Thirty Years in the Trenches: A General Contractor’s Honest Account

By Michael Torres, Owner/President, AAA Construction Company Corp, Virginia

I’m 54 years old. I’ve held a General Contractor’s license for three decades, and if you’d told 24-year-old me what I’d learn in those years, I would’ve laughed and said you were exaggerating. You weren’t.

This industry will humble you, reward you, bankrupt you if you’re careless, and build generational wealth if you’re disciplined. Construction sits right alongside restaurants, trucking, and retail as one of the hardest businesses to sustain—but unlike those industries, when you build something, it stays. That bridge, that hospital wing, that subdivision—your work outlives you. That’s the part that keeps me going when the margins get thin and the change orders pile up.

Financing was the first in mind when I saw the angle of construction. I say to myself, without money, you can’t buy material. If you can’t borrow, you save. Time over time you save, while you lost time. That’s when I realize time is money. We need to find Contractor Equipment Leasing in Virginia so I could begin local work.

If you’re reading this because you’re thinking about getting into contracting, or you’re a few years in and wondering if you’ll make it, let me save you some tuition. Here’s what I wish someone had told me in 1996. I was beyond handy, I was also mindy, where my mind was always looking for ways to expand, next project before the next one has started. It was chasing against time.

The Work Itself: Love It or Leave

Construction is not a desk job with predictable hours. It’s 5:30 AM starts, walking jobsites in 105-degree heat or freezing rain, managing subs who show up late (or don’t show up at all), dealing with inspectors who interpret code differently than the last guy, and clients who want champagne results on a beer budget.

But here’s what they don’t tell you: there’s a profound satisfaction in seeing a project go from a dirt lot to a finished building. I’ve built schools where kids will learn for the next 50 years. I’ve renovated hospitals where people will heal. I’ve done ground-up commercial buildings that now house thriving businesses. Every time I drive past one of those projects, I feel it. That’s mine. My crew built that.

The quality of your work is your reputation. In this business, your name travels faster than your marketing budget. Do shoddy work, cut corners, ghost a client when there’s a punch list issue—you’re done. Word gets around. But deliver on time, on budget, with craftsmanship that exceeds expectations? You’ll never lack for work.

I’ve always operated with one rule: build it like you’re going to own it. If I wouldn’t accept it in my own home, it doesn’t leave my jobsite.

The Sales Process: You’re Not Just Building, You’re Selling

Young contractors think the work sells itself. It doesn’t.

You need to sell before you ever pick up a shovel. That means understanding the client’s vision, translating it into realistic scope and budget, and setting expectations so clear that there’s no room for surprise. I’ve learned to walk jobs three times before I bid: once to see the site, once to think through sequencing and logistics, and once to catch what I missed the first two times.

Bidding is an art. Bid too high, you don’t get the job. Bid too low, you get the job and lose money. I’ve done both. The painful lessons came from bidding too low—thinking I could “make it up” with change orders or efficiency gains. You can’t. A bad bid is a bad bid, and you’ll bleed for six months trying to finish it.

Here’s the system I use now:

Detailed takeoffs with no assumptions. If it’s not on the plans, it’s not in my bid.
Contingency line items for unknowns (especially on renovation work—you will find surprises behind those walls).
Clear exclusions—spell out what’s NOT included so there’s no confusion later.
Payment schedules tied to milestones—never front-load your billing, but never let receivables stretch beyond 30 days either.

The sale doesn’t end when you sign the contract. You’re selling every day: selling the client on why a change order is necessary, selling your subs on why they need to show up tomorrow, selling your banker on why you need that credit line increase. If you’re not comfortable selling, you won’t make it.

Managing People: The Hardest Part of the Job

I love managing people. I know that’s weird to say, because most GCs I know hate it. But I genuinely enjoy building a team, training them, watching them grow, and seeing them take ownership of their work.

Here’s the truth: your business is only as good as your people. I don’t care how good you are at reading plans or estimating—if you can’t manage a crew, you’ll cap out as a one-man show doing small residential remodels. To scale, you need people you trust.

Hiring is brutal in construction. The labor pool is thin, the good people are already employed, and the ones who aren’t… well, there’s usually a reason. I’ve learned to hire for attitude and train for skill. Give me someone who shows up on time, takes direction, and genuinely cares about the work, and I’ll teach them the rest. But I can’t teach someone to care.

I run a tight operation:

Weekly toolbox talks on Monday mornings—safety, schedule, expectations.
Daily site walks with my foreman to catch issues before they become problems.
Respectful but firm accountability—if you’re late twice, we have a conversation. Three times, you’re gone.

I also pay well. I know what good carpenters, electricians, and project managers are worth, and I pay at or above market rate. Turnover is expensive—recruitment, training, mistakes from inexperienced hands. Keeping good people is cheaper than constantly replacing them.

And here’s something nobody talks about: HR and legal compliance will eat you alive if you’re not careful. Workers’ comp, liability insurance, wage and hour laws, OSHA regulations, prevailing wage on public jobs—this stuff is complex, and ignorance is not a defense. I got sideways with a wage claim early in my career because I misclassified an employee as an independent contractor. That mistake cost me $18,000 and a year of stress. Now I have a payroll company, an HR consultant on retainer, and iron-clad employee agreements. It’s not sexy, but it protects the business.

The Money: Construction is a Cash Flow Business, Not a Profit Business

This is where most contractors fail.

You can have a million dollars in contracts and still go bankrupt if your cash flow is broken. I’ve seen it happen. A GC wins a big public job, starts work, pays subs and suppliers out of pocket, waits 60–90 days for the first draw, runs out of cash, can’t make payroll, and folds. The job was profitable on paper, but cash flow killed them.

Construction financing is its own beast. You need access to capital at every stage:

Working capital to cover payroll, materials, and subs between payment draws.
Equipment financing to acquire the machinery you need without draining cash reserves.
Lines of credit to smooth out the lag between AR and AP.
Construction loans for ground-up projects where the client is financing through a bank.
Commercial loans for growth—buying a yard, expanding your fleet, opening a second office.

I’ve worked with Liberty Capital Group for years now, and they’ve been instrumental in helping me scale. Early on, I tried to bootstrap everything—paid cash for equipment, floated jobs on credit cards, deferred my own salary to make payroll. It nearly broke me.

Then I learned that leverage is not a dirty word. Smart use of financing—leasing equipment instead of buying outright, securing a working capital line to cover gaps, using factoring when a client is slow-paying—these tools let me take on bigger jobs without risking insolvency.

Here’s my financial system now:

Separate operating account and project accounts—every job has its own account so I can track costs in real time.
Weekly cash flow forecasting—I know what’s coming in, what’s going out, and where the gaps are.
30-day AR target—if a client goes past 30 days, they get a call. Past 45, they get a lien notice.
Equipment leasing with $1 buyout—I lease excavators, loaders, trucks. Keeps cash free for operations, payments are tax-deductible, and I own the equipment at the end.
Relationship with a commercial banker—not just a loan officer, but someone who understands construction cycles and can move fast when I need capital.

I also track my numbers obsessively. Profit margin by job, labor burden as a percentage of revenue, overhead recovery rate, days in AR, equipment utilization. If you don’t know your numbers, you’re flying blind.

Credit and Banking: Your Financial Reputation is Everything

Your personal and poor business credit scores determine everything in this industry. Want a bond for a public job? They’ll pull your credit. Want a line of credit? Credit score matters. Want to lease equipment? Same.

I learned this the hard way. In my late 20s, I had some personal financial issues—divorce, medical bills, a few late credit card payments. My score dropped to the low 600s. When I went to get bonded for a school project, I was declined. I lost a $400,000 job because of a 620 credit score.

I spent two years cleaning that up—paying off collections, disputing errors, rebuilding payment history. Now my personal FICO sits around 740, and my business credit (Dun & Bradstreet, Experian Business) is strong. Doors open.

Here’s my advice:

Separate personal and business credit early. Get an EIN, open business bank accounts and credit cards in the company name, build a file with the business credit bureaus.
Pay everything on time. I don’t care if it’s a $50 supplier invoice—pay it on time. Your payment history is your reputation.
Monitor your credit. I check my personal and business credit quarterly. Errors happen, and they can tank your score if you don’t catch them.
Build banking relationships before you need them. I have lunch with my banker twice a year, even when I don’t need anything. When I do need something—an emergency line increase, a fast equipment loan—he knows me and can move quickly.

Legal Protection: CYA is Not Paranoia, It’s Survival

Construction is litigious. Clients sue. Subs sue. Employees sue. Property owners sue. If you’re not protected, one lawsuit can end your business.

I operate behind a corporation (AAA Construction Company Corp). That corporate veil protects my personal assets if the business gets sued. I also carry:

General liability insurance ($2M occurrence / $4M aggregate).
Workers’ comp (required by law, and trust me, you don’t want to skip it).
Builders risk on projects where I’m responsible for the site.
Commercial auto for all company vehicles.
Umbrella policy for an extra layer of coverage.

I also use contracts for everything. No handshake deals, no “we’ll figure it out as we go.” Every job has a signed contract with scope, price, payment terms, change order process, dispute resolution, and lien rights. I’ve had clients try to weasel out of paying for extras, and that contract saved me every time.

And mechanics liens—learn them, use them. If a client won’t pay, you file a lien. It’s your legal right, and it works. I’ve only had to foreclose on a lien once in 30 years, but the threat of a lien has motivated plenty of slow-paying clients to cut a check.

The Systems: You Need Process, Not Just Hustle

Young contractors think hustle is enough. It’s not.

You can hustle your way to $500K in revenue. Maybe even $1M if you’re good. But to scale past that—to hit $3M, $5M, $10M—you need systems.

Here are the systems I run:

Estimating software (I use ProEst)—standardizes my takeoffs and keeps my bid library organized.
Project management software (Buildertrend)—tracks schedules, costs, RFIs, change orders, and client communication in one place.
Accounting software (QuickBooks Desktop, contractor edition)—job costing, AR/AP, payroll integration.
Document management (cloud-based)—all contracts, permits, plans, warranties stored digitally and accessible from the field.
Weekly project meetings—every job over $100K gets a weekly status meeting with the foreman, PM, and key subs.

Systems remove the dependency on memory and heroics. I’m not the guy running around with a clipboard and a folder full of paper anymore. My team can access what they need, update progress in real time, and escalate issues before they become crises.

Mistakes I Made (So You Don’t Have To)

Bidding jobs to “win” instead of bidding to make money. I’ve left money on the table and I’ve bought jobs at a loss. Both are painful. Now I bid what the job is worth and walk away if the client won’t pay it.
Taking on too much work at once. I once had five active projects and couldn’t give any of them the attention they deserved. Quality slipped, clients complained, I was stressed out of my mind. Now I know my capacity and I don’t exceed it.
Hiring too fast without vetting. I’ve hired people who looked good on paper and turned out to be disasters—no-shows, safety violations, theft. Now I do background checks, call references, and put new hires on a 90-day probation.
Not documenting change orders. I’ve done extra work on a handshake and then fought with the client over payment. Now every change order is in writing, signed, and priced before we start the work.
Ignoring my own pay. I’ve deferred my salary to keep the business afloat. That’s a Band-Aid, not a solution. If the business can’t pay you, the business model is broken.

Why I Stay: The Pride and the Legacy

After 30 years, I could retire. Sell the business, walk away, play golf. But I don’t want to.

I love this work. I love walking a site and seeing my crew execute a complex pour flawlessly. I love getting a call from a client two years later saying the building still looks perfect. I love mentoring a 25-year-old apprentice and watching him become a lead carpenter.

This industry is hard, but it’s honest. You can’t fake quality. You can’t shortcut craftsmanship. The work either stands or it doesn’t.

If you’re coming into this industry, here’s my advice:

Learn the trade first. Don’t go straight into management. Spend time in the field, swinging a hammer, reading plans, understanding how buildings go together. You can’t manage what you don’t understand.

Invest in your education. Get your license. Take business courses. Learn estimating, project management, finance, HR. This is a business, not just a trade.

Build relationships. Your network is your net worth. Subs, suppliers, architects, engineers, bankers, inspectors—treat people well, keep your word, and they’ll go to bat for you when things get tough.

Manage your money like your life depends on it. Because it does. Know your numbers, control your cash flow, don’t over-leverage, and build reserves for the slow times.

Protect yourself legally. Incorporate, get insured, use contracts, know your lien rights.

And most importantly: take pride in your work. Build things you’re proud of. Treat your people well. Run your business with integrity.

Construction will test you. It will frustrate you, exhaust you, and make you question your sanity. But if you can survive the hard years and build systems that work, this industry will reward you with a career that’s financially stable, intellectually challenging, and deeply fulfilling.

I’m 54. I’ve been at this for 30 years. I’ve made every mistake in the book and learned from most of them. I’ve built a company that employs 40 people, generates $8M in annual revenue, and has a backlog that stretches into next year.

And I’m not done yet.

If you’re serious about this business, welcome. We need good people. The work is hard, but it’s worth it.

Now get out there and build something that lasts.

AAA Construction Company Corp | Virginia | Licensed General Contractor | Serving Virginia Since 1996

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