Description

What if the “labor shortage” isn’t the full story… and the real profit leak is process?

In this episode of Savage Angel, Angela sits down with Mike Kanaby, Managing Partner & Co-Founder of Profitability Works, a construction operations consulting firm helping trade contractors and PE-backed platforms scale with structure, clarity, and repeatable execution.

Mike’s not speaking from theory—he came up through the trades (starting in the field as a carpenter), then climbed the leadership ladder all the way to running a $1.5B P&L with 3,000+ team members and 128 offices across North America.

Now, through Profitability Works’ Building Excellence Blueprint, Mike and his partner Stephanie Simmons help companies eliminate chaos by auditing operations end-to-end, rebuilding SOPs with bottoms-up planning, and making change stick through real-world change management (not “email it and hope”).

They also take on the big topics construction leaders can’t ignore: why “we just need more people” can sometimes be a symptom of inefficiency, how high-performing teams become magnets for talent, and why AI won’t save a broken business—but structured processes + centralized data will unlock AI’s real value.

If you’re a contractor trying to scale, integrate acquisitions, or stop losing margin to inefficiency, this conversation is your roadmap.

What You’ll Learn

• Why the best-performing branches treat SOPs like “gospel” (and failing branches drift from them)
• How bottoms-up planning increases buy-in and makes processes actually usable in the field
• The hidden way inefficiency creates a bigger labor shortage than you think
• Why “standing around on jobsites” is often a systems issue—not a people issue
• What forward-thinking contractors are doing: academies, mentorship, and capturing knowledge before retirements
• The 3 AI camps in construction—and why only one wins long-term
• Why AI requires centralized data + clear process checklists (or it outputs garbage)
• The first step a smaller contractor should take to build scalable operations

🔗 Connect with Mike Kanaby & Profitability Works

🌐 Website: Profitability Works
💼 LinkedIn: Mike Kanaby