Winning teams set a better game plan

By Charles Vander Kooi

I've found that comparing the similarities between a football team and a contracting business are a good way to bring home some practical truths.

You, the owner, are the coach. Field workers are the players. If you have management staff, they are your assistant coaches. The sales manager is offensive coordinator. The operations manager is defensive coordinator. Other managers may be your special teams, or position coaches.

Prepare like a professional

Dan Reeves coached the Denver Broncos several years ago and turned them into one for the best teams in the league. He took them to 3 Super Bowls. They lost all 3. But the very fact that they were there is a credit to Dan Reeves, for they were a team with one superstar and a lot of average players.

Dan Reeves was able to accomplish this be cause he is a master of the game plan. Not all Broncos players liked him, but they all knew they were the most prepared team on the field. They had a game plan and everyone knew what it was.

Immediately after a game on Sunday afternoon Dan Reeves would begin to plan the next game with his coaches. They would spend 60 hours or more planning for the next 3-hour game - 60 hours for a 3-hour game! As the game went on they had alternate plans ready depending on how the game was going.

Preparing to fail

Too many contractors remind me of sandlot football coaches. They tell everyone to show up at the park at noon. They choose up sides on the spot, tee up the football and go at the game. No planning. No forethought. Just tee it up and play.

Some contractors approach new accounts or new jobs in much the same way. The day before they start it they begin to think about it. Everyone shows up in the morning. They choose up a team, tee up the job, and play. No planning. No forethought. Fifteen minutes planning for a 2-day or 2-week or even an all-year job.

Planning often loses out because of the contractor's temptation to hurry up and get people out on the field. The thought is: the sooner you get started, the sooner you'll get done. Not necessarily so.

Planning cuts time

For example, a U.S. manufacturer was going to build a new factory in Japan . The contract specified the contractor was to start in 15 days, and complete the job in 10 months.

A local contractor was awarded the job. Those 15 days came and went. After 20 days went by, word got to the owner in the United States that nothing was happening. A representative then flew to Japan to see what the problem was.

On his way to the contractor's office, he went by the site and didn't see any signs of work being done. So, when he arrived at the office, he confronted the contractor: "You were supposed to start our job 10 days ago." The contractor replied, "We started it 15 days ago." The representative said, "How can you say that? I have just been by the site and there aren't any stakes, office trailers or equipment out there."

At that point, the contractor took him back to a conference room. Around the room on sheets of paper, every day and every task on that project were laid out: who would be on the job when, what problems might occur and what the possible solutions were. The contractor said, "We have been planning your project 15 days. We will do this for 5 more days and then we will start on site."

The contractor finished the job 10 days early without any major problems. Chalk one up for planning.

Stay in the coaches' box

Another thing Dan Reeves and other professional coaches do is stay on the sideline and orchestrate the game. Too many contractors come from behind the white line, kick John Elway out from behind the center, take the snap themselves, fade back and throw an interception.

Good contractor coaches don't spend all their time running loaders or laying block. If they do, they run the hazard of leaving their team without a coach in a position to see the big picture and they lose the game.

Be more proactive

As a coach, you need to be both proactive and reactive. I see that contractors, in general, are too reactive. I ask them how much work they are going to do this year and they say, "I don't know, the phone hasn't rung yet." And when it rings, they react and run out and price the job. They simply react to whomever calls and whatever they get.

You need to be proactive by planning how much work and what kind of work you are going to accomplish in a year. You need to become reactive if the plan is not working quite as expected.

You, based on your plan, will know what needs to be changed to make things work. You will know how much you must produce in sales to recover fixed overhead.

Your plan tells you where you need to be in sales throughout the entire year. And if it's not happening, you know you need to put your foot on the pedal.

You make those changes, based not on panic, but on the knowledge your plan provides.

Plans produce sound decisions

A good estimating system will give you the ability to run your company and make good business decisions. When you pre-budget your overhead, pre-plan what work you will do with that overhead and come up with a pricing system based on those budgets and plans, you will have the ability to run your company based on sound business decisions.

If the work is not coming in, you know how much to trim your overhead based on the plan. If your prices are too high, you increase the amount of work you need to do with that overhead, lower your prices and get the work. Or, trim your overhead, lower your prices and get the amount of work you need to work the plan.

When decisions need to be made throughout the year, you can look back to your budgets, your planned workload vs. your actual workload and make decisions.

When you plan how you are going to install a particular job, you can look back at the plan (the estimate) and make decisions about how to handle situations that come up.

Take control of your company

How much planning (budgeting, estimating, job costing, financial statement reading) do you do? Are you a master of the game plan, or do you run a rag-tag sandlot team?

A lot of contractors I meet have the look of fear in their eyes. They are not in control of their company. They are in the back seat of the car called their company and someone else (their clients or workers) is driving it. They just hope that someone uses the accelerator and brake and turns at the right places so they end up at the place called profit.

A plan puts the contractor in the front seat. You can put your foot on the accelerator or brake and turn the car (your company) based on your map (the plan) and make sure you arrive at profit.