I’ve learned how important it is to educate our clients in what they need to hold us accountable to.
When going out on your own, seek council from others. Also it’s very important to trust your gut.
What I wish I knew back when I started is that the right answer sometimes is “No.”
When you show up when you say you are going to, and do what you say you will do, it’s easy to stand out as a contractor.
Something I had to learn the hard way comes back to communication. People remember things the way they want to. I learned to bring someone with me to our meetings. Sometimes I’ll even make an audio recording, as well as take notes of the conversation so that we are able to remember accurately everything that was said. Then we send those notes out to everyone involved within 24hrs.
I do not work after 7pm. I reserve this for time with my family.
The best advice I’ve been given is, “If you want to succeed more than others, you’ve got to be willing to do what others are either unwilling or unable to do.”
Tech:
We created out own macro excel spreadsheet that helps us easily track expenses on each job.
I’m a huge fan of Dropbox.
Every person on our team is equipped with an iPad Pro
We love using the Noteability app
Chief Architect is a design tool that we have found is easy and user friendly.
We use Plan Swift for all of our take offs.
Flir cameras for monitoring heat loss. It plugs right in to your iPhone. We learned this from Matt Risinger.
Drone. This is so nice if you are wanting to see the project from the air. Even for things like checking a roof valley that you can’t see from the ground…etc.
Book: Extreme Ownership
I’ve learned how important it is to trust but verify.
I would tell a new contractor to:
Go for it.
Jump right in.
Take care of your client, take care of your trades, and you’ll be taken care of.