You don’t wake up one day and decide to start a truss plant. This kind of business isn’t a side hustle. It’s not something you launch from a playbook. A successful truss plant is built slowly—through long hours, tight margins, and a steady stream of challenges most people will never understand. It’s earned, not bought.
Those who have endured know this well. You’ve faced supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, design backlogs, and unpredictable swings in material pricing. And through it all, you kept moving—because that’s what truss plant owners do. But even the most seasoned owners are asking the same question right now: “What happened in 2024?”
After the boom from 2020 through 2023, the sudden slowdown has left a lot of owners scratching their heads. Margins have thinned. Sales cycles have shifted. And that sense of momentum many felt just a year or two ago? It’s fading.
The Numbers You’re Probably Not Looking At…
Look back at your last five years: 2019 to 2024. Forget revenue for a moment. Forget even net profit. Instead, ask:
- How many trusses and/or board feet was produced each year?
- What was the output compared to the labor?
- Did efficiency improve—or decline—year over year?
This is the data that tells your real story. In the growth years, higher sales volume masks inefficiencies. Labor costs were absorbed by sheer demand. But when volume tightened and prices leveled, any production misalignment was exposed.
Truss plants that adjusted early are still stable. But the ones that didn’t—those still operating on bloated labor-to-output models—are feeling it now. It’s not that your business failed. It’s that the margin for error got smaller—and many plants were never structured to operate lean when demand cooled.
The Hidden Threat: Not Just Economic, But Generational
Alongside those pressures is another challenge: the leadership gap. The deeper issue isn’t just cost. It’s stability. Many truss plants were built by people who could walk the plant and know, on instinct, what was off. But that knowledge isn’t always being passed down. The next generation may know software, but not system flow. They may know numbers but not distinction.
What’s at stake isn’t just efficiency, it’s legacy. And if the systems aren’t built to outlast the owner, the business won’t either.
What Season Are You in?
Like farming, truss plants follow seasons: Plan in winter. Plant in spring. Push hard through summer. Reap in fall. If you don’t know what season you’re in—growth, reinvestment, stabilization, or transition—you’re probably operating in reaction mode. And that’s where chaos and burnout thrive.
The strongest plants aren’t just well-built. They’re well-led. And that starts with stepping back and asking the hard questions:
- Have I clearly defined the future of this business?
- Is my team aligned around that vision—or am I carrying it alone?
- Am I still doing everything myself, or building a team that can grow with me?
Before You Grow, Go Back
There’s plenty of talk about automation—and yes, that has a place. But automation won’t fix broken fundamentals. And it won’t clarify your vision. Before you grow, go back. Back to what worked in 2017–2019. Back to knowing your local market, your true production flow, and your labor benchmarks.
Back to asking the right questions:
- What is a truss, and how do we build it better?
- What movements on the floor are costing us time?
- What metrics matter—really?
Most importantly, ask: Am I still pulling the plow, or am I preparing the field for the next generation? The most successful people in any business had a mentor. They learned from someone that taught them and helped them avoid the struggles they went through. Who is your mentor? Who is your coach? Remember success leaves clues. The question is, are you looking for them?
Whether you’re running a truss plant, scaling a business, or leading a team through uncertainty, the answers are usually already out there, hidden in past performance, in mentors’ stories, in decades of experience, pointing to what works. The best owners don’t guess. They listen. They observe. And they act on the clue’s success has already been left behind. Because this isn’t just about what happened in 2024. It’s about building a business that’s ready for 2026, 2030, and beyond.
You only get one full season—if you’re lucky. Make it count.