How many times have you or your team gone to the job and you find out you are missing something necessary to do the work?
Without checklists you or your team are guaranteed to forget something. The big question is what will it cost you?
Potential losses from not having a checklist
1. Money
2. Employee hours lost going back to get what's missing.
3. Men standing around doing nothing.
4. Sub shows up and can't do the work, has to re-schedule one week later causing a domino effect for all the subsequent trades.
5. Embarrassment for your men, morale takes a hit.
6. Embarrassment because the homeowner now knows you don't have you stuff together.
7. Next progress payment you need is delayed and you can't make promised payments.
8. Building inspector due to come to inspect but you have to cancel because you won't be ready.
9. Employees are ticked off because this may impact their ability to complete the job within the budget. Loss of bonus.
10. Loss of referrals from homeowner who was ready to refer you to their next door neighbor.
Surely, if you have been in the business long enough you could add to the list. In our contracting coaching sessions we go over the philosophy of having the right system and then develop checklists to insure that the system is implemented. Without checklists we are left depending on our memory to remember. Contractors and entrepreneurs are too busy juggling numerous balls in the air to remember everything that must be done on a project.
You worked hard to sell the job at a number that will cover materials, labor, overhead and profit. Insure that you realize your hard earned profit and develop the habit of using checklists to jog your memory.