, if, if they turn a two weekjob into a three week job, I'm
not invoicing more.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Yeah, I lost a week of invoicing because I can't
start the next job and the thereason that I I want to double
down on this and the reason thatI don't think it's very much
different from going from aone-man show to having project
managers stuff is you need to,as the, as the lead dog or
whatever you are, you need tounderstand what the
(15:10):
ramifications are of not hittingthose timelines.
Yeah, you need to understandwhat the downstream effects are
of not hitting your timelines.
And this even goes into likechange orders.
Like when a client changessomething, even if it's not a
material change and when I saymaterial, I don't mean like what
type of flooring?
(15:31):
They move a wall six inchesafter it's framed?
Yes, it's like same.
Well, not even that.
Like they're changing a concept.
It hasn't even happened yet.
Yeah, you still need to then getwith your crews.
You might need to orderdifferent material.
You might need to meet back outthere with the plumber or the
electrician and be like is thisgoing to affect this?
(15:52):
Or, worst case scenario, yougot to meet back out there with
the engineer or the architectand say, hey, we need to redraw
this.
It might not be a cost, likeyou might not have to pay
anybody for those things, butyou're going to lose a couple
days and you might forget totell that client okay, we lost
this day, we lost this day, welost this day and, best case
(16:30):
scenario, you lose a week Ifit's a smaller job.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
That's a significant amount of time, that's a
significant amount ofopportunity costs that each of
those.
That's 10 weeks of unpaid work,right, that's 10 weeks that
you're not.
That's two and a half months ofnot getting paid when you, when
you should be invoicing jobsbecause you weren't efficient,
you didn't order things, youdidn't get things laid out.
Most of the time it's on you.
Most of the time I couldexpedite this.
(16:53):
Most of the time, even thoughwe failed that inspection, I'm
going to go ahead and double upthese crews because I've already
ordered that and I've alreadydone this, and so it really is
hurting you financially bymismanaging it.
And when you're running aroundputting fires out constantly
because you're causing all thefires, it's stressful and it's
it's not fun.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It's not fun at all.
You know how I fix that.
If I have like 10 days and I'mout, right, what I do is I start
waking up at like three in themorning and I start my first.
My first day starts at threeand then goes to seven and then
my next day, so I'm going to getactually three days out of each
day, right?
So every week is 21 days for me, so what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Well, you're waking up at three because of the
stress?
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Well, maybe that I am going to the bathroom and
there's a lot of blood comingout.
Is that normal?
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Sorry, that's good.
So let's look at how we dothings right.
So, first off, when I'mcoaching a guy on starting
projections, I don't need somebig fancy board of a bunch of
things going on.
And I don't need some big fancyboard of a bunch of things
going on.
I don't need three hours everyday to lay this out.
(18:02):
What we need is we've got aspreadsheet in ProShort360 that
we give you in the coachingprogram when you get to the spot
where we want to start trackingthese projections, which is
fairly early.
But that's not where we start.
It's usually a couple months inthat we start doing the
projections together.
On this sheet we lay out yourjobs, we lay out if they're
closed or any.
Really.
We put any job that's over a50% possibility of closing.
(18:23):
If I think, at least more thanlikely, I'm going to get the job
, I put it on this tracker andthen I've got and we mark them.
They're either approved, 50%,75%, 90% chance of landing.
Approved, 50% 75% 90% chance oflanding.
And so we can kind of varyunder varying levels of
commitment from clients but alsobuild a layout Okay, these are
what we think we're going to get.
If it's over 50%, this is when.
(18:45):
And then it's month by month ofwhat we're doing each month,
and so you might have a hundredthousand dollar job you just
landed.
Well, next month I'm invoicing10 grand.
The following month I'minvoicing 30.
The following month.
So we lay those out At thebottoms.
We can kind of see ourprojected revenue not kind of
you do of what the next six to12 months look like.
And what's really cool is wecode it to where, if you've got
(19:08):
project managers in your company, you put the project manager's
name beside it and so it willpull all the data at the bottom
saying okay, project manager A,if of the approved jobs has
120,000 next month of all thejobs that you think you're
landing, they've got $250,000 ofwork next month.
So that raises the flag sayingwhoa, that project manager is
(19:29):
not doing 250K next month ofwork.
Let's figure out what jobs thatwe haven't said yes to yet that
we can reschedule and let themknow.
Hey, they told me they wantedto start September 1st it's.
I'm looking at the calendar.
There's no way I can start thisjob Right, and so we call those
clients.
Hey, I know you said inSeptember we don't have a signed
agreement yet.
Our calendar is kind of bookedfor September.
(19:50):
Can we start you October 1st?
Let's look at your account andwe can start having those
conversations to where theclient's like, oh, that's great,
oh, man, I should have signed.
Yeah, I'll go and sign now sowe land it, so I can reserve my
spot on the calendar.
But we utilize it that way, orvice versa.
The other way that we're lookingat those projections is I
literally had a client last weekthat we went over this.
We looked three months ahead.
(20:13):
They had, like one of their PMshad like $380,000 of work
supposed to be done in threemonths from now.
We're like, well, that's nothappening.
We wouldn't have known thatuntil two and a half months from
now, when we're trying to sayyes to all this stuff and the
person's underwater and all thejobs fall apart because there's
too much going on.
But because of this, we saw itand I said, okay, listen what I
(20:33):
want you to do going on.
But because of this, we saw itand I said, okay, listen what I
want you to do, which one ofthese jobs and the other thing
to note is next month he haslike 20 grand of work.
They had a job, like two orthree jobs that were big, that
pushed two months, and so theyall kind of stacked up into the
same month.
So I said, okay, what jobs here?
Do you think they'd say yes tonext month?
And so we started calling thoseclients?
Speaker 1 (20:56):
which one?
Which ones would be okay?
Pushing to next?
Speaker 2 (20:58):
yes when that we had scheduled out three months.
Can we pull up sooner?
Um, and if they can't get any,we first start calling through
those people.
Oh, who can we start sooner?
yes, yeah because next month wehad 20 grand and in three months
we had 380, something like that.
So I was like call throughevery single person that starts
in three months and say, hey,can we get you going?
Like, we got some openings nextmonth, can we get you rolling,
(21:21):
can we get it started?
And if none of those people cando it, next thing we're gonna
do is start saying, listen, thatmonth you're double booked.
So either we start now or we'regonna have to push you started.
I'd love to move you up on thecalendar, but you had other
people signed before you thatactually reserved those dates,
right, and so I'm trying to movepeople around, help them
understand what's going on.
Then, if that didn't work,we're going to call through
(21:44):
every single job that's notapproved but between the 50 and
90% approval that we have markedon there.
So we have a bunch of jobs thatare potential maybes and like
call through them.
We only got 20 grand of worknext month, so call through
these guys, offer them a 10%.
Like do whatever you got to do,cause we can't say yes in three
months, right, we're going tobe booked for the next six
months.
Next month we got openings.
(22:05):
Let's call through these guysand give them discounts.
Let's start moving.
And so we were making all ofthese decisions over the next
six months of the company justbecause he laid out when the
jobs were he believed were goingto be invoicing.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
Here's another way that you could utilize that, and
this might be controversial,but we all know what happens on
the last stretch of a job thelast 10% is just a bear, it's
all the little piddly things.
And then you have a client giveyou a list of like.
Here's everything that I don'tlike, that I haven't told you
(22:41):
guys about since day one, that Iwant fixed.
And you're like, oh boy, okay,not really what we talked about,
but hey, we're going to makeyou happy and you've got $20,000
this month that you're going toinvoice.
That's not going to hit youroverhead.
And then you've got all thesejobs about to start.
So, depending on where we're at,depending on what the necessity
(23:04):
for the company is, if I'm inthat situation, I might even
look at that and say, hey, we'regoing to spend this month
finishing these jobs out reallystrong, really tight, because
they've already pushed.
I've got the money in the bankwe're going to, we're going to
invest in, in making sure thatwe keep our name tight, we keep
(23:27):
our reputation tight.
We're going to exit.
We're going to exit well.
And so instead of saying, hey,who can we bring into this month
, I'm going to say, let's killthis month.
Let's look at that $380,000month and let's see how we can
spread those people out and noteven touch this month.
Who can we do the next month?
Who can we push further downthe road and say, hey, things
(23:50):
are pushing, and peopleunderstand when they have enough
time to make the adjustmentsnecessary for their schedule,
when things push, and theyappreciate getting a three-month
heads up.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Three months in advance, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
The week before.
I'm not going to start your jobwhen we thought but we're three
months away from that.
Here's what's going on.
They're going to be like great,no problem, thanks for giving
me the communication, greatheads up.
So yeah, I might be burning alittle bit of cash, but I'm
saving my project manager.
Heartache, headache, everything, I mean.
(24:27):
You know how that goes.
You got two jobs that areclosing out that are going to
take all of your attention, andthen you're trying to start
these other two jobs that need alot of your attention and
you've got all the equityalready built up with the client
.
Instead of burning cash andburning equity, let's just burn
cash, keep the equity and getthose jobs finished out well.
(24:50):
And then, while you're doingthat, if you have an office
person, if you are not runningjobs anymore and you're in the
office, you can spend some ofyour time helping get those jobs
that haven't started yet, buildthem out well for your project
manager.
These are when I think weshould do the orders.
Here's the timeline, here's thecrew.
I'm going to get a couple othercrews to give us estimates, see
(25:11):
if we can work a little bit onthe budget there and make some
more profit on this job.
We got some time to massagethose numbers.
That might be another way toapproach it, but you don't
always have that luxury.
Not everybody has, you know, astack of cash sitting there for
a situation like that.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
Well, I tell every single guy that I coach and it's
legit 80% of the work you doshould happen before swinging
the first hammer, beforeanything happens.
As a project manager, if you do80% of your job before the job
starts, 90% less fires happenduring the job.
(25:49):
It's very easy to.
You're lining up everything andso all you're doing is knocking
those ducks down that you'vealready lined up Right and so
like that, just like that.
Thank you, the.
By doing that, though, byprepping it, that means hey, in
three months we've got this bigworkload this month.
You're kind of slow right now.
Let's approach those clients,let's pull permits, let's
(26:12):
finalize all the drawings, let'sstart picking out your material
, like all the stuff that, onceyou hit, go.
You guys mostly most guys arestarting to do october 1st for
the job that starts in october,yeah, you can plan all that
stuff out.
Hey, I'm gonna go walk my crewand figure out on site where are
we dropping materials, whereare we cleaning brushes out.
(26:33):
Let's prep as much of thatstuff as possible.
So October 1st we're notstarting to think about it,
october 1st we're swinginghammers and executing.
So the job doesn't take sevenmonths.
It takes five months, because Ispent two months in the front
end planning and getting it alllaid out.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yeah and hey guess what A pod costs 120 bucks maybe
.
Like, if you pitch that to yourclient like, listen, we're going
to, I'm going to have, and youdon't even need to have a pod on
site for them, you can have apod delivered to your office,
fill it with the material forthat job that the client's
paying for, ship it back off topod, have it dropped at their
(27:16):
house when the job starts andpull all that material out and
put it in the garage or leavethe pod there.
You should have alreadycommunicated with the client
about where we're going to stagestuff, but you could very
literally have all the materialthat you need so that your crews
are not waiting on you.
There's not 15 trips to HomeDepot and Lowe's every week to
pick up odds and ends, likethey're going to have to go
there to get the right screw orthe right nail that they use for
(27:38):
their nail gun or whatever.
But you can have all that stuffset up.
And if you don't typically dothat, this is a good opportunity
to say, hey, instead of justbum rushing this, let's slow it
down, let's get really prepared.
Because if we can close thisjob out, what?
What's your numbers If you canclose it out two weeks early,
(28:01):
two weeks earlier than you wereanticipating 10% If you take one
day off per week 10%.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Four days instead of five Yep off per week 10%.
Speaker 1 (28:09):
Four days instead of five Yep.
So 20%, Whatever bath that isfor a $20,000 job.
$30,000 job, $120,000 job.
It's a significant amount ofprofit that you stand to gain by
just being prepared in bonus.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
The clients are always happier when things move
smoothly like that.
Yeah You're.
You're making a better name foryourself as well as making more
money and getting things donequicker Like I don't.
I don't know why people don'tdo it more.
I get it.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Procrastination pays sometimes but and it's and it's
not easy.
Like it's not an easy, thatthere wouldn't be a.
We wouldn't be talking about itif it was like an easy thing to
manage.
It's like it.
If it was like an easy thing tomanage, yeah, it's like doy,
but like, sometimes you needthat reminder.
Like slow down, like what wouldyou tell like one of your
project managers if you're the,the head guy and you've got a
(28:59):
project manager just like runaround like a chicken with a
head cock?
Hey, stop, yeah, think aboutwhat you need to do next.
Don't just think about what,where you can go to spend time.
Hop in the truck and go.
Yeah, what can you do right now?
That's actually going to helpyou, yep.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
So I think that's good.
I think moving on to havingproject managers, I'm not ready
to move on.
I really want to take any.
Keep going.
No, you're good.
Now the with, with what we'redoing.
The.
The last step of projections ishey, we've grown, I've brought
in a project manager.
The last step of projections ishey, we've grown, I've brought
in a project manager.
The last step of this is we puton our project managers to build
(29:35):
out projections and bring themwith them weekly to our PAL
meetings.
We meet with them once a weekwe suggest doing it on Fridays a
project manager action listmeeting, a PAL meeting.
In that meeting, the very firstone of the month, I want them
to lay out what they're going toinvoice that month.
What's coming next month, whatdo you think is happening for
(29:56):
this month, and tell me why andhow you got there.
Secondly, every single weeklymeeting, I want you to tell me
what you're invoicing this week.
I need to know for two reasonsOne, accountability.
Two, cash flow.
I need to know what's coming in, what's going out, how much I'm
spending, how much I'm making,so I can manage my company and
know, hey, they're sure thatwe're getting 20K from that
client.
They might be able to invoice30.
(30:17):
We'll see.
That's good for me to know so Ican budget to spend 20 on
paying the line of credit off.
They're doing that and, ok,that money is going to come in
for payroll and then I've gotthis money.
So that's the big reason forprojections.
But the secondary reason for itis your project manager is now
thinking through what's comingup For the first time, sitting
(30:38):
down like, okay, tomorrow in ourpanel meeting I've got to get
projections.
Okay, so this job I need to beinvoicing.
I got to invoice something fromit.
I'll do five grand.
Oh, I'll go ahead and order theflooring.
Great, order the flooring.
Invoice five grand, spend fourgrand.
We just made it like that'sgreat, figure out what you can
do.
And now they're starting tothink through next week and the
rest of the month.
(30:59):
And what am I going to get done?
Stuff starts happening quickerand more efficiently and tighter
oh, I forgot to even call thatguy.
Yes, tighter, oh, I forgot toeven call that guy.
I need to get him out there,yep.
And on top of that they bringthe projections to you and they
sit down and say, okay, on thisjob, I'm doing five grand.
And then you, as a, as the headof construction owner of the
company, look at it back overand say try again, make that 10
(31:21):
and I'll show you how right.
And so you get to coach them.
This is the probably out ofevery part of the pound meeting,
the most coachable time of themeeting of all.
Right, let let me see how yougame planned your jobs and let
me come at it from a differentangle.
Let me come at it from a 30,000foot view that isn't stuck in
the weeds on the job like youare, and give you some coaching.
And this is where you sit down.
(31:42):
It's like, hey, what if you didthis?
Hey, have you ordered that?
What?
Have you switched that dumpsterout?
Have you started having thoseconversations, looking forward
at each of these projects thatyou think, okay, I should have
it 100% invoiced by the end ofthe month.
And I say you haven't evenordered cabinets.
There's no way this is going toget done.
So let's reframe when you thinkthis is going to get done.
Let's pull out your timeline,your Gantt chart.
(32:03):
Let's look at when you think,because it's not going to be the
end of the month.
You think, because it's notgoing to be the end of the month
, let's look at your completiondate and communicate today to
your client that it's not goingto be, because I'm guessing
yesterday you told the client itwas the end of the month, just
like you just told me, right.
And so this is where the clientcare comes in, this is where
the planning comes in.
This is where the um, really thecoaching up your PMs come in,
(32:23):
is looking at what they think isgoing to happen and saying,
okay, confirmed, you're right,good job.
Or hey, no, that I don't seehow that can happen.
Explain that more.
Let's dive deep into it.
So the projections with a PMare the last thing we do.
Right, we train them up, welearn everything, and the last
thing I usually introduce thePMs is doing the projections,
(32:44):
cause that's that's.
Uh, take some mental gymnasticsto understand exactly how to do
projections and to look forward, but it's not that hard.
It doesn't have to be down tothe dollar, it doesn't.
We've had guys show up that arelike, uh, $19,343, I'm
invoicing next week.
I'm like, okay, I don't care.
Uh, you know like I need roundnumbers.
(33:06):
Yeah, I need round numbers, Ineed why, I need how.
And while they're doing that,the timeline is getting shorter
or longer every single time, andso we're going to communicate
every Friday after that meetingto every single client confirm
what's going on.
This is what's happening.
Hey, just so you know.
I think we picked up a coupleof days at the end of this, but
I'll let you know in a few weeksto make sure we're still there.
Hey, your timeline slippedabout a week because X, y and Z
(33:31):
and remember the tiles youwanted are discontinued at floor
and decor.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
So now we gotta go pick up new ones.
I think that, right there isamong the most important parts
of that.
Well, I don't know, clientswill not ever remember all of
the things that they did toaffect the timeline in a
negative way.
Yeah, they will remember allthe positive effects they made
(33:57):
on the time I took this off thescope and I brought this
material on site and I helpedyou guys do this.
I'm kind of managing the wholething if I really think about it
.
Yeah, they never remember thethings that they did to affect
it negatively.
Like a month into the projectchanged the entire plan.
Like that's a real thing.
I, that's a project that wewere working on, but you hadn't
started that room yet I know wehaven't started it.
(34:18):
I had to re-talk to everybody.
I had to talk to the, I had totalk to the architect, I had to
talk to the engineer.
I had to go back to the city.
I had to change the trade.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
You went from subway tile to a high-end design from
Italy, tile that has all thesediamond shapes and all this
detail that you want in it.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
That's four days.
We had a client choose probably13 different selections of tile
.
Beautiful tile yeah.
Four of them were theterracotta style, where you have
to soak all the tile and thenyou have to.
They're all differentthicknesses, they're all
(34:55):
different thicknesses they allhave.
They're not the grout line.
You need to be prepared.
The grout lines are going to befunky and you have to seal them
before you grout them, likethere's a two-step sealing
process, so it's like all ofthis stuff.
They didn't give us that listuntil we tile started showing up
right and so then we're likewell, number one, this is a
(35:16):
change order.
There's.
This is not grid style, whichit says in all of our scopes.
This accounts for grid style orbrick pattern tile work.
None of it was that we hadrework, that we had to look
through all of the directions.
It was a 15-page packet of tileinstruction.
Hey, this is a significant timecrunch thing, because now we
(35:38):
have to redo due diligence onhow we're going to do your tile.
We have to go talk to the tileguy.
What's the increase going to beon this?
Probably changing which guy I'musing for tile?
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot ofchanges.
Which guy I'm using for tile?
Yeah, yeah, there's a lot ofchanges.
And if you don't address thosethings on a weekly basis or as
the project is unfolding, you'renot going to go at the end of
the project five months down theroad and say, well, yeah, we
(35:58):
are three weeks behind, but doyou remember when you did this?
Do you remember when you didthis?
It sounds petty at that point.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
The tile fiasco at 2025.
You don't remember this.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
You don't remember the tile fiasco.
But if you're bringing it up asyou go.
It can be professional, like weare going to lose some time
because of the tile changes.
We are going to lose some timebecause of this, but I'm happy
with the timeline still Likewe're good.
These are some change ordersthere.
Because of that, there's a wayto bring that up.
Speaker 2 (36:23):
Well, and you said change orders In the PAL
meetings.
I don't know how many timessitting in those meetings have I
said, hey, they asked you to dowhat with the tile.
That's a change order.
They're asking us foradditional labor.
You need to talk to them today,as opposed to most contractors
at the end of the job say, well,it took us three extra weeks
because we had to do some extrastuff, so I need an extra 10
grand.
And the client's like I'm notpaying you anything.
(36:44):
Nah, pal.
I'm going to rip it out?
Nah, pal, well, I'm going torip it out.
Yeah, exactly, and that's whereit ends up, and you've lost
your reputation because theclient changed their minds on
what they were doing.
And so if we're doing it alongthe way, like Well, that's not
fair.
Exactly, yeah, that's what theysay.
And so if I'm going along theway and I'm saying, hey, listen,
if we're going to have to dothat next week, that's going to
(37:05):
extend the timeline.
We can't invoice anythingbecause we got to figure this
out next week.
So there's no projections ofnext week.
Let's look at our timeline,let's look at what has to change
and we need a change order.
We can't just do an extra twoweeks of work because they
changed their mind.
And we need to have theconversation today.
Because if I tell them today andthey say, oh, I didn't realize
that we're fine with the brickpattern, we didn't realize it.
(37:25):
We were just trying to thinkthrough and I saw something on
Etsy and I really liked thisthing on Pinterest.
Cool, I'm fine with it, brickpattern, if it's going to change
the price, right.
And so they have the choice tospend the extra money.
If I do it at this time, atthis time where, if I just do
what they say and send them aninvoice for an extra five grand,
at the end they're saying, hey,I'm not paying, I didn't know
that that was extra.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
Or I didn't know that that was extra.
Or even two weeks later, oreven one week later.
It's like you have alreadystarted going down that road,
and not only if they say,actually, if it's going to be
more, we'll just go with thebrick pattern.
Well, you've already spent thattime reworking it, talking to
the crew, getting organized onthe front, and then you have to
(38:05):
undo it.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
It's like talk to them about it right then and say
that I walked with my tile guyalready two weeks ago.
He's prepared, he's blocked outhis calendar.
I now have to push him becausewe got a special order and soak
these.
It's going to take a couple ofdays.
We've got to.
All of that stuff happeningmakes sense before I do it, yeah
, After the fact it's like, ohyou just suck at your job and
(38:29):
you're just looking for money,yeah.
So again we're talking aboutchange orders and and issues
that happen.
This all bubbles up to the topwhen we're looking at
projections.
Yeah, because when I look at aPM and he's like, uh, this month
or this month I should invoice110,000.
I say, great, month, week threeof four in that month.
And they're like, uh, this thisweek I should invoice 110,000.
I say, great, week three offour in that month.
(38:50):
And they're like, this week Ishould invoice another 10.
And I look at their numbers andI say, so, if you do 10 this
week, it'll be the end of themonth and you'll be at 20,000
for the month.
What's going on?
You projected 110.
Well, this client made me do.
And all of this stuff bubbles upas to what's costing us time,
what's costing us energy, what'scosting us labor, what's
(39:12):
messing up our timelines and allstuff that we can change order
for or help coach our PM to dobetter next time.
We're doing this.
So please start looking atprojections If you want our
paperwork, want to look at itand really kind of work on how
do I plan out work to where Idon't have seasons of rain and
sun, and you know it's a great.
You know I'm killing.
(39:33):
I got all these jobs, althoughall of a sudden I look up and
there's no jobs.
If you want to get out of thatmess, talk to us.
Come to go to pro truck three60.com.
Go to the contact.
Us set up a time.
I love to have a conversationwith you, whether you're ready
for coaching or not.
Let's have a call, free, 30minute phone call.
Love to talk to you about yourbusiness and if you're ready,
we're here to help.
(39:53):
So if you want to jump in withus, go to pro shot 360.com.
Hop on a phone call and I loveto chat with you.
All right, thanks so much forlistening and we'll talk to you
next week.
Bye, thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.