Markup & Profit: A Contractor's Guide

Excellent information on mark-up & profit! Not your average "how to" book. It will generate many different approaches that can be adapted to all types of contractors.

There are many techniques mention in this book for you to try and apply.

A must for all contractors & sub's, new business or established.

I've heard a lot about the author on LinkedIn and decided to get this book.
I've been an electrical contractor for 15 years & this makes sense.
It's definitely worth the read & re-read.
My only wish was that was available in Kindle.

This book certainly gives structure to those whom are in need of establishing a more focused approach to business, rather than building. If you've already got the trade skills, integrity and honesty but need assistance on the business end...then this book will certainly help you get on your way to actually running a profitable business! To be successful, continued education is a much. This book has certainly been a welcomed addition of necessary knowledge.

I didn't really find this book of any value to me. I'm a licensed landscape contractor, and they only thing I've had to know is markup your purchases for the project, markup your employee pay, markup your contractors, all of which are typically between x1.15 and x1.3, variable per circumstance, but most typically in the x1.2 to x1.3 range. Plus figure your hourly wage or project fee, which depends on job project type and project length.
And that's it. That's what works great for me. All the matter of margin, profit, general project markup,… that can work, but doesn't work for me.
I learned what I needed to learn on line by Q&A lists, not by reading this book.

This book is essential for all contractors who want to be profitable. I have given away dozens of books to new and experienced contractors who want to improve their profitability.

I ordered this book back in November 2011 when I was in the middle of my "launch" of my remodeling business. This book helped me avoid the mistakes that many in my business do. Let's face it, many in remodeling are there because of layoffs or other reasons. They never had any experience in cost estimating, calculating overhead, or even know what the true hourly rate is for the their own trade. They just know what they made per hour at their old employer and add a little bit to cover their gas and cell phone. WRONG way to go about it.

This book solidified what I already knew from my years as an assistant project manager and estimator about office/ business overhead. It gave me great insight into marketing, over coming objection and really drove home the fact that you have to follow up and at ALL TIMES look professional. As I said before, many new to the business (and won't be there long if they don't learn fast) don't follow these things. In this book it was pounded home time and again that it isn't always about price, but if you have nothing else to offer, or behave or present yourself poorly, all you have to offer is price.

I've shared what I have learned with many of my subcontractors and it has helped them learn and improve too. GET THIS BOOK! I was successful beyond my expectations for the first year and did so in very hard economic times.

The forms included on the CD helped too. I modified them to fit my operation too.

Got stumped for nearly an hour on page 20 of this book. When explaining Markup (MU), Stone says "Selling price (SP) equals Job Costs (JC) divided by the reciprocal of Gross Margin (GM)" which on standard mathematical meaning of reciprocal would yield the formula "SP = JC/ 1/GM". Using his amounts of SP=30000, JC=18000, the answer would be SP = 18000/ 1/.4 = 72000, which can't be correct since he already said SP = 30000. When he explains this he incorrectly explains the reciprocal of GM as 1 - GM = .6, (1 - .4 does = .6), but the reciprocal of GM (GM = .4) is 1/GM or 1/.4, not
1 - GM. So, he said reciprocal when he meant something else, he misused the word. With this the adjustment, using (1 - .4) instead of (1/.4) yields the result 18000/.6 = 30000, the sought for answer. Thus the formula for selling price is SP = JC/ (1-GM) and not SP = JC/ 1/GM. MS also says use MU x JC to get SP because it's easier and faster and only requires multiplication instead of first finding the reciprocal (meaning 1 - GN, not 1/GM) and then dividing by the "reciprocal", in other words, just multiply JC by 1.667. and you get 30006 which is real close to the sought for SP. Whoa, hold on, where did this 1.667 multiplier come from. Easy, divide 30000 by 18000. But how can you calculate SP, easy, by dividing dividing SP by JC, getting 1.667 and the multiplying 1.667 times JC will yield SP. In other words, if you want to use a multiplier of JC to get SP, you first have to have calculated several SP's using the cumbersome formula SP = JC/ 1-GM, then divide SP by JC over several jobs, take an average and use that average multiplier of JC to quickly calculate SP in the field - a lot of prep work before it's easy to get a SP, and pray the multiplier isn't too variable. well, now on to page 21.

Most people in construction really have no idea how or what they should be marking up. This book is a perfect example on what should be done in the construction industry. I have been in construction since i was 8 years old and I still learned interesting ideas in this book. TRUST ME most people will read this book and be upset that they were not doing this 20 years ago. THINK about ALL the money you could have made ! Also i personally talked to michael stone on Linkedin. That is the type of guy the author is ... he is here to help out everyone not just make money selling books. I wish he would write more so i could read them.

This is book is a must have for all contractors--new to the trade or not. It's like having the "Cliff Notes" to running a successful construction/remodeling company. The advice is invaluable & made me completely rethink the way I run my business.

This book puts the numbers on pavement, it gave me a good idea of where my numbers should be coming from and opened a whole new ideas. I agree it is dated and the forms are anything but, however it's still a solid book.