As you work on a construction project, sometimes you can’t help but notice the wildlife around you. Some of them may act as pests on the jobsite, while others are merely helpless bystanders. Since some animals and insects are crucial to human survival, it’s important to take care when you’re working around them. Here are a few things you can do.

Inspect the Site Before Work
On most construction sites, you don’t quite know what to expect until you get there. If your company is doing most of the construction or you’re acting in a supervisory capacity, it’s important to inspect the site before you begin work. This includes looking for signs of wild animals, birds or insects on the property. This is also important if you are performing demolition or renovation work on existing structures. When buildings aren’t inhabited for months or years, animals and insects may build nests in occupied spaces. Taking care to identify possible infestations and make a plan for them can help to avoid damaging beneficial species by accident.

Secure Site During Construction
Once you begin work on the jobsite, you need to ensure that nothing creeps in when you’re not expecting it. Site security involves keeping everyone out who does not belong there. But since bees and rats don’t read signs and can easily get past fences, you may need a different approach. Identify likely sources of infestations on the site. Then, take the time to think about the materials on the site that may be enticing. Putting up mesh fencing, closing buildings, and making sure that you put sources of food in airtight spaces, can minimize the likelihood that birds or animals will come to the site looking for them. Keep in mind that they love debris, so cleaning up is an ideal and safe deterrent.

Call Services When Necessary
When you find a beehive or a bunch of birds’ nests, it’s tempting to call an exterminator or another form of pest control. Well this can certainly mitigate the problem for you, it isn’t always the wisest thing to do. California is home to many varieties of endangered species. Without bees to pollinate the huge farms across the state, food output would be dramatically decreased. As such, it may be better to seek out a local organization that can help you move the nests without harming them or their inhabitants. This gives you a solution to your problem in a way that causes the least damage.

Use Bird-Friendly Construction Practices
The major problems that humans have with insects and rodents is that they like to set up housekeeping in the same place as where humans live. By comparison, birds are more likely to sustain injury or even death based on the type of construction practices that you use. For example, reflective windows confuse birds and make it more likely that they will collide into them. This kills up to 1 billion birds every year. By changing the design slightly, such as adding lines or dots on the glass, the birds can tell that it is an obstacle and fly around it. Some researchers estimate that this may also help building owners save on their energy costs.

Dispose of Waste Properly
When you think about proper waste disposal, you’re often considering what happens if the soil, water supply or air is contaminated for human use. However, there are many animals and insects who also live in the same spaces. Proper waste disposal is an important way to protect them as well. This means:

• Handling hazardous substances with care
• Disposing of harmful byproducts or excess substances in the correct receptacle or location
• Minimizing accidental spills
• Mitigating the effects of harmful contaminants already present on the property, like mold

These practices helped protect you, but they can also help to ensure that no one is poisoned as a result of the construction process.

Controlling your environment is a big part of construction project management. With the right approach, you can avoid hurting yourself and all the beings around you. To learn more about how to start your own contracting business, contact CSLS today!

As a business owner, you’re probably accustomed to using smartphones for communication and research on the job site. But what about smartwatches? These devices are smaller, handy and attached to you at all times. Here are a few ways to determine if adding smartwatches is a good idea for your contracting business.

Is Your Smartphone Accessible During Work Hours?
Before you make another device purchase, it’s worth considering how you use the ones you already have. If you’re like most people, you and your employees have a smartphone. You might use it to pull up information about a project that you’re working on, communicate with other people on your team, or let clients know about your timing. If your smartphone is easily accessible while you’re working, you might not need to add another device. However, if you’re constantly finding that you missed a call or an important reminder because your phone isn’t where are you can easily get to it, a smartwatch might be a worthwhile investment.

What Do You Need to Do With the Smartwatch?
There is a pretty wide range of smartwatches on the market. The right one for you depends on the tasks that you need to do with it. On the lower end, some offer little more than telling you the time or covering distance. They may be rugged and built for heavy use, but they might be more practical for hikers than the construction site. On the other end, smartwatches may be able to meet most of the functions you get from a smartphone, such as:

• Tracking calendars
• Communicating with clients via phone, text or email
• Looking at construction plans

Keep in mind that the most capable smartwatches may have a variety of features that seem interesting but that you don’t need. If you’re going to buy one in particular, make sure that it can do everything that you are most likely to use it for.

How Would You Use a Smartwatch During Regular Tasks?
Using a smartwatch is supposed to be a lot easier than working with a smartphone, especially if your hands are busy when you get an important phone call. It’s worth testing out different options to see how they would work while you are engaged in particular tasks. For example, if you want to be able to receive reminders so that you don’t miss an important meeting, a smartwatch connected to headphones may be quite useful. If you wouldn’t be able to hear someone talking due to the noise from the equipment, then you might not be able to take phone calls with it. Don’t forget that the clothing and protective gear you wear may affect how you interact with a smartwatch. You might need to purchase gloves that will allow you to operate the watch while wearing them.

Do You Need to Sync the Smartwatch with a Particular System?
As you’re looking at all the tools that smartwatches can give you, you need to make sure that you have the right equipment or system to make them work. Some watches will work with either iOS or android. That gives you a lot of flexibility, especially if you’re considering the same watch for multiple people. Others require you to sync them with a particular smartphone in order to access those features and services. If you’re just buying for yourself, it could be easier to make a choice. If you’re considering them for your company and team, you might want to call for some collaboration, so that you get an option that everyone can use.

Smartwatches are just one tool that contracting business owners used to keep every aspect of their business is running. To find out more of what it takes to become a licensed contractor, contact CSLS today!

In early April, Governor Gavin Newsom announced a $500+ million spending plan to help prevent damage from wildfires in California. Many aspects of the plan relate to building new construction and retrofitting existing buildings to minimize wildfire spread. Some experts believe it is necessary, while others worry that it could negatively affect the construction industry. Here are a few things you should know, so you can see how the plan may affect your contracting business.

Fire-Resistant Building Materials
One of the chief components of the new plan, as it relates to the construction industry, is the use of fire-resistant building materials. This change may seem fairly obvious, as something that is less likely to catch fire will also be less likely to spread it. However, fire-resistant building materials also change building practices and the costs involved with the project, according to industry experts. If your contracting business is obligated to use steel or concrete instead of lumber for building, your estimates will change. In many cases, they could go up significantly. On the other hand, many of these practices are already in use in certain parts of the state. For example, many regions require new construction to include fire-resistant features like fiber cement siding or fire suppression sprinkler systems

Fire Safety Standards for Development

Limits on development may create complications for the construction industry as a whole. The governor’s plan includes requirements on developments at the edge of cities and suburbs. These are the areas that are closest to wildlife and vegetation, and more likely to be first burned during a wildfire. The plan indicates that these developments must include a fire break, which creates a specific distance that builders must maintain between a development and surrounding vegetation. Opponents of the plan say that these regions are already the heaviest focus for development in California at present. With these limitations, it may be harder to get approval for new construction, which is desperately needed in the state. Of course, these limits would be much less likely to affect construction in urban areas.

Home Hardening Retrofits
Setting rules for new construction is an effective way for the state to minimize the risk of wildfire damage, but it is not sufficient. There are millions of homes in the state that may not have the protections necessary to minimize a wildfire. For example, older homes often use inflammable materials as part of construction. Roofing or siding made out of wood has accounted for significant damage from California wildfires in the last 20 years. Newsom‘s plan includes funding to promote what experts call “home hardening” retrofits. Home hardening is a process wherein a professional inspects a home and identifies several upgrades that could decrease the likelihood of burning, such as:

• Installing fire-resistant roofing and siding
• Upgrading to multi-paned windows or tempered glass
• Installing fire rated doors
• Building decks with fire-resistant materials and minimizing fire-prone décor

A complete retrofit may not necessarily set an existing home on the same level as new construction, but it could make a big difference. Contracting businesses that focus on safety retrofits may be able to find a steady source of projects as part of the plan.

How Your Contracting Business Can Plan for Change
Changing the way that an industry works in order to prevent environmental disasters is usually going to spark controversy. And regardless of the side you choose, your contracting business is likely to be affected by it. It’s worth considering whether you might change course or look for opportunities that come as a result. In either case, you may want to:

• Update your experience working with fire-resistant building materials
• Research common retrofits that you might be able to offer during renovations
• Stay current on the latest building guidelines, particularly as they relate to your region

That way, you can see where the industry is headed and ensure that your business is ready to meet it.

Maintaining a contracting business in an area that’s prone to wildfires takes creativity and innovation. For more information about how you can take advantage of the latest knowledge available in the construction industry, contact CSLS today!

Let’s face it: Few people are starting with such wealth that they can begin a business without having to scrimp or go into debt. While opening a ton of credit lines and borrowing lots of money isn’t necessarily the best choice, neither is avoiding debt as if it were the plague. Like most parts of business management, a good balance is key. Here’s how to determine when going into debt is likely to be good or bad for your business.

Sources of Funding
When you start a business, you’ll usually have a few sources of funding, such as:

• Savings
• Other income
• Investor funding
• Loans

Before you have clients, you may not necessarily have income. Some people choose to keep a side job or even a full-time job while they build their business. This isn’t necessarily an easier task, depending on the type of work you do. Savings can be difficult to accumulate, but has the benefit that it’s freely available and never needs to be paid back. Maintaining a variety of possible funding sources, including crowdfunding or investment money, makes debt less of a risky proposition.

Steady Income
One of the first things you have to establish before you take on debt is how you will pay it back. In some industries, people can start a business and find paying clients very quickly. This depends heavily on your location, your competition and the type of work you do. Otherwise, you’ll need to figure out how you plan to pay yourself and your debts, plus other overhead expenses like equipment or materials. This is why a lot of people will build a contracting business more slowly at first, so they can keep other income opportunities flowing at the same time.

Limited Spending
If you’ve been waiting for years to be able to start your own contracting business, it’s tempting to start spending as soon as you have the opportunity. But if you rack up a bunch of debt before you have reliable clients and income to pay it off, you’re going to find yourself with too much overhead and not enough profit. Getting into debt on a limited scale to help you get established can be helpful. It will be easier to manage if you can stick to what you need instead of what you’d like. For example, you’ll spend less to pay for rentals on equipment that you don’t need daily than you would to buy them.

Type of Loan
When it comes to getting into debt for your business, the type of loan matters significantly. There are a variety of lending options for businesses, including:

• SBA loans
• Secured loans for vehicles or other equipment
• Credit cards or other lines of credit
• Cash advances

The interest rates that you’ll pay vary depending on your credit and the type of loan. For example, a loan that is secured by an asset, like an auto loan, tends to have the lowest interest rate. Credit cards and cash advances usually carry a higher risk to the lender, so they have higher interest rates. This affects how much you have to pay each month and how long it takes to pay it off. As such, getting one type of loan may be more practical than others, depending on the purpose.

Plan to Pay Off
As a good general rule, you should develop a plan to pay off all debts that you accumulate for the business. This is true for revolving debt like credit cards, as well as loans with a set amount and a defined term. The last thing that you want is to spend the next 10 years making minimum payments on a debt that you could have paid off within a year. Formulate a plan in advance to handle the debt before you take it on. This can help you make sure that you actually need to make the expense, as well as give you a path to manage it.

Funding your business wisely is one way you can ensure it will last. Getting a great education is another. To start building your contracting business, contact CSLS today!

Like most industries, construction has times when it’s easier to get established and times when there’s a lot of competition. But since it’s such a large industry and doesn’t evolve as rapidly as others, you’ll find a lot of flexibility. If you’ve been thinking about getting into construction and you’re not sure when is the best time to start, here are a few factors to consider as you make a decision.

Regional Development
As you might expect from almost any job, construction goes through periods where there is a lot of demand for projects and times when there aren’t so many. And while a lot of projects in the pipeline can be a good sign for your career prospects, you wouldn’t necessarily want to come in right at the end of it. Do some research and figure out what the capacity is for new development and renovation in your area. This will help to give you an idea of the likelihood of getting a good job in your chosen field. It can also highlight regions with a lot of potential that you hadn’t previously considered.

Long-Term Career Opportunities
If you have a pretty good idea of which field you’d like to work in, then you’ll need to scope out what the demand is for professionals in that field before you make a choice. People who invest years of work into a career have a pretty good chance of continuing on until they retire. Right now, there are lots of professionals leaving construction after decades in the business. This means there may be plenty of available spots in the type of job that you would like to do. Easing into a new role at this time could be a great opportunity to find your feet with less competition.

Future Growth
Of course, knowing what the region has planned for the next couple of years isn’t going to be enough to last you for a whole career. If you’re thinking about taking a path that you could travel for 20 to 30 years or more, you want to be sure that there is plenty of future growth waiting for you. The good news is that construction is a field that will always have some degree of demand. The trick is finding the types of jobs that are most likely to thrive with technological innovations and updates to construction practices. If you’re ready to make use of construction technology or perhaps even create some of it yourself, now is an excellent time to get started.

Personal Plans
Starting a new career path requires a fair bit of flexibility. This means that you’ll need to consider what your plans are for the next 5 to 10 years and balance them with your life as it is now. It’s not always clear when is the best time to make a big decision like a new job. And yet, they say that the best time to start something that takes years is to have done it already several years ago. The second best time is now.

Ready to Commit
Ultimately, the most valuable and competitive jobs and construction usually take a commitment of at least a few years to get yourself established. In a way, it’s not unlike going to college and then starting a career. If you want to get the most from the experience, you need to be willing to invest the time and effort to make it a success. If you are ready to commit to the work and study that it takes to become a licensed contractor, you’re already on your way to improving your life and building a career you’ll be glad to have.

Almost anytime is a good time to start a career in construction. The time you invest is what makes it a valuable decision. To get started, contact CSLS today!

When you think about waste management on and off the jobsite, it’s more than an issue of cleaning up a mess or making sure you dispose of hazardous materials in the right way. It’s a matter of your own safety and the people around you. Here are a few factors to consider as you decide if your waste management strategy is ideal, or could use a reboot.

Environmental Risks
Whenever you work on a construction site, even if that place is a warehouse or your own home, you may have a variety of environmental concerns to worry about. Since this is heavily dependent on your working location, you’ll need to inspect each site and conduct testing as required before you can establish the type of environmental risks you’re facing. For example, you might have to deal with high levels of certain contaminants in the soil, like radon. The presence of a free-flowing water source nearby may make prompt cleanup more important, to avoid contaminating that water supply.

Population Concerns
You will also need to pay attention to the people who live and work around your construction site, and how the production of waste may affect them. In 2020, many construction workers in California have been invested in renovating or retrofitting existing hospitals to accommodate increased numbers of patients due to COVID-19. However, doing construction work in a hospital that has patients in it presents unique risks to a highly vulnerable population. You should consider the impact that dust and debris can have if they shift from the area where you are working before you have a chance to clean it up.

Cleanup Intervals
There are many different approaches to waste management on the construction site, and most of them have a different cleanup interval. If you are in the habit of cleaning up when a project is completely done, and not one minute before, you may be putting yourself and others at risk. The chance that dust and debris can blow away from an open jobsite is relatively high. But you should also keep in mind that it can create a slipping or tripping hazard while you continue to work in the space. Setting a more frequent cleanup interval, as often as every hour, keeps the excess out of the way.

Disposal Practices
Although cleanup at the jobsite is a major part of your waste management strategy, it is not the last step. You also need to dispose of your construction debris and garbage on a regular basis. Knowing how to dispose of materials is a vital skill that you as a business owner must master. In many cases, being able to control all aspects of site cleanup is a matter of following the law. If you haven’t thought about these practices in a while, now may be a good opportunity to re-evaluate them. You may have more options for recycling or local disposal than you did in years past.

Employee Training
As in many industries, you may discover that there is a significant difference between what you are supposed to do and what people are actually doing. In a lot of cases, this is an indicator that people are unaware of how to dispose of waste on a construction site. Since this can be a serious matter of health and even life or death, training should be an important component of your business practices. Make sure that you know how you should handle site cleanup depending on the site and the type of project that you are doing. Then invest the time and money to confirm that everybody you work with has that knowledge as well.

Waste management is a time-consuming task, but one that you need to do for your health and the security of your contracting business. For more information about building a successful business in construction, contact CSLS today!

You probably know that if you want business success, you’ve got to have an online presence. But in order for your potential customers to find you online, they need to be able to find you in a search. Search engine optimization, also known as SEO, is a way of targeting the content you put online to help your business in a search. You can pay a marketing company to handle this for you, but there are a few things you can do for yourself. Here’s what you can try.

Search for Common Terms
In order to figure out where you would like your page to show up, you need to figure out what’s there. Some keywords are overused, and it’s hard to tell how much until you start searching for them yourself. For most small businesses that operate within a limited location, your ideal keywords will be the type of services you offer in your broad location. If you live in a small suburb or in a rural area, you may need to search for multiple nearby cities to get a sense for what may work. Search terms that don’t bring up a lot of hits may have a need that’s not met, or a lack of demand. Use your best judgment to determine which is the most likely scenario.

Try Various Types of Keywords
There are many different ways to approach keywords. Potential clients may use a variety of them, or stick to just one. For example, you might have clients who search for “plumber in Los Angeles,“ while others search for “plumber Los Angeles.” There’s been a resurgence in the use of long-tail keywords, which are long key phrases that encapsulate what the user is looking for. You may have more of an opportunity to increase your search rankings by using them yourself. You might try creating a few different pages that each focus on a different keyword style.

Answer Questions
To improve your search engine rankings, adding value is the thing you need to do most. When you search for something on Google, you’ll often see a list of similar questions that people search for, related to your topic. These snippets can be an excellent way to get your business onto the first page. You may have to make a few guesses as to which questions are most important to your prospective clients. But if you can answer them better than other companies, you might be able to get a big reward that way.

Avoid Keyword Stuffing
Years ago, many companies aimed to bring their search engine rankings up by cramming each page with the same keyword dozens of times. This is an old trick that may have worked in 2010, but is likely to cause problems for you in 2020. People visit your site or your social media pages because they are looking for relevant information. A page full of nothing but keywords isn’t likely to get them what they need. As a result, Google tends to penalize pages full of keywords with lower rankings. Aim to keep the content natural, with a handful of keywords sprinkled in. Using them in headings or near the top of the page can be the most helpful.

Track Your Progress
Although you’re trying to do this on a tight budget, that doesn’t mean you should just make a bunch of random efforts and hope that something sticks. You still need some kind of a strategy. In order to know how well your SEO techniques are paying off, you’ll need to track it somehow. Social media platforms may have easy ways to track visitors and engagement. If you want to track the performance of your website, it might be worth signing up for something like Google Analytics. Many of these services offer a free version, but it’s usually pretty limited. Consider it a way to evaluate your options and decide which one is worth making an investment.

SEO is one way that people can find your business, but it doesn’t have to break the bank. To discover how becoming a licensed contractor helps you build the business of your dreams, contact CSLS today!

As you start to think about construction site safety from the vantage point of a business owner, you’ll spend a lot of time reading rules and guidelines. But once you start to master them, you’ll find that you need to be able to assess the situation regularly and quickly. If you use your five senses to your advantage, you’ll see how your natural instincts can tell you what could be wrong.

Sight
What you see on the jobsite is probably your first indicator of its safety. For most people, sight is the first or possibly the second sense they rely on to understand their surroundings. You can use your vision to evaluate the surrounding environment for each task you’ll be doing on the site. It’s important to get a 360° view, because it’s likely that there may be hazards behind you. For example, if you’re working in a busy warehouse, you should know if there will be equipment in use behind you, or people moving through with small vehicles. Working with multiple people helps to increase the likelihood that someone will see a disaster before it happens. But this isn’t guaranteed, so you’ll want to evaluate it in advance.

Sound
Sounds on the construction site can be trickier to navigate than what you see. This is because many pieces of construction equipment generate a lot of noise, and that isn’t necessarily an indicator that something is wrong. In some cases, the task you’re doing produces so much noise that you need to wear protective gear to reduce sound levels. This means that other people, who might call out to you to get your attention in case of a hazard, may not be able to get through. Tools for construction safety often use a combination of indicators, like a loud beep and a bright flashing light, to get someone’s attention even if they may can only hear or see it.

Smell
If you have ever walked into a room that had left natural gas running too long, you know the unmistakable smell. This scent exists to warn you of danger. In some cases, a bad smell is an indicator that disaster is about to strike. A strong burning smell may come as the result of a natural construction process, or it could be an accidental fire. Unfortunately, people are often trained to ignore bad smells because it is sometimes impolite to comment on them. But it’s better to make a note of them than to tune them out. Of course, for contaminants like carbon monoxide, you may not be able to smell it at all. That’s why you install things like carbon monoxide detectors to alert you, in the event that the room is not properly ventilated.

Touch
You’re less likely to rely on your sense of touch when you can see and hear clearly. But if you can’t, your sense of touch may be the difference between safe passage and a fall. Falls on construction sites are one of the most common sources of injury or even death. They’re more likely to happen in places where people cannot see clearly, or where they are distracted by the task at hand. When you’re working above the ground, make sure that you can keep both feet flat. If you start to feel that you don’t have a firm grip, you may need to use additional safety equipment or temporarily suspend work.

When to Trust Your Instincts
When you’ve got a long day of work and you’re most of the way through, it’s tempting to ignore your instincts just so you can get the job done and go home. Statistically, this is when accidents are more likely to happen. You don’t need to be on constant alert to the point that you can’t focus on the task. But you should certainly take breaks to evaluate your environment for possible hazards. That way, you can manage them before you start the task, and ensure that you leave the environment safe for the next person.

Trusting your senses is one way to keep your contracting business safe for years to come. To learn more about taking the contractor licensing exam, contact CSLS today!

If you want to work in construction, you should have some idea of what you can expect. Of course, it’s easy to look at construction professionals on TV or in the movies as a starting point. But those depictions aren’t always accurate. Here are five ways that your construction career won’t be like what you see on TV.

You’ll Probably Run Multiple Projects at Once
Licensed contractors on renovation TV shows may invest all of their time into working on one project before shifting gears to the next one. In reality, there’s a high likelihood that you will be balancing several larger projects at the same time. This might not be the case for repair jobs or other fields wherein most of your work can be completed within a day. But you’ll still have to handle things like scheduling and consultations, even in those instances. As such, you’ll have to build experience in balancing the needs of several clients at once.

You Can’t Work 24/7
You know how it is with these budget renovations intended to provide a big surprise reveal at the end: Everyone works nonstop until it’s done. But if you do this as a licensed contractor, you’re going to run yourself into the ground in very short order. In most cases, what you see on TV isn’t even true. They stage it so that it looks like everything is done in a very short period of time. In fact, you may have to stagger the work to accommodate the needs of employees and subcontractors. There’s also the fact that some jobs can’t be done in tandem, so you’re going to have to wait for someone else’s schedule.

Progress Happens in Pieces
If you are a regular contractor, focusing all the progress toward a surprise reveal at the end could be a nightmare. In the real world, clients may want to see progress throughout the project. That’s because it is important to confirm that everything is happening according to specification. The last thing you need is to get to the end and realize that there is something that the client isn’t happy with, and you could have saved yourself a lot of time if you found that out earlier. Instead, you may have progress that happens in stages, with breaks in-between while you work on other projects or continue negotiating with clients.

There’s a Lot of Activity Behind the Scenes
When you own your own business, you’ll have to do a lot of things beyond showing up to a job site and performing a construction task. The TV shows also have a lot of activity going on behind the scenes, but they make it seem as though there isn’t. They want to give the impression that what you see is truly what you get. But in construction, if you don’t do the necessary tasks for administration, permitting, or inspections, you could have a project that fails or a business that can’t keep going. As a licensed contractor, you may have to wear a lot of hats unless you can hire people to do that work for you.

You’ll Need Lots of Practice
It’s a little horrifying to watch the host of a TV show just start slamming into walls or breaking countertops, especially if they don’t have a lot of skills or experience in the field. If home renovation TV has done any damage, it’s the sense that anybody can do construction whether they have the training or not. In truth, people spend years just developing the knowledge that they need to run a business on their own as a licensed contractor. They will also spend their entire careers learning and refining their skills. You may be handy to start with, but you’ll have a lot of room to grow.

When you first start to get into construction, it can be tempting to see it the way it is presented in media. But you’ll soon see how different it is, especially as you work toward becoming a licensed contractor. For more information about courses to help you prepare for the contractor licensing exam, contact CSLS today!

In 2020, the construction industry took a big hit when many states seriously limited businesses due to the pandemic. In 2021, the Delta variant of COVID-19 has slowed construction spending, particularly as case numbers remain high. While this situation is rare, periodic slowdowns in construction are not. With these tips, you will know how to keep your business going despite a lull in construction.

Check Your Cash Flow
Ultimately, the biggest problem that you’ll have when income is low is the ability to keep paying your bills, including yourself. The way that you manage these two factors is called cash flow. In short, the more bills you have, the more money you need to keep the cash flow in balance. When you have the time, take a detailed look at your regular expenses and determine if any of them are unnecessary. Cutting out waste is a great way to improve your cash flow. Re-organizing your expenses may also help. For example, selling a piece of equipment you never use can give you extra funds at the moment, and make it easier to rent the same equipment for less.

Refine Your Processes
After each project, it’s common to take a few hours to think about problems that came up and how you would like to handle them in the future. For example, if you ended up buying too many materials for the project because you lack an efficient inventory, you probably spent more than you needed to. Refining your processes during the slow season is an efficient way to tighten them up. You can explore new building technologies and practices that help you decrease the amount of waste and complete work more quickly. Both of these can save money, especially if you keep improving over time.

Improve Your Marketing
The best way to ensure a steady supply of new clients is to maintain your marketing strategy. At slow times of the year, you’ve got more room to focus and more need to make your marketing effective. It doesn’t have to be extremely complicated or expensive, especially if you’re just starting out. If you don’t have much of a social media presence, or if you do but you let it go while you were too busy to keep it up, now is an opportunity to revisit it. Pay for a few sponsored ads and start engaging with the community. You might be surprised how many people will notice you.

Add New Services
Many contractors offer a variety of services that give them the option of running large and small projects. It’s common to spend the busy season working on projects that take up to several weeks and fill in the gaps with tasks that take less than a day. Think about the services the clients are likely to need after you’ve completed construction for them, like maintenance, upgrades, or repairs. If you live in parts of the state with cold, icy or snowy winter weather, consider jobs that you can do indoors. Demand for these types of projects tends to rise during the winter, so you may be able to fill your time better that way.

Keep Up on Administrative Tasks
If you’re running a business while simultaneously getting work done for clients, it’s likely that you will be struggling to stay ahead of all the administrative tasks. When you have to be careful about how you spend your time and money, those administrative tasks become even more important. Plenty of things that are hard to do during the busy season might be much simpler to schedule at other times:

• Training
• Invoicing clients
• Equipment maintenance
• Employee time off

Taking care of these things when you have minimal work available ensures that you are ready for the next busy season.

Keeping your construction business going throughout the year requires a practical strategy. By focusing on these aspects, you’ll have a better chance of getting through. For more information about running a contracting business, visit CSLS today!