Industries / Electrical Contractors. NYC Metro. $2M to $10M.
Financial leadership built for electrical contractors. Material price volatility, low-voltage diversification, multi-trade GC project economics, license risk, and the banker readiness to fund growth.
Copper, switchgear, and panels move 8 to 22 percent in a quarter. Bids written six weeks ago against today's prices is where margin disappears quietly.
Adding low-voltage, fire alarm, or security to a traditional electrical business changes the financial profile. Different margins, different DSO, different working capital. Treating them as one P&L distorts decisions.
Working under general contractors means 60 to 90 day DSO, 5 to 10 percent retention, and lien rights that need active management. Most electrical contractors leave six figures of cash recoverable on the table over a multi-year career.
The apprentice cost on the timecard is half the loaded cost. Productivity ratios change quarter by quarter as apprentices advance. Standard burden rates lie.
The difference between a 22 percent bid hit rate and a 38 percent bid hit rate is two estimators on the same revenue base. Most owners have no idea which estimator is driving the gap.
Bid-to-execution material price variance by job. Identifies bids in trouble before execution starts.
Traditional electrical, low-voltage, security, fire alarm, service vs. project. Each broken out separately.
DSO by GC, retention aging, lien filing status by job.
Bid hit rate, average bid margin, post-execution variance from bid. By estimator.
Loaded labor cost by experience level, productivity ratios, total burden.
Banker readiness specific to electrical contractor risk profile.
$6.8M electrical contractor, NYC Metro. Three estimators, two PMs, mix of GC commercial and direct-to-owner. Diagnostic surfaced a 9-point gross margin gap on service work versus install. One estimator had been bidding install work at 12 percent gross when the actual was 6. We adjusted bid multipliers across the board, retrained the estimator, walked away from two unprofitable GC relationships. Net margin moved from 7 to 11 percent over 14 months. Banker increased the line of credit from $400K to $1.2M.
Most engagements start with the three-week Diagnostic ($8,000 Standard, $12,000 Premium, $16,000 Comprehensive). After Diagnostic, roughly two-thirds move into the Monthly Retainer at $5,500 to $8,500 per month for CFO scope, or $4,500 to $5,500 per month for Controller scope.
A 25-minute discovery call costs nothing and tells us both whether a Diagnostic is the right next step. If it is not, we will say so and point you in the right direction.
Book a 25-minute discovery call