Marc Watters - Construction Business Blueprint

The Construction Business Blueprint #002 - The Secret to Surviving Construction's Busiest Season

• Ryan Proctor

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Want to get back in control of your construction business and plan for growth?


What would I do if I had to reset my construction business this September… and make sure I finished the year strong instead of stressed?


In this 20-minute episode of The Construction Business Blueprint, I, Marc, break down the Three-Step September Reset.


A simple system that transforms chaos into control so you can close out the year with focus and confidence.


You’ll learn:
✅ Why summer’s irregular schedules cause admin backlogs and planning gaps
✅ How reactive firefighting drains your team, your pipeline, and your peace of mind
✅ The exact steps to review, clean up, and reset your business for Q4 success
✅ Practical scheduling tips to allocate time and set deadlines for every task
✅ How to reduce anxiety, protect home life, and regain strategic vision


Interested?


INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/marcwattersconstructioncoach/

DM the word "DISCOVERY" for more info.


COMMENT below: your biggest takeaways and what you want me to create next! 

SPEAKER_00:

September is one of the most crucial months for construction business owners. Summer's over, sets you're back in full swing, and clients want everything done before Christmas. And most construction business owners think the solution is to just bury your head in the sand, put the blinkers on and boot on until the end of the year and take a break at Christmas. Here's the truth: pushing harder in September will only burn you out and leave you in a much worse position at the end of the year. I'm speaking from experience. I've been there and done it over 20 years in the industry. I've seen it time and time again. I've been guilty of it. You've been in holiday, guys have been on holiday, it's been a wee bit irregular, there's been a lack of routine, and things have maybe fell by the wayside, and this is now your opportunity to get back in the routine. Maybe you have family, kids come back to school, and whatever else. Now is a great opportunity in September to really sort of hit the reset. So why does September matter at all, really? So September is a perfect time to reevaluate things because September can really make or break how the year finishes. So there's kind of two options there, and it really sets the tone for how you finish quarter four. You can finish strong, controlled, or you can finish stressed and reactive. You can do one of two things now in September to finish off the end of the year. You can stop and you can plan effectively, or you can keep grinding, keep firefighting, and leaving too much opportunity on the table. So what is the danger with pushing without a plan? You're going to continue to be reactive and firefighting. So more long hours, no head space, always on the back foot, and I'm sure that sounds familiar. Then you've got staff fatigue. So if you feel tired, if you feel fed up, then your staff are going to feel it too. So you're pushing them harder and the team burns out early. Then you can become a bottleneck executive in your business. So the owner becomes a bottleneck. So with your stress, you're fire fighting, you've got a backlog of stuff, and you're in a bad headspace, then also that leads down and filters down to your team. So you're going to be poor communication with your team, you're going to rush decisions, you're going to make mistakes, and again, it's just a rinse and repeat of all the things that have been happening throughout the year. And again, realistically, that all leads to one thing: missed opportunities. And that's what's most important here. You've got jobs to price coming off the back of the summer. You've maybe leads slipping through the net because clients are in such a hurry to try and get everything done before Christmas. And then you've got the future pipeline drying up, and you start to panic and taking on whatever you can to just try and finish off the year strong. What happens in September as well, or why September is a sort of crucial period. I touched on it at the start of the video there, where I talked about this strange, unorganized sort of lack of structure at the end of August. That's where a lot of the admin can fall by the wayside. So ignore the admin is a huge aspect here. So you've maybe got a backlog of unpaid invoices coming in and coming out. So clients could owe you money. You haven't really been chasing hard. Clients have been hard to get a hold of because they've been on holiday or making excuses of being on holiday. And then again, you're doing the same thing with maybe your supply chain. You've got a backlog of invoices, and everything just needs to be addressed. So you maybe have receipts, paperwork everywhere, and you just really need to get on top of things. Then you're at the end of the quarter. So maybe you've met with an accountant and you're trying to put the quarter to an end. So like things like that can be really be hanging over the top of you and really taking up headspace that you can't really afford to be spending on it. So again, like I touched on the opportunities. The opportunities there with ignored admin is you're you're too busy to be following up on your missed invoices or following up on money that's due to you. You're missing opportunities and following up on actually pricing jobs, taking the time to price them well, and ensuring you've got good margins in place. Instead of just sticking a figure on it, putting 20% on, throwing it at the door and seeing what happens, you're sort of just casting that wide and taking anything that comes. That leads to leads and jobs lost, which equals money left on the table. You can clearly see there, and you can quickly see how no schedule equals chaos, and we're back into this hamster wheel of the same repetitive stuff all the time. So, what can happen here at this part of the year is jobs will overlap because you take on too much, because there's no organization, there's no plan, and there's no structure there. So important details can get missed because I touched on this already, because you're fire fighting because you're just putting the head down and putting the blinkers on. You're not really looking into the specifics of jobs and about you know important details that you could be maybe, you know, whatever it may be, contract specifics, details on projects that you're overlooking, maybe underpricing because you're again you're just pricing getting the door, pricing getting the door because there's so much coming in, and maybe you've already got that backlog as well. So you're just you're just pushing everything out the door to try and get it off your plate. So that leads to a lot of things. You've got you know, project delays, you've got supplier delays, subcontractor clashes, and missed deadlines. So that leads to then obviously frustrated clients, frustrated team, frustrated business owner, and just more and more stressed. That leads us on to obviously the mental cost of all this. So, what is the mental cost of just pushing harder in September? Like I said, you've no time to actually think strategically. There's no planning here, no method, it's just all madness. So you'll be constantly firefighting, which you all know creates anxiety and pressure. Stress then spills into home life because September is also that time of year if you've got family and whatever else. Kids are back to school, you're back to routine, but you're stressed to the gills, you're running about the place like a blue horse fly, just you know, not really sure where you're coming or going, and everybody feels that. Everybody feels it at home, so that's your family life, your team, and every part of the business, and it sort of shows it through reflexing you when you're when you're trying to speak to clients and everything else. So, what happens in September then is that you actually end up starting quarter four already on the back foot. So if you if you continue that way, you can see how the end of the year is gonna be. I have actually created a fix for September, and it's the three-step September reset. So the first one is review, so you're gonna take stock of where you are. Number two is clean up, so clean up all that backlog of whatever you had going on throughout the year, maybe the end of the summer. And then number three is the important one, it's the reset. So you're gonna draw a line in the sand, make your plan, and execute the perfection in order to end the year strong. Let's go through each one of those points in a bit more detail to help you out. So you can again leave this call with a plan and something you can implement in your business straight away because that's always the goal here. Let's review what I mean by review. So you're gonna take stock of exactly where you are, right? We're gonna sit down. This maybe take a half an hour, an hour, and list out all the things that you have a backlog on. So any of the admin, any of the unpriced projects, any of the you know, people like messages you haven't got back to, emails, whatever it may be, take stock of exact exactly where you are and what needs to be done. Then we're gonna schedule that into you know when that's gonna get done. This is very important here because what that does then it leaves space to see what opportunity or spaces you have available in order to fill for the end of the year. So all these opportunities that are coming in, but it's important to wipe the slate clean, have that review, and really see where you are and where you can go, and then plan then they actually execute. Whether that's projects that need to be finished off, admin needs to be finished off, reviewing your pipeline of what you've got coming up, even a financial reset. So seeing where you've sorted out with your goals and your targets from the year so far, and then setting new targets and new financial goals for the end of the year. All of that is really important, and September is a really perfect time to do that. Coming off the back of everything that's happened this year, it's a perfect opportunity to draw a line in the sand and review where you've come and then review how you're gonna finish off. So that kind of covers the review period. Then we've got number two, which is one of the most important parts, and that's the cleanup. So here's where you're gonna actually clear all that backlog. You're gonna get your books, your invoices, your trackers up to date, everything responded to, and really clean everything up. So that's taking everything out of your brain, putting it on the paper, and then getting rid of it and wiping the slate clean. What that's gonna do, it's gonna give you the headspace to plan for what's coming up. It's gonna just give you a lot more freedom, a lot more, uh it's even gonna obviously, like we touched on about what it's doing with your mental capacity there, be able to actually tackle the rest of the year and hit it strong because, like we all know, it's one of the busiest times of the year. Then that gives us the opportunity to make that reset. So, in other words, you've reviewed everything you need to do, you've cleaned everything off, and now it's time to reset in order to drive forward. We're gonna map out your calendar, we're gonna plan your deadlines, and we're gonna set realistic Q4 goals. How I would do the reset and map it out your calendar. So, what your calendar is one of your most important tools as a business owner. Any meetings, any time on the tools, any time where you're doing admin needs to be blocked off as if it is a meeting. So you really need to take stock of your calendar and see what time you have. Another thing I always like to do, because obviously it's a busy time of the year for everything, maybe you've got family and other things. What I like to do is I like to block off all the important things outside of the business and make sure you've got time for that as well. That's first and foremost. So that keeps everybody outside of the business happy, including anything you have to do personally. Then you need to actually block everything out around that. So everything must have a deadline. So it must have a time to be executed and a deadline against it. So just saying that you've got 20 things to do by this week, you know, and you're given the week to do it, then it'll take way more than a week, and maybe you'll get two things done out of the 10. So it's really important to block time off to work on certain things. So if it is admin, realistically, a realistic uh goal there would be to set off an hour every day and in your day to tackle the admin. That way, by the end of the week, you'll have it boxed off. Same as going out and pricing jobs, don't just be squeezing jobs or squeezing time to go and see clients in between doing other things while the phone's ringing and everything else. Book time off in your calendar, book time off in your diary for clean space where you have time to actually go out, speak to clients, meet them, do whatever you need to do, have meetings about things, and really approach it with a clear head rather than approach it firefighting, forgetting things. But again, one of the most important parts of your calendar is making sure that every single thing is blocked off. So it goes for your program schedules on your projects and your own time and everything else. If it doesn't have a time, a space, and a deadline, then it won't get done. And what you can do as well, and you can double book, you can overbook yourself and things like that, and that's where deadlines get missed, that's where opportunities get missed, and that's where mistakes happen. This is exactly what I'm doing with my clients at the moment with great success. So I always like my clients to have at least six months in advance for planning. We always like to look way, way ahead. The reason for this is because you approach every week with a much clearer space, you know exactly where you're at, and you know exactly where you need to go, and you've also set yourself these targets and deadlines throughout the way. Everything, every approach is strategic, every thought process is and action is strategic, and it's all working towards the end goal. So now is really the good time to map everything out and get everything boxed off and set these realistic Q4 goals. Okay, so you can easily watch this video and do nothing about it. But what I would always urge you to do, and what my goal is for all of my clients and all my coaching calls and everything we do, and the point of these videos is to provide you as much value as possible, but not only that, to leave you with something that you can actually implement in your business right away and actually take action on what we're talking about here. What I've done is I've actually created a nice resource template for you to review, clean, and reset. It'll be in the description below. You can get a link to this or you can reach out to me on any of the social platforms and have a discussion about this, and I can send everything over to you. So, what I would urge you to do is download the resource and take one evening this week and just really take the time to do the three-step process review, clean, and reset. And that way you will finish quarter four and finish this year with complete control and extremely strong. If this video resonated with you, drop me a like, drop me a comment, or share it with somebody who might think benefit from this because again, my goal is to try and help as many construction business owners as possible. And obviously, the more value I can provide, the better. There's going to be a lot more value to come on this channel, so keep your eyes on.