FEATURE ACTING WITH CONFIDENCE
BACKED Implementing change in business can often feel like a daunting task to undertake, but success requires a certain fearlessness BY BOLDNESS
H arrison Woodward “I couldn’t afford £60,000 a month in wages across various projects, plus £40,000 every couple of weeks in materials,” says the Managing Director of Woodward & White in Kent. “It was going to snowball, and I couldn’t fund it. remembers exactly how he felt when his business secured its first project worth £1 million. He was “petrified”. “It was going to be a game-changer for us, so I didn’t want to turn it down. Equally, if it went wrong, it would break us.” As every builder knows, when cash stops flowing, businesses often stop trading. Woodward needed to take on the project to set up his business for success, but the risks were huge. Plus, he had been stung before – £8,000 on one job, £4,000 on another. “I was honest with the client. I told them, ‘We haven’t got the bankroll to finance this. It’s the biggest project we’ve ever done, and we need an arrangement on payment terms.’ Once you break down the costs and explain it, people
understand. Builders often don’t want to ask for help, it’s frowned upon, but this was the first time I did it.” Before getting into how Woodward tackled the problem, it’s worth exploring why he felt he had to. “You don’t go to Tesco, pick up your shopping and pay you in 30 days.’ They want money now. I don’t know another industry that expects payments the way construction does.”
So why, he asks, do builders need to fund a project before receiving any compensation? “There’s nothing that safeguards us,” Woodward says, “nothing guaranteeing we’ll get paid. So yes, money is the biggest challenge, especially as you scale up and staff and material costs grow. It’s by far the biggest pressure. Assessing his finances, Woodward realised that to optimise profit and loss, he needed at least three projects running at any one time. But if each project costs £15,000 every two weeks, he couldn’t run it for 30-40 days and wait another 30 days for payment. “I asked one builder, ‘What if I took a £1,000 deposit just to secure the date, then invoiced every two weeks for what’s been done?” He said it made perfect sense. It felt almost too simple to work – but it does.” Creating a safety net So back to the £1 million project that Woodward couldn’t say no to. “We set up fortnightly payments. No one was owed huge sums; no one was
(l-r) Harry, Harrison, Mark and Alfie from Woodward & White in Kent
Master Builder 34
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