Sundt and Growth of Wealth

One of the most common and dangerous misconceptions we hear about ownership in a construction company is that it’s all about perks owners get.

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Perk (/pərk/) noun:  Abbreviation of perquisite - money, goods, or other benefit to which one is ENTITLED as an employee or as a SHAREHOLDER of a company.

Succession: Investing in a Construction Business. Book: Level Headed, Inside the Walls of One of the Greatest Turnaround Stories of the 21st Century by J. Doug Pruitt and Richard Condit.

  • What kind of vehicle can I get?
  • What kind of expenses can I get reimbursed?
  • What memberships can I get paid for?
  • What travel and entertainment can I get as benefits?
  • How much time can I take off?
  • How big will my office be?  

If these are the questions that come up, they are 100% the wrong level of questions.  

The biggest “perk” to being an owner of a construction company is the opportunity for your money get a 20-35% annual rate of return versus the 8% or so that the market provides.  

Owners who are focused on exploiting that single “perk,” viewing it more as a privilege, are the ones who will truly outperform in the long run.

Sundt is a great example of this alignment




Leading Change Quote - Arthur Schopenhauer
If you see something that no one else sees you are either genius or crazy of some combination of the two. If what you see is so big that you can’t ignore it be prepared for a long journey through the process of change.
Two Planning Dimensions
Some of the impacts you see on a project are not as clear as a design change, conflict, or obviously changed condition. Some impacts, such as poor project sequencing or congested work areas are hard to notice if you don’t have good tracking systems.
Success is Not Final and Failure is Not Fatal
The construction business is TOUGH! There will be years that go by where it seems you are on top of the world. There will be “perfect storms” where you have a bad project, a dip in the economy or lose a critical member of your team.