Marc Watters - Construction Business Blueprint

The Construction Business Blueprint #007 - Not Every Job Is a Good Job

• Marc Watters • Season 1 • Episode 7

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November and December can wreck a construction business: frantic deadlines, scope creep, unpaid extras, late invoices… and burnout.


In this solo episode, Marc lays out a simple “say NO” framework to protect your profit, reputation, and cash flow, so you finish the year strong and start Q1 in control.


You’ll learn

  • Why “NO” is a superpower: avoid bad clients, bad jobs, and false “opportunities.”
  • Standards over speed: keep systems, schedules, and quality tight under pressure.
  • Stop scope creep: log variations, pause for approvals, and don’t leave extras on the table.
  • Invoice on time (critical in Nov): miss mid-Nov and you may not see cash until late Jan.
  • Cash flow discipline: align billing cycles, chase promptly, protect margins.
  • Boundaries that stick: protect your team, your reputation, and your sanity.


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SPEAKER_00:

It's November. It's probably the busiest, craziest times of the year in construction, bar December. Everybody's chasing deadlines, everybody wants everything done before Christmas, and pretty much everybody's running about a bit crazy. But the truth is, and what I want to talk about today, is the power of saying no. Saying no is going to be a superpower because not every job is a good job, not every client is a good client, not every opportunity is a good opportunity. We all know about the Christmas rush crush our mindset that we want to talk about. Everybody's panicking, everybody wants everything done before Christmas. Inquiries are coming in thick and fast. Panic stations are setting in. Whether you're a private, your domestic, uh, or your commercial, it's kind of all the same. I've done both, I've plenty of experience in both. What I always find is that the private clients want everything done, they want their house finished before Christmas, they want all the work done, they want to have everything done by the new year. And private clients, even though you're following a programme, they're the same. They want certain milestone dates done before Christmas because maybe allocating subcontract labor or hitting milestones or or whatever for bonuses or whatever, whatever it may be, everybody has this same mentality, even on a personal level, you know yourself. If you've got family, kids, everything's busier, everybody's a bit mental, everything's a bit crazy, and that's what can happen. You can get caught up in that with your business as well. So, what tends to happen here with business owners in construction, they tend to say yes to everything, and that's through a few things. But saying yes to everything leads to three things it leads to burnout, mistakes, and sometimes unpaid work. And I'll explain more about that in a second. So, we're going to talk about why saying no is actually a superpower and it does the complete opposite. It protects your business, it protects your mindset, it protects your boundaries, and it protects your profit margins. So, what happens when you think you need to say yes to everything and don't say no is bad clients can creep in, bad opportunities can creep in. What'll happen is as well that your systems, your standards, your everything starts to drop. So maybe not the quality of work, but the quality of how things are done, how you're keeping on top of things as a business owner, your systems, your processes, scheduling the guys. If you're spreading yourself thin, something is going to give, and it's either you, the business owner, or the business itself. So it's all about maintaining standards. When you say yes to everything and you're spreading yourself thin, like I said, the standards drop. And what's important is the power of saying no is going to stand by you because it shows that you have confidence in what you're doing. The rest of the year has got you to this point, and whether things have gone good or bad, I'm going to be back and talk about my clients here. My clients have all had a plan throughout the year, they have targets they need to hit, they have, you know, whether that's financial or project milestones or whatever it may be. My guys have had a plan deny. But what tends to happen is the inquiries come in thick and fast again. People want things done, people want to accelerate things before Christmas. But it's important just to maintain everything how you've got to this point is important. You that what's got you here so far is your quality, is your standard, is your standards, your processes, your systems, and everything else. So, why is it that this time of year we decide to take on way too much, throw all that out the window, and just fall fall to the level of that, the busyness. So, what we need to do is we need to maintain focus, maintain the focus that we've had for the last 10 months, and don't lose everything just for the sake of these last two months because people are asking you to do things and you are afraid to say no. You're apprehensive about saying no, you're afraid of leaving opportunity on the table. But like I said, there not every opportunity is a good opportunity. So focusing on finishing the projects well, focusing on maintaining your systems, your processes, focusing on driving the team just like they have been, keeping the standards maintained, and that'll stand by you right up to the end of the year and right into the next year. Because what happens as well, and we've probably all been here before, when you try to take on too much and the standards slip, it can damage reputation. So by not saying no to every opportunity and by saying yes to every opportunity, what you're actually doing is you're putting your business on the line, you're putting your profit margins on the line, and you're putting your sanity on the line. And in my opinion, that's just definitely not worth it. So simple thing where it can really hurt the profit is the invoicing. And I'll just go into a scenario, and I know you've probably all resonated with this or have done at some point, but think of your invoicing, you know, whether it's even variations or changes on jobs, when you're rushing, you're panicking, you're you're pushing lads hard to get it done. Maybe there's a miscommunication there, guys are just plowing on, plowing on to get things done, and they're leaving extras on the table, variations on the table, they're not recording things because maybe the client's asking for this, asking for that, and instead of taking stock and stopping things, maybe doing a site audit report, getting in contact with you and checking you whether that was in the original scope of works, they're just bullying on to get it finished because you're putting them under massive pressure, the client's putting them under massive pressure, and they're probably doing work that they're not supposed to do. Then there could be the likes of the team cutting corners, doing things, letting things slip because they're all in a rush or a panic, or they're forgetting things, or they're not reading the scope correctly or their plans correctly, and then you're having callbacks, which is adding to the stress, which is which is have detrimental impact on the on the on the reputation and on the profit. Even if things do go well and you don't have the time to price those variations, to have a con conversation with the client because you're just drowning in work and actual physical work, then you're you're you're stepping away from what's really important, what actually drives the business, which is the invoicing, the admin types of things. All those things are an absolute necessity. So, what can happen is even the invoicing, you're sending invoices out late, but when you send invoices out late, you know, chances are the clients will be slow and paying. So it's important to be on point with all those things, keeping your calendar tight, keeping your schedule tight, keeping your boundaries right, making sure the invoices are going out on time. And this time of year is massively crucial for invoicing because even if you're we'll touch on the we'll touch on that in a second, but what what I was even going to say was even the smaller projects where you're thinking it's only£500 here, it's only a thousand pounds there, well, it's an extra or it's a it's a wee job here, a wee job there, they'll quickly add up. You put 10 or 15 or 20 of those jobs in before Christmas and you could have a big bill on your hands that you're wondering where your cash flow is and leaving yourself short for Christmas in your own family and putting yourself under massive financial strain. But in terms of invoicing and actually issuing invoices out, November's a crucial period because if you're if you're in the commercial space and your invoices are 30 days or 14 days, if you're not invoicing by the middle of November for what work's done the date, you could be pushing any payments out to the new year. You could maybe not be expecting to get a payment now until the end of January. What will happen is accounts will your clients, if you're a commercial, will have a cutoff period in say invoices being processed in November, 30 days in December. Most accounts, like in my experience, accounts last invoices was maybe the 15th of the month in December. And then obviously there it shuts down early. There's a there's a there's a global shutdown for Christmas in construction for maybe two weeks, starting from say that the early 20th of whatever week it falls on this year, whatever day it falls on this year. But the moral of the story is if you're not invoicing on time, your 30 days could potentially go into 60 days or even 90 days if you're not keeping on track of things. So it's important to keep stock of that, you know, keep in with the meetings, keep in with the team communication, keep in with the client communication, keep on top of your admin and invoicing because that's really going to affect things moving or closing off the end of the year and impacting you right into quarter one as well. So, what I say to all my clients, what I say my clients obviously who are all on a plan and all have great systems, great processes, really good with their boundaries, know exactly what they want and what they don't want, they're not afraid to say no. What I always remind them of is at this time of year, while it may seem difficult to say no to opportunity, saying no is the superpower. What's important in business is to maintain what has got you to this point. So maintain your systems, your processes, your communication with your team, your marketing, everything that your business is built on, the structure, the foundations of your business need to be maintained in November to ensure that things finish strong and start well in quarter one. That's why saying no is a superpower. Saying no to opportunities or saying no or putting things off into the new year is going to be your superpower. Saying yes to everything is going to be massively detrimental, like I've already said, and cause all of those issues that we've already said, which in my opinion just is not worth it. So, like I said, my clients have that structure, they have that accountability, something that I drill into them day and daily. But look, if you don't have that, please feel free to reach out, drop a message under this video, reach out to me on any of the social platforms, and I would be happy to help. But what we're gonna do is we're gonna close off on this final word, and just a reminder for everybody you cannot please everybody. And remember that the business is what's important here. You, the founder, your business, the foundations, the people that rely on you to put food on the table, wages in their pocket, things like that. That is what is important here. Look after number one. So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna focus on quality, focus on control, and not the chaos.