The Contractor’s Profit System™ with LiteningFast™ Estimating Demo Video
Discover How You Can Make Money Consistently, Job After Job
You will find demo videos that cover every aspect of The Contractor’s Profit System with LiteningFast Estimating here.
Here’s what You Get With The Contractor’s Profit System with LiteningFast Estimating:
Are You Ready for a Change?
You can do it too. I will help you achieve your goals. I can’t help you out on the job site, but I sure can show you how to make a difference in your profitability! Isn’t it time for you to start changing the way you’re doing business?
Would you approach your bids and your jobs differently if you knew you were going to make money using the system I’m about to show you? Would you invest in it?
I wonder how your family will react when you start making money on every job. What will it be like to have more time with them doing the things you really want to do?
Based on conversations with thousands of contractors since 1977, I’ve come to the realization that the difference between contactors that are making money and those that aren’t is job cost. Most small and medium contractors are not doing effective job cost.
Most small and medium sized contractors are “Guesstimating”; they aren’t estimating. If you don’t know exactly how much your material is going to cost and exactly how long it’s going to take to do the work, you’re guessing.
Many contractors look at a 15 foot wall and say “It will take about a day to do that.” The same contractor a week or month later will look at a 20 foot wall and say “It will take about a day to do that.” There’s nothing measurable. If you can’t measure the result, you can’t cost it and therefore you can’t estimate it.
Everything you do must be measurable. Linear feet, square feet, cubic yards, whatever unit of measure you want. When you measure the wall at 15 feet you need to know that you’re going to spend $1.50 a foot for material and it’s going to take an hour per foot @ $25.00 per hour (These are totally made up numbers). That way when the job’s done you look at how much you spent for material and how long it took. If the results were different than expected, adjust your estimating so you make money the next time you do a wall.
I call it the…
Contractor’s Profit System
There are four main pieces to the system:
- LiteningFast Estimating. It’s designed to be simple to learn, easy to use and “Error Proof” your estimates. I’ll get in to more detail in a minute.
- QuickBooks Interface. We chose to integrate with QuickBooks back in 1994 because it was a simple, easy to use accounting system that has a job cost contractors can use.
- Video Tutorials. We give you complete step-by-step video tutorials that teach you exactly how to use LiteningFast Estimating and how to get the most out of QuickBooks.
- Unlimited lifetime support. This is a big one. Most companies charge $300 a year and more for support. What does that say about their system?
The Contractor Profit System will get you to a place that you’re estimating more accurately and making money on each of your jobs. And you’ll sleep better knowing that if you don’t get a job you didn’t want it because you weren’t going to make money doing it. As a matter of fact, even if you’re more expensive than some of your competitors you can use that against them. You can say something like “I’m bidding to make a fair and reasonable profit so I stay in business for the long term. If you want to deal with somebody that you can trust to do excellent work now and in the future, then I’m your man, because I’ll be here to do the work.
Let me ask you a question. If you don’t change the way you’re doing business what is your life going to be like a year from now? Albert Einstein made the comment that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.”
Let’s talk about how the different pieces of the LiteningFast system and how they’re going to work for you.
Easy to Learn
You’ll be able to learn how to use LiteningFast estimating very quickly. Depending on your level of computer expertise, you can learn it in as little as a couple of hours. This is one of our “claims to fame.” We don’t have some of the impossible to learn “Bells and Whistles” that some of the estimating programs do. Many of the programs that cost $2,000 and more require you to go to a class for a week or so to learn how to use the program. On top of that, if you don’t use the program, and all the special features, on a daily basis you’ll forget more than you ever knew about the program.
Estimate Like You Work
LiteningFast allows you to estimate by sections. Sections break things up into logical groups like foundations, framing, roofing and so on. This means that when you’re doing your takeoff you open, for example, the foundation section and take of the items you need for the foundations on the job. Next, you’d open the framing section and take off the framing items. And so on.
This gives you an advantage in two ways:
- When you’re taking off foundations you’re only seeing the items (materials and labor) that are related to foundations. There’s no roofing items here so you’re not lost in a sea of items that aren’t related to what you’re working on right now.
- You have a logical progression or sequence to do your take off. It’s like the checklist the astronauts use when their on a mission. Everything is done by the checklist because it reduces errors to a minimum. Error proofing in action.
Here’s one additional note about sections. LiteningFast comes with three different section lists for you to use and modify to fit your specific needs:
- Default list – a list I created for homebuilders and remodeling contractors while collaborating with 100,s of contractors to get what works and works well. It’s a good simple list.
- CSI – Construction Standards Institute – If you do commercial work this is the right one for you because architects specify their jobs using the CSI Masterformat.
- NAHB – National Association of Homebuilders – This is the list they recommend. Personally, I think out of date and a little cumbersome.
“Super” Items
Each of the items in LiteningFast has 5 components, the cost for materials, labor, equipment, subcontracts and miscellaneous. This means that when you take off one quantity, like the linear feet of wall, you get all the costs with one entry. This means that you can do your takeoff faster. It also reduces the potential for errors because you only have one entry rather than several and so you are less prone to making typographic errors (typing in the wrong number).
When you’ve done the takeoff, or while you’re doing the takeoff, you can review your estimate. Since the review is organized by sections, it’s easy to see what you have grouped in each section. This means you can spot any missing or duplicated items easily, error proofing your estimate.
Let’s take a look at a video of how this works. LINK TO VIDEO
Additional Features
Some other things you’re going to find in LiteningFast Estimating are:
- Add Notes To Each Level Of Your Estimates So Your Customer Knows Exactly What You’re Going To Do So There Are No Misunderstandings!’
- ‘Get Exact Quotes From Your Suppliers So Your Bids Are Right On The Money!’
- ‘Use The Copy Estimate Function To Show Your Customer Options That Are Available To Them. This Means That You Can Impress Your Customers With Your Flexibility And Improve Your Chances Of Getting The Job Even If Your Bid Is Higher Than Your Competitors.’
- ‘You Can Use ‘Templates’ To Pre-Build The Things You Do. Like Different Floor Plans, Kitchen Remodels, or Bath Remodels, So Your Takeoff Can be Done In Minutes And You Don’t Miss Any Of The Items That Should Be In The Job.’
- ‘Send Your Estimate To Microsoft Word So You Can Add Pictures, Descriptions Of The Work To Be Done, Your Contract Terms, And Format It Any Way You Want To Make Your Estimate Look As Professional As You Are!
- ‘Create Schedules For Your Jobs While You’re Estimating. This Means You Can Educate Your Customer As To What’s Going To Happen When.‘
- ‘View Your Estimated Costs While You’re Estimating So You Can See How You’re Doing Compared To Your Customers’ Budget!’
- ‘You Can Adjust Any, Or All, Lines Of Your Estimate To Fit Specific Job Circumstances. This Means You’re Not Locked In To Generic Prices Which May Not Fit The Specific Situation.’
- ‘Your Profit And Overhead Can Be Adjusted On A Job-By- Job Basis Which Means That If, For Example, You’ve Got A Customer That’s Going To Be A Pain To Deal With You Can Easily Increase Your Profit Percentage. So, When You Get The Job You’ll Be Paid For Your Pain!’
- ‘You Can Break Your Jobs Into Phases Like A Room Addition And A Kitchen Remodel On The Same Estimate. This Feature Is Very Effective For Insurance Repairs Because You Can Break The Job Down Room By Room Just Like The Insurance Companies Want It.’
QuickBooks Integration
We integrate with QuickBooks to create the simplified budgets for your job cost. It’s so simple to do that you’ll be amazed. It’s literally clicking a button. That’s it. LiteningFast has been awarded the Silver Developer logo by QuickBooks. This means we’ve gone through stringent testing by a national testing organization that certifies we have met Intuit’s rigid specifications for integrating with QuickBooks. Very few developers have achieved this certification.
You’ll find that our QuickBooks budgets are unique. We call them “simplified”. What does that mean? Let’s say you have ten items you’ve taken off in the framing section. We summarize those ten items into 2 or three items. So, if the total material budget for the ten items is $1,250 we would create a budget item for fra
ming materials of $1,250, NOT ten individual material items. Likewise with labor we summarize the labor cost, let’s say $1,500 for the total labor for the ten items, and create a budget item in QuickBooks for $1,500 labor budget for framing.
What does this mean to you? Two things:
- Data entry of the actual expenses to the budget is very simple. It takes about an extra 10 or 15 seconds per bill to do the job cost.
- You can see the forest for the trees when you’re reviewing the job cost actual Vs budget reports. This means that you can spot problems early so the don’t become BIG job threatening ones.
It all comes down to simplification. The simpler it is to do the more likely it is to get done! If it doesn’t get done you’ll never get out of the spiral you’re in.
Video Tutorials
Video tutorials make it very easy to learn how to use each and every aspect of the program. The great thing is that you can review these videos at any time so if there’s a feature you haven’t used before or haven’t used in a long time you pop the video CD into your computer to see the step-by-step tutorial. Do you think that this would be a big help in learning the system?
Free Lifetime Support
What can I say about unlimited lifetime support? Phone or email I’m here to answer your questions. I’ve been doing this since 1994 and have never charged a penny for support. How would you feel knowing you can get support from someone that knows what they’re talking about, when you need it and not have to pay for it?
As I mentioned earlier, the reason I can do this is that I don’t have to do much support, 3-4 minutes for the life of each customer. That’s it! this is based on supporting over 4,200 customers since 1994.
PLUS – Free No Risk 15 Day Trial
Put The Contractor’s Profit System through it’s paces, wring it out! If you don’t think the system will do everything I’ve said and improve your business dramatically, cancel it. Use the full 15 days to make confirm that it will make a dramatic change in your business. If not, cancel it within the 15 days and it will cost you nothing.
Discover how you can take your business to the next level!