OVERHEAD

Man, I'm about 3.5 seconds from chaulking this all up and start lookin for another job @ 55 I feel like I'm starting all over again at the bottom. Everything was wonderful until I purchased this building, sure there were hard times and slim pickin's throughout our first 13 years but it never seemed this hard to run the business. I've always felt fortunate that I work in a field I love and grew up in. I also have tried hard to clean up the unfortunate reputation in our industry. In the last 3 years I have spent thousands of dollars hiring so called companies that were suppose to help me turn this company around and now I'm more confused and broke then I have ever been. Deciding to purchase this building and expand in 2006 was a bad choice, before the ink dried, the economy took a shit and I've been hanging on by the tips of my fingures ever since. One of the main problems is we have alot of family working for us and like me roofing is all they know. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place any suggestions?>>>

NOW, thats a problem. Our sales are just between 1 -1.5 million, Vaa how did you figure that I need to make 5.1 mill/per yr. to gross 30% profit? Are you saying that I need to sell 5.1 million to make a 30% gross profit, so that I can pay our salesman 1/3 -1/3 and 1/3? That just doesn't seem right, how can your overhead be running the same as mine without a 1/4 of the expenses I have?>>>

I leave the depreciation factor to my accountant. Vaa, your overhead expenses are running about the same as mine, but I have 10 crewman, 2 full time repairmen, 2 salesman (1 whom is my husband), 2 full time office girls (me being one) and 1 part-time girl to pick up slack and marketing in the office. I'm also running 5 trucks, 1 service van and one lg. box truck....Dam maybe I'm not doing that bad after all!@ Never the less, I am not making any money so I need to decide what I need to cut out to be profitable again. OR, here's a thought I need to figure out how much more we need to sale in order to break-even. Shit see what I mean, this is way to brain boggling for me.>>>

Well, I don't know if it helps, but I found ways to cut my household overhead. A lot!

http://www.contractortalk.com/f11/tough-economic-times-heres-some-help-61653/>>>

Yes you are in the ballpark with a 31% overhead.

The figures don't lie.

I couldn't believe that my real overhead hovered between 25% to 28% but just came to the conclusion that the figures needed to be accounted for, which caused me to increase my prices and that was fine, until the past two seasons, where other contractors are surviving on lower numbers.

So, how can You/I look at reasonable ways to cut our overhead?

Ed

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