THE BUYOUT
In 90 days, your business stops running through you.
A fixed-scope operations build for general contractors doing $3M to $20M. I map how work actually moves from signed contract to closeout, then install the systems that run it without you.
Nothing is broken. That is the problem.
Nothing is on fire. No single disaster you can point to. Just a slow leak that shows up at the end of every job.
A contractor at $8M with a broken job cost workflow is typically losing 1 to 3 percent of revenue to unbilled change orders, uncaptured backcharges, and rework nobody caught until the punch walk. That is $80,000 to $240,000 a year.
It never appears as a line item. It appears as jobs that were supposed to make 18 percent and closed at 11, and nobody can tell you exactly why.
You did not hire the wrong people. You gave the right people nothing to run.
PHASE ONE · DAYS 1 TO 21Diagnose
Before anything gets built, we find out where the money and the time are actually going.
How work really flows, not how the org chart says it flows. Every handoff, every stall point, every place a job sits waiting on you.
Process map, contract to closeout.
Buildertrend or Procore, QuickBooks, file storage, scheduling. What is configured, what is ignored, and what your team quietly works around with a spreadsheet.
Systems audit.
Current state. This is usually the page where you see your own name in forty boxes and go quiet for a second.
Role and responsibility matrix.
The three things costing you the most, ranked, with what it takes to fix each one.
Findings and roadmap.
You get a decision at the end of Phase One, not a surprise. We pick the three builds that matter most and the rest goes on the phase two list.
PHASE TWO · DAYS 22 TO 60Build
We install three of the following. Three. Not six. One system that gets built and used beats four that get documented and ignored.
Job cost control
Budget setup standard, commitment and PO discipline, the full change order path from request to signed to billed, backcharge capture, and a monthly job cost review that actually gets held. This is where most of the leak lives.
Sub compliance and payment gates
W-9 and certificate of insurance collected at bid. COI naming you as additional insured at award. Signed subcontract and scope on file before mobilization. Lien waivers tied to payment release. Retainage held to a written standard. Closeout audit on every job. No waiver, no check.
Sales to build handoff
What has to be true before a job leaves estimating. Handoff checklist, preconstruction kickoff agenda, selections and allowances process with real deadlines. This kills the "nobody told me that was in the contract" conversation.
Field to office flow
Daily logs, RFI and submittal routing, schedule update cadence, photo documentation standard. Your PMs stop being the only copy of the truth.
PHASE THREE · DAYS 61 TO 90Install
Building it is the easy part. Making it survive contact with a Tuesday in July is the work.
Role scorecards
For PMs and superintendents, with a 30/60/90 onboarding path, so your next hire is productive in weeks instead of quarters.
Meeting cadence
With real agendas. Weekly operations, monthly job cost review. Short, structured, and they end on time.
Owner dashboard
The six to eight numbers you look at weekly instead of touching every job.
Live training
With your team, SOPs living inside your system instead of a PDF nobody opens, and a 30-day check-in after launch to fix whatever drifted.
On Day 91, you have…
A documented operating system your team runs without you
Subs who cannot get paid without current insurance and a signed waiver
A weekly rhythm that surfaces problems while they are still cheap
Job costs you trust before the job closes, not after
PMs with clear scorecards and the authority to actually decide things
Your calendar back
"Everything ran through me. Vendor setup, hiring, paperwork, job costs, all of it lived in my head. She built the systems that took it off my plate. I now have the time I need to do what I do best."
— Chris Drohosky, Owner, Bird Dog Construction, Arvada, COInvestment
$18,000
Payment follows a draw schedule because that is how you already think about money.
50% at signing
25% at day 45
25% at delivery
Compare it to the alternative.
An operations manager or project executive runs $85,000 to $110,000 in base salary, call it $115,000 to $140,000 fully loaded. This costs about seven weeks of that hire, and you skip the recruiting, the ramp, and the risk of finding out in month five that it was the wrong person.
Or compare it to one change order fight, or a two week schedule slip. You already know that number.
Not ready for the full build?
Start with a two-week diagnostic. $3,500.
You get the process map, the systems audit, and the prioritized roadmap. If you move forward with the full build within 60 days, the entire fee is credited toward it.
Same logic as preconstruction services. You pay for the assessment, you own the findings, and you decide what to do with them.
And then what?
Most contractors reach the end of the build with a system they love and nobody to run it. The person who was supposed to run it is you, and you hired me because you cannot.
So there is a second door. Ongoing fractional COO partnership, starting at $6,500 per month. I run the cadence, hold the team accountable to the system, and carry the operational load so you can go do the two things only you can do: sell work and build relationships.
You are not obligated to take it. But it is on the table from day one so it never feels like a surprise.
This is not for everyone.
This is not for everyone.
This is not for:
Contractors under $2M in annual volume. The systems cost more than the problem.
Anyone looking for someone to do the work rather than build the system. I install operations. I do not become your project manager.
Owners who want documentation to hand to a team they are not willing to hold accountable. The system only works if you stop being the exception to it.
Frequently Asked Questions
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No. I work remotely and I have run construction operations remotely for a while now. Everything gets built inside the systems your team already uses. If your project makes sense for one on-site visit, we will talk about it.
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Roughly two hours a week from you. Most of Phase One is me talking to your team and reading your data. Phase Two and Three need you for decisions, not for labor. If this took twenty hours a week of your time it would defeat the entire point.
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Usually the opposite. Your PMs are not fighting structure; they are fighting the absence of it. People who have been guessing for years tend to be relieved when someone finally writes it down.
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Good. Most of my work is making the software you already pay for actually match how you work. Software does not fix a process problem. It just makes the process problem faster.
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No. One contractor per market. That is in writing.
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The scope is fixed and the price is fixed. If we get there in 80 days, you get there in 80 days.
You bid 18. Close 18.
Ninety days from now, your team runs the system instead of running to you. Change orders get billed. Subs cannot get paid without a signed waiver. Your PMs make the calls they are already qualified to make.
Two to three clients per quarter. One contractor per market.