26. Struggling With Contractor Systems? How to Stop Doing Everything Yourself

Did you build another job or did you build a true business?

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Today, Jen Nelson shares how to build a business that can grow without you, where your

business does not depend on you every day.

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Let's get into this episode.

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Hey, I'm Shay Toya.

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I've spent more than 10 years in construction, working behind the scenes in marketing,

hiring, and I've seen how overwhelming it can be to grow a business.

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That's how we've learned to build a sustainable business using clear systems, strong

communication, and intentional recruiting.

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If you're ready for better hiring, smarter remarketing, and a business that doesn't fall

apart when you step away, welcome to building better contractor businesses.

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Welcome, Jens Nelson with Momentum Coaching Consulting.

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Well, I'm super excited to speak to you today.

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From what I've seen, so you have a lot of experience doing a lot of different things.

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But could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this industry?

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Absolutely.

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Moved from Denmark 30 years ago, arrived in the in the US, you know, in nineteen ninety

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Had a long IT and telecommunication career, you know, from beginner to executive kind of

positions.

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And then roughly 10 years ago, I started to I kind of started my own business.

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I got into commercial real estate investing.

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And then that led to coaching and consulting and so on.

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So I'm still into

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you know, investing and so on, but I also love to help, you know, small businesses and

individuals get more out of their personal life, their relationships and their businesses

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and so on.

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So that's that's big for me and and raise a lot of money for different projects and so on.

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So that's a little bit about me that in a in a in a few sort sentences here.

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So awesome.

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And then from that transition, how did you transition of doing that?

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Yeah.

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So in my mid forties I was wow, I have another twenty, twenty five years of work for

somebody else lined out.

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I was like, wow, I don't want to do this for another you know, I t I loved IT but I didn't

have the freedom, right?

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I I'm from Denmark as I mentioned, so I didn't have the freedom to go and travel for very

long periods of time.

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I didn't have freedom to set my schedule and so on.

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So I wanted some freedom and I decided that, you know, going down this entrepreneur path,

the real estate investing path was the

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was the journey.

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And then, you know, as that happened, I decided there there are other avenues that I could

pursue.

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And, you know, once you become an entrepreneur, you can do all kinds of fun things, right?

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Yes, the sky is the limit.

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And then when it comes to 'cause you have done so much, but why do so many contractors

feel like they cannot run their business without them?

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Yeah.

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a huge that's a huge problem.

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That's not only contractors, that's a lot of small businesses run into this problem.

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And the the the key problem here is that most businesses are started by an individual who

has a is a good technician, you're a good plumber, carpenter, electrician.

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So people start that, but they forget that a business is not you.

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A business is systems and processes and employees and structure and everything else.

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But

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That's a completely different way of thinking from being a good, you know, electrician.

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Yeah, I like to do that work, but building a business is nothing to do about being good t

a good technician.

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It's about looking at systems and processes and building this thing.

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And most people struggle to get out of being in the business to working on the business.

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And that holds people back so badly, right?

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I mean, I've seen I've had friends and colleagues or associates who have, you know

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run their business for years and then one day they're like, my God, I'm working more than

I used to, I'm making less money.

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I got all the stress.

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And if I take a vacation, I don't make any money, right?

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I mean, that's really hard.

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And I'm sure you're experiencing that too.

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And that's what my passion is like, no, we gotta free up.

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We gotta free up the owner to do to build the business and let employees and other people

do the work.

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No, I totally get that.

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And you know, with you having so much time in IT and telecom, how did you transition the

your mindset from working in your in your business instead of audit?

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Well, it was one of things I learned really early on in what I was doing is that when we

were setting up IT systems or telecommunication systems, we had to do it the same way over

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and over and over, right?

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So it always worked, always could be troublesho people could troubleshoot it, we could

solve problems.

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So we didn't have to reinvent the the wheel every time, right?

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So early on I was like, okay, well, I would figure out how to set up a certain system and

then I would document it and then I'll make sure the documentation was accurate.

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And then I would hand it to somebody else, you know.

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And that really taught me this fact, well, if you can document it this with screenshots

and everything else, and it's clear enough, well then somebody else, I mean, not somebody

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off the street, but somebody that had a level of experience could then take over and I

could move on to the next thing.

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And that's how we leverage ourselves.

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We leverage ourselves by making other people do the work that we had planned out and

scheduled out and structured.

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I know it was a little while ago.

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What was one of the first things or if you remember that you first completed for

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wow.

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Well you you're probably taking me back twenty, you know, twenty plus years, right?

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you know, first on you know, I would just figure in, I would just do repeat the task and

so on.

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But I think if I really think back, I think I wrote a troubleshooting guide back in the

late nineties for some systems we were selling.

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A troubleshooting guide to like if this is broken, look here.

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If that's broken, look here, right?

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That was probably my first experience in actually creating solutions.

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that could be repeated by by multiple people.

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Cool.

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Oh, that is so cool.

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So when it comes to I'll just dive a little deeper.

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When it comes to, you know, with with your career, and I know it's been a while, was there

anything that you possibly struggled at first to leverage for someone else to take over?

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Yeah, I think, you know, when we when we when I stepped out into, you know, my

entrepreneurship and so on, right?

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What was and I'll tell you a little bit and maybe step back and tell me tell you a story

that probably resonate with people, right?

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So imagine buying your first rental property.

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A lot of people say, Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna buy a single family home, I'm gonna fix it

up, I'm gonna rent it out, and I'm gonna manage the tenants, I'm gonna manage the any

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repairs and stuff like that.

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Well, this is an exact example of

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Doing wrong thing.

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Because, you know, hey, you're trying to get a little bit of extra income and so on, but

you don't want to spend your Saturdays and your Sundays fixing up the house or you get a

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random call on a Friday night that the toilet is clogged.

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Then you you just gave you bought yourself more work.

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I had that initial mindset and then I started looking around to to buy some rental

property.

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uh

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What we call an owner operator.

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And that can be rental.

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This could be a contract.

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It can be anybody.

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Shifted the mindset for being an owner operator, being in the business to being an

investor.

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And I wanted to be an investor because that was would free my de the I key here thing the

key thing here is decouple your time from your income or your income from your time,

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right?

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So I was like, wait a minute, I've got to become an investor.

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So I

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Start investing out of out of state, you know, three or four hours away, so that I was not

tempted to drive there every time there's a problem.

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I put management in place so that if there was a leaking toilet on Friday night, there was

people to do the work.

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Yes, I get it.

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That cost a management fee, but I would not have been able to scale.

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And at some point we owned over twenty five hundred apartment units around the country

with partners and stuff.

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I there's no chance had I not had this mindset that I could have done that.

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And I think contractors

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struggle with the same thing.

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They're like, Well, I gotta be in everything because I don't trust my I don't trust

anybody to work, right?

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And if if the customer don't see me on site, they don't they don't know what's going on,

so on, right?

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Well, you're just dooming yourself to a having a J O B, right?

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Working every single day very hard and not necessarily making any more money that he could

have been as a employee.

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Very hard.

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Uh so true.

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Very, very true of what you've said.

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And when it comes to that story's a lot of people who, you know, get into what you're

speaking about struggle with that and not just real estate, but contractors as well.

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Are there any systems that you believe are a must for contractors to have in place?

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Yeah.

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So, I mean, y I think even before we have a system, we have to have a vision for what it

is that we're doing here, right?

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If it is one person and they just wanna be a single operator, okay, that's fine.

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That's your vision and no problem.

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If your vision is, hey, I want to build a true business that has me as the owner and have

employees to do the work, well, start with that, right?

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Start with that vision for what it is that you're building and then start planning out,

okay.

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You know, today maybe it's just me.

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Maybe in six months it's me and, you know, two more people.

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And so start building and planning out the structure you want, because we cannot put

systems in place until we have the structure or at least an idea of the structure.

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By structure I say, you know, you know, I got, you know, two master plumbers and a junior

plumber and and an apprentice and all these and the and the counting and HR.

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Once you start planning that out, then you can start, you know.

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putting the systems in place.

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And when I say by systems, well, it can be as simple as a one page, you know, standard

operating procedure for how you do a certain job.

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It could be more complicated, you know, how do you build people and stuff like that,

right?

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But I think people just they think there's a magical system out there.

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That's not the case.

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It's thinking through what is the end game or what is the end state and then plan every

step along the way there.

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So I'm not sure if I answered your question right, but it's, you know, I think of systems

as just people and processes, right?

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Yeah.

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I I think so too.

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Because you said you first have to have the vision of where you want to go.

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So when it comes to having a team, how do you get your team to take ownership of the roles

that you're having them do?

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yeah, that's a great one, right?

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Because and I and and I like accountability as a better word.

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And we used to we call it when we create structures, we call them accountability charts.

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Okay, so accountability means that you are clear about what you are are accountable for.

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All right, so let's say you're a master plumber.

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Well you're accountable for plumbing this house, whatever that is.

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If there is a problem with that plumbing

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it falls on you.

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Even if you had an apprentice working for you, it still falls on you because you're

ultimately accountable for that.

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Now, people will people will defer accountability and you know, whatever happened, the

other contractor stepped on my lines and broke them or whatever.

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Well, yeah, that sucks, but in the end, this is your job.

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Gotta get it done.

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It's not for punishing people.

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It's not to be like beat them over a hammer.

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It's to say that we we are delivering a certain product, we're doing it at a certain

quality to our customers.

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And ultimately you're getting paid for doing that.

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If people deflect and don't own it, you have two options, right?

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You can train and reinforce what it is you want, or maybe that's not the right person for

the job, right?

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Got it.

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So you talked about accountability charts.

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I know I personally heard of accountability charts reading what the heck is US.

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Is that where you got it from or was there a

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from the book traction.

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The book traction that's that's the system that I like to use with people that I work

with, right?

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I'm not a certified EOS implementer, but I know enough of the tools 'cause that gives me

freedom to do stuff.

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It's excellent.

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And if you know, if any of your listeners haven't gone through that, buy that book, go

through the go through that planning and see, okay, what am I actually what's actually

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happening here?

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What am I not doing right?

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You know, and if it's too much for you, find somebody that can help you work through

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Yeah.

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I've read all the books.

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So that's so awesome.

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I'm so glad to hear that.

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Because our team follows that that those systems through the accountability chart.

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So I love that.

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When it comes to advice, what's one most important piece of advice would you give to a

contractor?

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I mean it it it just comes back to this, are you building a business or do you have a job?

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Right.

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Is that's a question, right?

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That's a question.

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And if they say I'm building a business, my advice would do, okay, spend some time

planning out what that business looks like.

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So you don't just try to go out and get jobs and you just work work yourself ragged,

right?

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You know, go and create spend some time planning.

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And if you don't know how to do that, you struggle with that, find somebody who has, you

know, been

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been in a business or has like a planning mindset or has read attraction and stuff like

that, right?

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And get with that person because that's who you need on your t on your on your side.

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Yes, I agree with you.

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And then Jens, if you can kind of just share more with us because you've provided so much

value just in this short amount of time.

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If someone's looking to possibly work with you, what does that look like?

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Yeah, I mean, I spend I spend a lot of time up front getting to know what that person or

that company needs, you know.

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So the best way is just reach out to me.

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my website is just my first name, J E N S and last name Nielsen N-I-E-L-S-E-N dot U S.

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Jens Nielsen dot US.

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They're linked to you know my phone number is actually on there or people can book a free

a free diagnostic call and we just get on and we talk about what's going on.

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I'm not I don't have a cookie cutter

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solution for anybody.

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I need to understand that person's or company's problem or challenge and then we together

will work on a way to uh to come up with a plan.

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Got it.

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No, I love that.

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Because no business is the same.

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We're all at different levels.

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That's right, that's right.

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Jens, before we go, is there anything else that you'd like to add?

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No, just, you know, I think I think it doesn't really matter what business you're in.

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You know, as humans, we have been in the business world for millennia and there's a few

set ways of running a business very efficiently.

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And even if you're stuck in in in something that's not working well, there's always hope.

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You can always make changes and do things that's gonna make your business more effective

and efficient, right?

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So if you're a

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overwhelmed and underpaid and stuff like that, just slow down for a minute and get with

somebody that can help you get through that and move on to the next phase.

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Yes, exactly.

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Uh well Yens, this is what was absolutely amazing today.

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I'm very excited to share this with our audience.

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Thank you.

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Have a great day.

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Thank you.

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I had a lot of fun.

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If you believe that this episode brought you real clarity, be sure to share it with

another contractor who also needs it.

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And if you want to keep this conversation going, be sure to join our community of

contractors inside Building Better Contractor Businesses.

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Facebook group.

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This is a community where we talk through the real problems.

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That you are having in your business.

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The link will be found in our show notes.

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And remember, we are not just completing projects, we are building better contractor

businesses.

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I will see you next time.