An Unwelcome Surprise and Six Things You Need
Life has a way of throwing a few unwelcome surprises our way, doesn’t it? You’re tooling along, enjoying success, set in your productive routines, and then ZAP! – the world lets you know you’re not in charge and things will be different for a while”!
Tune in this week as Wayne relates his unwelcome surprise, talks about vulnerabilities that almost all contractors face, gets a little morbid, and outlines six things all successful leaders need in order to have their business and personal bases covered. What did Wayne leave out? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments.
The next Contractor Business Boot Camp is selling out quickly and is scheduled for Feb. 9-10, 2023 in Raleigh. Get your high potential NextGen leaders signed up while there is still room. Contact Charlotte at ckopp@familybusinessinstitute.com today for more information.
Hello everyone. This is Wayne Rivers at FBI and We Build Better Contractors.
This week I want to talk about an unwelcome surprise and six things that you need. Okay? First, don't forget about Boot
Camp February 9 and 10, 2023. As you listen to this, it's already over half full. Don't wait. Get your folks in there. Then
we'll be announcing some other future Boot Camp classes in Charlotte, Dallas, Denver for 2023 just a little bit later.
Sunday, I'm playing tennis. I'm running for a shot, hit the brakes, part of me stops and part of me doesn't. I hear this awful
tearing sound and that was it for me for the day. That's it for me for the next four months likely because I tore a quadriceps
muscle. So, it was pretty bad. I got to ride in an ambulance, and it was kind of embarrassing. All those people were looking
like what happened to that guy?
But it got me thinking. Could have been much worse, I'm sure. But I'm in the ER and then I'm at home and waiting for
results from the MRI and all that stuff. So, I'm flat on my back. I'm just sitting around, not much to do, and I start to think
about what if. My thoughts got pretty morbid pretty fast. I mean, I have to confess. I mean, it has an impact on all aspects
of my life, but especially work. I was thinking about work. I got stuff to do. When am I going to do it? Oh my gosh, I've got
surgery scheduled for this day. Holy moly.
What about this is important to you? Well, golly, a few years ago I had another health scare. Dennis had a health scare
and had to have a heart bypass surgery. Now here this pops up and I'm just thinking, well, it happens to me and Dennis, it
happens to all of our people here at FBI from time to time. It could happen to you too. We kind of think we're ready. But
here I am now trying to scramble. Maybe I'm not as ready as I thought I was going to be.
So, Dennis said at our last strategic planning meeting, even though we're twice as big in terms of gross revenue as we
were only five years ago and we have 40% more people, Dennis said, "We're still a very vulnerable organization." He's
right. He's right. So, I don't want you to feel as vulnerable as we do.
So, what can you do about it? The morbid stuff. Okay. What if something more serious had happened? What if I'd had a
heart issue or a cancer issue or something like that? What if it wasn't me that got injured? What about my wife? My poor
wife is having to do all kinds of things for me she didn't plan on doing. But what if it was reversed? What if something had
happened to Lisa and that I was the caregiver at home? So, I still couldn't get into work.
So, these are contingencies, but they're very real. Happen to all of us. So, there are three contingencies that you have to
be prepared for. The first is, what if I live? Well, that's the best one. What if I live? And, what if I'm healthy? How are we
going to execute our plans? Still at some point, we all have a shelf life. How am I going to exit the business? Who's going
to take over? What does the plan say? What are the dates? What does the timeline look like?
The second thing, the second contingency is what if I can't work for weeks or months or longer? What happens then? Do
we have a contingency plan for that? The third thing, of course, is what if I die? You've got to have a contingency plan for
the worst of all outcomes. You get struck by lightning and boom, you're not around anymore.
Here's six things that I think everybody needs, every contractor needs, every businessperson needs. I think I've got them
in order here. The first thing you need are people. If your construction company is still dependent on you to do business
development, and to manage projects, and to hire and fire all the people and do all that stuff, you are very, very vulnerable
indeed. You've got to have great people. We're blessed with a great team here, great COO. Just across the board really,
really terrific people. I'm convinced if I got struck by lightning, the company would be maybe even better off. I mean, they
all have more business experience than I do for the most part. So, you've got to have great people and having a great...
This brings me to my second point. You've got to have a great COO, general manager, second in charge, whatever you call
it. You've really got to have a go-to person that if you can't show up for a day, or a month or a year, you've got to have a
go-to person that can assume those responsibilities and lead the company.
Third thing, you've got to have a strategic plan. If you've got that framework, it almost makes... This sounds terrible. It
almost makes the people interchangeable. If you've got the plan and you've got the framework and your business
development person quits, okay, fine. You scramble, you do what you have to do in the short run. In the long run, you hire
another BD person. Probably you're wiser and smarter than you were before. You might even get a better one and BD
continues as a part of the plan. Say you lose your chief estimator, same thing. The plan, the framework, the outline, the
guiding north star works for everyone and people... I know it sounds mercenary. People are components that you can put
into the plan.
The fourth thing you need at the individual level, you need wills, trust, testamentary documents. In North Carolina, the
rules may be different in your state, but when I go into surgery and I'm unconscious, my wife has the power, the right to
make medical decisions. What if something goes wrong and they have to deliver some sort of extraordinary care? She can
make those decisions. Your state may be different, but you need your attorney to put those plans in place for you.
The fifth thing, if you have multiple shareholders in your company and you do not have a 21st century buy sell agreement,
shame on you. Let my phone ring, let me hear from you. Because by gosh, they're not all that complicated and if you don't
have one, you are setting yourself up for heartache, misery, uncertainty, dealing with lawyers, all kinds of things. All kinds
of rotten things. You've got to have a great buy sell agreement. If you have one shareholder besides yourself, as you look
at this, who owns 1% you need a buy sell agreement. If you have 10 shareholders that own all kinds of different stuff, that
contract needs to be cast iron and locked down.
The final thing is, again, on the personal side, you need to have a legacy plan. Letters to friends and family if you want
that. A video. I know I recently saw a nice video, a series of videos actually, that someone had left behind. The people that
mean something to you would like to know that they mean... Wait. Yeah, that means something to you would like to know
that they're important. That's the way... When you're gone, you can't tell them. You can't hug them; you can't put your
arm around them anymore. That's the way to leave a legacy, something tangible behind on a personal level.
So, what would you add to my short list of six things here? I'd like to hear from you in the comment section. Don't forget
about Boot Camp and this is Wayne Rivers at FBI, where We Build Better Contractors.
