The first stage all successful contracting businesses go through, could be termed the ‘Hunting Season’.

It is those early years where the answer to nearly everything is “yes.” Another customer wants you? Yes. Another service might create some work? Give it a crack. It can be bloody hard, but there is something quite satisfying about it. You can see progress. One machine becomes three. Two operators becomes eight. Revenue goes up. The yard gets busier. Your name starts getting around and eventually the phone starts ringing because customers are chasing you, rather than you having to chase them. You have taken something that probably started as yourself, a machine and a fair bit of blind optimism and turned it into a business.

That is worth celebrating. You’ve done the hard part…or have you?

The mistake is assuming the next stage requires more of exactly the same.

A question I like asking contractors when they reach out is: What are you actually trying to do?
1. Are you actively trying to grow?
2. Are you trying to streamline what you’ve already got?
3. Are you actually trying to downsize a little and focus on the work that makes good money?

There is no wrong answer to that question, but you need an answer.

Once Hunting Season has worked, I reckon you enter what could be called the ‘Craftsman Season’.

This is where you stop and start having a proper squiz at what you’ve built. Which customers do you actually want more of? Which services make proper margin once fuel, wages, repairs and finance are taken into account? Which jobs constantly create headaches? Why does every decision still end up on your phone? Why are invoices still three weeks behind?

The danger is that a lot of us get quite comfortable in chaos. Contractors have to be excellent problem solvers. Something breaks, you fix it. A customer changes their mind, you rearrange everything. Someone doesn’t turn up, you cover them. You spend years getting very good at putting fires out, and there is a strange satisfaction in being the person who can always save the day.

This is why the ‘Craftsman Season’ can be more of a challenge to some than the ‘Hunting Season’. With systems in place, things start running smoothly and it almost feels like you’re not doing enough. The temptation is to buy another machine, add another service, take on more customers. Suddenly things are chaotic again and we feel productive, but busy and progressing are not always the same thing.

Craftsman Season is about looking back at everything you learnt while building the business and being ruthless about it. Keep what worked. Drop what didn’t. Turn the good stuff into a repeatable process and then resist the temptation to keep reinventing it because something shinier has appeared over the fence.

Maybe your next chapter genuinely is growth. Great. Then build a business capable of carrying another five operators without everything still running through you.

Maybe you don’t want to grow at all. Maybe the win is doing roughly the same turnover with better margins, faster invoicing, happier staff and fewer nights sitting at the kitchen table.

Or maybe you discover that being slightly smaller, dropping the rubbish work and concentrating on your most profitable services actually gives you a better business and a better life.

The Hunting Season proves you can build something, the Craftsman Season is where you decide what you actually want your business to become, then get bloody good at getting out of your own way.