Read the school before you pay for it.

What your hour actually costs

Most people in the trades set their rate the same way: they find out what the guy down the road charges, take a little off, and hope the work comes. It

The quote that wins without being the cheapest

Two contractors look at the same job. Both are competent. Both quote within a couple hundred dollars of each other. One gets the work most of the

Deposits: the one change that fixes cash flow

There is a particular kind of broke that only happens to busy contractors. The schedule is full, the phone rings, the work is good — and there is no money

Walking a site without missing the thing that kills the job

Almost every job that goes badly wrong was decided in the first twenty minutes, standing in somebody's house, before anybody wrote a number

Change orders: charging for scope creep without losing the customer

Nobody in the trades loses money on the job they quoted. They lose it on the work that got added afterward, one small favor at a time, by a person who was

Getting paid faster, without becoming the guy who chases

Most late payments are not refusals. The customer is not avoiding you and they are not broke. They got the invoice on a Thursday, meant to deal with it on

Before you quit: what to have in place

Most people go out on their own the same way — they get angry on a Tuesday, quit on a Wednesday, and figure the rest out from the

Licensing, insurance and the paperwork that actually matters

There are about forty pieces of paper people will tell you a trades business needs. Maybe six of them will ever affect your

Where your first ten jobs come from

New contractors almost always plan their first ten jobs backwards. They build a website, order shirts, set up a business page, and wait for the

The five numbers to know every Friday

Most people in the trades check one number: what's in the bank. It's the easiest number to see and one of the least useful. It tells you about last week,

How to tell whether a job actually made money

Ask most contractors which of last month's jobs made the most money and you will get an answer in about two seconds. Ask how they know and the answer gets

Your first hire: when to do it, and what it really costs

There are two ways people in the trades hire their first person, and only one of them

Paying yourself when you are the one who owns the place

Most people in the trades pay themselves last and pay themselves