Why Your Best Years In Business Keep Returning to Your Worse
The Challenge
I was at a networking event last week when a contractor pulled me aside. The frustration was written all over his face. "Jerry, I don't get it," he said. "We crush it for a few years, revenue is up, backlog is solid, then boom, we're right back where we were a few years ago. Every single time, we're forced to retreat."
I hear this story all the time, and it's not just happening to growing companies. I've watched billion-dollar businesses fall into this same trap. Hell, it happens across every industry, but in construction, the fall always seems harder because the ego runs so high.
When you're riding the wave of success, something dangerous happens. You become complacent. You get so wrapped up in the moment, in the project's closing this month and the bids due next quarter, that you forget to plan for what's two or three years out. You start believing your own story. "This is my time." "It'll never go away." "I finally made it."
I remember sitting across from a CEO who had just crossed the $100 million per year mark. He looked me dead in the eye and said with complete confidence that $5 million projects were old news for his company now. The ego was massive, and unfortunately, that personality runs rampant in our industry. Guess what happened? Less than one year later, they were back bidding $3 million jobs, scrambling to keep the doors open.
When you're busy, you feel like everything is working itself out. Money is coming in, opportunities are everywhere, and you believe all is well. But underneath the surface, small cracks are forming. You stop estimating because you think you don't need the work. You stop nurturing relationships with your top clients because you're too slammed to care. You hire like crazy because you think adding bodies means you've made it. You stop building the guts of your operations (the structure), and the body outpaces growth. And worst of all, you stop looking ahead because today feels so damn good.
Check out my latest article, recently published in Construction Dive Magazine, called “Has your construction firm hit a revenue ceiling? You might be the problem.”
The Impact
Those small cracks and inefficiencies DON’T stay small. Within a few years, they become fractures that threaten to collapse everything you've built. The retreat becomes inevitable, and it's brutal.
Your margins start shrinking because you hired too fast without building the internal structure to support the growth. You added people, but you didn't add the systems, the processes, or the leadership to manage them. Now you've got chaos disguised as productivity. Your project managers are overwhelmed, your superintendents are putting out fires instead of leading, and you're back in the weeds trying to hold it all together instead of running your company.
The culture starts to erode because there's no alignment. Everyone is working hard, but nobody is working toward the same goals. Turnover spikes because good people get tired of the dysfunction. They came to build something great, not to survive the madness. Cash flow becomes a constant source of stress because you took on too much work without the operational capacity to execute it profitably. Every week feels like a battle just to make payroll.
And then there's you, the owner. You're exhausted. You're working more hours than you did five years ago, but somehow the company isn't growing the way it should. You thought success would bring freedom, but instead it brought more problems. The emotional toll is real. You're questioning decisions, losing sleep, and wondering how you went from crushing it to barely surviving.
This is what happens when you don't build while you're winning. You're not just leaving money on the table. You're setting yourself up for a painful retreat that will cost you years of progress, millions in lost profit, and the best people on your team.
The Shift
Here's the good news. The retreat doesn't have to happen. But you need to make a real shift in how you operate, especially when things are going well.
First, stop abandoning your estimating function when you're busy. I'm serious about this. You should always be estimating, even if you're turning work away. But here's the key: get more conservative with your production rates and profit margins, AND be upfront with your best clients that you're loaded but still want to help. This keeps you top of mind, maintains the relationship, and ensures that when capacity opens up, you're the first call they make. The ROI here is massive because you're protecting future revenue streams while everyone else is going dark on their clients. BUT be cautious, you only take on work you can handle because that can lead to other disastrous consequences.
Second, use your busy seasons to build leaders, not just hire bodies. Every time you bring someone new into the organisation during growth, you need to be simultaneously developing the leaders who can manage that growth. That means investing in your project managers, your superintendents, estimators, and your emerging talent so they can handle the increased volume without you being involved in every decision. This frees you up to focus on strategy, long-term relationships, and identifying external threats before they become existential problems. You should start seeing the benefits of this within six to nine months as your leaders begin taking ownership and you start getting your time back.
The companies that thrive during growth are the ones that build structure while the money is rolling in. They don't wait until things slow down to fix what's broken. They fix it now, when they have the resources and the momentum to do it right.
The Closing
We're in the final stretch of the year. If you haven't mapped out your strategy, built your leadership team, and identified the threats on the horizon for next year, you're already behind. I actually feel optimistic about the next few years for contractors who do the work now. The opportunities are there. The market is ready. But only for the companies that refuse to be complacent.
The retreat isn't inevitable. It's a choice. You can choose to build while you're winning, to stay disciplined when everyone else is getting reckless, and to invest in the structure that turns temporary success into sustained growth. Your career, your company, and everyone who depends on you deserve that level of commitment. The shift starts now, and the impact will define the next decade of your business.
Gerard Aliberti
Pro-Accel,
Owner
- Pro-Accel helps construction contractors build the leadership and operational structure needed to scale sustainably. If you're ready to stop the cycle of growth and retreat, reach out to jerry@pro-accel.com to discuss executive coaching that transforms how you lead your company.
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