Professional Partners

Developing and maintaining relationships with trade contractors and suppliers is a daily fact of life for remodelers. It's certainly no easy task, but at least it's a familiar, and therefore comfortable, one.

Making professional service providers part of your company's team can be a bigger stretch. It's one thing to hire an accountant to file taxes or an attorney for a contract dispute, but using an outside firm to assess, plan and execute business strategy requires a significant investment of time, money and trust.

The real challenge is that while it’s pretty obvious when you need to bring in a custom cabinetmaker or an asbestos contractor, office and management problems aren't always readily apparent. Business owners often come to financial consultant Leslie C. Shiner with a specific, short-term task such as setting up accounting software and then realize they need her help deciphering all the data now available to them.

"A lot of what the accountant used to do, the computer can do really well," says Shiner, president of Shiner Financial Services in Mill Valley, Calif. "Most remodelers and builders don't need a full-time accountant any more, but they don't have someone to look at the numbers and analyze them."

Working with remodeling clients whose firms range in size from $500,0000 to $10 million, she typically starts by implementing a detailed accounting and job-costing system that creates accurate financial statements. "Once you have that, you can really measure your productivity, do strategic planning," she says.

Some signs that it's time to look at hiring professional service partners to do work that you and your staff either can't do or can't do well:

Investing in Consultants Increases Productivity and Profitability