Contractor Wealth · Build → Protect → Invest → Legacy
Building the company is only half the job.
You spent years building revenue, crews, equipment, property, and wealth. Contractor Wealth helps you identify the operational, protection, financial, and succession gaps that can put what you built at risk.
See where your business and personal wealth may have gaps across Build, Protect, Invest, and Legacy.
Education only. Not legal, tax, or investment advice. Contractor Wealth is not a law firm and does not review documents.
The four acts
Build → Protect → Invest → Legacy
The order matters. Build a company that produces, identify accidental connections between operating risk and personal wealth, invest beyond the company, and decide what it all becomes. No entity or ownership arrangement guarantees protection.
Act I
Build
- Marketing: a written offer and a lead system you can explain
- Networking: CPAs, bankers, sureties, GCs, and peers who send work
- Sales: the same discovery and proposal process every job
- Fulfillment: kickoff, production, QA, and collections without you
Act II
Protect What You Built
Identify unnecessary connections between operating risk and personal wealth.
- Entity structure, asset ownership, and real estate titling
- Vehicle and equipment ownership
- Personal guarantees and liability pathways
- Insurance coordination and documentation
- Business/personal separation and risk concentration
Act III
Invest
- Reading your own numbers without a translator
- Paying yourself and keeping profit on purpose
- Diversifying beyond the company
- Rentals and hard assets as a separate bucket
Act IV
Legacy
- Succession: sale, family, or key employees
- Estate concepts explained, never drafted
- Giving with intent instead of at year end
- A name that outlasts the last project
The accidental exposure problem
One bad ownership decision can connect risks that were never supposed to touch.
A growing contractor makes hundreds of reasonable decisions: buy a truck, acquire a building, sign a guarantee, purchase a rental, add a partner, form an entity, finance equipment. Each decision may make sense on its own. Almost nobody stops to map the entire ownership picture.
Over time, assets, guarantees, insurance, entities, and operating habits can become connected in ways the owner never intended. That is Accidental Exposure.
Consider a company truck used in operations when the owner is also personally listed as an owner. A catastrophic, multimillion-dollar claim could involve the company and may create questions about personal exposure, while several non-homestead properties remain titled in that person's individual name.
This example is educational, not a conclusion about liability. Whether any asset is exposed depends on applicable law, insurance, exemptions, liability theories, ownership structure, and the specific facts. Review your situation with your own qualified legal, tax, insurance, and financial professionals.
The Contractor Wealth Map
Do you know exactly what is connected to what?
Most owners know annual revenue. Far fewer can explain what they own personally versus through a company, what they have guaranteed, where liabilities sit, or whether insurance and ownership still match the wealth they have accumulated.
The Contractor
Owner · Guarantor · Decision-maker
That is a wealth-architecture problem long before it becomes a lawsuit problem.
The $10 million contractor question
If something went terribly wrong tomorrow, do you know what is actually exposed?
If you cannot answer quickly, that does not mean something is wrong — it means it is worth mapping.
Find Your Gaps With the Contractor Wealth Scorecard- 01
What assets do you personally own?
- 02
What assets does each business entity own?
- 03
What liabilities or guarantees connect you personally to the business?
- 04
Does the insurance program match the risks the company is actually taking?
- 05
If a major claim happened tomorrow, would your current structure work the way you assume it would?
Protection is not one LLC
Protection is a system, not a filing.
An LLC alone is not a protection plan. The system includes the operating company, equipment, vehicles, real estate, insurance, contracts, guarantees, personal ownership, documentation, and long-term planning.
No single entity eliminates risk. The practical work is to understand where risk sits, remove unnecessary exposure, insure what can be insured, preserve meaningful separation, and coordinate decisions with professionals who know your specific circumstances.
You engineered the company. Now engineer how the wealth around it is structured.
Who this is for
Owner-operators, not spectators
Contractor Wealth is built for the person whose name is on the line of credit: an established construction company owner between roughly $1M and $20M in revenue who still walks jobs, still signs contracts, and has accumulated assets across the company, real estate, equipment, investments, and family wealth without one coordinated map.
You have built meaningful wealth, but much of it may still be concentrated in or around the company
Ownership, guarantees, insurance, and documentation evolved at different times
You want to see connections before assuming how they work
You want a practical path from operating success to an intentional legacy
Founder
Ben Patton
Florida Attorney · Construction & Surety · Partner, McRae & Metcalf, P.A.
Ben Patton is a Florida construction attorney who has spent 11+ years inside complex construction litigation, procurement, design-build, commercial, equipment, EPC, and subcontractor contracts. He has first-chair trial, arbitration, and bid protest experience, deep fluency with AIA and ConsensusDocs forms, and has negotiated and drafted the agreements owners and contractors live or die by — design-build, A/E, facilities, surety takeover, indemnity, completion, change orders, liens, bonds, and project closeout.
That A-to-Z construction seat is why Contractor Wealth exists. Ben has managed surety takeovers across dozens of highway and bridge projects (nine-figure contract value), led review of 100+ payment-bond and pass-through claims, litigated and settled a $50MM+ negligent design/construction claim, and mediated 200+ property insurance and contract disputes. He built this curriculum so construction owners can see the risk and wealth architecture of their company before a claim, a default, or a bad year forces the lesson — then walk into meetings with their attorney, CPA, surety, and insurance broker knowing what to ask. Contractor Wealth is education only: not a law firm, and it does not review documents or give legal advice.
- 11+ years construction litigation & contracts
- Surety takeovers · bond claims · project closeout
- Florida Bar · ABC · FTBA · Big Bend Contractors Association (Board)
- Florida Circuit Court Mediator
The education path
Start with a clear picture.
Free Scorecard → Free Playbook → $4,997 Intensive → Private 1:1 by application.
Contractor Wealth Scorecard
Free25 questions across Build, Protect, Invest, and Legacy. See your four scores and the areas worth a deeper review.
Contractor Wealth Playbook
FreeFree with the weekly Contractors Digest: the four-act framework, owner checklists, risk patterns, and questions for your advisors.
Build → Protect → Invest → Legacy Intensive
$4,997A four-week cohort for owner-operators: one week each on building the company, protecting it, investing beyond it, and legacy.
Strategy Intensive 1:1
By applicationCustom quote. Investment is quoted after a short fit conversation based on scope — we don't publish a menu price.
Free Playbook · Weekly Digest
Get the free Contractor Wealth Playbook + the weekly Contractors Digest
The four-act framework, owner checklists, and advisor questions — plus one practical read for construction owners every week.
Map where the gaps may be
The Contractor Wealth Scorecard takes about eight minutes. You'll get a Build, Protect, Invest, and Legacy score out of 5, plus awareness flags for areas that may deserve a deeper review with your advisers.
Education only. Contractor Wealth is an education company. Everything here is general educational information only — not legal, tax, insurance, or investment advice. Contractor Wealth is not a law firm, does not practice law, does not draft or review documents, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Work with your own licensed attorney, CPA, insurance broker, or financial professional before acting on anything you learn here.