2024…. A Year to Forget

I’ve been doing this ‘business owner’ thing for a long time, I’m getting old, and my ability to bounce back from set backs is not what it used to be.

Yet …here I am still plugging away, still fighting the fight and still arguing and complaining when I feel I’ve been used or taken advantage of, still trying to inspire and motivate the team

I like to give a review of the year around this time and look back on the highs and lows of the last 12 months.

This year the phrase ‘catch up’ has been often repeated. This position stemmed from an aborted start on a project in March, which it turned out hadn’t got planning permission. We only found this out from a site neighbour who casually commented…. ‘You do know this hasn’t got approval’. You may be sat there thinking this was an ‘oversight’ on our behalf, but when your multi million pound client assures you in writing that all has been agreed and planning approval granted – one does tend to believe them.

Anyway, suffice to say costs were incurred but no ground was broken and it put us back a month on invoicing and margin, with a knock on effect on cashflow – our graphs for the year were ruined and targets were missed all over the place.

However, with hard graft and a bit of a fair wind we have caught up and are back on track to hit our targets for the year and to finish on a high note.

Hard work though.

It’s been a graft.

The team have been down, they’ve been feeling whupped at times and the faces have been long and the looks downcast. The long hours of travelling and surveying on cold wet miserable sites have taken a toll – particularly when after hours of work your client gives all your work to somebody else and says – if you can do this cheaper the jobs yours.

Yet within all the heartache and toll there have been clients who’ve appointed us simply because they trust us. There have been clients who’ve appointed us that weren’t just asking for the cheapest price, and there have been clients who’ve appointed us simply because they enjoy working with us.

Amongst the terrible payers and the horrendously long payment terms, there have been clients that pay by return. There have been clients that pay 50% up front and the balance on completion. These are the clients to whom we aspire to work with, these are the people that when they say ‘jump’ we simply ask ‘how high’ – and these are the people that make it all worthwhile.

So all in all, it’s been a good year – and I say this because I know a lot of people are struggling at the moment – so any year on which you come away slightly ahead, remains a ‘good year’ in my books.

We have a great team, we have great clients and there is much to be grateful for.

If only I wasn’t getting so damn old…. I’d be a lot happier.

All the best for 2025.

 

Mike C