From Great Contractor to Great Owner: What a Builder Learned in His First 12 Years in Business

If you are a really good builder, you probably started your company because you could build, sell or run a crew. Then one day you woke up and realized you are also the accountant, the HR department, the marketing person and the one who gets the 2 a.m. call about a burst pipe. Being a good contractor is not the same thing as being a good business owner.

I sat down with Charlie Genin, who founded The Gen Group Construction in Lafayette, Louisiana in 2014. Charlie has worked with me as a coaching client, and I have enjoyed watching him learn in real time. He builds residential and commercial, spec and custom, in the new construction world. What follows is the honest version of his first twelve years, and the lessons I think any new or growing owner can use.

Why is a good contractor not automatically a good business owner?

Charlie said this was one of the biggest lessons he did not think about going in. Some of the best contractors are not great business owners, and some of the best people to run a business would not be great builders. His goal is to be good at both sides: the owner and operator side, and the process and team-building side.

The second thing he undervalued was the commitment. Everyone says they want to work for themselves for the flexibility. Charlie said it turns out to be the opposite. There is no such thing as being off on the holidays and done at five. He has taken the call at two in the morning about a pipe burst in a finished space, with an unhappy customer on the line. That is part of the deal.

Can you be the best contractor, owner, employer, dad and husband at the same time?

No, and Charlie said it plainly. The balance is really hard, and the answer is you cannot do all of it at the same time. Some days he is a better husband than owner, some days a better dad than owner. You are not going to hit them all every single day, but you need to hit all of them some days.

What changed for him was getting intentional about separating parts of his life. During business hours he is the owner and contractor. When he is home in the afternoon he turns it off, and aside from something truly big, the calls wait until tomorrow. His wife knows he may not be the most responsive in the day, and his kids know he will be home closer to five or six.

I coach the same thing in our priority management class: let the calendar be the driver. When you find out about the birthday party or the soccer game, it goes on the calendar right then. You do not owe the world an explanation of what is on it. The more you put on the calendar, the easier it is to say 'I already have something tomorrow.'

Can you compete with other builders without tearing them down?

Charlie loves the competition, and he hates to lose. But he has learned it is not about putting a competitor out of business. He believes in winning as a team, having contractor friends locally and around the country, and sharing information within reason. In his words, he is not showing anybody his bottom line, but he will help out with something a friend is struggling with.

In a market with a lot of competitive bidding, he often bids against friends. They may tell each other they are bidding, never the number, and congratulate each other afterward. When he talks to a client about another contractor, it is never negative: 'Yes, I know he is bidding. He is a good option too. Here is what is different about us.' His view: he can win more by promoting himself than by tearing down the guy next door.

What three habits shaped Charlie as a leader?

1. Work with integrity. Make the decision that you know is right, even when it costs you money, so you can sleep at night.
2. Surround yourself with people better than you. A mentor or coach, an attorney, an insurance expert, trusted partners. You cannot be the best at every side of the business.
3. Set achievable goals and celebrate the wins. A goal so big it is out of reach burns you out. Choose something you can reach in the next one to three years, then actually stop and celebrate.

Charlie also admitted he had been carrying the mountain alone, and that sharing the goals with his team has been nothing but positive. People who care about the business want to climb with you. He realized, too, that if he was not celebrating his own wins, he was probably not celebrating his team's either. He now makes a point to share good client feedback with the team, in a room full of other people.

What should a new builder or owner know before starting?

I asked Charlie for the advice he would give someone just starting out. Here is what he told them:

• Buckle up with the right mindset. Starting a business in any industry is hard work. Go in with realistic expectations.
• Know your numbers. You can be busy finishing houses and still not know if you are profitable, what your interest carry is or what your overhead costs.
• Start processes as an army of one. Do not wait until you have a team of ten. If something in the field breaks more than twice, you have a problem a process can fix. It might be a checklist or a calendar reminder.
• Do not get over-leveraged. Spec home financing makes it easy. Charlie, who came from the oil field, says construction can have notoriously high highs and low lows. A big year does not mean a new boat and a new house. Live below your means and keep a rainy day fund so one bad month does not turn you over.

What hats do new owners not know they are wearing?

I asked when Charlie discovered all the hats. He said it was there from day one. He secured the lot, built the house, paid the interest carry and filed the taxes. And around the building itself sits a whole other business: insurance, taxes, warranty, upset customers, brand management, SEO and Google reviews.

His advice on what to hand off first is simple: whatever you like doing the least. For Charlie, that was bill pay and bill entry, so administrative help in the office was one of his first moves. As you grow, keep shedding the things you like least to someone who is good at them and enjoys them more. Do the parts that you enjoy or that are necessary for the growth of the company.

How do you keep your standard of quality without micromanaging?

Charlie said consistency was the hardest part of delegating, because he is hard on himself about the homes he builds. If you micromanage, you never get out of the seat. The answer was systems. Start with a framing checklist of the pinch points: are the walls plumb, is the pocket door in the right spot, are the ceiling heights right, is the brick ledge blocked out, is the shower recess where it should be.

He said not to assume an experienced hire will do it the way you do. If you want a certain standard tied to your brand, you have to create that set of processes. They started with Excel and Google Sheets and now use project management software, with hundreds of hours in templates. The result is a consistent product no matter which team member is running your job. And Charlie says he sometimes watches the team do a better job than he did.

Find a mentor, join your local builders association

When Charlie started, his father-in-law helped him get off the ground financially, but he was not the one showing him how to plumb a wall. So for the first couple of years, they hired an experienced friend as a consultant to build a baseline of standards and checklists. That helped them avoid repeat failed inspections and expensive mistakes.

If you do not have a mentor, he recommends your local home builders association. He has been a member of his for over ten years and now serves on the board. You meet contractors, trade partners, insurance agents, attorneys and title firms, and the member mixers let you ask a question without asking a stranger for a four-hour meeting. You will not learn it all in one night. Keep going, and a year from now you will look back and see how far you came.

I added this: set aside the voice that asks what people will think. If you do not know how to do something, find someone who does. You can learn it the hard way, but it is a very long and very expensive journey. As Charlie put it, how do we buy time, buy information and buy resources? The money spent on good advice is faster and cheaper than learning every mistake yourself. And as a first-generation owner, there is no perfect guidebook, so lean on people further down the road.

Get it in writing: change orders, bids and documentation

Charlie was raised on handshake values, and he still believes in them, but he says get it in writing. It is impossible to enforce what is not written. Where most people get burned is change orders. It is easy to say 'We will add this for you, the cost is X,' and then at billing it is disputed. He does not think it is malicious, just that people forget. Define the scope and the price clearly so there is no dispute.

From my side, I coach that a change order should include plenty of profit and administrative time, and that it should be signed, and ideally paid for, before it becomes real. I have been burned myself, ordering longer joists for a deck the customer never actually approved. It is not real if it is not written.

Two more from Charlie:

• If it is too good to be true, it probably is. When one plumbing bid comes in 25 to 50 percent under the others, the plumber probably excluded something. On a fixed price job, you are left holding the bill. Ask for clarification or throw it out.
• Document everything. Weekly photos and project updates have prevented many disputes. Instead of trusting memories, you can look at the picture, the directive and the selection description. Clients appreciate the transparency, and being friends after the house is finished matters more to him than any ad.

Work on the business, not just in it

Charlie closed with the reminders he wants owners to hold on to. Spend intentional time working on the business, not just in it. Build processes, celebrate wins, set achievable goals, define core values and financial goals and track the numbers. If you only react to the problems of the day, you will not enjoy your career or reach your goals. Put it on your calendar.

For him, success is not just the bottom line. It is the balance of being a good husband, dad, role model and employer while doing right by his clients. And remember that clients are emotional beings. The experience matters as much as the execution, so make it organized, transparent and enjoyable. Do not compare yourself to somebody else's highlight reel, and give yourself some grace. It is okay to be imperfect. Stick to the process, and you will be further down the road than you were yesterday.