If you want to be the best sunroom builder around, you should always strive to produce quality work. On the other hand, if you want to be a smart business owner, you should always be looking for ways to keep costs down. The goal is to increase your profit margins while keeping your prices competitive… and keeping your customers happy… and keeping your workers paid well… all at the same time. Here are 6 ways to help you reign in the costs of your sunroom building business.
Keep Costs Down by Shopping Around
1. Buy in Bulk
Buying in bulk works well if you have a cool, dry place to store extra materials until you need them. This will also help you to start and finish projects faster because you won’t have to wait for restocking if you run out of materials in the middle of a project.
2. Buy Wholesale
You might already know that big box home improvement stores charge more for materials than wholesalers. However, you should also shop around for different wholesalers every few years. Just because “your guy” had the best prices five years ago doesn’t mean they still have the best prices today.
Keep Costs Down by Making Job Sites More Efficient
3. Invest in Proper Equipment
It might seem like you’re saving money by not replacing old, worn-out equipment, but your job sites may be more cost efficient if you have new technology and updated tools. You’ll be able to finish jobs faster and avoid accidents caused by faulty equipment.
Consider if it’s worth it to buy or rent bigger tools to increase efficiency. For example, renting a cement truck would be much faster than mixing concrete manually, but it’s worth depends on the volume of cement needed for any particular job.
4. Incentivize Workers to Use Their Own Tools
You can offer your employees higher pay in exchange for bringing their own tools to the job site. Weigh out what would cost more — buying new tools or boosting their pay.
Keep Costs Down by Preparing for the Unexpected
5. Make a Provision in the Contract for Change Orders
People change their minds. The sooner you accept this, the easier it will be. But make sure your customers know your change order policy ahead of time, so they won’t be surprised when their end bill is higher than your estimate. Include it in your contract and get their initial next to the paragraph.
6. Make Safety a Priority
A major drain on your budget could be money spent on workers’ compensation claims and replacement of injured workers. You can prevent these costs from happening in the first place by fostering a culture of safety within your company. If you don’t have a safety policy already, get one written down and refresh your workers on your safety rules often.
Offer Contractor Financing
While you focus on how to keep costs down for your business, you can trust HFS Financial to provide your customers with the best contractor financing. After you partner with HFS Financial and direct your clients to our 60 second application, we’ll take care of the rest. Their sunroom project will be funded well so you’ll be able to get started as quickly as possible. When it comes to sunroom financing, at HFS Financial, “You Dream It, We Finance It!”