The Construction Business Blueprint #037 - When Should You Make Your First Big Hire?

At some point, every growing construction business reaches the same ceiling: the owner becomes the bottleneck.

You’re managing jobs, answering calls, dealing with clients, ordering materials, pricing work, solving site issues, and somehow still trying to run the business. But that isn’t really running the business, it’s firefighting.

In this episode of Construction Business Blueprint, we break down when it’s time to make your first serious hire, whether that’s a site manager, project manager, estimator, QS, or someone who can take real ownership of a key part of the business.

We cover how to know when you’re ready, which role you actually need, what “good” should look like, how to hand over properly, and how to think about the return on investment so the hire doesn’t just cost money, it helps the business grow.

If you’re constantly stretched, missing opportunities, or stuck doing everything yourself, this episode will help you understand whether your next move is to finally get out of your own way and bring the right person in.

Subscribe for weekly videos helping construction business owners get more time, more profit, and more control.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Construction Business Blueprint

00:32 - Why your first big hire matters

00:56 - When the owner becomes the bottleneck

02:21 - What counts as a serious hire?

03:33 - When do you actually need to hire?

04:40 - Signs you’re ready for your first big hire

05:41 - How to know which role you need

07:39 - Defining what “good” looks like before you hire

08:29 - What a good site manager or project manager should own

09:31 - What a good estimator or QS should own

10:23 - Why the first 3 months need measured closely

10:59 - How to hand over properly

11:44 - The 4–8 week handover process

12:28 - How to think about ROI on your first hire

13:08 - How the right hire frees you to grow the business

14:26 - The £40k hire example

15:02 - The exercise every owner should do this week

15:12 - How Blueprint helps owners hire properly

Transcript

Why The First Big Hire Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So, welcome back to another episode of the Construction Business Blueprint YouTube channel. This is the channel where you, as a construction business owner, get all of the insights, all my best work that I do with my clients every single day, every single week. You're pretty much getting it here for free, so it's packed with value. And again, like we always say, the reason or the motivation for me being here is to try and help as many people as possible. Listen in if you haven't already, make sure you subscribe so you get these updates every single week. So today I want to talk about something that again comes up all the time. Um, I speak to so many different construction business owners every single week, guys, new in business, guys who've been in business a long time, and then all the guys in between. But today I want to talk about something that comes up all the time, and it's making your first big hair. And when I talk about your first big hair, I'm not talking about, you know, another guy on the tools or another helper. I'm talking about your actual first big hair in the business. There's a point in every growing construction business where the owner becomes the bottleneck, and the business can only go to the capacity of the owner, so it can only take on as much as you can actually give it. Essentially, to put it in layman's terms, to put it into perspective, you've all been here. I've been there myself. You're on three sites, you're quoting a fourth site, the phone's going from a client on the on the fifth site, and another client you're dealing with from a job you finished six weeks ago from the sixth one. You're dealing with the orders, you're dealing with the program, you're dealing with the clients, you're dealing with ordering the materials, you're dealing with guys on site, you're doing everything, but somehow you're also supposed to be running the business. And the big misconception there is, well, that is running the business, but essentially it's not. You know, that's just again being reactive, putting out fires, getting the job done, but that's not running the business. What you are essentially is just the most stressed person on site, but you're not really the owner, you're not really, you know, taking ownership of anything, and you're not even actually able to manage or plan, think, or come up with ideas or strategize or make decisions because you just don't have the time, space, energy, whatever. So I did it for years. That's how I know, that's how I know what I'm talking about here. I was that guy for years. I thought that holding off on hiring people was a good thing, it was gonna save me money. The business was really lean, and you know, hiring people was just a pain in the ass, and I don't have time to train those guys. But the quicker I got out of my own way, the quicker the business grew, the quicker my life got so much easier. So, like I said, today I want to talk about your first serious hire. Not another tradesman, not another labourer, I mean like a proper salary, a site manager, a project manager, a QS, an estimator, someone who's gonna take out a real chunk of the business and actually own it. So I'm gonna talk about when to do it, how to think about it, you know, what to give to them, how to delegate that to them, and what it's actually worth. Because realistically, it's the big hair that makes the big difference. This is the kind of hair that makes a big change, it's kind of the massive turning point for most business owners, and it's also the most feared one. And most leave it way too long before they do, or most never even do it at all. Any client that I take through that process, and obviously that's obviously a much smoother process because I'm physically taking them through that process. However, when they do get through that process, on nearly every step of the way or every time they come back to me and say, Wow, I should have done this earlier. Like I've never had somebody make the hair the way we do it with the proper processes in place, the proper way to do it, everything we're gonna touch on in this video. We've never done that, made the hair, and someone's come back to me and go, Oh no, I don't like this, I'd rather just go back to doing everything myself. Where on the flip side, people who go through it and approach it in the wrong way, which we're also gonna talk about, that's always seems to be the feedback. Number one, we're gonna talk

The Real Signs You Are Ready

SPEAKER_00 3:33

about when do you actually need one? So, when is the right time to take on that serious hair? So, most owners, you know, feel like they need help long before they actually take action and do something about it. So the majority of their go, yeah, I'd love help, but you know, you don't do it. You know, there's so much hesitation, there's so much procrastination around it, and they tell themselves all the time that it's not the right time. You know, you're waiting for the perfect time. It's either I'll wait until I'm in a better financial position, it's maybe too expensive, there's not enough work to justify it, I'll wait until things settle down, but those times never come. And you know, think about yourself and your own shoes here. You've been there a million times, you've probably said those words a million times yourself. But here's the truth: like I said, things will never settle down, not on their own anyway. So you are the stability. If you're the one holding everything together, the business can't grow past what you can personally handle. Again, that's not a business, that's just a job with extra stress. So, what are the signs that you're actually ready? So, apart from the obvious that you're absolutely chasing your tail, let's talk about actual things that are going on, potentially in your business, where you think, you know, definitely need to draw a line in the sand here, definitely to think about taking somebody on board. It's when you've got multiple projects running at any one time and you don't really have any control over them all properly because you're either stuck on the tools or you just can't get to that many places at once and you'd need to split yourself in two. You maybe have jobs slipping on program because nobody is really in charge day to day and nobody's keeping an eye on that. Maybe there isn't even a program at all. You're missing opportunities to quote because you're too busy running sites, maybe you can't even get sitting down to put a quote together, maybe you can't even get it out to the job, you actually look at a project because you're just too busy and there's opportunity sitting on the table. The phone's ringing, the leads are there, there's opportunity if you want it, but you just can't get at it. Another one is if your revenue is consistently above a certain point. So, say for example, your turnover is above maybe two, three hundred K, you're still on your own, you know, even upwards into half a million, you know, you're definitely in that position where you could take a substantial salary on board and it would pay for itself. And we're going to talk about how it pays for itself here very shortly.

Choosing The Right Role To Hire

SPEAKER_00 5:37

So, number two, we need to talk about which role you actually need filled. So, how do I know who to hire? This is where owners get confused. Most guys know they need help, but they don't know what kind or where. They just know that something isn't right and they need help. So the quick way to think about it is where are you spending the most time that someone else could be doing? If it's on site running the day-to-day, if it's coordinating the subcontractors, managing materials, client walk-arounds, doing site reports, you need a site manager or a project manager. If it's in the office and you're pricing, doing takeoffs, tender submissions, reviewing quotes, then you need an estimator or a QS. Even if they're in the lower tier, we're talking about a big salary here. If it's maybe admin and it's all admin right now and it's something that you could literally get off your plate, then it's that. You know, if it is just sending out quotations, chasing up payments, doing invoices, that's a simple admin job. You don't need a QS or anybody with a big salary like that to be managing admin roles. That's not that's not really something you take on a big salary for. If it's both, if you're kind of going, it's everything, it's all of those things. Start with what whichever is costing you the most money right now. So, what is actually what's the lower value stuff or what's the higher value stuff that somebody else could even do better? Somebody else could actually come in and take control of and do a better job than what you are. You know, usually maybe that's the side side because an unmanaged site usually costs you the most money, it's usually where the biggest leak is. It leaks margin every single day, and unpriced variations, doing extras without you know pricing them, guys just taking on variations and extras being requested by the client, maybe not submitting invoices on time, maybe it's missing scope or spec when you're pricing jobs, whatever it may be. Another thing is don't try to hire one person to do everything. Okay, define the role tightly. You need to be able to explain exactly what this role entails. What does a good week look like for this person? What decisions do they need to be making without calling you? Write them down before you even go to advertise or pitch for a job. You need to be abundantly clear on what exactly it is the business needs.

Defining Success With Clear Measures

SPEAKER_00 7:34

What does good look like is the third one. Okay, the third one is kind of like the scorecard. What does good look like? So before you hire anybody, you need to define what success looks like. Like what does this what does somebody doing a good job in that role actually look like? What is the result that they're going to produce by coming into your business? I see owners doing it the wrong way around. Construction business owners hire and then they wonder why it's not working six months later. It's because they never told the person what they were actually measured on. You know, never put KPIs in place, never put expectations, maybe didn't even define the role clearly, or more than often than enough. There was never any system process or anything they actually for someone to come into the business and follow. So all you've essentially done is taken all of your shit and dumped it on somebody else's desk, something that you couldn't manage, and you're expecting somebody else to come into your business and manage for you without really any sort of guidance or help or or plan in place. So let's talk about what good looks like for a site manager or a PM. Programme is being managed and updated weekly. Materials are ordered before they're needed and always with cost, you know, cost certainty and you know, checking for prices and commercial making commercial sense, obviously. Subbies, subcontractors, supply chain are all briefed properly. Everybody knows what they should be doing, when they need to do it, etc. etc. Clients get a weekly update without you know you sending it, without clients ringing you asking what's going on. Clients have full visibility. Variations are logged or else flagged. Variations obviously mean extras, making sure they're logged as they happen. Problems come to you early, you know, not the night before they actually blow up or after it's already blown up. So you somebody Google in that role will be able to say to you, look, I see this guy consistently doing the same problems or coming up with the same issues, or the guy's coming late, we need to address this now before it blows up or goes too far, or we're having issues with this same supplier twice now. So flagging up stuff, we're bringing it to you at the point where you can make a decision on what to do, and that's your responsibility as a business owner. So for an estimator or QES, it's that there's no opportunity getting left on the table. So every project is coming in, you're being informed about the project, whether it's something your business wants to actually take on or not. Margins are clear, jobs are being priced clear with margin built in. There's variations being priced, scope is being checked, revisions of drawings are all being checked, and make sure there's nothing being missed or nothing left on the table. They're taking care of tech subs, they're taking care of everything in terms of an inquiry coming in to actually securing and winning the project. Then after the project is won, it's variations being tracked live on the on the job, you being up brought up the date with cost reports, obviously job cost reports being live on every project, so you know exactly where every project sits. And then obviously, you know, bringing up invoices, doing valuations, doing all those things to make sure the money is coming in and whether things are being missed or making sure everything's tracked and happening all the time essentially. So they should be looking after the whole commercial side and everything from the tender sort of process as well. What's important is before we get into the actual handover, you need to measure everything for the first three months. Track how often you're still getting pulled into things that that road should be covering. If it's constantly, either they're not doing the job or you're not letting them, or maybe they're just not qualified to do it, or maybe you know that the hiring process wasn't done right. So there's going to be a lot of eventualities there that need to be looked into. But track everything, review everything. It's not a case of getting somebody in and then passing it over and then hoping it all works out and speak to them in a few months and see what happens. Regular check-ins are essential.

The Handover Plan That Works

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Let's get into step four, then the handover, and how they actually make it work. So this is where most donors get it wrong. They hire somebody, you know, give them a site visit, give them a set of drawings, and expect things to change in one week. You know, this isn't going to be something that's going to be an overnight success. You're not just going to bring somebody into your business. They need to find their fate, they need to understand what way things work, they need to get into the pace, they need to get into working with you, working with the lads. So it doesn't just work like that. It's not a case of, well, I hired you, all these problems should now be fixed. That's a that's a ridiculous expectation to have on anybody. So the handover is a process. You know, that could take four to eight weeks, depending on how much is in your head. It's never been written down. So if you're prepared for this, like my clients, if my clients are making a hire, we have it all prepared. Somebody's coming into the business, the rule is clear, you know, their expectation is clear, what the standards are are all abundantly clear. That needs to be done before somebody comes on board. So that the preparation is key. Weeks one and two, they kind of shadow you, they're following you around, every site meeting, every client call, every supplier, they're learning your pace, they're learning how the business works, they're learning how things operate. It's not a case of this person's in from day one and you're just handing it over. There will be some sort of a handover process. Weeks three and four, they'll start picking the pace up themselves, they'll start doing them things themselves, they'll run the meetings, they'll send the updates when you're just keeping an eye on them and correct them as they go. Weeks five onwards, essentially, this is just a rough guide. They're kind of in charge, you're available, they're coming to you to check in on maybe answering certain questions, but they're kind of taking charge and they're taking the role. And they should be coming to you with actually suggestions on things to fix and things to change. So, number five, then the return on investment.

Making The Salary Pay For Itself

SPEAKER_00 12:24

That's obviously a big one. What's it actually worth? You know, can I afford to take this guy on board? That's obvious. If you're looking at your your sort of revenue and stuff, you should be able to see whether the business can actually float, taking on that salary right now. So that's an easy one. What is that? What is the revenue every month the business is generating? What's the profit left over? Can you actually afford to pay that salary? But let's talk about something that isn't probably visible to you right now and what you need to know when you actually take somebody on board. If your business can can cover that cost right now, that's great. But when you actually bring somebody into the business, it should be generating an ROI. So it shouldn't just be that they're coming in to lighten the load and the revenue should doesn't change, and yes, you're able to cover it. Your business should be generating a return. So let's put it in the like layman's terms. So say you're bringing somebody into the business, you know, they should be freeing up your week. So say like 15 hours of your week or something like that. Well, like you think about all the times you sit down, what this person's actually going to take off you. That's time that you can actually spend on meeting clans, negotiating contracts, bringing in more work, refining the process, making the business more efficient, hiring new people, doing whatever you need to do. That all will increase revenue. So now you've got the time to seize all the opportunity that's been there, meet all the clients, take on the opportunities, view the opportunities. Those things will start increasing turnover, increasing margin. Again, your margin is going to increase on projects because somebody's there covering everything, making sure nothing's getting missed. So all the leaks that were there in your business are going to be fixed, which is going to mean your business is running later, more efficient, bringing in more revenue, and then subsequently bringing in more profit because it's being managed better. Don't think that my business can just about survive this right now. The whole ROI is that when you bring somebody on, it's freeing you up to make the business better, make it more efficient, increase the revenue, increase the profits, and that's where the ROI is. So even if you're sitting thinking, you know, right now it might be a stretch, that's what you do. That's kind of how you look at it. The business right now, yes, but you have to think of what's going to change once that person is on board when you're freed up, when you're seizing the opportunity, and when you're actually getting to grips with things. So say the average salary of one of those guys is around 40k, you now have the time to take on one extra project a year at say 200k at a 20% margin, you know, that's 40k gross profit there, the hire is paid for itself. So you have to think of it this way: if you're still running everything yourself and the business is doing well, it's generating a good revenue, but there's a lot of opportunity left on the table. If you could put a figure on that opportunity and think, well, I could take on so many more projects, it's so much more profit margin, do the maths very quickly, and you could see whether you can actually afford to take somebody on. But again, it's what the business is actually going to generate once that person's on board. It's how things are going to change. So you have to ask yourself that question.

Your Next Step And Support

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Can you afford to? But more importantly, can you afford not to? So this week, write down everything you did in the last five working days that someone else should have or could be doing. Be honest, if that list is long, you know what to do next. Like I said, for all my clients, this is a really simple process. We take them through the whole press from whole process from step one right through to the end. We hold their hand literally right through it. We show them what the business needs, who and how to hire, when to hire, how to write the contracts, how to get them on board, all of those things. We make the process much more easier, much more streamlined. If you need help with something like this, please feel free to reach out, comment, discovery below, and I'll be happy to help.