Well, 2020 is nearly over. This is a time when lots of people set their plans for the new year. Is 2021 the year you’re finally going to start your career in construction? You may need a little assistance in taking the plunge. Here are five great resolutions that can help you get started.

Save Money
Every business needs money to get off the ground. While you can certainly apply for small business loans and other types of funding to help you buy supplies and equipment, anything you can save could make a big difference. It doesn’t have to be a lot of money, especially at first. Start by saving as little as $1 per day, to begin building a habit. Consider opening a savings account or a certificate of deposit that will help you earn some interest while you save. See if your bank or credit union will help you make automatic deposits, so you don’t even have to think about it. By the end of the year, you might feel more comfortable setting more aside toward your business goals.

Improve Your Reading Skills
Reading comprehension is one of the first things the kids learn in school, and there’s a good reason for it. Being able to understand what you read quickly helps you make your study time more effective. Even if you’re just reading about the latest technologies or practices in your chosen field, improving your reading skills will help you get more out of it. Try reading articles and then summarize what you learned from the content. Then you can go back and check to see what you may have missed. Look at online guides that help you discover what to look for as you read. With practice, you’ll get faster and more accurate.

Learn More About Running a Business
Running a business also takes practice. In order to know what to do and how to do it, you should start with some research. The first year of your business is often the hardest, so it helps to give yourself some additional preparation. Invest some time into researching these topics:

• Writing a business plan
• Investigating target demographics
• Creating marketing strategies
• Applying for business funding

Once you have a little expertise under your belt, get advice from family and friends who have run successful businesses. By the time you get your license and are ready to start your business, you’ll have a lot more information that will help you make it run well.

Take a Class in Professional Communication
Like reading comprehension, writing is something that most people learn as kids in school. Unfortunately, business communications often aren’t included in the curriculum. Professional communication is one way that you set yourself apart from the competition, particularly in the way that you relate to prospective clients. The good news is that this subject is something that a lot of people don’t know how to do. That means there are lots of tools and guides available online to help you learn common communication practices.

Get Ready for the Contractor Licensing Exam
Whether you are just thinking about getting into construction or you’ve been working in the industry for a couple of years, preparing to get your contractor license is a great next step. But in order to get it, you have to pass the contractor licensing exam. One of the best ways to learn what you can expect on the exam and get assistance in preparing for it is to take a course for your license. CSLS courses are comprehensive and refined to ensure that everyone who completes the course has the best possible chance at passing the exam.

The year 2021 is full of potential. If you start now, you’ll get the benefit of a whole year of progress toward your goals. To take the first step on your career path, contact CSLS today!

Once you get your contracting business off the ground, it’s tempting to let it take over your life. And yet, this is one of the worst mistakes people can make. While you need to respond to potential clients promptly and do as much work as you reasonably can, you also need break times to relax and refresh. If you don’t, you might find yourself without the ability to focus and get the job done. Here are five ways you can make sure that your business doesn’t run your life.

Set Normal Business Hours
One of the biggest benefits of running your own business is that you get to set your normal business hours. Although you may need to tailor it somewhat to work with clients and the nature of the job site, you probably have more flexibility than you think. What you need to do is choose your business hours and then do your best to stick to them. This means that if you would rather work four days a week for a longer period and then take three days off, it may be well within the scope of possibility for your workload. Having a defined period of time where you’re working makes it easier to define the line where you’re not.

Create Boundaries Between Business and Personal
One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they start a business is to think that they have to be on all the time. While many prospective and current clients expect a prompt reply to their queries, that doesn’t mean you’re on the hook to get right back to them every single time. You need to create boundaries between your work life and your personal life. This is particularly true if you do a lot of your administrative tasks at home. Keep business communications within business hours outside of absolute emergencies. And do your best not to bring your work home with you.

Prioritize Business Administration Tasks
Running a small business involves meeting the needs of several positions, sometimes all of them every day. While it’s tempting to push off:

Returning phone calls
Sending emails
Paying bills
Sending invoices

until the end of the day, this can often make your day stretch into eternity. These factors are the things that keep your business running week to week and month to month. Get them done at the beginning of the day, so that they don’t create hours of work for you when you need to rest.

Delegate When Possible
The fact is that running a business, particularly a contracting business, is more work than one person can reasonably do. You may not be able to hire employees who can help you at the start. But this doesn’t mean that you can’t delegate. Figure out which tasks can be easily managed by someone else, or even automated by an app or service. You can apply this to your personal life, as well. For example, if you’re so busy at work that you don’t have time to clean at home, hiring a periodic service can give you more time to relax.

Ensure Time for Breaks
Just like you must have set working hours that your clients and colleagues can follow, you need to build in guaranteed times for breaks. At first, the best you may be able to achieve is a few hours of downtime and enough sleep each night. As you get a little more experience, it may be worth planning out short vacations or holiday time where you don’t schedule work. Even taking a few days off once or twice a year can refresh your mindset and make it easier to handle a heavier workload.

Finding the right work-life balance is the way that many contractors manage to build a successful business over decades. The first step is to get ready for the exam. To learn more about our opportunities for contractor exam preparation, visit CSLS today!

When you work in construction, you’ll need protection in case something goes wrong. This is where insurance can make a big difference. There are a variety of types of insurance for businesses, and some of them are specifically designed for industries like construction. Here are the most common forms of coverage for contracting businesses, and how to tell when you need them.

General Liability
As a business owner, you’ll be obligated to carry a form of general liability insurance. If you consider how your car insurance works, liability may be easier to understand. When you buy car insurance, you can usually decide if you want the insurance to cover anything that happens to you, or just damage that you might cause to other people and their vehicles. Similarly, general liability insurance provides protection for damage that you or your equipment may cause on a jobsite. For example, if you accidentally cut into someone’s gas line, your liability insurance may cover the repairs. It’s vital to get the right amount of coverage depending on your field and the type of work you do.

Errors & Omissions
Errors and omissions insurance is similar to liability insurance, but it isn’t dependent on physical risks or damage. As a business owner, you can be held liable for problems that you caused, even if they don’t result in tangible damage. Insurance that covers errors and omissions is designed to provide coverage for events that caused financial problems to clients based on actions or decisions made by your business. If someone sues you under the basis that you left something out or made an error during the process, this type of coverage may pay for part of your defense. As with any other type of insurance, you’ll need to determine how much you’re willing to pay on your own, and what you’d like the insurance to cover.

Builder’s Risk Insurance
Builder’s risk insurance is a type of insurance that protects the property related to a particular job. As a contractor, you’re usually performing work on someone else’s property. If something happens during construction, to you, your equipment or existing structures, having insurance to cover the damage can be beneficial. Builder’s risk insurance varies in coverage, so it’s important to read the details carefully. It may overlap in some ways with general liability insurance, but isn’t designed to replace it. You or the property owner may be the one who buys the policy, depending on a variety of factors.

Workers’ Compensation
In an industry that is as risky as construction, providing protection in case you or one of your employees gets injured is important. In fact, worker’s compensation insurance is a law you have to follow. As a general rule, this insurance covers medical expenses and some lost wages for people who are injured in the course of their jobs. It’s tied specifically to activities that people do while they are working or on the jobsite. There are times when this may overlap with insurance like builder’s risk or general liability. If you’re not sure which policy to apply to a certain incident, it’s wise to ask your insurance agent.

Equipment Insurance
You may not think of your construction equipment as something that is uniquely at-risk, but it’s worth considering insuring what you have. Like your car, you don’t keep an eye on your construction equipment 24 hours a day. This means that, in the wrong hands, it may get damaged or even stolen. Equipment insurance covers certain problems as they relate to the equipment. For example, if you are moving equipment and it gets damaged in the process, this insurance may cover the cost of repairs or replacement. Some policies may also cover equipment rentals or tools.

Insuring your contracting business against possible problems is one way you can protect your assets and the important work you do. To learn more about starting your own contracting business, visit CSLS today!

As a construction professional, you will need good lighting to ensure that you can do your work properly. Many professionals are able to work using natural lighting for the most part, but this doesn’t solve every problem. In fact, sometimes you have plenty of light, but it’s in the wrong place so you continue to struggle. Here are five signs that you aren’t getting enough lighting in your workspace.

Your Eyes Get Tired During a Shift
If you’re wondering why you struggle to see things during certain tasks, think about the way your eyes feel at the end of the day. People who have to squint or work harder to focus may notice that their eyes get tired after they have been doing it for a while. This is a common problem. For example, you might feel eyestrain after a weekend of birdwatching, or after hours of observing a sports game at a distance. Tired eyes are working harder. And if it’s not the precision of the task that you’re doing and it’s not your vision in general, it’s almost certainly the lighting.

You Get Frequent Headaches While Working
When your eyes get tired, and you don’t do anything about it to make it better, you’re more likely to get headaches on the job. You may get headaches around your eyes, and also a pain in your neck and shoulders from the strain. Headaches while working in construction can be a significant safety hazard. This problem increases your risk because it can slow down your mental processing speed and make you more likely to slip or make mistakes. Headaches from eyestrain may be easy to manage with an over-the-counter analgesic and getting into a different space for a while. But on the other hand, adding some task lighting or increasing the light level of the entire space may solve it more completely.

You Lose Equipment or Materials During a Task
You’re probably familiar with the phrase “trying to find a needle in a haystack.” The premise of the idiom is that you’re going to have a harder time finding small items in a place where there are lots of similar small items. But when you’re on the job, you want everything to be in easy view. If you’re struggling to locate what you need in a hurry, it might be a matter of organization. Getting small tools and materials in order can help. But it’s not a guarantee. Increasing lighting makes you less likely to squint and need to focus. Even adding a battery-operated lighting option to set next to your toolbox could make all the difference.

You’ve Had a Recent Vision Test
Of course, a lot of these symptoms could be an indicator of vision problems. As people get into their 40s and 50s, they are more likely to need something like reading glasses to help them see precisely at a short distance. On the other hand, these signs aren’t always to blame on the quality of your vision. It’s worth getting a vision exam at least once every few years, especially after you turn 40. But if your vision seems to be in good order, then it’s likely these problems are caused by insufficient lighting in your workplace.

You Can’t See What You’re Doing
One of the hazards of working in construction is that you aren’t always doing the work inside a functional structure. Sometimes you’re working outside, and other times you’re working in a building that may not have electricity. In these instances, you’re probably going to find yourself with inadequate lighting to do the work. The good news is that there are lots of options you can use to dramatically increase the lighting of the space without having to wait for someone to run line voltage through. Just keep in mind that it is almost always better to have too much lighting than not enough.

Running a contracting business requires a lot of additional considerations, like sufficient lighting for the work you do. Your choices can make all the difference. To get started building your contracting business, visit CSLS today!

When you buy a house, it’s all about the location. But you may be surprised to learn that the location you choose for your contracting business can also make a big difference. Finding a place that has a balance of opportunities and minimal competition will make it easier for you to get established. Here are several factors to consider to help you decide.

Cost-of-Living
One of the reasons that location is such an important part of deciding where to live is the ability to maintain property value over time. But this means that the most desirable locations tend to have a higher cost-of-living. That isn’t always the case, but here in California, you’ll find that it’s usually true. In certain parts of the state, it’s much more difficult to provide an income that will pay the rent much less handle all your bills or allow you to buy a home. This is probably the biggest deciding factor in where to locate your business. Because if you can’t afford to live there, it’s going to be harder to drive there every day.

Access to Workspace
How you run your contracting business depends on your field and the services you offer but also on your location. In many cases, you’ll need access to some kind of workspace that isn’t necessarily the jobsite. This means that you’ll need to do some research into what’s available for workspaces that you can buy or rent, that aren’t too far away from your home or your clients. Areas with a lower cost-of-living tend to have cheaper industrial spaces for rent, but they may also be fewer in quantity and further away than you’d like. You might have more choices closer to a large city, but you’ll pay more for the convenience.

Customer Base
Customers are the lifeblood of your business. If you don’t have enough customers, you may struggle to keep your business going. While you certainly don’t have to settle down smack dab in the middle of an urban area, knowing where your customers are coming from can help you pinpoint the best locations for you. If you’re not looking at areas with huge suburban sprawl, it might make sense to select something that is within reasonable driving distance of a few different cities. This allows you to expand your service area, without necessarily increasing your drive time.

Competition
Competition tends to increase the closer you get to a heavily-populated area, but so does the number of jobs. And in truth, this depends more on the market and your services than the actual location. That means that you can’t necessarily assume that a big city will have lots of competition for your business, or that a small town will have none. Do some research into the competition you are likely to find, and how well-established they are in the types of services you intend to provide. Spend a decent amount of time with this before you make a choice, because it will help you determine where you are most likely to find clients without having to fight 500 businesses for each one.

Long-Term Growth Potential
Even though locations are geographically stuck, you can definitely see where they are coming or going. You might look at a small town and see how it is going to become a thriving city within a period of a few years. This represents a lot of growth potential within a short period of time. On the other hand, you might also find well-developed areas that aren’t going to be growing much for the next decade or more. This often relates to population growth, but it doesn’t always. If you can find the places that will need qualified construction workers now and in the future, it will be easier for you to stay put once you get settled.

Finding the perfect place for your business may take weeks or months of research. But once you’ve found it, you’ll have a better time getting started. To find out more about what it takes to run a successful contracting business, contact CSLS today!

It looks like the big picture for construction is changing fast in 2020. What you might have expected to happen at the beginning of the year is probably significantly different from the industry now. There are still a lot of options for contracting businesses, but you’ll need to go in the right direction. Here’s how to decide if public or privately-funded projects are the way to go.

Stability
When private investors lose confidence in the construction industry, they stop investing in projects. If the financial industry is worried that contractors and investors are about to default on their loans, they may tighten their lending standards. This makes funding in the private sector harder to get. By comparison, funding for public sector projects tends to be more stable. California still has a lot of development projects in the works, and the funding for it probably won’t dry up overnight. Just keep in mind that the funding intervals may take longer, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to get more if you run out unexpectedly.

Variability
Some business owners prefer the ability to pick and choose who they work with and which kinds of projects are best for their bottom line. If you are dying to break into a niche service that may not necessarily have a lot of demand, the private sector is probably your best bet. This may not be the safest financial approach at the moment, but it does give you more variability. On the other hand, if you like the comfort of the familiar, public sector projects tend to be larger and more predictable in general.

Timelines
Do you like to pick a project to work on next week, with the idea that you can finish it quickly and move on? Or, do you prefer to plan out your projects as far in advance as possible, giving you greater assurance of income for the long term? The answer to these questions can help you decide. Public works projects often run on much longer timelines, in part because there is more bureaucracy to get through. This means that if you’re in a hurry to start the project and finish it so you can get paid, private projects are probably better for you. But if you are willing to wait a few months before you begin, public projects may make it easier for you to book your schedule a few months in advance.

Bureaucracy
When they say that public sector projects maintain a lot of paperwork, they’re not joking. Although you should plan to carefully review any documentation that you receive for private or public projects, work funded by the government generally carries an extra load. You must be ready to invest the time it takes to understand what you need and how to meet those standards for every project. This is why some experts say that it is often more difficult to break into public projects after years of working with private companies than it is to go in the other direction. It’s still a choice you can make, you just have to be ready to do the homework.

Flexibility
When you’re first starting your contracting business, you may have no idea which direction is best for you. And as the industry changes throughout 2020 and for the next couple of years, you might want flexibility more than you need to make a single firm decision. If you have the ability, it may make sense to try working with both private and public projects. This will give you experience and let you determine which one is already working out better for your business. That should make the path forward much clearer, with a higher likelihood of success.

When you run a contracting business, you’ll have options to work in the public or private sector. The choice you make this year may affect your success for years to come. To learn more about creating a viable contracting business, visit CSLS today!

It feels like parts of the world keep spinning, while others are set off their axis. You may have projects to complete, while your suppliers are considered non-essential. This can cause backlogs in your work, as you try to find ways to keep meeting client expectations as you can. Here are a few delays you can expect related to COVID-19, now and for several months into the future.

Inspections
Many construction projects require inspections at various points in the process. Since it will be more difficult to locate qualified people able to do the inspections, you should plan for significant delays in the inspection process. Right now, you are more likely to notice a slowdown because fewer people are working and more people are trying to minimize their contact with others. Overtime, as more industries open up for business again, the construction industry may face a glut of projects that need to move ahead as quickly as possible. This means that it may take you longer to get permits as well.

Labor

Finding labor has been tricky for several years, due to construction’s labor shortage. But finding qualified workers is going to be even more difficult right now. This is particularly true in fields where you were already having to pay more and search longer to find a qualified person ready to take on the project. Moving forward, you may need to prepare to offer higher rates as you can and start your search for work on specific projects further in advance. This can help you to avoid significant delays while you try to secure a subcontractor.

Materials
Since much of the world is currently dealing with COVID-19 or its aftermath, you can expect a number of delays tied to materials. If you typically outsource a lot of goods for construction from places like China, you may have already noticed a significant slowdown in the rate that you can receive them. It’s also worth keeping in mind that shipping is also taking longer on almost all deliveries that are less than a truckload. To mitigate this issue, you may want to source materials that are closer to your location, so that shipping times are less of an issue for you. Investigating your options to pick something up can also save time.

Tool and Equipment Rentals
Finding the tools and the equipment you need may be more difficult whether you are trying to buy or rent. Most retailers, even those deemed essential, are limiting their hours and restricting how customers can make purchases to reduce contact. Be prepared to order online and wait for shipping if needed. Once construction moves back to regular speed, you might have a harder time getting equipment rentals as everyone tries to catch up on delayed projects. If you can’t buy the equipment that you need, you should see if there is a way that you can book reservations earlier than you usually would.

Tips to Smooth the Process
Although running over time on your project is pretty common in construction, COVID-19 is making those typical delays much longer. The last thing that you want to do is lose money or reliable clients because you failed to estimate how long you need. You can minimize your chance of problems if you:

• Revise estimates on time and pricing based on the most current data
• Add extra time for each step of the project
• Reconsider projects with equipment or materials that are difficult to source
• Look for other ways to trim time off projects without cutting quality

Regular communication with your clients will help assure them that you are continually working in their best interest.

COVID-19 is changing the world as we know it, with significant effects for your construction workflow. Finding ways to predict problems so you can solve them in advance is how your contracting business survives. For more information about preparing for your contractor licensing exam, contact CSLS today!

Construction has had a labor shortage since 2012. But this year, it’s only got worse. While this may seem like an absolute win for someone new to the field, it’s more complicated than that. It’s true that entering a field while it needs skilled workers can make it easier to find work, but you’ve got to balance that with the project delays and struggle to find other workers. Here’s how a labor shortage can affect your future business plans, and why it’s still a good idea to get started now.

How Is Construction’s Labor Shortage?
If you aren’t living it, it may be difficult to understand the dynamic of the construction labor shortage. The pandemic of 2020 has led to millions more people who are unemployed. You might think that this could address the shortage within a month. However, the major issue with the construction labor shortage is a lack of skilled workers, not just labor in general. This means that even if a government program could flood the industry with millions of new workers, they may not be qualified to do the work required. The solution takes years to implement, especially for people who are just starting in the industry.

What Does the Shortage Mean for Contracting Businesses?
Construction may have slowed down a little in the early months of 2020. But now, it is back with bigger demands. The housing shortage in California in recent years has yet to be resolved, leaving millions more in need of affordable housing options. Wildfire damage spawns recovery efforts. This creates a glut of possible construction projects in a variety of fields within the industry. It also creates problems for contracting businesses, especially those that struggle to find qualified employees or subcontractors to perform certain kinds of tasks. After all, if you can’t find the workers, you may not be able to complete the job.

What Does It Mean for Employees?
Ultimately, the shortage may mean that there are excellent opportunities for employees or people who are interested in building a business in construction over the next few years. When business owners can secure projects, but they struggle to find people who will do the work, the ones who can will be in higher demand. This translates into higher wages and better benefits, on top of more power for employees to bargain. Of course, that assumes that each project will have enough people available to complete it. This is why a majority of contractors are currently reporting delays and even canceled projects, on occasion.

How Could the Shortage Change Over Time?
Although the labor shortage has waxed and waned, it has remained a noticeable problem for almost a decade. This year has forced many businesses, large and small, to invest in ways to tackle it for good. The most practical solutions involve:

Resolving the extensive backlog of construction projects

Helping interested workers gain the skills and experience they need for the jobs most in demand

Balancing the needs of the population with the dynamic of the economy, as far as possible

At present, many organizations are investing in construction education. The goal is to increase the number of people in construction, while also ensuring that they have the skills needed to fill the gap. Within 10 to 15 years, the shortage may be gone or mostly managed.

Is Now a Good Time to Start in Construction?
Experts have been talking about construction’s labor shortage for years. And since many people are old enough to remember the housing crisis of 2008, it’s easy to conclude that it might be too late to start now. In fact, now is one of the best times to invest in construction. Building a portfolio of education and experience to take a position that’s high in demand requires years. But the sooner you start, the sooner you can take advantage of that demand.

Construction’s labor shortage gives employees lots of opportunities, and businesses the responsibility to meet them. To find out where a construction career could take you, visit CSLS today!

Payroll taxes are one thing that you’ll need to pay as part of your contracting business. As of September 1st, the federal government gave businesses the option to decline withholding these taxes from employee paychecks, as long as they meet certain requirements. There are benefits to this program, but also possible drawbacks. Here’s what you need to know.

What Are Payroll Taxes?
Payroll taxes are a percentage of an employees’ wages that must be withheld. These taxes come on top of withholding for federal or state income taxes. The payroll tax, which runs 6.2% of most employees’ wages, helps to pay for programs like Social Security. Employers are required by law to withhold it from their employees’ wages. People who are self-employed must pay these taxes either as part of their quarterly estimated taxes, or at the end of the year.

What Is the Payroll Tax Deferral Program?
The payroll tax deferral program issued by President Trump’s executive order in August defers payment of these taxes from September 1 through December 31, 2020. The program functions entirely on a voluntary basis. This means that employers must opt in by holding off on withholding these taxes from employees’ paychecks. It’s worth noting that this program is unique from other payroll tax holidays that have been enacted in the past. Unlike those times, this program is a deferral. In other words, any employer that chooses to participate in this program will need to withhold more taxes from employees’ wages to make up for it by April 30, 2021.

How Can the Program Affect Businesses?
Since the execution of the payroll tax deferral program comes primarily through executive order, some businesses aren’t clear on how they should use it. Employers aren’t required to take advantage of the program, but they also aren’t required to get employees’ support in order to implement it. Many businesses have chosen to participate in the program, in the hopes of ensuring a slightly higher wage for employees during difficult times. Other businesses have decided that the complication of determining eligibility, which may fluctuate for employees with variable income, makes the program too difficult to be worthwhile.

How Can the Tax Deferral Affect Individuals?
For those who qualify for the payroll tax deferral, a 6% temporary increase in paychecks could be a significant benefit. The program is limited to individuals making less than $4,000 every two weeks. This covers the vast majority of workers across the country. Employees should consider how paying it back may affect their paychecks in the first part of 2021. The federal government has made businesses that opt into the program responsible for withholding the additional taxes to cover for the deferral. This may mean that they have to enact new policies for employees who quit, to ensure that those taxes are repaid.

Could the Tax Deferral Program Change?
Given that the program came about through executive order, it’s possible that there may be additional legislation to support it, extend it or make it a true tax holiday. People who don’t pay much attention to the changes in tax laws may not know how common it is for a policy to be extended or changed right before it expires. If the government chooses to, the tax deferral could become a holiday that doesn’t need to be paid back. However, employees should pay attention to the news, and be wary of assuming anything will happen until it’s written into the law.

Figuring out taxes is something that you’ll do as an individual and a business owner. With the latest information, you’ll make wiser choices. For expert exam preparation on your way to becoming a licensed contractor, contact CSLS today!