I recently published an article regarding contractor profitability and received quite a few phone calls. I was amazed by the number of people who were losing money and had the same common characteristic: denial. There was a common failure to address the true cause of the problem and having the courage to deal with it. Here are some of the characteristics many of these failing businesses had in common:
Almost every person I talked with blamed the 2007 recession. Hello, 2007 was six years ago! If you have not redesigned your business and adjusted to the new marketplace, you never will. The majority of our customers are profitable and doing well. Quit blaming something that happened six years ago for your issues today. I talked with people who did over $2 million in sales who blamed the recession. Excuse me; if you do $2 million in sales, you have enough sales to make money. The problem is your margins are too low, your overhead is too high or your organization is not producing. It is not the recession.