What if the “labor shortage” isn’t the full story… and the real profit leak is process?

In this episode of Savage Angel, Angela sits down with Mike Kanaby, Managing Partner & Co-Founder of Profitability Works, a construction operations consulting firm helping trade contractors and PE-backed platforms scale with structure, clarity, and repeatable execution.

Mike’s not speaking from theory—he came up through the trades (starting in the field as a carpenter), then climbed the leadership ladder all the way to running a $1.5B P&L with 3,000+ team members and 128 offices across North America.

Now, through Profitability Works’ Building Excellence Blueprint, Mike and his partner Stephanie Simmons help companies eliminate chaos by auditing operations end-to-end, rebuilding SOPs with bottoms-up planning, and making change stick through real-world change management (not “email it and hope”).

They also take on the big topics construction leaders can’t ignore: why “we just need more people” can sometimes be a symptom of inefficiency, how high-performing teams become magnets for talent, and why AI won’t save a broken business—but structured processes + centralized data will unlock AI’s real value.

If you’re a contractor trying to scale, integrate acquisitions, or stop losing margin to inefficiency, this conversation is your roadmap.

What You’ll Learn

• Why the best-performing branches treat SOPs like “gospel” (and failing branches drift from them)
• How bottoms-up planning increases buy-in and makes processes actually usable in the field
• The hidden way inefficiency creates a bigger labor shortage than you think
• Why “standing around on jobsites” is often a systems issue—not a people issue
• What forward-thinking contractors are doing: academies, mentorship, and capturing knowledge before retirements
• The 3 AI camps in construction—and why only one wins long-term
• Why AI requires centralized data + clear process checklists (or it outputs garbage)
• The first step a smaller contractor should take to build scalable operations

🔗 Connect with Mike Kanaby & Profitability Works

🌐 Website: Profitability Works
💼 LinkedIn: Mike Kanaby