What Most Contractors Skip in Pre-Construction (And What It Costs Them)

The pre-construction phase doesn't feel urgent — and that's exactly why it wrecks so many jobs.

In this episode of Contractor Cuts, Clark and James break down the most important things contractors miss before a job starts, and why skipping them is quietly costing you money, reviews, and client trust.

They get into:

• Why every job — even a $5,000 one — needs a pre-construction phase
• How to build a Gantt chart that protects your profit and sets client expectations
• Why locking in selections before demo day prevents the change orders clients hate
• Walking every crew through the job before a single hammer swings
• The 50-point job site checklist that eliminates day-one chaos
• Why you set the start date — not your client
• The estimate mistakes hiding in plain sight that quietly drain your margin

If you've ever had a job go sideways before it even really started, this episode is the fix.

If you're doing $350K–$2M a year in revenue, coaching pays for itself. A 5% efficiency gain alone covers the cost — and that's before we even talk about growth. 

We help contractors stop losing money on crews, change orders, and inefficient operations — and start scaling. 

Ready to have the conversation? Set up a free call at contractorcuts.com

Contractor Cuts is a weekly podcast for contractors who want to build a better business — covering sales, operations, hiring, finances, and everything in between.

🔗 Book a free call: contractorcuts.com 

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Transcript

Why Pre-Construction Decides Everything

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good, the bad, and the ugly of growing a successful contracting company.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Welcome to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner. And I'm James McConnell. Thank you for joining us again this week. So today we are talking pre-construction phase. Dude, you went radio there.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

And today we're talking pre-construction. Whoa. We got a caller. Go ahead, caller. I'm so scared of pre-construction.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

So we've we've talked a lot about pre-construction, and it's one of our big steps. One thing that I always push is that I want residential to do pre-construction like commercial does it. I think commercial kills it on pre-con because you have to. And I want commercial to do client experience like residential does. But all that to say, the pre-construction phase is so important. It's really the most important out of any part of a job, in my opinion. A second to writing a good estimate. But what we do or don't do in the pre-construction phase determines our profitability, determines the review we are or not going to get at the end of the job. It determines how much money we're going to make and how well we're going to continue to grow from here. And that feels like a lot for a pre-construction meeting, but it is true. So today we're covering what people miss the most. The most important things that people miss during a pre-construction phase of a job. James, some people ask me what size job do I need to do a pre-construction phase on? All of them. All of them. So that's that's a big misnomer. Like once I get a$50,000 job, I'll I'll I'll kind of set aside some time to do pre-construction.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

No, I I your$5,000 job is one that's gonna kill you.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Yes. And the pre-construction can be very quick and easy. Yeah, it doesn't have to be a three-hour process, but we still need to honor that time where we're gonna go through some of the stuff that people miss often.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yeah, and it can be tongue in cheek. Hey, either on site or over Zoom, I know we only have three things that we're purchasing for this job, but it's always important to do our pre-construction meeting. So here we go. Yep. Is this right? Beautiful. Is this the right product? Wonderful. How about this one? Great. Pre-construction meeting over. We've already talked about where we're staging, we've already talked about where we're cutting.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Here's your gant chart. We're starting Monday, we're done Thursday. So Bing Bang Bomb. We're done. Yeah. So we're we're gonna cover some of the most important things that people miss. Um there's there's other things that we do during pre-construction we're not gonna talk about today because they're kind of necessary and people get to them. And we're gatekeeping. And we're gonna gatekeep.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

If you want section three F of process four, you gotta pay us.

Build A Gantt Chart That Works

SPEAKER_01 2:56

No, uh the the big things that that we really circle when when planning this is uh the things that if you don't do these, the job still works. But if you don't do these, you often drop balls. And so it's like, you know, eight out of ten, nine out of ten times it works without doing this. But you're not giving the client the best experience. You're potentially leaving yourself open to lose money. That's a big one for the pre-construction. Yes. And we're not getting and you, as the sole entrepreneur of your company, might be really good at doing this on the fly from the hip. You can't train the next guy to do it this way. And so we have to have a pre-construction process that we're following. So when we hire that new guy in six months, he's got it just this is how we do it. This is the standard at this company, is how we do every pre-construction. So it's setting the bar for future growth as well as protecting your money and reputation. So, number one thing that guys skip and during pre-construction. Uh, the first thing I have on here is building a Gantt chart. Um, it's like we mentioned a second ago, even on a small job, it's a week long. I'm not gonna build a Gantt chart. Build a Gantt chart. That's you're going to have to plan out when guys are gonna show up. You're gonna have to communicate with those crews about that time, you're gonna have to tell the client when we need keys, when we're gonna get in the house, and when we think we're gonna be done. All of that is solved by taking a moment and building a Gantt chart. If you're in the Pro Truck software, shameless plug, it automatically builds the Gantt chart as you're signing out work to people. You pick the dates when you want them to show up and it builds it. Or you can do it another way, you can build your Gantt chart and then assign that work out to people. It is a it is built into the job to where you write an invoice, or I'm sorry, you write an estimate, and every line item on the estimate is plotted on a Gantt chart. So it really is super simple to build them out. You can connect them, you can have gap days where I need two days between demo and when the uh framing starts, whatever, whatever you want to do, you can build it into this Gantt chart, print it out, send it to the client. It is not difficult, it just takes work. And so, guys that haven't done it before, like I don't uh Gant get GANAT chart, I don't know how to do this. No, it's not hard. It's okay, let's go to the first line demo. When will demo start? Next Monday, great. How long will it take? Three days, great. Monday to Wednesday's demo. What's next? Well, we're gonna start framing. When will framing start? Thursday after demo, great. How many days? Probably four days, great. Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday. It's across the gant chart, right? And you're all you're doing is thinking through every line item. And we like to build our estimates with every line item is one task, right? And so I don't have one line on that says master bathroom, uh demo, flooring, electrical, install this, this for one dollar amount. What I want is bathroom demo, bathroom uh framing, bathroom flooring, bathroom cabinetry, bathroom electrical, bathroom plumbing, bathroom tile, right? All of those are separate line items underneath the section for the bathroom. And that is for two different reasons. Number one, I can assign each of those lines out to one crew, one person that is solely responsible for that line item. If I'm doing a full line item, and this is kind of a little bit of a rabbit trail about how to write estimates, but if I'm doing a full line item with all of those different trades and tasks in that one line item, who am I assigning it out to? How am I going to say, hey, uh, you know, crew A, you're in charge of demo and framing. Those are both assigned to you. Uh, we've got an issue here. So you're the one paying for it. Uh, crew B, you're doing electrical. You know, my electrician, you're this is the only thing you're responsible for, and this is the dollars you're getting paid to do that. And this is what I'm charging my client, right? So because we have those line items out, we then can take it to the Gantt chart and say, well, demo for the bathroom is happening here. And also we're demoing the kitchen at the same time. So I'm gonna go down the kitchen line and do demo for the same days. Now we're gonna do, yeah, and you can start tinkering with different areas of the house, different uh things you're doing, and plot them out on the calendar very quickly and easily and be able to look at that Gantt chart and say, according to this, we're gonna be done in 61 days. All right, and we always tell the clients it's this Gantt chart is our estimate if everything goes well. It might go up a few days, it might go out a few days, and if you start tinkering with the estimate and what we're doing, it's gonna go out a couple weeks.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

You know what I always tell them? Yes, what? I love this. It's a tool, it's not a promise. And then I explain that. They love it. Love it, they love it. Everyone loves it. What's the best response you've gotten? Uh a man kissed me. Really? He said that's the best thing I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

But it's true. This is this is also a sales tactic we use, right? The the giving someone a Gantt chart, especially if I'm I I'm mid. I think I'm about to land them. I'm not gonna spend three hours building out a Gantt chart for a three$200,000 project, but I will give them a roundabout Gantt chart and kind of show them the high level of detail. This is such a tool, like James is saying, that I can that that they say, oh wow, he knows we should be done by November 15th. This is amazing. This is great, right? And so laying that out and having it is a sales tactic for clients. It stops them asking you so many questions because they can see when you expect to have different people in there and they they can you're building, you're you're feeding that trust bucket more and more water, filling it up of oh, he knows what he's doing. He's got this handled, he's got this covered. And I can show my crews a uh you know, drywall guy, I got paint on Monday. Are you gonna be done on Friday? Look at this with me. I need you to be done by Friday. Will you be done? I think I should be okay. Well, I'm gonna push paint to Tuesday. I'm not starting the Monday, I'm gonna have an extra day. I'm not telling my drywall guy this, but I don't trust that he's gonna be done by next Friday. So I'm gonna go ahead and build this out to give that that extra day. And now I can tell my painter I need you to show up on Tuesday. Right. And so you can lay it all out. It is helping in so many different areas, and it doesn't take a lot of time once you get used to doing it.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

And you know, a lot of people don't use their Gantt charts this way, but they should. When you roll out your Gantt chart, and I I like to do them as early as possible because what you can do with it is understand how long is this project actually gonna take, and then look at what your my project managed like what am I gonna actually spend on my labor in-house, my my project management labor, how many days is this actually gonna take? How long is the project actually gonna take? And then you can work those numbers backwards and say, Okay, so my total gross profit on this job is gonna be thirty thousand dollars, but it's going to take eight months to do it. Okay, it's not as fat as I thought it was. Yeah. And then you realize, oh, I need to really be I need to be litigious about this calendar because it's the only way that we're gonna make good money on this, is if we hit this timeline and not let it creep.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

You you can and should be looking at your Gantt chart to map out your internal costs.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah. If you're making 10 grand in two months and the job leaks out to four months, you're not making 20 grand. You're still making 10 grand over four months now. And so if you didn't plan accordingly and make sure that the budget's right for what you want to bid, you're you're you're working for free on that.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah. Uh and you can also use that to be more aggressive about your bids. Yeah. You're mapping out your Gantt chart before you're in a contract, and you're like, you know what, I really want this job, and I think it's actually only gonna take four weeks if I'm being realistic. So I can drop my profit down to whatever because that will make sense and will land this job if I get it there.

Lock Selections Before You Order

SPEAKER_01 12:11

That's right. Uh I think what the the secondary use of this scant chart is the front end planning, making sure that all uh I's are dotted, t's are crossed with crews, clients, uh uh ordering, all of that stuff. The secondary use of this Gantt chart, and this is not a Gantt chart podcast, that's just one of the things that that we're that people forget to do. We're just really hitting it hard because it's so important, is week in and week out. The way that we try to push guys to invoice, I invoice weekly for next week. Well, I can pull up your Gantt chart and look at what is gonna be going on next week. Well, you're starting and finishing paint next week, so we can invoice 100% on that one. We're starting doing some um uh I don't know, flooring, but about half the flooring will be done Thursday, Friday, the other half will be Monday, Tuesday. So I'm gonna do a 50% invoice for the flooring. And you can really start looking at what I'm invoicing, what I'm asking for, what should be done, and not not Rob and Peter to pay Paul by invoicing for stuff that isn't even being paid out yet, getting that money, spending that money, then all of a sudden I got to pay my painters and I've already spent that money three weeks ago. Um, so really kind of staying in line with what I'm invoicing versus what I'm spending, and making sure that those equal each other week in and week out over the next week. All right, so that's that's Gantt chart. So if you're not doing chart talk, you get one more Gantt chart throughout the rest of the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

All right, the next thing fun fact about a Gant chart Ron Gantt. Named after Ron Gantt, the baseball hall of famer, Braves Hall of Famer, baseball boys.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

All right, uh planning all selections to order. This is a big one. Um now when I say all, if you've got a$500,000 addition and the client wants to walk the space before picking out her light fixture for a bathroom, I get it. We're gonna have a date for that. But what I want, what I don't want is hey, I'm bidding$22,000 for materials because it should be about that. And we start the job and I put in the material order, and the materials cost$26,000 because I didn't think through everything. I didn't submit my order to my supplier to get a final bid from them. I didn't uh count every screw, every nail that I needed. Um, and all of a sudden I'm doing a change order the day I've ordered, or usually what happens with guys two weeks after I've installed the stuff of hey, I need more money, it actually came in at twenty-four, not twenty-two. I want to have that conversation early.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yeah. Or they the flip side of that is you have twenty-two thousand dollars in for material, your client, you guys are both on the same page. It's actually eighteen thousand dollars, and you submitted for that, and then closer to the end of the project, they're like, Hey, I'm looking back over this selections workbook, or I'm looking through these materials, and it I don't think we actually spent twenty-two thousand dollars on material. Can I get that money back? Well, you already spent that money.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Depending on your conversation on the front end with booked a trip to the beach with my family already.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah, like depending on your conversation with them in the beginning of how you're dealing with materials, you might actually owe them that money. You might not. It might be a thing where it's like, this is the contract, this is what it is. That's not the way we do it. We have a selections workbook that is this is the aesthetic choices that you're making. That's what you're spending money on. There's a 20% markup on top of it for us collecting it all and doing everything and getting it here and returning stuff if we need to. But you don't want to end up with a bill that you weren't expecting. Even for$2,000,$4,000, it's a pain in the butt.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Well, and it's it's just one of the change orders they're gonna get. I want to avoid as many COs as possible because every single one takes a big chunk out of your trust bucket. Um, and you get blamed for it, even if it's legit. And so I want to eliminate those up front and and make it really smooth once we once we start and not have this big pow wow halfway through the job where we gotta sit down and have a well, we're four grand over and we don't have it, we don't have the cash, so we gotta figure out where we're gonna cut. Pause the job, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:23

And so it's like I can't, I don't have you considered breeding your dog. I mean, that's a good looking dog. That is a good looking dog. Strong.

Work Orders And Crew Walkthroughs

SPEAKER_01 16:34

So picking out selections beforehand. Next week, join us for dog breeding 101. Uh we're going back to the the selections. We've got a selections workbook that we give you if you're in the coaching program. Uh, that selections workbook is where it's it's basic, but it's great. And it's I'm gonna give all of my standard selections. I'm not putting in that in there the mud I need for my tile, but I am doing the grout because I got to pick a color, right? And so anything that I need my client to give an opinion on goes in the uh selections workbook. Anything that is straight materials isn't in there, it's just counted in the job and uh in the materials of the job. I need to plan that all the way out and have a sign-off on every single one of those line items before we start with the client, or have a date that it is gonna get signed off on if it's a giant project. Um doing that up front allows me to A order the materials uh and have them on site and realize, oh, Florin Decor discontinued that that tile and I got a tile guy on site and I'm trying to pick it up because I forgot to order it. Now I need the client to go and and find another tile they like, right? And so it's happening right now, yes. And so it's going to help on all sorts of stuff. Well, and I'm not gonna get into the process, but on the front end bidding, we get signatures before we finalize from an estimate to a quote. And this is that middle part where we're getting all of our pennies tied to exactly what we're gonna spend it on. That might change the price between signature and finalize quote where we start swinging a hammer. And so this is so important to do here. Uh and it can be done later, and that's why guys don't do it here because they do it later. We're not even installing tile for two months. I don't need to we'll figure that out later, right? And so it's again, you're you're I'm too busy this week, we'll figure that out later. Let's just give me that check. I'll get guys out there start doing demo Monday, we're good to go. Um, and that's what we're losing on that pre-construction phase is is making sure that we protect our money in that in that spot. All right, the next thing, number three, is creating work orders and walking each crew through the job prior to starting work. Richard prior. Richard prior to starting work. This is uh when we onboard a vendor, we've got paperwork. Um, when you're bringing a sub in, if you're in coaching, we give you the full folder of I think seven different, five different, I don't know, uh a number of uh documents. Uh one of them is our end-of-the-day expectations. It's got a before and after photo of what a job should look like. It's got what at the end of the day I need these three things communicated to my project manager. It kind of lays out expectations on a job site. Uh at by the end of the day, it's it's clean, it's got you know all of that stuff. Um, I walked them through that on the onboarding, but then on the job, I'm walking them through that as well. Um, when I'm looking at saying, okay, hey, Bob, my electrician, this is the bid. I've got$13,000. We're doing a uh rewire on a ranch. Let me show you the blueprints of the current property. Let me show you what we're looking to do. Let's go walk it if we need to. And I'm gonna finalize that during the pre-construction phase. I'm not waiting to bring my electrician in three months, and then the electrician says, 13. No, I I can't do this for under 18. Okay. Um, well, I've got to go find someone I've ever worked with and try to get them in here for 13, or do I eat that money, or do I piss off my client because they signed a contract at 13? Yeah. Would have been good information yesterday. Yes. And so it's if we can walk through, and part of the beauty of this is why we push having a line item called a pre-construction due diligence, and we charge the clients to do all of this stuff, right? And so the client is paying me, and I've got a line item for$2,000,$500,$8,000, depending on the size of the project, where I'm getting paid to meet with these guys. And it's in there, it's invoice, it's paid, and I owe it to my client to meet with all of my vendors, all of my crews, all of my labor, and walk the job site, or if it's not walkable, if it's just blueprints, to sit down at my office and go through the blueprints and look at what we're doing. Say, this is my bid I've got for you. I understand once it's framed, there might be some variation, but I need within 5% right now for us to finalize these numbers.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Um, you know, uh, there's a difference of 13,000 to 18,000 change order and 13,000 to 13.6 because uh we realize we want to put two extra switches in a couple different rooms. Yeah, do hickeys and tassels. Tassels mainly for 600 extra dollars. So that's that's number three. We gotta create the work orders. And again, if you're building a Gantt chart, you're I identifying who's doing what when. And so I can take that and create a work order from that before we start and show the show the my vendor, hey, if you look, I got you starting in four weeks from now. What's your schedule look like? I know it's a little ways away, it should be around here. I'll touch base in two weeks. Here's what we're doing, here's the price point, we good to go. Um, and we're locking that in.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Can I just say when you went up when you said if you're building a Gantt chart, that sounded condescending to me.

Job Site Details That Prevent Fights

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Okay, I'm gonna try it again. If you if you are building a Gantt chart. Oh, that's worse. Hey, if you build a Gantt chart, James. That's so nice. Thank you. I'd be shocked. All right, uh, number four job site details. This is our pre-construction checklist that we give you uh in coaching. I want you during pre-construction, not the first day of the job, not once we get going and and and we gotta figure out some of this stuff. We have a pre-construction checklist. It's 50 items. When you get started with us, when you're getting a new project manager going, I want them to check every box on it. Once you get really good at this, you don't need to carry the paperwork with you, but we need to check these boxes. There's the stuff like entry and exit plan. Where are guys coming in? What is that like uh great example? We we're doing a basement, and I'm gonna have 17 guys walking around the side of the house for the next three months, and there's going to be a trench in your grass that's gonna be all dead. I want to talk to the client about that. Do we need to budget for landscaping and replace it? No, I've got a landscape guy. Okay, cool. Fast forward when they say, Hey, we got an issue, you guys damaged my grass, and say, Yeah, look in the email I sent you. Remember, you didn't want to pay for that. That's part of the job, right? We've we've talked through that. They're not getting pissed off that my guys are walking in their front door when they wanted them to come through the The garage, right? We've talked through that. We've talked through material and tool storage. Where are the where we're dropping materials? The pod that that we sometimes do. Or hey, I need space in this garage. Are you guys cool with parking in the driveway for this project? And we're going to get a delivery. Where can we put everything? What do you need access to? What do you not? Um that discussion, if you're not doing this in pre-con, happens the day after Home Depot drops those materials in the driveway. Then all of a sudden it's like, uh, where are we putting this stuff, boss? And it's like, I'll hop in my truck and drive out there and I'll meet the client and piss them off that we got to figure out where we're gonna put this stuff, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

And then I'll move everything into the storage unit that we rented, and then I'll figure out how to get it all back from there to the job when it's ready. And I'm gonna have like six trips that I'm not paying myself for. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

I mean, yeah. Come on, guys. Come on, people. Uh the next thing, cut stations, wash stations. Where are you washing their brushes out after paint? Where are we cutting tile? It's gonna leave a lot of dust. Or we got it saw dust that's going everywhere. Like they washed their brushes in my tub and we're on septic. There's a big white spot out in my pine uh pine straw. What's uh what are y'all doing about that? Are you gonna redo my my yard?

SPEAKER_00 24:27

They sprayed the louvered doors on the bushes, and now my bushes are striped.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Uh I bet 90% of the guys listening to this have had that happen to them.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Yeah, and they just did a spit take because they're like, that's exactly what happened.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

So we're gonna talk through all that stuff. It's on the checklist. Make sure you we have an idea of where we're doing that. Interior protection. Where can we go? Where can we not go? What's you know, are we hanging um zip walls between the kitchen and living room? Are we doing like all of that conversation? And part of that is FYI client, you're gonna get dust all over your house. Do we need to put a cleaning on this? Let me tell you what to expect when, because we're going to be as tidy as possible. But let me show you, like, unless we don't run your HVAC and don't enter any of these other spaces, which both those things have to happen, there will be dust particles that get throughout the house. And we can clean it after we leave, and then three weeks later, there's gonna be more dust. I just want to let you know that. Be prepared, right? And so that's the difference of them saying thank you and them giving you a two-star review because you left the house dirty. Um, anyways, how are we doing interior protection, all that stuff? Another one, another big one. Again, this is it's a 50-point checklist. I'm kind of hitting the high notes. But the last one on my on my list is the restroom discussion. How I've so many times put a porta potty on a bid. I don't want to pay for that. We don't need that. That's fine, cool, we'll take it off the bid. All right, where do you want my guys to uh use the bathroom? What they can't use it here, like have them go to the gas station.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

There's a quick trip like five miles up the road.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Yeah. It's like that. Well, we're gonna you're gonna pay for like do you want to pay us per trip? Because it's like$125 per trip to go to the bathroom now. So I'm gonna have to do a trip charge on you if you want us to leave the job site and go to quick trip. Like, yeah, there has to be a game plan on what bathroom can we use. Hey, you know what? That downstairs hallway where y'all are working, no one's gonna be using that's y'all's go for it. Just make sure it stays nice and tidy. Uh great.

SPEAKER_00 26:30

I'd be honest, I don't even make it an option anymore. Yeah, unless unless we're renovating a half bath and we're not we're we're not gonna touch it until we're we're at like closer to the end.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

It's less than two weeks, and we're not gonna be out there. We'll talk talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

But if it's they have too many guys, they're using the bathroom, they go walk in there with their tool belt, they drop it on the ground, they crack a tile, and then like you're redoing their bathroom.

Control The Start Date And Demo

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Yeah, it's or uh it's a raw deal. I you I flashed back just now to standing in a bathroom with a client who was like, look at this, and there's piss all over around the toilet, like on the ground. Yeah, and I'm like, Do you have a kid? Or that's my guys? Okay, cool. That's my guys. Yeah, for sure. Um that it's a small thing, but this is a uh a pain point for clients where we don't think about or talk about it, and all of a sudden it's an issue. Like James said, and and one thing I love that they the the that we're doing out in Austin is we port a potty every job and we build a fake false wall around it, or like a little fence around it, usually, to hide it. So you don't have a big port-a potty sitting in your front yard. We make it look really nice for the client. Everyone knows where it's at. We, you know, the client understands there's gonna be traffic. If we're dropping in the grass, there's gonna be a dead spot underneath it when we're done. Um, but again, what we want to do, zooming out, job site details plan beforehand, because this is where change orders come in. This is where expectations are set. Um, and and those two things alone affect your dollars and your ability to get referrals from that client, your your reputation and their enjoyment of the experience. Solely because I I took an hour before we started the job during pre-con and thought through these 50 different checklist items. Last thing on this list, if you've got all this other stuff going and you did the Gantt chart, you should have this a construction start date. But what I want to circle on that is I want an intentional construction start date that the client isn't picking and telling me that I am saying this is when we can do it. And can we start then? A lot of times, people uh over and over again, when I taught when I'm going through reviewing jobs for uh coaching clients, I'm like, okay, tell me about this one, what's going on with this? How about this client? And we're we're getting in the weeds on with our executive clients on their on their jobs. Well, I didn't really do pre-comp, but it's because they got this big party they're planning, and so they wanted us to get out and start doing demo like Monday. So I'm gonna figure out this stuff, and like, no, just because they want you to start Monday doesn't mean that that's what's gonna happen. We need to check these boxes and we need to lay that out to the client during the estimating process of we can go as fast as you guys want to go. We need X, Y, and Z to be done first. Um, and so having those other things that just talked about gant charts, selections, work orders, walking it with crews, finalizing the estimate, job type details. If I can get all that stuff done in a weekend, cool, we'll start Monday. The the problem is starting without having that stuff in line is uh it's going to create chaos at best. At worst, it's losing dollars, losing money, clients pissed at you, and now they're suing you because they didn't get what you what you they thought they were buying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Um if if it is a make or break, like you they're gonna go with somebody else if you can't get this started. Make demo a separate job. Yeah. Say that is fine. We can demo, but we aren't ready to start the putback. We're gonna need time. Yes. So we're gonna make demo a separate job. It's its own, it's completely its own job. And demo is gonna take from here to here. One week, Monday through Friday. The gap between demo and when we actually start is still up to you. Yeah, but it's not uh we're not gonna start anything else.

Remove Scope Mistakes Before Production

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Yeah. Well, and if you have this planning uh for the pre-con, if you know these checklists that you want to do and saying, listen, we can do that. We're gonna do demo, we'll get in there Monday and do that. We've got that locked in. I know how much that's gonna cost. We're gonna move forward with that. I need by this coming Friday, I need you to sign off on the Gantt chart. I need you to sign off on all of our selections. That's gonna be your biggest homework. Can you do that by next Friday? Have all your selections done? We're gonna sign off. I need to be able to walk my cruise through, and I think I've got time next week to do that. So we should be good to finalize that quote. But I need you available on Friday because I'm gonna revise this estimate once I get my final locked in numbers with your materials and with everything that we're bidding. Um, so can we plan on next Friday, as we're finishing demo, to sit down for a couple hours and finalize this quote so we can start swinging a hammer. Uh also I got some job detail questions. So I need half a day next Friday from you. Would that work? Um if we can do that, then we're cool with starting my right. As long as there's a game plan to execute this in a timely manner before starting the rest of the stuff, that's all we care about. That's it. I have something.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Oh, that's not it. Is it a joke? No, it's not a joke. Um I can't tell you how often I see estimates that are about to go into production that have old vestiges from previous iterations of the estimate that should have been removed or changed, and it's just like they just sit there. They just are they become white noise as you're reading through the scope. You need to find tooth com it and get rid of the things that don't need to be there because those are the things that cause the confusion and cause you're going to lose money when your scope says something that you're like, I forgot that that was in there, and it's undefensible. Yeah. Like it says in this line item that we're doing X, Y, Z, and then there's another line item that covers the same thing, and they're both and they're being charged for both of them. Well, guess who's gonna lose on that? Yeah. You are. Yes. So you've got to find tooth com it because those are the little razor blade cuts that not just make you lose money, yeah, but into the project after you've done such a good job setting it up and going through the pre-construction, you the client starts seeing these little cracks and these little fissures. And as soon as they start seeing those, they start digging in.

Coaching Program And Tools Offer

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah. Well, and it's it's two sides of that coin as well. Like on that side of I'm looking at the bottom of this, and it's a tight profit, but this works with this with these numbers. And then you're halfway through the job, and like James said, hey, you're kind of double charging me for the same thing. If you look at this line, I'm in this, and now I I just lost three grand off the top. Yeah. Because you're they're right. I did, I forgot to cut that out, and I that was built into my profit line. I didn't realize it. So now I went from a really tight profitability to losing money. Um, the other side of that coin is uh you weren't you were vague uh or didn't have the detail in there, and so all of a sudden they the expectation of what's being done is we talked about the kitchen. They know my full idea of what I want on the kitchen, and it's not and that didn't that thing over there didn't get done. Well, it's not in the quote. What is right here? Well, that's that's not what I meant. Yeah, um, you know, install cabinets doesn't mean I'm also gonna build your island or whatever it is. Like I like there's just because I say paint the kitchen, I wasn't expecting to repaint all your cabinetry. That was more just the walls and the ceiling and the trim. That wasn't cabinetry. Well, uh, it says paint kitchen, cabinets are in the kitchen, so right, and so both sides of that coin you're gonna lose you money. So the high level of detail, I want a very long estimate by the time we're actually swinging a hammer. And this is an art of building these estimates from each phase and how much detail you need on each phase. Um, but it is worth every minute you spend on it during pre-construction. If I've got a signature, I will spend hours on that estimate to make it perfect because that is our what we live and die by reputation and dollar-wise. All right. Thank you for joining us. If you want some of this paperwork, we've got that pre-construction checklist, we've got all of the stuff. We get we'll train you on doing this if you want to if you want to talk with us. We are our coaching program is taking this, implementing it with guys inside of their company and launching them to grow to the next level. So if you want to talk to us about that, we'd love to have a call. Uh, it is it is very inexpensive to get into this. Well, uh, and whatever program you get into, we've got kind of three different tiers to make it fit what you need. Or we just have the software if you just want software, or just come on the retreat in January if you want to do that. Um, either way, I'd love to get on a call, hear about your company, tell you a little bit about us, and if we're a great fit, awesome. Let's let's have a conversation, what that looks like. If you want some of this stuff to really protect your dollars and get super efficient with your cash, hit us up. We'd love to show you some of this paperwork and have that conversation. Thanks for joining us, and we'll see you guys next week. Bye.