Plenty do not. If the margin is where you want it, the jobs run without you and the money is in the bank before it goes out, you do not need one. This page is for the builders who read that sentence and winced.
Most articles on this question are written by coaches, so the answer is always yes. Here is the version that is actually useful.
You know your real gross margin per job without looking it up, your money comes in before it goes out, and the business ran fine the last time you took three weeks off. Keep going.
The work is there and the profit is not, every decision still runs through you, and you are quoting after hours because the day is gone. That is not a work harder problem. It is a margin, leadership and systems problem.
You are not prepared to change how you price or how you sell. The strategies only work if they get used. Nobody can want it more than you do.
Not because they are bad at building. Because nobody ever taught them the business side, and the industry treats that as normal.
Not motivation, and not a folder of templates you never open. It is someone who knows your industry working on the parts that make and lose the money, and holding you to doing something about it.
A good one does not hand you a syllabus. The numbers and the sales process are usually where the biggest gains sit, because that is where most builders are losing money without knowing it. Where it actually starts depends on the business in front of them.
Your real margin and breakeven, and the 6-Step Sales Process: qualifying, charging for quotes, preliminary agreements and value management. For most builders this is where the time and the money are hiding.
Vision, defined roles, clear expectations and accountability, so the work stops flowing through you and the good people stay. Your business will never outgrow your leadership.
Documented process, programme and an operations manual, so the margin and the time you got back are the ones you keep. Your systems set you free.
The whole thing is scored against the Profit Wheel, the ten levers of a building business, so you can see which one is actually costing you money instead of guessing at it.
Ask these of anyone, including Kurt. If the answers are vague, keep looking.
Generic business advice does not survive contact with a building site. If they also coach cafes and consultants, you will spend the first six months explaining variations, PC sums and progress claims.
Ask whether the person selling to you is the person coaching you. Ask what happens if that coach leaves. Plenty of firms scale by hiring coaches to deliver a company framework, and the builder starts again each time one moves on.
A real answer sounds specific and has a reason attached. "It depends on the builder" is fine only if they can then tell you what it depends on.
Give them a real job and see whether the conversation gets concrete or stays theoretical. This one question sorts most of the field.
Anyone can sell the good scenario. You want to hear how they handle the bad one, and whether they will tell you when the problem is you.
Are you actually prepared to change how you price and how you sell? If not, no coach on earth is worth the money, and a good one will tell you that on the first call.
Nobody publishes a price, and there is a reason for that which is not just marketing. Personalised one-on-one coaching is scoped to the business, so a builder turning over $1.5 million and a builder turning over $8 million are not buying the same thing.
What you can do is work out the shape of the answer before you talk to anyone. Two sums, on the back of an envelope:
Take your turnover and work out one per cent of it. On $3 million that is $30,000 a year. Now decide how many points you think are sitting on the table. That is the size of the prize, and it is the number any investment has to be judged against.
Hours you are working that you are not paid for. Jobs you priced badly. The good client you lost to someone cheaper who then missed half the scope. Doing nothing has a price too, it just never appears on an invoice.
Bring both numbers to the conversation. It makes the whole discussion faster and more honest, in either direction.
He was turning over around $3 million on roughly 10% margin, working about 80 hours a week to hold it together, quoting after hours and treating every enquiry as urgent.
Clients now pay around $3,000 for a preliminary agreement before he does any detailed pricing, so his expertise gets paid for instead of given away. His week has gone from about 80 hours to about 35.
He inherited a second-generation business turning over around $1.2 million and ran it the way most builders do, with every client, every trade and every decision flowing through him.
He rebuilt it into a multi-branch operation with a real leadership structure, defined roles and systems that do not need him in the room. The proof came when he spent three weeks in the Kimberley with no reception and came back to projects progressing and clients happy.
Real Builders Coach clients. Results vary and depend on the work you put in. More client results.
Kurt has coached residential builders, and only residential builders, since 2004. More than twenty years on the same set of problems, which is what makes the Million Dollar Builder framework a tested process rather than a set of ideas.
He wrote Million Dollar Builder and Million Dollar Builder 2.0, both international best sellers, and thousands of builders have taken up the Million Dollar Builder challenge since. He hosts The Builders Coach Show and has been featured on Channel 7 Weekend Sunrise. He also owned a renovations business and launched a national luxury custom home building franchise before any of the coaching.
"If any client fails, Builders Coach fails, and we will do everything we are able to make sure that we do not fail."
From a letter a builder sent Kurt after his first year. Lightly trimmed, otherwise untouched.
"In one of the first sessions the words 'let the truth set you free' came from your mouth. Like many builders out there, no one knows exactly where things are at. When you do find that place, it is time to do something about it and re-gain control.
Twelve months ago when this journey started with you, I would never have imagined I would be running my business the way I am today. I had a strategy: work hard. But working hard does not guarantee success, and hope is not a strategy."
What Kurt does, who he works with, and how the one-on-one coaching is structured. The detail this page deliberately leaves out.
Business coaching for buildersWhere the business is now, what is possible from here, and whether working together makes sense. No cost.
Book a strategy sessionThirty minutes with Kurt. Where the business is now, what is possible from here, and whether a coach is even the right answer for you. No cost.
Book your free strategy sessionJust have a question? Email info@builderscoach.com.au
Not all of them. If your margin is where you want it, the jobs run without you and the cash arrives before it leaves, you do not need one.
The builders who benefit are the ones who are busy and still not making money, where every decision runs through the owner. That combination is a margin, leadership and systems problem, and it does not fix itself by working more hours.
By working on the parts of the business that decide the profit: your real gross margin and breakeven per job, the sales process (qualifying, charging for quotes, preliminary agreements and value management), leadership and team, and the systems underneath all of it.
For most builders the sales process is the biggest single inefficiency, and the numbers are what make it visible, so that is usually where the gains are. Which of those comes first depends on your business. A coach who runs everybody through the same modules in the same order is not coaching, it is a course.
There is no fixed package price, because personalised one-on-one coaching is scoped to the business. A builder on $1.5 million and a builder on $8 million are not buying the same thing.
Work out what one point of margin is worth on your turnover, and what the current way of running things is already costing you. Bring both numbers to the conversation.
Ask five things. Do they work with builders only. Is the person selling to you the person coaching you. What do they do first and why. Can they talk about margin and markup on your last job. And what happens if it is not working.
Vague answers to any of those are your answer.
For general business problems, often. For a building business, rarely. The margin on your last job was won or lost in pre-construction, weeks before anyone turned up on site, and that is not something a generalist will find.
