Articles by Russ Stephens

3 min read

How To Manage Cashflow In Your Building Company

Managing cashflow in the building industry can be tricky business. Although cashflow principles are very similar between industries, the difference lies ...
3 min read

How Builders Can Prepare For La Nina

We’ve all been hearing some pretty crazy stories about the effects La Nina is having on the economy, especially flooding and the consequences of continual ...
3 min read

How Does Your Building Company Compare?

How does your building company compare to the rest of the industry? Are you adding more or less profit than your competitors? Are you paying yourself a ...
4 min read

How To Add A Net Margin To Your Projects Rather Than A Gross Margin

A lot of residential builders believe that the best way to price a project is by adding a percentage, or even a dollar figure to the total cost of ...
4 min read

How To Calculate The True Break-Even Point For Every Project Before You Quote A Price

A common mistake that is made by builders when pricing a larger than normal project is to reduce the margin percentage after looking at the gross profit ...
3 min read

The 2 Figures Inside Your Business Plan That Determine The Price You Need To Charge

In 2007 I attended an annual conference for a franchised building company. One of the speakers at the conference was a master franchisor from New Zealand ...
3 min read

How Much Is A Builder's Margin?

How much margin should builders be adding to their projects? 15%, 20%...25%? It’s a question that has both divided and confused the industry since the ...
3 min read

The Truth Behind Failed Building Companies

We’d always been baffled by the huge amount of bad debt that racked up by building companies that went into receivership. In theory, if they paid their ...
4 min read

The 5 Stages Of Decline For A Building Company

With 75% of residential building companies operating on net profit margins of less than 3% while dealing with rising construction costs of 25%, it’s no ...