At Performance Financial LLC, we help a lot of contractors, construction, and remodeling companies with their accounting needs – including their tax-reduction planning and bookkeeping. 

While working with our clients and talking to prospects, we’ve learned that remodelers are busy! This is great, but it can prevent them from growing their business and making it more scalable long term. 

This is where our experts step in! To help busy contractors in Des Moines, we’ve compiled a list of common mistakes remodelers make, and how to correct them to improve their business.

#1 Des Moines Remodeler Fail: Doing Your Taxes, Bookkeeping & Accounting

We encounter a lot of remodelers in Des Moines who try to do their own accounting, tax, and bookkeeping work. While you might think you’re saving money by not paying a part-time bookkeeper, or an outsourced accounting firm, you can be costing yourself money. 

One of the most important reasons to avoid doing your own bookkeeping, taxes, payroll, and other accounting is that while you’re an amazing contractor, you are likely not a tax or accounting wizard. This can leave you vulnerable to costly mistakes. Your business taxes are not an area where you want to make an error. This can land you in trouble with the IRS, or it can result in you overpaying your taxes.

Doing your bookkeeping can also take up a lot of your valuable time. Instead of running payroll and working on your books, you could be focused on performing amazing remodels, and growing your business. 

Let our experts at Performance Financial handle your books. We have a team of experts who live and breathe taxes and accounting. Let them work on a tax-reduction plan for you, handle your books, run your payroll, and handle your other accounting needs. 

#2 Des Moines Remodeler Fail: Not Targeting Your Ideal Customer

Another common mistake we see Des Moines remodelers make is trying to work with any customers who are willing to hire them. We get the temptation – it’s great to have money flowing in. However, this can prevent you from doing great work.

Instead, it’s important to define your ideal customer, and then focus on targeting just that audience. To do this, consider these key questions:

• What types of projects do you excel at?
• What work are you passionate about?
• Who can you really help?
• What type of customer will help you grow your business and your profits?

After identifying your ideal customer, you then need to shift your marketing efforts to only target that group. Use language and keywords on your ads, website content, and social media posts to attract those specific customers. 

Doing this can be a little scary. You are focusing only on certain customers and turning your back on others. But it will be better for your business. Instead of doing good work for many, you will do great work for your ideal customers. You will have the time and ability to understand their needs and the value they need to see out of your work. 

#3 Des Moines Remodeler Fail: Working with a Reactive Accountant

A big financial mistake contractors in Des Moines make is working with a tax accountant who doesn’t help you proactively plan for your taxes throughout the year. Instead, you might find out when filing your taxes that you owe a lot of money. At this point, it’s too late. Instead, you need to hire a proactive tax accountant – like ours here at Performance Financial - who helps you plan throughout the year to reduce your taxes and ensure you never overpay.

#4 Des Moines Remodeler Fail: Not Establishing Credibility

As a remodeler, you do a lot of really cool, quality work. However, a mistake we see a lot of contractors make is not showing off this work – or your client testimonials. On your website and marketing materials, you might tell prospective customers about the awesome projects you’ve completed, but you’re not establishing credibility by actually showing your work. 

Instead, showcase photos of your completed projects (like the example above), and post testimonials from your clients raving about your work. This will help prospects develop trust in your work.

#5 Des Moines Remodeler Fail: Not Making Sales, Marketing & Production a Priority

When creating your Des Moines remodeling company’s budget, you might be tempted to invest any surplus into a new building space or add more staff. This can be a mistake. Instead, you should set yourself up for long-term success by putting your money and efforts into sales, marketing, and production. 

Investing in marketing and sales will help you grow your business. This means more leads, more projects, and ultimately, more money. Then, after you’re even more profitable, you can look at a new building or increase your headcount.

#6 Des Moines Remodeler Fail: Not Creating Enough Videos

A common mistake Des Moines contractors make is not using enough video. We get it– you don’t want to see your face or hear your voice. But your customers do. Video helps establish credibility with prospective clients and helps them feel more connected to you. Creating more videos and putting them on your sites and social media profiles can help you grow your business.

#7 Des Moines Remodeler Fail: Using an Outdated Website

The daily demands of your Des Moines remodeling business can keep you busy (and then some). But it’s essential to make creating a modern, user-friendly website a priority. If your website is outdated and hard to navigate, it will turn customers away. Think about it. If your website is poorly designed, what impression does that give about your remodeling work? Don’t deter customers from reaching out and learning about your stellar remodeling services. Instead, invest in a modern, sleek, user-friendly site that will help you gain leads and customers. You can use a company like Feedbackwrench to help!

#8 Des Moines Remodeler Fail: Shying Away from In-Person, Front-End Activities

While digital ads work great to drive leads and conversions, it’s easy to hide behind digital marketing and forget about the value of a phone call or a face-to-face interaction. 

To increase your branding and attract new customers, it’s essential to attend networking events and in-person meetings, go to tradeshows, make phone calls, and more, to establish relationships. 

#9 Des Moines Remodeler Fail: Not Using Integrated Billing Software

As a busy remodeler, you need to save as much time and effort as you can. We’ve noticed that a lot of companies are not using integrated software. This can offer you huge time savings in billing, routing, scheduling, and more. It can also prevent you from making errors.

Our experts at Performance Financial can help you determine the best integrated billing software for your needs, and help you get it up and running. 

#10 Des Moines Remodeler Fail: Not Targeting Local Content for SEO

When creating your website, ads, blogs, social media posts, and other marketing materials, we’ve noticed a lot of remodelers do not target your local area. This is a mistake, as doing this will greatly increase your SEO (which impacts where you show up in a Google search). Notice how we put “Des Moines” in this blog headline? There’s a reason for it. Most people will search “remodeler near me” when trying to find a contractor. The closer to the top of the search results you show up, the better chance you have of being considered for the job.

Conclusion

Operating a remodeling company in Des Moines is a full-time job and more. At Performance Financial, we want to take some work off your plate. Trust us to handle your bookkeeping, taxes, and accounting needs so you can ensure they are done correctly. This will give you peace of mind to focus on what you do best –growing your business.