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ConGenius
United States
Registrace 28. 02. 2022
If you're a contractor, you know how hard it is to run a business. Our goal is to help you maximize your time and impact. We're on a mission to help contractors discover freedom and unleash their full potential. We're a software company built by contractors providing smarter software to help you achieve your goals.
Are You Being Cheated?
Customers can purposefully and unknowingly take advantage of you if you let them!
In this episode, Ben and Kinsey talk about the subtle ways that you frame your business to ensure you aren't being cheated whether that is how you talk about getting work, negotiating price, or moving around your schedule.
Take ownership of your business and walk tall!
In this episode, Ben and Kinsey talk about the subtle ways that you frame your business to ensure you aren't being cheated whether that is how you talk about getting work, negotiating price, or moving around your schedule.
Take ownership of your business and walk tall!
zhlédnutí: 6
Video
Working With Designers Can Be Amazing or a Disaster
zhlédnutí 47Před dnem
Designers can help elevate your work to new heights, or they can be another bump in the road. Ben and Kinsey talk about working with designers, how to foster a healthy relationship, and the pros and cons that can come with it. Like any professional relationship, there is a lot you can do to help it succeed. If you haven't worked with a designer, this episode might give you a leg up! Email podca...
What to Do When Your Construction Company is Broke | Practical Steps to Take
zhlédnutí 111Před 28 dny
Take the time to learn "why" your business could end up broke and take the practical lessons from this episode to ensure it doesn't happen! Ben and Kinsey cover items like invoicing on time, getting paid for the work that you do, taking inventory, asset management, and more! Email podcast@congenius.com for questions and feedback
What to Do When Your Construction Company is Broke | Part One
zhlédnutí 154Před měsícem
What to Do When Your Construction Company is Broke | Part One
What I Wish I Knew Before I Started by Construction Business
zhlédnutí 329Před měsícem
What I Wish I Knew Before I Started by Construction Business
Why Does My Plan Scale Not Match the ConGenius Scale
zhlédnutí 46Před 2 měsíci
Why Does My Plan Scale Not Match the ConGenius Scale
How to Be a Hero | Managing Construction Projects Like a Boss
zhlédnutí 154Před 2 měsíci
How to Be a Hero | Managing Construction Projects Like a Boss
Manage Construction Projects Like a Boss | Checklists, Calendars, & Communication
zhlédnutí 137Před 2 měsíci
Manage Construction Projects Like a Boss | Checklists, Calendars, & Communication
$500 in Free Advice from a Small Construction Business Attorney
zhlédnutí 269Před 3 měsíci
$500 in Free Advice from a Small Construction Business Attorney
Getting Legit in Your Construction Business - LLCs and Legalities
zhlédnutí 144Před 4 měsíci
Getting Legit in Your Construction Business - LLCs and Legalities
When Should You Hire Your First Employee?
zhlédnutí 160Před 5 měsíci
When Should You Hire Your First Employee?
Get Your Life Back with Shawn Van Dyke
zhlédnutí 255Před 5 měsíci
Get Your Life Back with Shawn Van Dyke
How to Get More Customers in Construction
zhlédnutí 271Před 5 měsíci
How to Get More Customers in Construction
Getting Started with Sales and Marketing in Construction
zhlédnutí 358Před 6 měsíci
Getting Started with Sales and Marketing in Construction
Why is Estimating SO Hard?! | Navigating Construction Job Costing
zhlédnutí 432Před 7 měsíci
Why is Estimating SO Hard?! | Navigating Construction Job Costing
Dodging Disasters and Chasing Dreams: End of Year Wrap Up
zhlédnutí 122Před 7 měsíci
Dodging Disasters and Chasing Dreams: End of Year Wrap Up
Knowing your value prop breeds confidence
zhlédnutí 20Před 7 měsíci
Knowing your value prop breeds confidence
What should a contractor's back-office process look like?
zhlédnutí 931Před 8 měsíci
What should a contractor's back-office process look like?
Did he just mansplain calendars to her?
Kinsey knows more about calendars than Ben lol He's talking at her, but the content is really just for our contractor audience :)
No.
Nurses act like a flight attendant wanting to fly the plane before having passengers wear seatbelts. They need to let the physicians do their job.
What age is Tom Holland
Thanks for your insights on this topic, team!
@@devilaces you’re welcome! Let us know any topics you want us to put on the schedule!
Yk that episode of family guy where Brian gets a job at a hardware store
Check lists are awesome!!! The trick is getting everyone else to follow the check lists.
Yeah, it's hard to convey their importance beyond the list of work that they might seem to be.
@@congenius one of the biggest things I feel like we are struggling with is the checks lists. I have tried to show the team how to make them and follow them. I make them for them. I’ve explained over and over again how important it is to consistently lean on and follow and update these lists. But for some reason when I ask “hey did you check your list, hey did you check off each task as you go?” The answer is rarely yes lol. I am struggling to get through to them.
I'd really nail down the benefits of checklists to you, your business, AND your team. If completing their checklists positively impacts you, that should be a good enough reason for your team to at least consider completing them more regularly. Hopefully, they want your business and you to succeed, which should impact them positively too! Sharing that might be another good step. They can also save their bacon if they missed something vital that a checklist would have easily helped them find. It isn't the greatest motivator, but if they have another tool at their disposal to make sure they don't make mistakes, they might use it. Hoping it goes a bit better for you soon!
Your content is good but the constant "yeah" "yeah" gets irritating. Shake your head to agree or edit out these responses
We do have clips of our content where the back and forth/affirmations are less visible, but these complete episodes are true to our original recording, which has been one of our goals. I can understand wanting less filler, but Ben and Kinsey are genuinely having a conversation and the affirmation of "yeah" can lead to a legitimate thought that wouldn't have happened without it. I think it is important to keep part of that process visible. We'll be a bit more mindful of it though if the "yeah" doesn't lead to anything. Thank you for the feedback, good and bad!
Our biggest challenge is collecting receivables. My husband has a habit of wanting to write off balances just because the bill was made up late or the bill is old. He doesn't even try to reach out to his customer to collect. This drives me bonkers. So I would go ahead and reach out to the client only to find out they never got the bill or we did not have the right email address for them.
It is tough to keep up on receivables, especially when they start getting to be out of date. Having that correct contact info is crucial to build into your process. It sounds like you're on the right path, and we hope your husband can hop on it with you!
These first steps is what actually makes your business REAL. Instead of just a dream you always talk about. Yet most people can't even do that. All talk. Speed is everything
Theres a lot of patrick dempsey in this dude😊
Ben would be honored :)
Love you guysss thank you !
TLDR: Estimating construction job costs is difficult but necessary for accuracy and long-term success, requiring a system to track material, labor, equipment, and subcontractor rates. 00:00 🔨 The speaker's early interest in computers led to a business selling computer parts, eventually transitioning to a career in construction job costing. 06:42 🏗 Estimating construction job costs is difficult, but valuable, and finding passion and purpose in life is a journey of trial and error. 12:09 🏗 Entrepreneurs in construction must have a positive mindset, be creative problem solvers, and prioritize accurate estimating for successful businesses in the face of impending retirement of the workforce. 17:47 🏗 Estimating construction job costs is difficult due to lack of detailed bids, uncertainty about quality of work, pressure to perform, need for accurate estimates, and vulnerability to customer exploitation. 20:48 🏗 Estimating construction job costs is difficult but necessary for accuracy and long-term success, requiring a system to track material, labor, equipment, and subcontractor rates. 25:22 ⚒ Estimating construction job costs is difficult due to variables, but it requires knowing your costs, tracking expenses, and involving someone with experience to avoid errors and ensure a fair price and profit margin. 32:38 🏗 Estimating construction job costs is difficult due to pressure to replicate others' methods, but simplifying the process and sticking to fundamental elements can improve accuracy and serve as a sales tool. 37:10 🤔 Understanding the fundamental aspects of construction job costing is important for improvement over time, with some aspects requiring improvisation and feedback.
How do you account for counter space in the demo where you pull measurements from the floor plan and use them for flooring? Is there a way to remove that footage easily, or do you just have to charge for that even though there is no flooring actually being applied? That extra footage could make the difference between winning the job or pricing yourself out and losing it when you're just replacing an existing floor. Also, can you connect to software like magicplan to take measurements and create a floor plan or do you have AR / LiDAR features that I haven't seen - maybe coming in the future? All-in-all, this looks like some great software and I have shared this video with a few friends!
Hey! You can do negative area measurements as well, so you would do your normal floor measurements, then do the the area measurement for the cabinets and set it as negative. It could absolutely mean the difference between a won and lost job. We don't offer any integrations for measurements or creation of plans, but it is something we can start looking at if we get enough requests :) Thanks for sharing it! We're a small team, but looking to make something really high quality and easy to use. Let us know if you have any other questions!
@@congenius I am a flooring contractor of 25 years and I am a HUGE fan of the benefits of software! I am actually working on something myself and I'm always checking new stuff out for inspiration. No worries though. While similar in nature, mine is a completely different market. Honestly though, I think yours might be pretty great based on what I see here! Would you guys consider a collaboration if you heard the idea and liked it? I am not a developer so I'm trying to bang it out on no code at a snails pace. What you already have set up could provide a solid foundation for what I am working on, and it could likely benefit us both greatly! In hopes that you're interested, even a little, I'm going to try to reach out to you on your website since I have no clue how to share private info privately on CZcams. You're welcome to share an email or something here if you'd like. When I email you I'll put NOT SPAM in the subject line so it stands out.
What is your opinion on using Xactimate for estimating?
We encourage all contractors to get familiar with an estimating platform whether that is ConGenius, BuilderTrend, Stack, etc. Our first goal is for users to want to level up their business processes by learning their costs and estimating accurately. In a broad sense, we recommend it because it could be a step above where you're at now. We're biased because we do offer an estimating software that is meant to be an alternative to it. Xactimate is typically used for insurance claims and has numbers generated by insurance companies. For that reason, it can be hard to know your costs or how much you'd really be making on a job if you use their recommended numbers. It might be a good starting place to quickly build jobs, but it won't have pricing necessarily tailored to what your business needs to survive. We're trying to solve that by implementing a few unique catalogs centered around costs that are relevant for your business. You can have regional pricing and look at competitor's pricing, but that doesn't help you if your business needs to make more. So, if you want to get your feet wet with software, try it out! And try out more than one software. It will be a time commitment, but the idea is you find something that ultimately helps you have confidence in your numbers, what you need to make, and it makes building estimates fast. We do offer a 14 day trial, with no credit card required. We offer a takeoff tool, estimating platform, and a proposal builder, to name a few of our features. Try us out too! congenius.com/
Good vid!! Do you guys have the link for those checklists? There is no link in the video description
Thanks, Jason! Whoops! Our hyperlink failed, so here's the link for the checklists: congenius.com/resource-library/construction-checklists Thanks for pointing that out. We've updated the description :)
Hi guys absolutely love your channel just subscribed and turned on the notification bell. My name is Abdullah I am 20 years old and I currently live in Toronto Canada. I really love the construction industry and see how much potential there is, my longterm goal is to own my own business that can possibly function with out me. My plan is to first work for a successful home remodeling company to get a good understanding of the different trades, then go for my GC license. My next goal is to work as a project manager and part time in sales to learn as much as I can on the business end. I strongly believe that this will provide with a good understanding and the skills needed to start my own construction business. At the the end of the day I am still a 20 year old and this goal may sound delusional so I hope you may guide me and give me advice on what you think the most ideal and efficient path to take on becoming a construction business owner. I would also like to know if you see value in the formal schooling route (4 year bachelors in construction management) or simply working my way to my goal. I thank you once again for your help and wish your channel the best of success!!!!
Wow, Abdullah! Those are some pretty impressive goals. It looks like you have a pretty well-defined path for yourself. Experience would definitely be a great benefit to you in the field. Don't be afraid of schooling either. You've got to do whatever you can to not only gain knowledge of the industry, but how to run a business. You can be great at construction and terrible at owning and operating a business. Our goal is to help awesome contractors learn how to be awesome owners. If you find yourself needing to estimate projects and send out proposals, check us out! The podcast is just one thing that we do :) congenius.com/
@@congenius For sure I will make sure to check you guys out. I was wondering if you guys offer 1 on 1 mentorship I would love to maybe hop on call and learn as much as I can from you. Thank you once again
@@Abdullahnayed We don't currently offer 1:1 mentorship or coaching, but you can always drop us a line if you need occasional advice or encouragement!
Thank you for sharing the knowledge!!
Absolutely! Thanks for watching :)
They always forget half of the quote...."In matters of taste"...
The full quote is "The customer is always right, in matters of taste"
I cannot find any evidence that the original context of "the customer is always right" is actually extended to say, "in matters of taste". Don't we all know what we mean when we say, the customer is always right?
In his day people understood context
It is just words... He doesnt listen to the customer. No one wants self check-out.
That wasn't Sam's idea...he's been dead a while
New to Electrical Contracting, and I am doing my best to sift through the contradictions people try to feed you. This was very helpful. Thank you.
There is a ton of information out there and a lot of opinions about how to break down your finances, markup, profit, etc. We hope you are successful, and welcome!
One outlet? You don't have a screw driver? Or a butter knife and youtube?
🤔
What is a nich
A niche is something like a specialty or area of expertise. If someone is a master carpenter and runs a business around carpentry, their niche is carpentry. Hope that helps :)
Whole mission of college is go into debt and become brainwashed, pick a trade and put the work in
I love The guy on the left who’s watching a baseball game while the other guy is talking
Was he looking at podcast notes or a baseball game? Guess we'll never know
Just joking, the comments are sometime the best parts of video to read. Serious note, I signed up for the 14 day trial last night and will be setting up a conference call today to get a better handle on how to use this for my HVAC business. Enjoyed the podcast
I agree with you and it came through that you had at least some sense of humor ;) Hope the call with Joe goes well! @@scottnewbanks5111
Golden nugget during this interview for me was implementing more systems to stand out!
Shawn has an insane amount of knowledge! Glad you got a golden nugget out of the interview.
It ain’t for the faint of heart… that’s for sure.
I love this video I'm in the lawn and landscape business and everything applies to us as well guys please continue to put this content out this guy's like me that really need it! Thank you
We're definitely committed to the podcast and helping small businesses win. You'll see more of us :) Thank you for the kind words again Darnell!
This is my first time on the channel I love it you guys make it simple to understand and inspiring to implement
Glad to have helped, Darnell! We hope it helps you make your small business work even better for you!
@@congenius I'll keep you posted on the growth 🤸🏿♂️
That’s why I always perfect practice makes perfect 😊
No duh 💀
Yeah, nah. I'm 24 and still getting better at things that I've practiced my whole life.
Practice makes progress.
thats so sweet. i remember when my lil bro did that.
That is the exact same reason. I love doing stuff... u can always learn something new...
Government will legalize those millions of illegal aliens. Got plenty of workers.
I've been listening to you folks on spotify. Quite helpful. Nice reminder that other folks have gone through these things.
There’s a ton of collective knowledge out there. It can help skip a lot of painful learning. Glad to have helped a bit.
To non builders this sounds scummy but this right here weeds out the dipshit non paying customers
We agree! Sometimes, cutting right to it and getting an idea of what type of customer you're working with will save you time and potential nonpayment later. Construction is a unique beast!
Can you please shoot this video again and show us how to actually build assemblies? This video is only showing how to leverage them. It took me about an hour to figure out how to actually build an assembly. Thanks!
We're working on another video on how to build assemblies. Thank you for the callout!
Here's the new video on building an assembly in the estimate tab: czcams.com/video/UmWJJsvSr1o/video.html We're working on an update that will make building assemblies easier. It should land within the next month or so!
@@congenius This is perfect! Thanks for shooting the new video. There's tons of nuggets in this new video! Cheers!
Stumbled upon the podcast a couple weeks ago, really enjoying them. Covers alot of issues most contractors go through.
Thank you! Just trying to offer helpful advice and share some of our failures throughout the years. Construction business is hard!
This sounds like a situation I'd get myself into.
It's tough. Sometimes our businesses require more of us than we set out for them to.
It's interesting as an IT/technology person how much conceptual cross-over there is in approach between industries. At a high-level learning a skill for business is learning a skill for business regardless of what the skill and product is.
That has been one of my favorite parts of producing the podcast. I won't ever run a construction company, but I feel like I've grown with our listeners. Business is business. Construction just happens to be a great and tangible model for learning a self-started business. -Sam
I like your podcasts and am thinking about signing up for congenius. Whats the future of it looking like?
It looks like you talked to Joe, but I’ll respond here as well! We did a soft product launch earlier this year to get feedback and see how viable our ideas were. This upcoming January, we’re releasing our brand new version of ConGenius! It unlocks a lot of the workflows and lets you make the most of it, in the way that works best for you. Appreciate the support on the podcast! Hope you can grow with us!
Great Video thanks for sharing looking forward to a strong 2024 with you all 💪🏼💪🏼
@@drakecarpenter5922 let's go! Thanks for joining us as we growth!
Im interested in signing up for congenius. The lack of platform is kind of concerning. Do yall read these comments?
We’re here and we respond! 😎 looks like you got connected with Joe! If you see us posting any place, we should have systems in place to actively monitor it. We’re active on Facebook, CZcams, LinkedIn, and our website.
So wtf is the formula to calculate your overhead?? Simple it down bro
Monthly expenses unrelated to projects + annual expenses to run business / 12 months = average monthly overhead A lot more could go into it, but that should get you there.
Then divide your gross profit by your expenses…. That should get you your overhead percentage as a minimum to add to your individual projects. I used $ of gross profit because that’s what you actually have to pay expenses. Not total revenue…. That’s not all yours yet.
Good distinctions!@@jim2mckenna220
@@jim2mckenna220 Please be a little more precise in this calculation. Divide Gross Profit $ by "expenses" meaning COGS or Overhead Expenses? Above the line expenses or below the line expenses?
@@rgnoel COGS is already out of GP. The math on GP is total revenue-COGS = GP. GP- overhead expenses = Net profit. This post is dealing with percentages…. That’s always where things start getting screwy.
i agree and i know this is just a short but also the amount of headache and struggle that comes with owning a business is never understood until your in the driver seat doing it. it does bother me to open up youtube or anthing anymore and see everyone posting " work for yourself " 0-100 million how to vids ect and yes thats great but at the same time the world doesnt need more chiefs than indians. there is still great value in being a well paid indian with little to no headache
Totally agree Trent! Even as a business owner, there can be so much push to scale with more employees, office, services, etc. Sometimes the simpler thing is the better thing for you as an owner or as an employee.
@@congenius love the channel. i plan on reaching out soon to talk with you all. this channel has immense value
Reach out anytime Trent! You can connect with us on any of our social accounts or info@congenius.com
Too Good 💎 Could you suggest some best books & tips for tackling the disadvantages against us when job searching after a big career gap of 4 yrs due to family reasons in my field of AEC construction as Hvac site engineer ? I have completed internship back in 2019 but now i am uncertain about how to apply & get selected as fresher in new job with good pay..
It might take some work, but get as up-to-date with the industry as you can! The fact you have experience is a huge plus, so I would prepare to give a quick summary of why you stepped away and how you're ready to be back, alongside showcasing you know the current realities of your specific industry.
Freedom… 😂 Been in business for 35 years now and still trying to figure it out! Kudos to you for your efforts here.
Ha! Hope you find some sense of freedom over the next 35 years of business ;)