You Need a Plan if You’re Going to Build a Successful Business.
STUCK IN A RUT
It was late on a Saturday night and Gene was sitting at his desk in his home office (otherwise known as a dining table). This was the office of his construction company.
He was working to get at least one more construction proposal done before going to bed. He had promised four different customers proposals this week. If all goes well, he’ll have this second one finished before midnight. As Gene crunched numbers, he worried that he might have forgotten something. This had happened before.
He asked himself, “Why am I doing this? I could make more money and work less hours working for someone else. Heck, I’d be better off flipping burgers. This sure isn’t how I pictured my construction business five years ago when I started.”
“I had no idea that running my own business would be this hard!”
Gene rubbed his eyes and stretched his back and thought, “I must be doing something wrong.”
It’s Saturday, and Gene was working like crazy all week, trying to keep up. With production crews not showing up, materials not delivered on time, cost overruns… There’s not enough time to do everything. This means not enough time to get the proposals done. Even if he works tomorrow, he’s not going to get all these proposals done in time. This means he’s going to disappoint at least one of the customers waiting on a proposal.
This is not a very good way to run a business! “How am I ever going to turn things around?”
When Gene finishes the second proposal and looks at the clock, it’s 12:40. It’s already Sunday and he still needs to proofread it, print it, and sign it.
Something has got to change!
“I’ve been leaving home early and getting home late all week. I’ve hardly spoken with my wife or kids for days. I can’t keep going like this!”
“I’m tired of trudging back and forth in this rut with no clear way out.”
This starts at a young age. As children, we have fewer external experiences to draw from. This restricted resource limits our view. This is why young people think they already know everything.
This narrow perspective then becomes our standard and we see no reason to change.
I think this is why resistance to change is so prevalent in construction.
We’re like little kids that started out working for someone. We learned how they did things by watching them. This is why when we start our own construction business, we think we already know everything.
I was a dreamer at an early age. I had big ideas and plans for my life. A part of this dream was to have a big, successful construction company. I was going to build great things.
So, I worked for a few different self-employed contractors and then started my own construction company…
Because I already knew everything.
As I grew up and those dreams weren’t happening as I had envisioned…I became disillusioned. I gave up on those dreams and accepted that they were just that…dreams. This is when the grind of life sets in. It was disappointing to accept that this is all there is.
It was frustrating, just plodding along day after day feeling stuck with no way out.
In December of 2012, I was literally hit upside the head with a board among other things. We were installing wafer board boxing on the wall of a second-floor addition. I was standing on a plank approximately 8’ above the ground when…it broke.
Fortunately, I don’t remember any of this ordeal from the time I was measuring until I woke up in the hospital three days later.
Based on what I was told by the guys that were there when I fell, I hit my head on one of the ladders, then on the concrete slab, and then the board hit me on the head. It sure is good that I have a hard head. Seriously, I was fortunate that I came away from this accident with only a concussion.
The point of telling you this is that it caused me to reevaluate what I was doing and how I was doing it.
This incident made me aware that something was wrong and if things were going to change…I needed to change it. As I was looking to understand what was going on, I began to read. The more information I gathered, the more I learned about what needed to change.
One of the first books I read was The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews. This book teaches seven fundamental decisions for creating a successful life. It gives you a front-row seat for a man’s journey that changes his life.
In the book, David Ponder lost his job and his will to live. He supernaturally travels throughout time visiting historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, King Solomon, Anne Frank, and more.
Each visit yields a Decision for Success that will change his life if he implements them.
This book showed me that I, like David Ponder, had a choice.
Was I going to keep doing things the way I had been…or was I going to do something different?
I decided to change and do something different.
When we’re young we think we have all the time we need. There’s no need to think about the future…we’ll get around to that someday. Then, one day we wake up and realize life has flown by and we haven’t done the things we wanted to.
You don’t have to wait until you’re smacked in the head to make changes.
I made changes to my life and my business. People who knew me before and after can see the improvement.
As I was discussing last week’s post with a friend, he asked me why I do construction. Why would anyone want to start a construction company with odds like this? This question started me thinking about it.
Why is anyone doing construction if the chance of staying in business is so stacked against them? This question prompted me to reach out to some people in construction and ask them.
Why am I doing construction and how did I get here?
When I was growing up, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I was going to farm with my dad, just like he was farming with his. This was going well until those plans got changed.
When I was in my early thirties my dad died of cancer at fifty. This wasn’t a part of the plan.
At that point we were farming together, he owned some of the equipment and I owned some. The problem was, I couldn’t afford to buy his part so…I got out of farming.
In addition to farming, I had been doing some construction in the winter. I liked doing it, was good at it, so this seemed like the logical thing to do.
The problem was I knew construction…not business.
So, why are others doing construction and how did they get here?
To answer this question, I reached out to some people I know that are in construction and asked them the question…Why are you in construction?
I’ve known Doug Wright, with Wright Floor Leveling, for years and have used their company for a variety of projects over the years. They do foundation repair/replacement, crawl space repair, basement repair, masonry repair, new masonry, and more.
Here’s Doug’s story: he did not plan to go into construction…he planned to play football. Then he was injured in college, and it ended his football plans.
His dad was a stone mason and Doug needed a job, so he went to work for him. As things progressed, he became more entrenched in the business, and the prospects for change became harder and harder.
Not to mention that he wasn’t a fan of change.
So, Doug is doing the construction that he knows and is good at.
Chris Schovan is a painter that hasn’t been in business too long but is great at what he does.
Chris learned to paint as a young man from his grandpa who was a professional painter. His grandfather told him that knowing a trade would always give you something to fall back on.
He was working for a pole barn company and/or in manufacturing when the pandemic hit, and he got laid off. Then someone at church needed some painting done and asked him if he knew any painters. He ended up doing this project which led to other projects and he’s now as busy as he’s ever been.
He likes the freedom of schedule because he doesn’t have to punch a clock.
I use Chris because he provides great customer service and does quality work.
I’ve known Josh Dobbs of Flint Ridge Service and his family for a long time. Josh was a firefighter and planned to be fire chief someday until smalltown politics derailed that dream.
While considering what to do next, he was talking with some guys in real estate and the glass business who told him there was a need for someone to do handyman-type things. So, he started doing some odd jobs. As the demand grew, so did his business. Now he does a variety of construction, excavation, and fencing.
He had never done construction before he started doing odd jobs.
Josh uses the leadership skills he learned in the fire department and the ability to see a need and then figures out how to do it.
Leonard Mumford, of Mumford Contracting, is the owner of a full-service construction company. Leonard and I work together in a variety of different ways.
Leonard was in construction years ago and after going out of business, he swore he would never do construction again. He worked in oil field and sales but was miserable. Then he had the opportunity to do some construction work on the side and was making more money part time.
Then his son convinced him to go back into construction…which he swore he never would.
Now Leonard is doing more construction than ever.
The common thread in all these stories is that none of them grew up dreaming about going into construction…playing football or being a fireman, yes, but not construction.
Not everybody knows what their vocation is going to be. Things happen and we have to shift and make changes. These changes, some big and some small, lead us down paths that we didn’t plan for.
This lack of preparation and planning is why 96% of construction companies don’t make it past the 10-year mark.
Three of these five examples here have made it past that point, but trust me, this doesn’t mean that everything is smooth sailing.
All of them have expressed concerns about the business side of things.
We’re all faced with a lot of choices every day. When situations happen, we can choose this or that.
Choice is the most powerful weapon we have.
Too often we make the wrong choices. Sometimes we make what we think to be the right decisions based on what we know at the time, only to find out later it was the wrong one. Then we can make a different decision.
The important thing is that when making decisions, we’re making them for the right reasons with the right guidance.
We need to be clear on what makes a decision right.
In 2 Kings 18:1-5, Hezekiah became king of Judah. He did what was pleasing in the Lord’s sight, just as his ancestor David had done. He removed the pagan shrines, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke up the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because the people of Israel had been offering sacrifices to it.
Hezekiah trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel.
He was 25 years old when he became king. I don’t know about you, but I made some bad decisions when I was 25.
King Sennacherib of Assyria came and began attacking the towns in Judah. After which Hezekiah offered to pay Sennacherib if he would withdraw his armies. The king of Assyria demanded a settlement of more than eleven tons of silver and one ton of gold. To gather this amount, King Hezekiah used all the silver stored in the Temple of the Lord and in the palace treasury. Hezekiah even stripped the gold from the doors of the Lord’s Temple and from the doorposts he had overlaid with gold, and he gave it all to the Assyrian king.
Nevertheless, the king of Assyria sent his commander in chief, his field commander, and his chief of staff from Lachish with a huge army to confront King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. The Assyrians took up a position beside the aqueduct that feeds water into the upper pool, near the road leading to the field where cloth is washed. They summoned King Hezekiah… (2 Kings 18:13-18)
Sennacherib offers Hezekiah another deal telling him that no other kings can help him, and neither can God. He tells them to give up and become his slaves. It would be better for them than staying and starving to death. (2 Kings 18:19-37)
After the king of Assyria sent the message, Isaiah the prophet replied, “This is what the Lord says: Do not be disturbed by this blasphemous speech against me from the Assyrian king’s messengers. Listen! I myself will move against him, and the king will receive a message that he is needed at home. So he will return to his land, where I will have him killed with a sword.” (2 Kings 19:5-7)
After Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers, he went up to the Lord’s Temple and spread it out before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the Lord: “…You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see! Listen to Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God.
“It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations. And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands. Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that You alone, O Lord, are God.” (2 Kings 19:14-19)
That night the angel of the Lord went out to the Assyrian camp and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. When the surviving Assyrians woke up the next morning, they found corpses everywhere. Then King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and returned to his own land. He went home to his capital of Nineveh and stayed there.
One day while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with their swords. (2 Kings 19:35-37)
Life happened to Hezekiah, he asked God for deliverance, and they received it.
We need to remember to go to God when life happens to us.
Deliverance comes from God…discipleship is what we do.
According to the US Department of Commerce, 96% of construction companies fail within the first 10 years. This is a higher failure rate than any other kind of business.
If you’re in construction…this is a problem.
Having been in construction for more than 40 years, I understand how hard it can be to build a successful business. It takes a lot more than just knowing construction to be successful. Knowing business is as important as knowing construction.
Over those 40 years, I became aware of the problems and began to understand them. I gathered information and learned how to implement it into my business.
That’s why I beat the odds.
I’ve learned a lot over those forty-plus years and here are 7 reasons that construction companies fail:
Insufficient Cash Flow – Without a positive cash flow, it is hard for construction companies to keep their doors open. A lack of cash flow makes it hard to pay for materials, make payroll, maintain tools, etc.
When cash flow is negative, companies often make hasty decisions or take on jobs that aren’t a good fit for their company. This can result in further profit loss and more cash flow problems.
Unprofitable Projects – A lot of construction companies fail simply because their projects are unprofitable. Guessing at what a project is going to cost to do is not a very good plan. This is why having a proposal system that is consistent and accurate is essential to staying in business.
At Timber Creek Construction using our Proposal system, we consistently come in 25% under budget. This is in before overhead and profit.
Doing Estimates Rather than Proposals – It’s essential to establish clear communication with construction customers. Creating a detailed proposal, rather than just estimating, gives both the construction company and the customer a clear understanding of what will be provided and what they can expect. Following up with a contract is another step to achieving this goal.
There are as many bad customers out there as there are bad contractors. Some of those customers simply want to get the work done for free. They will argue about things that, they claim, were promised. A signed proposal and contract will help to prevent this from happening.
No Production Payment Plan – Having an accurate and understandable payment schedule with construction customers will set your construction company on the road to success. Not having a payment schedule requires your company to finance the project and consumes your cash flow. You are not a bank.
In my experience, you need to get some money prior to starting a project. This amount will depend on the size and type of project. Then invoice the customer with weekly progress payments that coincide with the percentage of completed work as outlined in the proposal. Customers appreciate a well-documented payment schedule that communicates clearly.
Not Using Change Orders – Unforeseen issues and changes creep into most construction projects of any size. Changes orders are needed when changes are made to the project’s scope of work. When a job change occurs, the construction company should submit a change order to the customer for approval. Waiting until the end of the job to bill for additional costs will be problematic. It will often result in customers being upset, giving bad reviews, and resisting paying.
Customers get excited about the work that is being done until the final bill comes. Then they find themselves over extended and unable to pay.
Poor Customer Service – Most construction companies don’t listen to their customers very well. These companies just focus on completing the work according to the contract. If they get paid, they assume all is good. But remember, construction companies are in the business of serving customers, this includes communicating clearly and consistently.
Most customers will only do a handful of sizable construction projects in their lifetime. Construction companies should remember this and help them build their dream.
Lack of Organization and Processes – Building a sustainable construction business is impossible when the bulk of the business is operating without being organized. To stay in business, you need processes and systems that can be efficiently managed by the people you hire to help you.
For companies that use sticky notes and boxes full of folders, you have a problem.
Job leads and customer management, project details, task management, communications, schedules, progress tracking, equipment management, the list goes on and on. Each of these elements is extremely time-consuming, error prone, and can negatively affect profitability and cash flow.
You can avoid making the same mistakes most construction companies make by being aware of and understanding these problems. Then implementing and learning processes and systems to ensure that your company succeeds.
This will help you to be in the top 4% of businesses in the construction industry.
Successful construction companies use business tools to build, increase profits, and manage their businesses. Now that you have a clear understanding why construction companies fail, it’s time to make some course corrections.
Here we are, already a week into the new year, and I’m not done with my annual planning yet. This is something that every year I intend to do before the end of the year, but it rarely gets done on time.
I know I’m not the only one struggling to get everything done, and I get it. Our lives are busy and just keeping up with daily things is usually more than we can accomplish. And now I’m suggesting adding annual planning and goal setting to the list!
I know I’m not going to get everything done, but this doesn’t mean I should quit trying.
The question is, how can I be the most productive with the time I have?
I think it comes down to intentionally balancing time spent focusing on the past, present, and future.
We can focus on the past and everything we didn’t get done. We can focus on the future and all the things we want to get done. Or we can focus on the present and all the things that we need to get done today.
Constantly giving an unbalanced amount of attention to any one of these will make us less productive. This is why I always try to remind myself to…
Learn from the past, look to the future, and live in the present.
This is a process for prioritizing the things on my list.
Here’s an example. This morning as I was checking the weather, I saw that late next week it is predicted to have low temperatures in the single digits. I live in a house that was built in 1916 without running water. When running water was added, it was installed just inside the north side of house. I’ve learned from the past that when it gets this cold the pipes can freeze.
Of course, when this happens it requires additional time to thaw them out. And if not thawed out soon enough it might freeze to the point of causing a leak which would take more time to repair, not to mention the cost in dollars.
After years of experience, I now know that a couple of rows of small square bales of hay stacked along the north wall of the house will help insulate the pipes. I also know that it’s hard for running water to freeze, and if we leave faucets trickling, they won’t freeze.
I could spend all my time focused on the past and the things that I experienced from previous frozen pipes, or I can glean what I learned from the past.
This brings us to looking to the future. If I need bales of hay stacked along the house…I need to get that done. This means I need to find some bales and pick them up. Where I normally get them, I can’t get to when it’s muddy, and it’s snowing and raining today. This means that I need the ground to either dry out or get cold enough to freeze. But I don’t want to wait until it’s too cold and the pipesfreeze.
This is going to require the coordinating approval of getting the bales, the weather, and my schedule.
I could spend all my time focused on the future and the what ifs, or I could use what I do know, and plan for the future.
This brings us to living in the present. I already have more things to do than I can get done, and now I need to add getting bales to the list. When am I going to have time to go get hay bales and put them along the north wall of the house?
I know that spending time thinking and planning can seem like a waste, but if my pipes freeze, fixing the issue will take a lot more. The same is true for everything in our lives. We can take some time to plan or just deal with the frozen pipes as they come.
Everything comes down to what I choose to do, and it’s up to me to prioritize wisely.
This is where learning from the past, looking to the future, and living in the present intersect. These three things help us to prioritize what we’ve learned from our experiences, what we desire going forward, and what the first next thing is that should be done.
Planning for the new year is the same process as the water pipes. You should look back to past years and learn from them. Look to the coming year and what you hope to achieve. Live every minute of every day like it’s the only one and all the others depend on it.
The investment of time spent planning is worth every second.
The Important Thing is to Get Clear on What Your Priorities Are
Scheduling is something that most of us struggle with. We plan out our day and then something happens to mess up that perfect schedule. As the day comes to a close, we beat ourselves up because we didn’t get everything done.
Why is it that we think we can do more than time allows?
Being too busy is a self-inflected problem. We all have a fixed amount of time. Why is it that we plan to do more than time will allow?
I’ve determined that I’m more productive when I overschedule my day. It creates a since of urgency and I get more done than when I don’t. I just have to remember at the end of the day to give myself grace for the things I don’t get done.
Another scheduling problem is the unexpected.
We already have an overscheduled day and then it happens…we end up with scheduling fires that need to be fought. There is no question that life happens and there will be unexpected fires to put out.
Yesterday I dealt with a schedule explosion. I had a day fully planned and unexpected, unplanned things kept coming up.
Fighting the hottest fire isn’t a very good scheduling system.
This is reactive scheduling. It’s much better if we schedule proactively.
The important thing to remember is that we have control over what we choose to do. Even if someone is holding a gun to your head, you have the power of choice.
So…if you have the power of choice…it’s up to you to choose wisely.
You can choose what you’re going to do and when you’re going to do it. Granted some scheduled events are out of your control. But you can choose if you’re going to attend or not. You can pick one event over another. You can decide!
This power of choice is the key to scheduling.
The problem is that too many people aren’t clear on their priorities. Determining what the big rocks are is critical to scheduling. You need to determine what your mission is and align everything around that.
I don’t mean to make it sound like knowing your life’s mission is an easy thing. It takes time and effort to find it. Sometimes it takes a life changing event like being hit upside the head with a board.
Priorities are the difficult part of this.
What makes one thing a priority over another?
This is something that is different for each of us. My priorities are not yours.
The important thing is to start figuring out what your priorities are and never stop.
Back to yesterday’s schedule…
I had planned to write this blog post yesterday. As the day progressed, more and more things continued to come up. I would move things around on the calendar as needed. (Gotta love that digital calendar. 😉)
From a position of life’s priorities…those things that popped up were more important at the moment than writing this post.
As I look at today’s calendar, I’m sure things will get changed as fires pop up or new opportunities present themselves.
If we start with a clear vision, know our mission and prioritize accordingly, we can be flexibly rigid with our schedules.
This clarity of priorities makes scheduling much less stressful.
This Huge Gap is What Keeps Most People from Achieving Their Goals
Most of us have…or at one time had…some really big dreams of what our lives were going to look like. All the amazing things we were going to do or have. These dreams started when were young and full of excitement and imagination. Before we experienced some of life’s setbacks.
Early in my life I had big dreams of owning and running a huge farming operation with Dad. Later I added the dream of owning and operating a big construction business also. These were a part of my big dreams.
Then life happened.
This is not to say that the things that happened weren’t my fault…because most were. My young inexperienced decisions came back to bite me. Forty years later, I’m still recovering from some of those bites. Hopefully I’m smarter now and can avoid getting bit.
The last several years my learning, experience and life lessons have helped me move in a direction of cleaning up those mistakes.
As I have been working on goal setting and planning for the future I’ve experimented with several different systems. Most of them had similarities with some differences sprinkled in.
As I used them, I would mix and match them trying to get to the system that worked best for me. Some parts I would keep, some I would replace. Each time getting closer to what I needed.
I could see the big dreams out there but struggled with getting from here to there. Something was missing.
Last week I wrote about how building our lives has to be done one brick at a time. I picked this up while reading the book, The One Thing. Like all the other systems, it wasn’t a lot different. It may have been how it was presented or maybe I was just ready to hear it.
Getting from here to there isn’t hard to understand. If you want to earn a certain amount of money or own a certain house or have a specific job…it’s simply a matter of figuring out what you need to accomplish each year to get there by the target date.
The dilemma is getting from the daily routines of living life to the big dreams out there in the future.
Imagine standing in front of a huge pile of a million bricks that represent one of those big dreams. This would be a pile of bricks 40’ across and 40’ high. It’s your job to figure out which one of those million bricks is the first one you need to lay to get that dream built.
This is where the real problem lies.
Which one is the one I should lay first? What if I lay the wrong one? These questions and a lot more bombard us daily and the next thing you know…another day as gone by without any bricks being laid.
Add to the first pile another for every additional dream. Depending on the dream the size of the piles will vary. Some bigger and some smaller, but all will still be huge piles.
As I stand here looking at my thirteen huge piles of bricks…which brick in which pile should I start with?
This isn’t to say that there is only one right brick in those millions of bricks. What it does mean, is that we need to be clear on what it is that we’re building and focus our daily brick laying on that building.
One thing for sure. Nothing will get built if we don’t lay some bricks.
Next week I will give you some practical, real-world examples of how I choose bricks for building my dreams.
Growing in your faith? Spending more time with your family? Serving your customers better? Paying off debt? Taking better care of yourself physically and mentally? Helping with community projects?
All good things…
But there’s a limited space in your time jar and only so many rocks will fit.
Deciding what’s urgent, important or not is hard. Too much of the time we find ourselves fighting fires. Too often, this comes from a lack of preparation.
Most of us are aware of the time management quadrant which uses the idea of sorting things into the 4 different areas.
Quadrant 1 is fire-fighting (urgent & important). This is easily recognized and where most of us spend way too much time. This is the get down to the core action of, if the house is on fire and the phones ringing…do we answer the phone or get the kids out of the house? The problem is we should have spent more on important rather than urgent and maybe we could have prevented the fire.
Quadrant 2 is quality time (important & not urgent). This is the area where we should focus. It’s where we get the most return on our investment of time and energy. It’s also the hardest because there’s no immediate rush like there is when fighting fires.
Quadrant 3 is distractions (urgent & not important). We can fill this quadrant with an endless list of small and trivial tasks convincing ourselves that they are important, because they probably are. The things in this quadrant require less time and energy than the ‘really’ important tasks. The question is, are you doing them because they’re important…or because it feels good to check thing off the list?
Quadrant 4 is time-wasters (not important & not urgent). The things in this quadrant are the things of least importance. These things serve no direct purpose in accomplishing the important things in your life. You want to avoid wasting time on these things.
While this is a great plan, it still comes down to who you are and what your priorities are.
This is the hardest part.
A lack of planning and preparation is what leads to the fires starting. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be times when someone throws a match into your plans, and you have to stop what you’re doing and fight the fire.
The better prepared we are the less hot the fire will be and the quicker it can be put out.
Hot fires are a good way to get burned.
Don’t get burned by your time management. Know who you are and what your priorities are and put in the biggest rock first.
Having a Good Plan is the Best Way to Avoid Mistakes
The importance of planning became evident this morning while working on a project at home. I mis-figured and cut two boards the wrong length. Fortunately, the cut was too long rather than too short. The boards were salvageable, it just wasted a couple of 3” pieces.
My wife had been wanting some chickens and the opportunity came up a few weeks back. My sister had more chickens than she needed as well as a small (3’ x 6’) chicken pen/coop that she didn’t need.
The goal or purpose of chickens is to have fresh eggs as well as reducing bugs. (Also, my wife loves hearing a rooster crow.) We can’t let the chickens out because the dog and them wouldn’t get along. If we leave them in one location for more than a few days, there won’t be any grass left in that spot.
It’s up to me to find a solution…
The best solution is a mobile pen that can moved around, otherwise known as a “chicken tractor”. The difference between our pen and a “chicken tractor” is the ease of portability. Our pen needs some wheels.
My problem solving/builder brain kicked in.
The pen is two separate units attached together which allows it to flex in the middle when moved. The more flexing done when moved, the weaker the attachment of the two sections will get. Okay, this means we need a frame that will prevent this from happening.
The next thing is wheels. We need to keep the pen down tight to the ground so that snakes can’t get in and get the eggs but make it so it can be rolled when it needs moved. They need to be able to be raised and lowered.
Back to the plan and minimizing mistakes.
An important part of a plan is knowing the cost upfront. Most ready to go chicken tractors of a comparable size are between $350 to $500. So, one question a plan can provide, “Can I modify the one we have so that it will do what we need for less money?”
I found a 2x4x16’ rough cedar board in the shop, left over from a project, that will work for the frame. I’ve got an old push lawn mower that doesn’t work… it has adjustable wheels. I think those will work. I have plenty of screws, etc. for fastening. So…zero cost for material.
Now comes the design and engineering phase.
I neglected to put any of my ideas into a drawing and this is where the mistake that I spoke about earlier happened. It was a simple mistake. One that was easily fixed but could have been avoided with a simple drawing. It was a miscalculation and dimensions on a plan would have shown this.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re modifying a chicken pen or building a multi-million-dollar building, both turn out better with a plan. The same is true for your life. The end result will be better having a plan and being intentional about implementing it.
The two boards that I cut too long because I didn’t have a plan on this little project was an easy fix. A new home or your life might not be so easy or inexpensive.
I will let you know how the finished project turns out!
Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
