John Kenney, CPRC, CEO, Cotney Consulting Group
Last month, in part one, we covered three of the five recurring and industry-wide risk elements to potential profit or failure for a roofing contractor. These included increased project size, unfamiliarity with new geographic locations and new and unfamiliar types of installations and services. In part two, we will focus on the effects of key personal changes and a lack of organizational maturity. We will close with a few items on evaluating contract profitability.
Changes in Key Personnel
There are three primary functional areas of a roofing company and each must be competently managed and supervised to be successful. The primary areas are:
■ Construction operations (do the work).
■ Estimating and sales (get the work).
■ Administration and accounting (managing the business).
A top-level manager in every successful roofing business is responsible for each area. In many cases, one person is responsible for all of them or two may share the responsibilities. If your company is making a profit, it is because of the efforts of these individuals. If one of them leaves, there is by definition no track record of profitability for the new organizational team. This is a simple reality in business and even more so in the roofing industry.
Some may say, “My company makes money because of the great team of estimators and project managers we have assembled.” While this can be a contributing factor, successful companies do not entrust responsibility for primary functional areas of their companies to middle management. Read more.
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