Every year at this time, the same pressures show up:
“Needs to be finished by Christmas…”
“We need to hit lock-up before the break…”
“We’re behind — can you catch us up?”
It’s all pressure to cram work in before the holidays. It helps them, and it usually costs you — overtime that trashes your margins, a wrecked schedule, inefficiencies, and lost opportunities. And often it’s not even fair; they want you to fix their problem.
Here’s the pitfall: if you cave to the pressure, you compromise your profitability.
In the old days, behaving like a tradie, you might’ve copped it and taken the hit. But now, as a businessperson, you know better.
Your job is to ensure every job stays profitable. Any scope change — including schedule changes and hurry-ups — changes the cost.
So you either raise a variation and get it approved in writing… or you say, “No, not happening.”
It’s a scary one. Then you get used to it.
This is what good coaching is about — helping you resist other people’s bullshit because you know your numbers and the impact of rolling over.
And if you want help with that, come find me.