How Contractors Increase Job Volume

Before taking on more work, make sure your current operations are efficient. Are you wasting time on admin? Are your crews fully utilized? Is your scheduling optimized?

Improving efficiency by 20 percent gives you 20 percent more capacity without hiring anyone or working longer hours.

The gap between finishing one job and starting the next is dead time. Tighten your scheduling to reduce transition periods. Stage materials for the next job before the current one finishes. Pre-schedule inspections.

Every day saved between jobs is an additional day of revenue generation.

If you are personally involved in every estimate, every customer call, and every job, you are the capacity constraint. Delegate tasks that others can handle so you can focus on the activities that only you can do.

Delegation is not losing control. It is multiplying your capacity.

When efficiency and delegation are maximized, adding crew capacity is the next step. Add one crew at a time. Ensure they are trained and equipped before sending them out.

Rushing crew additions creates quality problems. Measured additions maintain your standards while increasing volume.

Counterintuitively, saying no to some work increases your effective volume. Jobs that do not fit your expertise, are in distant locations, or have unrealistic budgets consume capacity that could be used for profitable work.

Every bad-fit job you decline creates space for a good-fit job that is more profitable and more satisfying.