Builders, Budgets, and Beers

Reece sits down with Tom Atkinson of Trades Alignment to explore why contractors can hit their gross margin targets and still struggle to make money. Drawing on his experience building and selling a trades business, Tom explains how understanding overhead costs and net profit per labor hour can completely change the way contractors price their work. They discuss job costing, smarter pricing decisions, and the financial systems that help businesses turn more work into actual profit.

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheTomAtkinson
Trades Alignment: https://www.tradesalignment.com
Book/Speaking/Etc: https://www.thetomatkinson.com
Amazon Book link: https://a.co/d/03tNQPfC

Show Notes:
00:11 Show Intro
00:50 Tom's Trades Journey
08:32 The Missing Profit Metric
10:23 Busier, Less Profitable
14:26 The Gross Margin Trap
15:27 Allocating Overhead Properly
18:47 Simplifying Profit Calculations
20:14 Knowing Your Numbers
22:37 Better Pricing Decisions
26:25 The Job Costing Gap
28:27 Building For An Exit
30:20 Tom's Tools And Resources

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Reece sits down with Andrew Amrhein of Precision SME to break down why so many construction businesses avoid business planning and how to make the process simple enough to actually use. Andrew walks through a five-step framework built around reflecting, affirming, measuring, committing, and reviewing, along with the questions that help builders clarify where the business is going.

They cover financial check-ins, gross profit consistency, delegation, visual management, quarterly commitments, and why the plan itself matters less than building the habit of planning. If your business feels busy but directionless, this episode gives you a practical way to step out of the day-to-day and build a plan your team can actually execute.

https://precision-sme.com
Download Andrew's Annual Planning Checklist here

Show Notes:
00:00:13 Show Intro
00:02:39 Meet Andrew
00:05:18 Planning Problem
00:14:42 Create Reflection Space
00:18:39 Start With Wins
00:23:36 Five Planning Steps
00:27:05 Build The Vision
00:43:50 Measure And Commit
00:47:17 Review The Plan
00:50:48 Planning At Any Size
00:56:19 Execute And Learn

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Reece sits down with Steven Bernitt, CFO at Artisan Builders, to talk about what happens when a residential construction business is making decisions with financial information that is already out of date. Steven explains how real-time project budgets, better purchase order discipline, and a faster monthly close can give builders a clearer picture of cash flow and job performance.

They also get into why context creates team buy-in, how accurate documentation builds client trust, and why being busy does not automatically mean the company is financially healthy. This is a practical look at building financial systems that help a construction company make better decisions before cash gets tight.

https://artisanbuilds.com
https://www.linkedin.com/company/artisan-builders-llc
https://www.instagram.com/artisan_builders

Show Notes:
00:53 Meet Steven Bernitt
04:25 Context Drives Buy-In
06:32 Better Processes Matter
11:23 Live Project Budgets
15:49 Field Context Matters
20:07 Fixing Monthly Close
23:10 Cash Flow Timing
29:54 Building Client Trust
36:32 Better Future Estimates
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Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Reece sits down with Matt Calvano, co-founder and CEO of Adaptive, to talk about why construction financials break down when the field and back office are working from different information. Unlike most businesses, construction accounting depends on constantly understanding what is actually happening on each project.

They get into why buying software based on features alone rarely fixes the problem, how builders can give their teams more freedom to test better tools, and why workflow matters as much as the system itself. Matt also shares where Adaptive is headed after its $30 million Series B, including using operational context from schedules, daily logs, email, and the field to make financial reporting more accurate and proactive.

Show Notes:
00:11 Matt Returns
02:11 Accounting Needs Operations
06:43 Where Software Breaks
10:46 Workflow Before Software
16:19 Better Buying Decisions
20:12 Rethinking Construction Tech
21:53 Define Success First
24:56 Adaptive's Next Chapter
29:06 Operational Context
31:58 Financials In Real Time

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

This compilation episode revisits past conversations with Tyler Grace, Shawn Van Dyke, Isabel Affinito, and Paul Atherton to explore when, why, and how builders should scale their businesses.

Across four different perspectives, the conversations cover profitable growth, knowing your numbers, building the right team, simplifying systems, getting the owner out of day-to-day operations, and deciding what growth is actually supposed to provide. The common thread is simple: more revenue and more volume do not automatically create a better business.

Tyler Grace, TRG Home Concepts
Know Your Numbers, Not Just Your Craft
Listen to the Tyler Grace episode

Paul Atherton
Why Most Builders Stay Stuck at $2M
Listen to the Paul Atherton episode

Isabel Affinito
Systems, People, and Profit
Listen to the Isabel Affinito episode

Shawn Van Dyke
Know Your Numbers, Protect Your Margin
Listen to the Shawn Van Dyke episode

Show Notes:
00:11 Show Intro
00:58 Tyler’s Business Model
05:31 Scaling Fundamentals
08:04 Profit Before Growth
16:34 Fix Money First
20:20 Scaling Magnifies Chaos
21:54 Getting Out Of Operations
25:04 Building Self Management
28:04 Define Your Anti Goals
30:06 Build Around Your Life

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Reece sits down with Kevin Aycock of Southern Luxury Homes to talk about what it actually takes to get control of the financial side of a construction business. Kevin shares how COVID forced him to rethink estimating, cost-plus construction, preconstruction, and the systems his team used to understand costs before work began.

They break down markup versus margin, tracking overhead, using purchase orders, and why builders need someone helping them review their financials every month. Kevin’s biggest lesson is simple: financial discipline takes work, but putting it off only makes the problem harder.

https://southernluxury.com
https://www.instagram.com/southernluxuryhomes

Show Notes:
00:09 Show Intro
01:05 Meet Kevin
02:51 Knowing Your Numbers
04:47 COVID Changed Costs
08:38 Cost Plus Trust
12:09 Fixing Preconstruction
16:03 Building Better Systems
20:33 Markup Versus Margin
26:32 Understanding Overhead
29:48 Reviewing The Books
33:56 Start Right Now
35:01 Connect With Kevin

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Reece sits down with Jared Westergard of Blackline Financial to talk about why so many builders are still making financial decisions without fully trusting the numbers in front of them.

They cover overhead, deposits, cash flow, bad data, and the systems that can make the financial side of a construction business easier to understand. The goal is simple: stop the financial guesswork and start making decisions with better information.

https://blackline.financial
https://www.instagram.com/jaredwestergard

Show Notes:
00:07 Show Intro
00:52 Meet Jared
03:29 Money Conversations
05:59 Financial Blind Spots
08:10 Fixing The Foundation
12:07 Cleaning Up Books
17:26 Profit Without Cash
20:15 Deposits And Cash Flow
25:24 Feeding The Machine
28:18 Systems And Roles
33:16 One Number First

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Reece revisits conversations with Julie Adams of Sage, Deepti Yenireddy of Boone AI, and Ryan Rademann of Wipfli about how AI is changing the work of construction.

Pulled from three past episodes, these conversations explore estimating, financial reporting, outdated systems, workforce shortages, and AI literacy. Together, they point toward a bigger shift: AI is not simply replacing people or automating tasks. It is changing where people provide value and what contractors need from their teams, systems, and processes.

Julie Adams, Sage
The AI Opportunity In Construction with Julie Adams
Listen to the Julie Adams episode 

Deepti Yenireddy, Boone AI
How AI Speeds Up Profitable Bids with Deepti Yenireddy
Listen to the Deepti Yenireddy episode 

Ryan Rademann, Wipfli
How Contractors Can Adopt AI Agents Without Chaos with Ryan Rademann
Listen to the Ryan Rademann episode

Show Notes:
00:07 Show Intro
01:40 AI Adoption Rising
05:40 Where AI Helps
07:54 Faster Business Insights
12:12 Beyond ChatGPT
14:00 Jobs And Opportunity
17:12 Estimating Bottlenecks
20:43 AI And Workforce
27:42 Fix Systems First
31:24 AI Ready People
34:48 Contractors Become Tech
39:06 Redefining Human Value

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Reece sits down with construction bookkeeper Aimee Roden to talk about the back-office mistakes that quietly cost contractors money, from poor cost coding to delayed billing and unreliable job-cost reports.

Aimee breaks down why contractors overload their chart of accounts, how coding connects directly to AIA billing and accounts receivable, and why waiting until the end of a job to understand performance is a dangerous way to run a business. They also get into when owners become the bottleneck, why these problems grow with revenue, and how better systems and AI can make the financial side of construction easier to manage.

Show Notes:
00:12 Show Intro
00:43 Meet Aimee Roden
03:33 Construction Job Costing
05:21 Coding And Billing
06:00 Chart Of Accounts
12:00 Cost Codes Explained
14:51 AIA Billing Problems
18:01 Tracking Real Performance
21:23 Getting Paid
26:28 Scaling The Back Office
30:22 AI And Efficiency

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media

Reece sits down with Bryan Eberson, founder of Eberson Construction and Remodeling, to talk about why the trades may be one of the biggest business opportunities available to the next generation, and what separates simply having a job from building a company with long-term value.

Bryan shares how he grew from a one-man operation to a 20-person design-build firm, why field experience still matters, and how investing in people, EOS, systems, and clear ownership helped him stop being the bottleneck.

https://ebersonconstruction.com

Show Notes:
00:12 Show Intro
00:58 Meet Bryan
05:32 Construction's Opportunity
07:16 Starting Young
10:08 Earn Your Stripes
12:59 Trades And Ownership
16:14 Building To Sell
19:25 Invest In People
21:23 Systems Create Scale
24:10 Owner Bottleneck
26:45 Building The Vision
31:25 Build Something Lasting

Find Our Hosts:
Reece Barnes
Matt Calvano

Podcast  Produced By:
Motif Media