You've watched the stress. This is the thing that helps.
Your husband owns a construction company. You don't do the books and you don't need to. You've heard enough of his end of the phone calls to know when the line of credit's covering payroll and when it isn't. CONTROL: C.F.O.S. Construction Financial Operating System is the system that gets him ahead of that, and it's a better gift than one more thing for the truck.
You don't need the vocabulary to know something's off
Revenue's up and the bank balance somehow isn't. He can tell you the crew's busy on three jobs and can't tell you which one's actually profitable. He's the one who finds out a job lost money weeks after it's done, when there's nothing left to do about it. None of that means he's bad at the business. It means no one ever gave him a way to see the money the way he already sees the work.
The full case for why this book fits him, written for a reader who isn't sure yet, is on who it's for, and who it isn't.
8 steps, six working files
What a contractor said about it
Contracting isn't easy, and in my early days I made it much harder than it needed to be. But Josh's practical approach—and his proven track record—put simple but powerful concepts in the hands of construction owners. Concepts that, if put in place, will dramatically change the arc of your enterprise—and your life. As I read this book, I thought out loud (and also asked Josh): where were you in the mid-90s when I was struggling to get off the ground and gain altitude?!?! Reading this book and following its concepts is almost guaranteed to make you a more capable contractor.
What wives ask before they order it
Is this actually a good gift, or does it just sound like homework?
It reads as thoughtful because it does something for him and asks nothing of him. He gets a number he can check where he used to guess.
He already works constantly. Won’t this just add to it?
Fifteen minutes a week installs it. The system is built for fewer surprises, and surprises usually use up the hours he'd rather spend working.
I’ve heard him talk about the line of credit and payroll. Is this for that?
Yes, that's close to the whole reason. A business that's busy can still come up short on payroll if no one's watching the timing of what comes in against what goes out, and that's one of the first things the system fixes. It won't erase a bad month by itself. It does get him ahead of the next one.
What if he already has a bookkeeper?
Most owners this is written for have one, and this doesn't replace one. A bookkeeper keeps the history accurate. This book covers what he looks at, and how often, to manage the business.
Does it work as a Christmas gift, or is his birthday better?
Either works. If his birthday comes before Christmas this year, it has the edge: something he can start using right away, not one more thing under the tree next to a dozen others.
$9.99 ebook, $24.99 paperback
Get the paperback if it's a present. Six chapters include a QR code meant to be scanned off the page, and it works a lot better under the tree than a gift receipt.
Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.