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Profit Defended
Paperback
ISBN13: 9781069882806
Publisher: John Anthony McCabe
Published: Apr 28 2026
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.33
Height: 0.91 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
If your construction or trades company is busier than ever but the money never quite adds up - this book is for you.
Profit Defended is the operating playbook for $1M-$20M project-driven companies - electrical contractors, fabrication shops, HVAC companies, sandblasting and coating operations, plumbing contractors, and any trade business running multiple crews across multiple jobs.
It answers one question most business books never ask:
Why does a busy, well-run contracting company keep losing margin it can't explain?
The answer isn't bad estimating. It isn't lazy crews. It isn't bad luck.
It's a 45-day blind spot - the gap between when profit disappears and when you finally see it on a report. By then, the job is over. The crew has moved on. And the best you can do is explain what went wrong.
Profit Defended shows you how to close that gap - while the work is still alive.
What You'll Learn:
- The True Cost Trap - Why your shop rate is lying to you and how to calculate what an hour of work actually costs across six hidden cost layers
- The Scheduling Multiplier - Why one delay becomes five problems by Friday, and how task-level scheduling stops the cascade before it costs you
- The Consumables Black Hole - How materials that don't matter much quietly drain margin on every job - and the simple burden rate formula that stops it
- The Fragmentation Trap - Why five systems give you five half-truths, and how to get one version of reality your whole team can trust
- The Billing Delay Trap - How to stop financing your own jobs by turning finished work into invoices before the week is over
- The Profit Defense System - How to build a structure that intercepts margin-killing decisions before they become permanent losses
This Is Not a Theory Book.
Every chapter follows real companies through the same transformation - from reactive, after-the-fact management to a system that protects profit while work is still in motion. You'll follow Sarah Mitchell at Summit Electrical Contractors from a $28,000 job loss that nobody could explain... to a business that recovered $120,000-$150,000 in margin in a single quarter - without winning a single extra job.
The frameworks are practical. The checklists are usable the same week you finish reading. The 30-Day Profit Defense Plan at the back of the book gives you a week-by-week installation guide with exact steps, real numbers, and no fluff.
Profit isn't found in reports. It's defended in real time.
Profit Defended shows you exactly how.
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