Your Building Companion: How this Newcastle business is using its wealth of experience to help builders boost profitability

This is advertiser content for Proconstruct Services.

As a kid growing up in Lake Macquarie Kim Gritten was already passionate about planning, designing and building.

He showed some very early talent working with his young mates to construct the sturdiest, most elaborate and camouflaged cubby houses.

"My cubby houses were very complex, they were the best," said Kim. "I grew up at Wangi and we would build them in the bush. We had teams and the challenge was to build them so our competition couldn't find them."

That early love of building ended up becoming a long and successful career. Starting as an apprentice at 16 with local builder Stan Heyne, Kim has spent more than 50 years working in the industry both running his own businesses as well as with some of Newcastle's largest companies, from domestic to commercial. He's also undertaken project management for projects such as disaster welfare and the Lord Mayor's Newcastle Earthquake Appeal.

These days Kim is using his extensive experience, particularly around the challenging areas of estimating, project management and contract administration, to guide and mentor a new generation of builders, helping them develop crucial skills, and providing quality services to help them save time and money, and increase profitability.

In 2011, Kim established his current business Proconstruct Services with the aim of providing professional building estimating and construction services to the industry. Proconstruct offers products and services providing practical solutions to some of the most time consuming, but critical, tasks that could make or break a building business - such as being able to quickly provide precise project estimates.

"I feel very lucky to have discovered a love of building and found something I had a natural ability for," Kim said. "I was fortunate to have good mentors. Many builders nowadays don't have access to such quality mentors.

"But I know how hard the industry can be. It's a tough industry, and the pressure can be phenomenal. Particularly these days there's so much that today's builders need to know and be able to manage so they can stay ahead, to be successful and profitable. There are so many regulations and requirements builders have to worry about, and that can really take its toll on people."

The idea for Proconstruct Services was first sparked by the demand amongst smaller builders for the kinds of skills in management and administration that had been a focus for Kim in his businesses.

Recognising early on in his career that it took more than building skills to run a successful business, he completed a Clerk of Works course at Tighes Hill tech college that included training in everything from building design and applications, to estimating and plant machinery. He also did a year long course to become a qualified building inspector.

"I wanted to know as much as I could and those courses gave me a foundation and understanding that was very valuable when it came to running a building business. Even if you have someone who is a good builder and a skilled tradesman they can often be unskilled with contracts and with construction estimating," he said.

Kim launched Proconstruct Services out of a spare bedroom at his home offering estimating services using an Estimating Data Tool system he developed comprising of custom-designed Pricebooks and templates.

"Proconstruct's research found only about 12 per cent of builders were actually using a commercial estimating system. Around 22 per cent were doing it on Excel spreadsheets and the others were just doing it on paper, what we call guesstimates," he said.

"The problem comes when estimating starts to go by the wayside - it can take up a lot of time if you don't have the right systems in place.

"Proconstruct expanded from there and now we're supporting various sectors of the building industry and a variety of clients in lots of ways as an extension of their business or project. That's how we like to work, as part of our clients' team to help them be more successful, like a building companion."

Proconstruct assists all builders, in-house estimators, subcontractors, trades, architects, designers, owner-builders, and renovators. All services are designed with client job profitability in mind helping save time, grow profit margins and meet project objectives. Services include:

Proconstruct also sell the EZY-ESTIMATE™ Data Tool, consisting of custom-designed Pricebooks and Templates.

For more information head to the Proconstruct Services website, phone the team on 0432 597 596 or email admin@proconstructservices.com.au

This is advertiser content for Proconstruct Services.