How to Turn Your Subs Into Real Partners (Not Just Vendors)

Most contractors treat their subs like an Uber driver — squeeze them, burn them, replace them. And then they wonder why their best crews stop picking up the phone.

In this episode of Contractor Cuts, Clark and James break down how to build sub relationships that actually last — the kind that make your crews choose you over everyone else, refer other good trades your way, and deliver the product your reputation is built on.

They cover:

• Why your subs are choosing you every time they answer the phone
• How to plan weeks ahead so crews can build their calendar around you
• Coaching subs on cleanliness and efficiency without micromanaging them
• What to do when a great crew outgrows your jobs
• The 4-step loyalty loop that keeps your best subs coming back
• Why you should always be talking to one new crew a week
• How to test new crews without risking a client relationship
• Building pricing templates per crew so estimates take minutes, not hours
• The direct conversation that saves a cold sub relationship 90% of the time
• Why the way you run subs has to change before you hire your first project manager

If your business depends on a couple of crews you can't afford to lose, this is the episode that builds you a real bench.

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 

🔗 ProStruct360 software + coaching: prostruct360.com

Transcript

Subs Are Partners Not Vendors

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_02 0:13

Welcome to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner. And I'm James McConnell. Thank you for joining us again this week. This week. Today we are talking about the relationship with subs. We've we've had a lot of sub uh episodes in the past about how to onboard them, how to team up with them. This is more of the relationship maintenance that that you need to have, the the mindset, the view, and how to partner with with the sub, how to grow them into the crew that you need. So nurture. Nurture. Most contractors treat subs like they're an Uber driver. It's transactional and it's not relational. And so it's, I'm going to burn through these guys. I'm going to squeeze them as tight as possible. I'm going to try to get every penny out of them. When they finally don't return my calls, I'm going to get the next guy. And that is not how you build a company. Treating people well, paying them what they're owed, being respectful of their time and partnering with them in what you're doing is how we have to build a large, strong, uh, well-defined company. The uh your subs are choosing you every time they pick up the phone that you that you call. And there will be guys that stop picking up that phone because of how you're acting, how you treat them, and and and what uh the relationship isn't, is why why they're not not answering your call. Um, the best subs are business partners where we're trying to get their business growing. And if I can help them make more money this year, they're gonna be loyal to us and they're gonna keep coming back to us and treating us well and and handling handling what they need to do. Uh what a real partnership looks like. Number one thing that you can do to partner with your subs is starting with the onboarding. We've talked about that. We're not gonna cover how to onboard a sub right now. But if you onboard them well and we lay out the work order system, how to get paid, when to get paid, all of that stuff, and then stick to that, pay them when we say, pay them the way that we say we're gonna pay them, give them the percentage draws that we talk about, all of that stuff, stick to it. But then also having a long-term plan for them.

Plan Weeks Ahead With A Schedule

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Um, and what I mean by long term, not for the next year, but for the next month. Um, with my with my subs, if I'm sending them a work order today for the work I need them to start tomorrow, that they're it's unsteady, it's unstable. Um, they might be taking on other work and not available for me. It feels um very uh shoot from the hip. And so if I'm just calling or texting them, hey, I need you next week. Hey, what the they're not gonna be loyal, they're not gonna take it seriously.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Yeah. When you're in due diligence or when you're in pre-construction or whatever, your crew should know what's coming down the pipe. Yeah. Like show them the Gantt chart. This is when we're anticipating starting, and this is your piece of it. Yep. This is how long I think it's gonna take you. Let's talk about that and make sure that we're on the same page with it so they can put you on the calendar instead of you just sending it to them and expecting them to jump. It's like, that's what we don't like when clients do. We're ready to start today. Well, we got to pick out selections, we got to do this, we got to do that. You wanting me to get started super fast is bad for both of us.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Yeah. And it sounds stupid, but if you're in due diligence during the pre-construction phase, if I send up my Gantt chart and send everyone work orders, all my crews know, hey, listen, my cleaner, I need you the first week of August. That's three months away. Right. And and they're like, awesome, cool, good. And they they they put in their head and they don't think about it again. Come the end of June, uh July, I get a text message. Hey, are we so good? When do you need me? Can I do that? I got this week that's open. Because they know that that works available to go get. And so they're help, they're helping me stay, stay organized, staying on time, as well as checking in, can I get this? Can I do that? And then I go and if if they don't, I'm still looking at my Gantt chart weekly, right? We part of our system is when you're managing projects, we have every Tuesday where you've got to go through certain certain uh uh processes that ask three questions within the software of what you should be doing, how do we do things? Uh during that time every week, we're looking at the next few weeks and we're saying, hey, okay, what's coming up? Who needs and I'm contacting all the crews for the next three two, three, four weeks on this project saying, Hey, this what this is what I got for you is still good for a week from Monday. Awesome. I'm gonna send you, resend that work order. I've got some extras that we're gonna do on this. Price is good though, we're good to go. And I've I'm reconfirming because I sent them a work order during pre-construction, and now a month later, I'm reconfirming for two weeks out. But I'm constantly having that conversation of of planning out the next couple of weeks. So where now the crews are are expecting, like, oh, Clark's got me. We're good to go. And if they know that a week's coming, like, I don't know how many times back when I was shooting from the hip that I didn't have work for a crew next week and they don't find that out until Friday. And they're like, what do we got next week, boss? I'm like, I got nothing for you next week. They're like, Well, okay, we'll try to find something. Yeah. And they're pissed off, and I've harmed them.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

They were trying to be loyal to you.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yes, they were trying to be loyal and left their calendar open. Yeah. Where if three weeks out, I'm like, Hey, I need you for the next two weeks. I got nothing that third week, I'll let you know if something comes in. That's on them. And they and they know it and they can plan for it. Yeah. Um, so knowing what's coming two to three weeks out, not two days out, is super helpful.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

And it's not, it isn't your obligation to make sure that they have work. Yes. It is your obligation if you want to build a good relationship to make sure that they're aware of when there is no work so that they can be proactive for themselves and for their families to find work for themselves.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Uh a good partnership is caring about their business. Yeah. And I want them to grow and make more money. And if I can help them be efficient, then they don't need to make extra money on my job because they're super efficient and they're making great money being efficient. Um, getting them paid on time every time without chasing. I should never have a crew chasing me for money. That's like number one. That's that's that's number one baseline. Uh also giving them good and bad feedback. I'm gonna consistently tell them what's good and what's bad. Um, if I can a year from now, all of my crews are better businessmen and business women. I am doing my job as a project manager. I'm walking the job sites on Mondays, looking at it, saying, hey, what's going on with this? Why are we doing this? I'm gonna train them of how I want, you know, we've talked about this on our onboarding of how we want our job sites to look every single evening. When they're when they're before they leave, part of your work order is 10 minutes of cleaning. Just assume that's part of your work order. I need 10 minutes of cleaning at the end of every day. This is how I want my job sites. And if you do it well and hold them accountable, they start doing that on all their job sites. And all of a sudden, all of their clients are happy. Right, I'm helping build them into a better person, a better company, better processes by being a part of our system.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Uh, to where I can help give them that feedback. And a good partnership is they want that feedback. They want the negative and the positive. And I'm gonna give them the positive, hey, you're killing it with this. Keep doing that. That's amazing. Let's let's get get uh clean this other thing up. But you you know, really, really happy with the way the progress of this project's going.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

When you walk into the kitchen and there's hammers sitting on the countertops, and there's uh bottles and used cups and food wrappers and stuff all over the place. And you walk in, it's like, hey, this looks terrible. Let me tell you why. This is someone's home. And like walk them through because like that's one of the reasons that they're a sub and they're not doing their own thing, yeah, is they're not thinking through all of these pieces. They're not uh very concerned about the client's experience of the project. Their goal is the end goal. Yeah, it's not the journey through. And so your job as the project manager is to make sure that that the journey to the end of the road is a good one. And part of that is being really respectful of living in somebody else's house. So, hey man, love the work, everything looks great. I hate the way this kitchen looks, though. Yeah, I hate the way it's looking right now. We need to have this cleaned up. I know that we're gonna clean up at the end of the day, but during the day, why would you put a hammer on the countertop? Why? It does you no good, it does me no good, the client hates it. It's just a bad idea. Yeah, bad idea.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

What's funny is uh I I remember one of my crews um who was gonna be out of town for a week. And but I knew I knew the guys that were gonna be at the job site, it was all his normal guys. Um, but he told me when I was when he was out of town that week, Clark, when you pull up in the driveway, will you give it a honk and sit there for five minutes and do something on your phone? I'm like, why? He's like, because my guys, I'm the one who always yells at them to clean and they know this week it's gotta be clean when you walk in. And so he's like, give them a little warning when you pull in so they can clean up real quickly. Um did you? I did. I wouldn't have. I did. Well, well, because I mean he wasn't there. He was while I was on vacation, and he was like, I want to, I want to make sure that they're cleaning up uh and you're not having to bust them, but they get it, they get the win that that you get to walk into a clean house. Um but treating their business like it matters because

Coach Cleanliness And Time Efficiency

SPEAKER_02 9:52

it really does. And the better that they can be, uh, you know, uh this is getting in the weeds, but there's really two things that I really try to coach uh my subs up on. Number one is prepping uh the house, like utilizing their their help in a more efficient way. So I always talk about Juan, who was my first crew that ever had, and you know, worked with him for 20 years. Um when he started, what one thing that me and him worked on really, really uh well together was I'd send him the work order, we'd show up at the job site, and before we'd always walk the house. We were doing full house flips um for uh some REITs that we were working with. And he would, we would, I would start identifying on every work order before we start what the crew can get started on while me and him walk the house. And so we save an hour of extra, we we gain an hour of four guys working every single job because what happened in the beginning was me and him would walk the whole house. We'd spend time walking through it, figuring out that. Why don't we buy this? Why don't we do this? Okay, cool, get the guys going. And you have four guys sitting in the truck for an hour. Yeah. And what we what we changed doing, I was like, why don't we start them? Let's get them going, and then we'll do our walk. And so we would game plan on the drive there. Uh, we'd have phone calls. I'm like, why don't we're painting the whole house? So go ahead and get them doing prep paint and and then we'll we'll walk it. So I'd pull up and there are four guys patching walls, caulking cracks, like go into town, knowing like I we know that's gotta happen. Let's walk through the rest of it. Yeah. But like coaching them to be efficient, where we're saving them that. So that was one thing that I always helped build them, make them better at of let's get efficient with our time and let's get your guys going instead of standing here. We're gonna try to avoid the standing around time. The second thing that I always coach guys on is Home Depot runs, runs to the to the store. One one thing I always I try to four o'clock call with the new crew, say, hey, go ahead and put together a list. Why don't you plan on stopping by Home Depot on the way to the job site tomorrow morning? Look at all the stuff you got to do tomorrow. I'm not gonna do four purchases at phone sales with you next tomorrow. Let's get it to one. And if you need a second one, call me before leaving. Uh, and so I would coach them on time efficiency and try to get the crews to make one stop and think about it at four o'clock the night before, before they leave at five, and say, tomorrow morning, I want you to have a list when you leave here for tomorrow morning's stop to purchase some screws and some caulk. And I also we're gonna start this. So we need to grab that and you know, whatever they need for tomorrow, try to get the whole purchase that morning. Um, and if we can take a crew from four trips to Home Depot down to one, and we're saving three trips every single day for five days a week. That's 15 trips that each take an hour. And think about the carbon footprint. That's true. That's very true, James. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Thank you. Uh thank you for laughing. It made me feel great.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

So helping coach them like they're part of your company. Now they're they're subcontractors, they're not W-2. We don't own their schedule. We don't aren't responsible for them. But if I can make their businesses better and more efficient, guess what? They're gonna look good to my clients. That's the product that I'm selling, yeah. What they're putting in. And so I need to have ownership in that and and help them. Also, it's not my job to run their crews, it's not my job to pay everybody on the job side. I pay the crew lead that owns the company and he pays his guys. Um, and I'm not responsible for any of those guys he is. Uh, but at the same time, I want to help coach him to be a better businessman running running his crew and doing his stuff. Um, so that's that's a big, that's big. Like get them to be better businessmen, more efficient with their time. How do we find those efficiencies and help them get there? Not yell at them for being inefficient.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

But if they're efficient, working with you is gonna make sense. If they're inefficient, they can't work for the amount of money you're paying them. So it's a win-win on both sides.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

And it might be the case that you're training them out of your stable.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Which is why, and I don't I don't know where this is on the highlight reel here, but you need to be constantly seeking new trades and building new relationships because if you're doing your job right, you might get this crew that's just a rock star crew, and they're not going to stay part of your deal because they're gonna, they're gonna get bigger, and maybe they're gonna go off and do their own thing and they're gonna start GCing their own projects, which we've had happen before. Yeah. And that does hurt a little bit because it's like, man, that was my I can set it and forget it. Like, that's the crew I can just drop on a job and really feel confident. Okay, I guess I need to be happy for them. And you are, because it doesn't mean that they're never gonna work with you again. Yeah, that still could be a really valuable resource, but they're pursuing their own stuff. You need to keep growing that stable because you need to have guys ready to go.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

I've had two different types of crews. One was a young kid up and coming, really good. Upcoming Georgia or up and coming? Up, but no, he was in Dallas, uh, Georgia. Uh, but he is

When Great Subs Outgrow Your Jobs

SPEAKER_02 15:03

now, he's a now full GC commercial, and he's actually in uh he's one of my clients that I'm a that that I coach and consult with. I meet with them Thursday. Uh so he grew into that and like, bro, I'm all for it. Like, let's let's make everyone better here. And he's now a GC, and now I'm I'm still part of what he's doing. Uh uh, I'm he's in the Pro Truck software and coaching. So it's great. The other side of it, uh, another crew that we had, um he English was a second language, and he did not like the client interaction side. He was not good at it. He wasn't good at typing, he wasn't good at that stuff. And he said, Hey, can I just send all my clients to you and you do your thing and then give me the jobs? And I was like, Heck yeah, brother. We're partners. Sure. But but again, it was like, but those are your clients. Like, let me know who you're sending my way. I will sell the job and you will be doing the work. And we'll talk about it. I'd send him out to do some estimates on those types of jobs and like we would work well together. Um, but for him, he was like, I make more money execution style, not sales. I'm not good at that front end. I'm not I'm I'm just English is harder for me. I don't like writing things up. Um my estimates always miss. He's like, I make more money on your jobs than I did when I was doing all that, and I don't like dealing with home miners.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Awesome. Great partnership. Let me handle that. We're we're splitting this job up. Let me handle that stuff. You handle the labor, we'll get it executed. So there's two ways that those crews go as you grow them up and build them up. Um, but yeah, you're right. We we always have to be filling up the stable, which we talk about in a second. Uh, the loyalty loop. So there's four steps on keeping a crew loyal. Number one, consistent work pipeline. They show up for you. If you have consistent work, they're gonna keep coming because you're the you're the hand that feeds them. They'll work for not cheaper, but if we can keep them consistent, they'll make enough money to live and and then some this month. If I've got one job this week and next week turns into three weeks from now, and so they couldn't do other work, they can't make enough working for me. They're not, they're not gonna keep working for me. Yeah. So even though I'm paying the same, if I keep consistent work and give and plan it out and give them heads up and all that, uh, and I'm organized with my job so they're not time slipping on them, they will make more money for the same amount of money I'm paying them because they can be efficient and get it done quicker. And uh so they don't need that larger amount of money because they got a budget for next week being off. Yeah. Um, so consistent work. Number two is clear work orders. The best thing you can do for your crew is live and die by the work order system. Um, it's fair and honest for them. It's them seeing what they have to do, the amount of money they're doing it for, and the timeline. On every

The Four-Step Loyalty Loop

SPEAKER_02 17:54

single work order, you've got a description of the work, the price for it, and the time start Monday, finish Thursday, these dates. Now the price you can choose, and not get in the weeds with the software. You can choose to show it per line item or just a number at the bottom. But even if it's a number at the bottom, the all of this work, I need you to start on Monday and finish Thursday. This last line is going to start Thursday, finish Friday. So Monday through Friday, here's a work order for eight grand. Can you and your guys get this done? And this timeline for this work for this amount of money. If your crew is not good enough to look at the scope, look at the timeline, and look at the price, and add all those together and say, yes, we can do that. And they can't, they aren't that don't have that ability. You should not hire them as a sub. Those just because they might know how to do something doesn't mean that they're good at budgeting their time and money. And they come back to you in a week, say, hey, I need another four days and I need another thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

I can't do either one of those. We we've agreed to the scope for the timeline for the price.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Those are the three things we've agreed to. I need a rainbow unicorn, uh, but I don't see it happening, pal. That's exactly what I would say.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

That's exactly what you would say. Yeah. So the clear work orders, defined scope, like we talked about um last podcast with the scope creep. We want defined scope of what they're getting paid, inclusions, exclusions, um, to where they are working off those work orders, not just off what you told them to do, but they're looking at that saying, hey, it's not on here. Cool, they're catching stuff and I'm being able to charge for it. We're all making more money. Um, having clear work orders, make sure that that also makes sure that they don't have go back work. If they have a work order really well defined, they do the work, it's done, they get to go home. If I, if I say renovate the bathroom and they don't know what that means and they forgot that they also need to do X, hang the hardware wasn't on their work order, but I need them to do it. They're gonna make another trip back out there to hang a toilet paper holder and a towel rack.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Like that would have taken them 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Bro, I like I need money. I like I could have thrown it in yesterday, but now it's a four-hour yeah, it's half a day of work that they could be somewhere else or on another job site. So having that clear work order saves saves them money and headache and saves you money. Number three, we got to be fair on time pay. Um, that said they say no when competitors call because you pay consistently the same day every single week. We we pay on Fridays for whatever work was done last Wednesday through this Tuesday, gets paid this Friday. And that's our system. Implement your own. That's what we like to do. That way we can check it, we can create the check, we can pay them on Friday. Um, but having a set way of payments, not whenever I walk the job side, I'll pull up my checkbook and we'll figure out what how much money you want, doesn't work. That that's that works as a one-man show that can't scale, that doesn't work at all as you start growing and you overpay them and don't help them manage their money, where they've got $2,000 left on this job. They say, Man, I got rent due tonight. I gotta get, I gotta get $1,800 of it. Well, that means all of next week's work, you're gonna get paid $200 because that's all that's left. And I'm paying you ahead. And so you're screwing them because next week they will only get paid $200. And so it's gonna end badly for both parties. Yeah. Um, so giving them consistent pay and only paying them for what they deserve. Um, and then the fourth one is giving real feedback, like we said. They grow and your product gets better. The better they are, the better our product is. And so we want to coach them, help them, and grow them.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

And if if you have these conversations about this is how we pay, this is the work order system, and you you'll probably need to remind guys one or two times about how that goes. We stop working with guys just for that sole reason, where it's like every time Tuesday, Wednesday rolls around, I'm getting the bid from them for hey, can you give us we're we're here. Can you invoice? Here's an invoice. It's like, no. Don't don't send me that. That's not we've talked about this a lot of times. It becomes this really stressful and it becomes this thing where it's like, is this gonna cause a problem on the job with the client? Yeah. Like, am I am I staring down the barrel of a of a lien issue? Because this guy continues to not understand how we operate. Yeah. And this is the same guy that's gonna get really frustrated with me when he doesn't get his way and then just put a lien on the property for not a legitimate reason, but it's a lien nonetheless. It's very frustrating when the when when you've got a guy that can like do the work but will not honor the way that you're saying this is how we do it.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Yeah. Well, and you have to sit down with every crew and walk through this paperwork with them. You can't just email it to them to get a signature on it. Yeah. That does that does no good. Um and even when you sit down and walk them through it, they still won't abide by it. And they still will be like, oh, that's stupid. So the accountability up front, we're gonna do it this way. I'm only gonna pay you that. I'm not gonna do it that way. I'm gonna hold my line in the sand. Sorry, like what part of our agreement am I am I breaking right now? I'm confused. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

When there's a scope question, the first response from you is, do you have your work order? Yeah. Let's look at your work order. Instead of just chopping it up with them immediately, do you have your work order? You have to train them just like you're training your project managers. Yep. Let's look at the work order. Is it in there? Yep. Yep. It's right in there. So you see that? You don't have your work order. Okay. Is your have you received any of them? Yeah. No? Wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

I've literally set up a Gmail account and put it on a guy's phone so he could receive work orders. He was do I?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

But it's like, uh he didn't have an email account. He was like, uh, you know, he didn't speak English very well. And I'm like, you got to be able to pull these out and look at them. Um yeah, I think coaching them up like that and making sure that um uh that communication and that payment is understood from day one, is is so important. Um, all right, we got to build our bench proactively too. James started mentioning this a second ago, but you need to be talking to one new crew each week. Um, one thing I do in coaching is hey, what's your crew situation? What's your stable look like? What's the bullpen? Uh and we start circling like, hey, who's your least performing crew? My electrician is terrible. He charges way too much and he's never answers and he never shows up on time and he pushes me every time. I'm like, cool. Is he on a job? Yeah, he's on a job right now for me. Cool. That will be his last job. Let's find another one. Let's find another electrician to start hunting.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

I promise you.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Yes. And so we're circling. I'm always replacing the bottom 10%. And if we get to a spot where the bottom 10% is great, I'm building my get my bullprint for when that dude gets too busy, for when that guy goes, hey, I'm going out of town for a month to visit family. Okay. Uh, I can't pause my jobs for a month, right? So we got to constantly be building uh that bench. Weekly time blocking dedicated to sourcing before the emergency. The worst crew you can bring on is a crew that you need to start tomorrow. Yeah. Absolute worst. But desperation breeds uh overlooking red flags, uh, to where it's like, I just we got to get someone. We got to get someone. Just uh

Build Your Bench Before Emergencies

SPEAKER_02 25:27

try them out. That will cost you money every single time. If you haven't talked to five painters to find three that you're actually going to interview with and one that you're gonna put on a job site, then you're not doing your job. Um we need a test on a small job, the new crew. Uh, I like to do it on my personal house, on an investment property is ideal where the homeowner is not standing over their shoulder. Um, one of my other favorite things I do with new crews was I would take my all-star crew, the crew that's been with me since the beginning, that I've trained really hard uh and really gotten efficient, and I will put them on a job together. And I'll be like, Juan, this this guy's coming with you. Uh, he's gonna be doing X, Y, and Z. The half bath. Yes. I'm gonna put him on a half bath. You know, just set the bar on pace and cleanliness and quality. Yeah. And so there's some competition. I can call Juan and he can tell me what's going on. He's kind of like working foreman because he's been with me for 20 years. Like that, that crew, I'm gonna team up with them for one job. Um, and I might pay a little extra because uh I'm having my main guy watch over everything, but it's not for I'm not building his new crew. I'm just making sure that he sees what our job sites look like. He sees how we do walkthroughs, he sees how we start jobs, and really kind of let the trained train other people. Um also your best subs know other good subs. Um, you know, electrician's not

Test New Crews Without Risk

SPEAKER_02 26:54

going to give you another electrician's number usually, but they know three plumbers.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Uh, and your plumber knows a couple um framers, right? Because they've worked together. So it really when we're broadening our bullpen of crews, that's honestly my first stop.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

First stop. Absolutely. The plumber is the the funny thing is is like the relationships between the trades, especially like MEPs and framers, and then sheetrock. Yeah, there's these uh there's these rifts that are always there because it's like, oh, they they cut my joist. Well, no, you didn't give us enough space for this. Or the electrician is like aggressive about the holes he's putting in the sheetrock, and the sheetrock guy has to come in behind. If you're getting references from your trades for those trades, you can bet that those are the trades that are doing the things that they're like, he's good to work with. Yeah, he's good to work with.

SPEAKER_02 27:47

My drywall installer suggests an HVAC technician. I'm going to use that HVAC technician because we know that he doesn't cut 78 holes to run one line. Um, yeah, I think that's that's that's exactly right. They know they've worked with others, and I I'll send them out as hunters. Like, hey, I need I need someone for HVAC. If you know of anyone, I'll get a call three weeks later. Hey, I got a buddy that actually, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Do you want to you want to me to introduce you? Yeah. Yeah, that's great. So they're they're out there hunting for you because they it's the team. They want a better team too, and they don't like the guys you're using, probably.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

So but don't don't allow your crew to become a mini GC inside of your company, though. Yep. That's you need to make sure that it's really clear up front. Like, I'm not looking for you to go find an electrician that charge me for electrical. I need to be in charge. I'm just looking for, I'm just looking for a buddy that you want to send work to.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Great point. Uh it's a um, I will throw in the cleaning to the general crew. If he's like, my wife wants to clean, I'll do it myself. My cousin wants to come. We'll try that out. But when he's like, um, like, I need HVC. Oh, I I can do HVAC too. No, you can't. You can't. Well, I've got a guy that can do it. Okay, cool. Give me his number.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Love to know. Does he does he actually do it?

SPEAKER_02 29:04

Is he subbing it out to someone else who's subbing it to somebody else? Uh, so yeah, building that out, getting to know your subs, uh, asking um to help them build the team. Um along with doing this, uh, we need to have the pricing conversation that no one else is having with the crews to be able to build that that partnership and loyalty. Um we have in the Pro Truck software, one of my favorite things uh that James has done in the past that that I always coach guys on is we build line items per crew sometimes. So what that means is we'll have a line item that says replace fan, and in the parentheses after is it says 2026 Bob's electrical. And so this price to replace the fan was updated in 2026 for Bob's electrical pricing. And so I'm working with my crews, understanding their pricing, and building specific line items that I that is assigned specifically to that crew. Now, this doesn't work across the board, but on a lot of stuff, uh, you know, if you're doing large scale stuff, how how much do you charge per board of drywall for doing a full level?

SPEAKER_00 30:17

And and really the most effective way to do this is doing creating a bid packet that's not just for that job, but it's like, hey, in general, for

Pricing Templates And Better Negotiation

SPEAKER_00 30:30

doing an addition, let's just say we're doing an addition, what is the cost for running like standard outlets, standard lighting? Do you have linear footages? Is it square footage? Is it per fixture? And getting that pricing breakdown, even like subpanels. How much is this subpanel? What do you charge per run for can lighting? And getting those prices in one line item, and that is your template for that crew, so that when you break it out, it's like, okay, I know I want to use this electrician or I know I want to use this plumber because of the level of quality that I'm looking for. Well, you can have internal pricing based off of their numbers, and it's not, it doesn't need to be, okay, we have 30,000 line items now because every single line item is multiplied by however many vendors I have. You can just have your standardized pricing, and then you've got, you know, 10, 12 different line items that are just this crew's pricing for that thing.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

The the hard part to coach a guy in who's new in construction is industry standard pricing for your area compared to how much you're gonna pay someone for their value of their quality. Um, you know, I think a good example of this is I knew when I was running jobs, refinishing hardwoods was three bucks a square foot. And that was my line of what I wanted to pay someone. I had a flooring guy that was four bucks a square foot, and I said, Hey, help me understand the the dollar difference, the 30% increase of what kind of my industry standard pay is, what you do differently. Well, I three coated, I screen that between each, like all of the stuff that like top guys do, where some of the cheap guys might do one coat of poly, not two or three coats of poly. And they might do that, they might cut those corners. So I want to understand the difference. Uh, and then I also am like, hey, I pay three. I know you charge four. That's probably for homeowners. I'm doing the front end bidding, I'm doing all of this. You're gonna show up, do it, and go home. Could you get down to maybe 325, 330? And then we can kind of meet in the middle and I'll be able to just you're not gonna have to do a lot of this work. I'm gonna do the front end and doing the sales pitch of I'm not a homeowner, I'm a contractor, I'm gonna do half the work for you. Um, but I'm negotiating because I know what I want to pay. Uh, if I didn't know my pay and he's like four bucks square foot, I'm like, cool, done. We're good at four bucks. Um, I don't know what the price is now. I haven't ran a job in a while, but don't don't get stuck on those numbers. But those, but the difference of three dollars and four dollars is a lot on a when when you're doing thousands of square feet over the next year. Um, and if you can say, listen, I get you're charging four. This is why I do it for three, because I'm charging four and that dollars for the work I'm doing. Let me show you that. We can get to a happy medium and maybe get that guy down to three. Or the second option is I've got two levels of floor finish. And I talk to my client and say, listen, I've got this guy who does it this way, and I got this guy who does it this way. Your house is a $1.4 million house. I think we should use this other crew. It's gonna be an extra $1,800, but I think it's gonna be worth it. And then I'm now advising the client on quality of finish that they want. Yeah. And so I've got two different price points, two different line items in my scope uh or in my software that I can pick from of what level quality hardwoods, if it's a fix and flip on a rental that's gonna be Section 8 at $800 a month. I don't need that high-end flooring. If it's a couple million dollar home, I'm definitely gonna use the high-end. I'm not gonna even allow them to do the cheaper guy. Yeah. Um, because I don't want to put my name on that. Right. And so your crews have different levels. We have different line items with the names of the crew and the price that we've agreed on. And at this point, your job is just build selecting the right line items when you're building out a an estimate. Um, when the relationship breaks down, most subs, most of our sub-relationships die from neglect and not conflict. Um, I would say the relationships die. If you don't have a relationship yet, it's usually from quality of work or price, uh, mismatching of expectations. But once you have a relationship going, it dies mostly from neglect, from me not listening, not taking feedback, not communicating. Um, if a good sub goes cold, a direct conversation saves 90% saves that relationship 90% of the time. It is hard to do, but to sit down with a sub and say, hey, let me let me get you let me buy a coffee. I'd love to chat. How's it going? What what would you tell someone, another sub that might be working for me? Like, what can I do better as a contractor for you? That in and of itself, the the crew's like, honestly, like it'd be cool if I got a work order ahead ahead of time instead of like the day I'm starting. So I don't know the scope. I don't know who great. I didn't even think about that. Or whatever it is, they will give you that feedback. They want to work better too. Um, to be honest, Clark, most of your jobs, I'm feeling like I'm underpaid. I just say yes because I've got free space, but I charge a lot more than

Save Relationships With Direct Conversations

SPEAKER_02 35:36

what you're paying me. Let's have that conversation. Let's talk about it. How can I justify higher pricing that I can I'd love to price higher on this line? Maybe I'm missing it. Maybe I've got 2015 numbers still in my head and I need to update it for what you're doing. Let's talk about that, right? So we can have those conversations. And like we mentioned earlier, if I've got a deep bullpen of four other painters and my painter is saying I'm underpricing, I say, I hear you. You're one of four crews that we use for pain, and the other three are very happy with this price point. So I don't know if this is a good fit. Yeah. You know, like uh you need to you need to understand you're paying me to manage the project, and I'm paying you to do the labor. Like we're all not getting the full pay if we sold it and did the work ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

So we can have those conversations openly with our crew, get that feedback. It's gonna save that relationship, or farewell. It's been it's great meeting you, it's been fun. I'll call you when I can pay that price. You know, no hard for you.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Or you call me when this price actually ends up working.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Yes, yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

It's great.

SPEAKER_02 36:39

Yeah, but those are very fair conversations to have that really save your relationship, your reputation with with uh your clients at the end of the day. Um knowing the difference between coaching up a crew and letting them go. We've talked about this in in in the past of when to fire a crew um and the difference of what they need coaching on and when it's time to let them go and not use them anymore.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Um sometimes it's really apparent. Yeah. Sometimes it's really not.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

Yeah. It's because they can have the best attitude and just not be good at the work. I I think the biggest one of that that I've seen where it's like, I love this guy, is he's good that he's good at the work. He bit off more than he can chew. He brought four guys with him, promised them each 200 bucks a day. That's 800 bucks a day. He's burning through, and he's not good at managing time and cruise and and labor. And so he's trying to up his game and start bringing guys with him and taking on bigger jobs. Yeah. And you love him. He was great as a one-man show. Then all of a sudden, his timeline starts slipping. He starts asking for more money, even though there's no change in scope.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

He's not on site anymore because he's having to work by himself to make the money up that he's burning with these three guys on site.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

Yep. So we're gonna call that out. We're gonna sit him down, we're gonna have that conversation. There, but there is a difference of coaching someone up and being like, hey, this isn't this isn't good, and realizing that this guy can't do it. He doesn't have the skills or the ability or the knowledge. Maybe he's a good one-man show, but he won't go backwards because he's built this crew and he's I gotta let him go.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Um, that's difficult to do, but is going to save your reputation and your dollars.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

We had a guy early on, uh very similar situation, and we I called it quits with them, but didn't burn the bridge. Told him straight up, I really like you. I really like the way that you operate. I think you have a lot of growing to do. And I do too. And so, like, we're a bad fit for each other right now because we're both too green. I need somebody with more experience that knows there's stuff that I can depend on. I feel like you you will be that person, but it's not right now. Yeah. And five years later, he's the all-star crew. He was our best crew.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Yeah. I mean, I think that's that's it. Uh, and he agreed. Like, yeah, especially when he came back, he was like, Man, I didn't know what I was doing back then. Like, thanks for giving me a second chance. Um that, but it was that uh upfront and honest conversation of like, you're dropping the ball, man. Not a screaming at you, you idiot, but like, hey, this isn't it.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

But and it was me too. Yes, it's it's recognizing your own failure in the relationship of like, it doesn't matter. I I'm not able to pick up after you. And if I was better, if I knew more and could prognosticate even better, maybe I could help you grow, but I can't help you grow because I'm just trying to grow myself.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

That's right. I I think closing this out. Let's talk more. No, um okay, fine. Uh uh this is gonna become solo. You want to step out. Closing this out. No, I'm just kidding. Uh one one thing that that is you don't understand until it happens, is when you hire your first project manager, the way that you're running your subs is working right now because they're your boys and they get it. And it's how things run. And there's this loyalty and trust, and we get each other. And I got you on this one, you got me on the next one. And that works really well here. As soon as you hire a project manager, you can't teach them how to have boys because it's not your money versus the sub's money, it's they're playing with your money. The your employee is using your cash to pay crews. It's monopoly money. And so it changes everything. So if you don't have these processes in place, it is so difficult to hire a project manager because they don't know how to hire and train up crews because they're just doing how you did it. And the way you did it is you hired the guys you know and you've built loyalty over the years, and it just doesn't start that way. And so to scale your company, you have to change this process, even though it might not even be broken according to how you're running things. Um, best part of coaching when we're is when we're prepping for a hire, because I step in, that's on the executive level, but I step in and I say, listen, let's look at how you're running your crews. And we go through and we re-onboard all of your crews you've had for two years. They got to go through a new onboarding, new processes, and you got to make the paperwork the bag like, hey, we're changing things because I'm trying to get you more work. And we have that conversation of let me let's sit down

Systems Needed Before Hiring A PM

SPEAKER_02 41:22

and let's we're starting from scratch. Let me show you the work order system. Let me show you the sub-paperwork, let me show you what we're agreeing to and not agreeing to. Let me walk you through all the stuff. Starting on Monday, there's a new job you have you on. We're gonna run things the new way. And we have to have that switch over that in coaching is very easy to do with the guys. Doing it on your own is very difficult. But having the paperwork, the switch over, the ripping it like a band-aid on the first job that they're doing, not mid-job of this last job, but next job we do, it's gonna be all new systems. Um, is how we start growing them and building them and then training it to where when I hire a PM, they have the exact way to onboard, train, and hold accountable the guys the way that you want it done. So they aren't, they aren't gambling with your money. Yeah. If you want to hear about those systems, go to contractorcuts.com. I would love to help talk you through this for free. Sign up. We got online, you can sign up for I think a free hour consultation that I'll do with you to hear about your company, give you some feedback. I had a guy that just signed up for a second one. We talked last month. He wants to have one more conversation. He's not quite ready for coaching. Uh uh, I'm not letting him into coaching yet because he's not ready yet. Um, but we're having another conversation this week because he needs some help and I want to get him there. He's coming on the retreat in January. And so I'm like, listen, let's get you there. So where by the time you hit in January, you can kind of come into coaching and we can kill it next year. So um, if you need some uh some free advice, I'd love to have that with you. Let's have a conversation. Um, contractorcast.com, hit me up, ProSruck360.com. Also, you can go to the contact us and that that will find its way to me as well. So thank you so much for listening, and we will talk to you guys next week. Bye.