August 18, 2025 • 19 mins
Clark Turner reveals the top 10 critical items contractors forget to include in their estimates, resulting in lost profits and awkward change order conversations. He shares practical strategies for building comprehensive estimates that protect your margins and enhance client relationships.
• Due diligence line item covers pre-construction work like Gantt charts, selection workbooks, and MEP walks
• Design fees for renderings, layouts, or interior designer consultation should always be included
• Architectural and engineering costs need separate line items, especially for additions
• Port-a-potties, temporary utilities, and job boxes are essential job site preparation items
• Include separate line items for each required inspection to improve scheduling
• Site protection costs for floor coverings, countertop protection, and dust barriers
• Landscaping restoration is commonly forgotten but important for client satisfaction
• Final cleaning ensures the project ends on a high note and prevents disputes
• Create job templates in your estimating software to include these items by default
• Document when clients decline services like cleaning to avoid disputes later
If you want the full list of these 10 items or to learn more about our coaching services, visit prostruct360.com and schedule a call directly with me through the contact page.
Have a question or an idea to improve the podcast?
Email us at team@prostruct360.com
Want to learn more about our software or coaching?
Visit our website at ProStruct360.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good,
the bad and the ugly of growinga successful contracting company
.
Welcome to Contractor Cuts.
My name is Clark Turner.
Thank you for joining us againthis week.
So today we're doing anotherCoaching Cuts, which is our
shorter version, where I talkdirectly with you about things
(00:24):
that I cover in my coachingsessions with our clients.
So I wanted to cover today areally important topic.
Last week we covered estimates,how to build estimates, things
that you can do to compete, aswell as how do we defend
ourselves against the low balloffers that sort of thing.
If you haven't listened to lastweek's start there, go back and
(00:44):
listen to that one.
It's a really good one.
This week we are talking aboutthe 10 things that contractors
forget to put on their quotebefore the job starts that they
end up losing money on that theyeither have to pay out of their
pocket or they're those earlychange orders where we're going
to have change orders,potentially on a job.
I don't want to use those upearly and make a client upset on
(01:05):
stuff that I should have caughtoriginally.
So today we're going to listthe top 10 things that I want to
see on every single estimateNow, before I get into it, if
you're in our software, thereare job templates.
In the ProStrux 360 software youcan build a job template and
what that is.
You can add a bunch of lineitems and save it as a template
of a normal estimate.
So when you're starting a jobyou can say, hey, I want to use
(01:26):
my standard template and you canhave all of these items already
listed on there.
You can do a kitchen renovationtemplate, you can do a basement
, you can do an addition, youcan do a new construction
template.
But you build out thesetemplates with all of your line
items already on it, where allyou have to do is select it,
edit those line items, deletesome, add some, change
(01:46):
quantities and it takes a40-minute estimate down to about
five minutes.
What's great about that isthese 10 things I'm about to
talk about today.
You can go ahead and prep andhave on those estimates.
That way you're not forgettingthem.
You're not having to rememberthem every single time and add
this stuff on Now.
Again, these 10 are not goingto be on every estimate, but I
like to have it in my templateand delete them off if I don't
need them, as opposed to havingto try and remember them every
(02:08):
time.
I'm writing an estimate, allright, so let's run down the
list of the top 10 things that Iwant to see on your estimate.
Number one and we've talkedabout this in other podcasts,
I'm not going to spend too muchtime on it is your due diligence
, your pre-construction duediligence line item.
I want you to be charging theclient for the time you're
spending before you startswinging a hammer.
(02:28):
The due diligence if youhaven't listened to the podcast
a month or two ago is where wetake the time.
We slow down and we say hey,listen, we've got a very close
estimate.
During this due diligenceperiod, we're going to charge
you $1,000, $1,500, $3,000,$6,500, depending on the size of
(02:49):
the job, amount of work we needto do During the due diligence.
I'm building out your Ganttchart.
I'm building out yourselections workbook so we can
pick out every single materialbefore we get started.
I'm doing my MEP walks andwalking the crews on the job
site or pulling the blueprintsand showing it to my vendors and
my crews, and I'm making surethat every dollar is accounted
(03:09):
for and every selection ispicked out to where, once we
start construction, there's nota lot of discussion calls to the
client hey, I need this pickedout.
Hey, don't forget this.
I need that paint color by nextTuesday.
And then it doesn't get pickedout and so we can't order the
paint.
Now we're behind schedule.
Right, all of the stuff thatyou need to do to prep for the
job we do during due diligenceand we charge them for it.
(03:29):
And I explained to our clientsaying hey, listen, I'm going to
take some money from all of ourline items and pull it out and
this money is the due diligencemoney and in that money I'm
going to spend all of our timeconverting the estimate into a
quote.
So by the time we get out ofdue diligence and we're starting
construction, I've got a quotebuilt that you are down to the
(03:50):
penny spent.
We've got your final materialselected, the flooring that you
want, the light fixtures youwant.
All of that is on the finalizedquote.
To where now the numbers arelocked in.
It also allows me to walk onour estimates.
I might throw $10,000 for theHVAC.
Now, during due diligence, I sitdown with my HVAC technician
and say, okay, this is whatwe're doing.
(04:11):
This is the look.
It's very similar to thatprevious job we did.
I budgeted about 10 grand.
They look at it and say, yeah,according to this, let me get
you a quote and it ends up beingat $10,800 for what we need to
do.
I then take that and edit theestimate to where those final
numbers are, converting from anestimate to a quote.
So that due diligence perioddon't do for free, don't do all
(04:32):
hours and hours and hours ofwork for free for clients, for
them to go with anothercontractor.
We want to charge for the duediligence and make sure there's
a separate line item on there.
It's hard to pitch in thebeginning, when you're first
starting to do it.
Give me a call, let's hop on acall and I'll help you do it and
we'll practice running throughit.
But having that due diligenceline is so important.
(04:53):
So that's number one.
Second thing that I want to seeon that quote I want a design
line, I want an interiordesigner, some sort of layout.
Obviously, if you're doing anew construction, there's going
to be already architect design,all that stuff in it.
A lot of additions will havethat.
But when you're doing a kitchenor a basement or a bathroom, a
(05:13):
lot of times there's not adesigner involved, it's the
homeowner wants to do a newkitchen.
Here's some pictures.
I've thought I've seen that Ilike Can you guys do something
like this?
I'm not a designer, I'm acontractor.
I enjoy the design.
I enjoy that side of it.
I can do it for you, but I'mgoing to charge you for it.
You know we would charge $500to do a sketch up and rendering
of the kitchen and we'll justour project manager will do it
(05:35):
for you or one of our people inour office will do it.
But we are going to charge tothink through the design phase.
A couple of reasons we do this.
Number one you're spending timeon it.
We want to charge if they wantus to design it.
They come with an exact design.
We're quoting it.
We're thinking through it andgiving them a quote and then
executing the work.
Great, we don't need a designline on there.
But if you don't know what youwant, if we have an interior
(05:56):
design line on there, we've gotinterior designers that we work
with and we say, listen, I'mgoing to pay for two hour
session with this interiordesigner.
That's on our quote.
It's a part of our quote.
I want them to help you pickstuff out, if you want, if you
have me pick out your paintcolors, we're going to be
painting the house purple.
You don't want that.
You don't want me doing yourselections.
I'm a general contractor, I'mnot a designer.
So it gives a spot where I canask the client, hey, who's doing
(06:19):
the design work?
By asking that when I'm goingand reviewing the estimate,
they're automatically theassumption is I'm not doing
design, I'm charging you for it.
We're going to hire a designer,they're going to handle it.
If you want me to do somerenderings, if you know AutoCAD
or SketchUp or something, youwant to charge someone to do it,
great, but have a charge to doit.
Don't do that stuff for free,all right.
(06:40):
Next line on there I kind ofmentioned in the last one
architects, renderings, any sortof engineer, all of that stuff
we need to put on there.
Obviously, if you are doing anaddition or a new construction,
there's going to have to be allof those things, an arborist
potentially.
I like to have it on there andhave that conversation with the
(07:02):
client.
Even if we're doing a kitchen,even if we're just doing a
bathroom, I'm going to say, hey,do we?
Are we getting renderings?
Are we getting drawings?
Again, that's similar to thedesign.
But I want to make sure that,if they are expecting that, that
we've got a budgeted line itemfor it so we can have that
conversation.
They can see the price on it,they can see our budget amount
(07:26):
for the architect and for theengineer and that will fluctuate
depending if it's a new kitchenversus a new construction
versus an addition.
Right, all those are differentprices.
If you need those prices, callyour architect, say hey, I'm
trying to do roundaboutbudgeting numbers for my
estimates.
Help me with this.
How do you charge for this?
How do you charge for that?
Go through that and they willlove to give you those prices.
You lock them into yoursoftware, you put them into your
line items, you selectarchitect, new construction.
(07:46):
Boom, it's already pre-writtenon your estimate.
You're good to go, so make surewe're charging for that Now.
Again, this is one of thosethings that is going to be a
change order.
If you forget it, on stuff likean addition, if I forgot to put
an architect on there, we'regoing through the estimate, we
get some signatures, we're readyto start and I'm like, okay,
well, we need an architect.
Oh crap, I didn't put that onmy estimate.
Hey, we need to add this on.
(08:08):
And so, before we even gotstarted, I'm hitting them with
change orders to be things thatactually happened during the
project.
That actually is a valid changeorder.
That wasn't because you wereincompetent as a general
contractor and didn't build theright estimate, but stuff that
comes up changes, requirementsby the city, that sort of thing
(08:31):
I want to keep for my changeorder.
I'm sorry, conversations, nothey, I forgot to put an
architect on our quote.
I'm sorry, conversations, nothey, I forgot to put an
architect on our quote.
Next thing, after we get all ofthat, our designs let's start
thinking about how we're goingto prep this job site.
So, number one that I'm goingto put on there port-a-potty,
port-a-john, whatever you callit in your area I'm going to
have one of those on there.
Two of those multiple months weprice it out by the month, and
(08:59):
so, whether it know whether it'sa month, month and a half,
three months, it is a per monthcharge.
That's preset in our software.
So I put that in there.
I say, okay, this project's afour month.
I click on four, boom, mypricing's on there and it's and
it's set.
Osha, you got to have one ofthose on site, even if you don't
.
I don't want my crew walkingthrough a house, going to the
bathroom in the client's guestbathroom or their hallway
bathroom, so I want to have oneof those on there.
(09:23):
If the client says, hey, takethat off, I don't want to pay
for that, say great, whichbathroom can all my guys use in
the morning after their coffee?
Right, and so we.
It helps us have thatconversation of expectations as
well, as I'm going to have topay for that, and if it's not on
the quote, it's a hardconversation about another
change order as well as well.
I, you know I assume that youguys were taking care of that
I'm not going to pay for that,you know, after you've already
signed the quote.
So make sure that that's onthere.
(09:45):
Next, temporary utilities right,when I do electrical sometimes
you know talk with yourelectrician about.
But we need a temple.
If we're adding new electricalsomewhere, there's going to have
to be a temporary electricalpole that we've got to do
separately and a permit for it.
Or let's say we're working on aproperty and there's not going
to be power on.
I need to budget for agenerator.
I need to budget for a watertruck to come if there's no
(10:07):
water on it, there's all of theutilities that you might need
temporarily.
Have that as a line item onyour standard template.
So when you're going throughbuilding your estimate you can
see it and say do I need that?
No, I don't Delete it off.
You're not going to use that onevery single job, but having it
on there allows you to eithercharge for it or delete it off.
But those type of things areassumed that that's part of the
(10:30):
quote, right?
So it's a lot harder to get achange order for that than like
an architect, because onsomething like that you're
saying, hey, I need to have agenerator and they say, well,
you knew the power was off, youquoted it that way.
I assume that that was part ofyour quote.
And now there's this push andpull with the client thinking
you're taking them for granted,trying to take money from them.
Another line item we do it's acheap one job box, right, I'm
(10:52):
putting a four by four postsoutside.
I'm getting a box, whether it'sa custom built one that you do,
or one from Home Depot I'mputting a couple hundred dollars
on there for that.
I want to post it so I can putall my permits on there, all my
paperwork in there.
But we need a charge for that.
So it's a line item so we canmake sure we budget for
purchasing what we need topurchase and assign someone to
install it and that sort ofthing.
So again, that's somewhere thatwe've lost money on.
(11:14):
We've forgotten to put that onthere and we just do it because
it's difficult to change order.
Something like a job box to beable to have the permit box out
there.
So make sure that that's onthere.
It's a small one, but again,two, three, $400 on every single
quote really starts to add up.
Next, now this one I sometimescharge for, sometimes don't, but
(11:34):
I want it on there, whetherit's a $0 line item or I'm
charging for them.
But I want to have separateline items on my estimate for my
inspections, right?
So if you are doing permittingon the property and you have
inspections, I want to haveinspection number one,
inspection number two,inspection number three as line
(11:55):
items on there.
You can charge for those.
Say, hey, I'm going to spendhalf a day waiting for the
inspector to show up, meetinghim, walking him around, so I
charge per inspection.
I'm breaking it out as opposedto just lumping it into some of
this stuff or other times it'spart of your quote and so you're
just doing a $0 line item.
But by doing that there's acouple of things I can do in my
software.
Number one I can schedule it onmy Gantt chart and see when my
(12:18):
inspections are and say, hey,I'm gonna tie the inspection
line to the sheetrock that'scoming next.
My drywall line can't startuntil the inspection's done.
So if I move that inspectiondown, my drywall and everything
else shifts on my timeline.
So I can see my new accuratetimeline in the job.
So I can see where all myinspections are visibly on my
(12:38):
Gantt chart, on my calendar, byhaving those line items in there
.
And then I'm going to assignthe line items to myself or my
project manager, so their nameis beside it and they say, once
we pass an inspection, boom,mark complete.
Even if it's a $0 line item,great, we can still mark it
complete and show, hey, this isthe date that we passed the pass
, the inspection, and it's allnoted on there.
Clients can see it.
(13:00):
It's just additionalinformation.
That's super helpful andsometimes you can charge for
that stuff as well.
Next thing site protection.
This is the big one that we'velost money on.
That is super easy to chargefor because you can give the
client the option right.
So, site protection I mean Iwant to put cover all the
flooring right.
If we were walking throughhardwoods, I need to put some
(13:21):
sort of protective covering onthose floors.
Countertops I want to cover thecountertops.
Plastic walls between rooms, onthe rooms.
We're not working in Stuff likethat, where I'm thinking
through keeping the propertyclean and protecting the areas
that we're not working in, thosethat stuff adds up and that
stuff, who's setting it up,who's tearing it down, who's
(13:44):
cleaning up?
At the end, all of that stuffneeds to be on the quote and you
can easily charge for it,because if the client says, hey,
what's all this for?
Well, we don't have to do that.
There's just going to be dustall over your entire house or
there's going to be mud acrossthe floors.
If you're fine with it, or wecan charge for this.
It's a couple hundred dollarline item, it's not a big deal,
but having it on there allows meto sign someone to do it,
(14:04):
allows me to charge for it andnot have that leaky bucket of
dollars just pouring out of mypocket that I'm not accounting
for All right.
Number nine on my list is goingto be landscaping.
Again, this is one that willfor sure be a change order, but
I don't know why, but we alwaysforget about it.
Now, on new additions, on newconstruction, we you're not
going to forget it, becausethat's that's kind of one of the
(14:25):
standard things we talk through.
But a lot of times we're doing,uh, some exterior work, we're
doing new siding, we're adding,you know, changing the roof out,
or you know, maybe we'repushing a kitchen two feet, uh,
out into the yard or a roomextending a little bit, a minor
addition that we're doing on theproperty.
What are we doing with thelandscaping outside?
(14:45):
Is it going to be mud whenwe're done?
Is it going to be torn upbushes?
Because we did all this siding?
If I start talking through thatnow, the torn up bushes were
budgeted for and expected wherewe need to work on that, as
opposed to, if we don't havethat on there, don't talk about
it with the client.
We mess up some bushes and somegrass and they're like, hey,
you guys suck at what you'redoing.
You need to come back out hereand fix this for free If it's on
(15:07):
my quote and say, hey, listen,when we're doing all this siding
, you know all these bushes needto get trimmed back, and
afterwards you're probably goingto want some, you know some
sort of mulch or somethingaround the base of this.
You can have that conversation,charge them for it.
They're thankful that you'rethinking through that stuff and
now you're not having to coverthe cost and they're happy with
it.
Right, you're saving yourreputation, saving your dollars
(15:28):
and covering your basis on yourquotes to where you're not
thinking about more fires thatare happening later on.
So make sure landscaping is onthose jobs, even on interior
jobs.
Right, I got guys walkingthrough the back, around the
side of the yard to the back.
Hey, when I have 14 guyswalking through here for three
months straight finishing thisbasement and doing whatever's
happening on the interior of thehouse, we're going to have some
(15:50):
tearing up of your, of yourgrass over here.
Do you want to do somethingabout that?
Do we want to plan for seedingafterwards?
No, that's fine, I've got alandscaper He'll handle it.
I've had that conversation upfront.
Now they can't be mad at me atthe end when it's when their
grass is dead where we've beenwalking.
So have that line.
I'm on there, even if it's justa discussion point with the
(16:10):
client, if you're going to bewalking through the yard, that
that sort of thing.
And the final line, number 10,that we that I always like to
have on there.
You should always have this onthere cleaning.
I want a super clean line andwhat this is is we have a
cleaner come through and we listout what we're doing.
Now a great example we're doingabout to start a basement.
It's a full basement.
(16:30):
It's an unfinished basement.
We're just finishing it.
We're entering through theoutside.
We're not walking through thehouse.
So the cleaning that we'redoing is we're going to wipe
everything down.
We're going to mop the floorsafter we install them.
We're going to wipe everythingdown.
We're going to mop the floorsafter we install them.
We're going to make sureeverything's cleaned up.
Um, you know my flooring guysdo their cuts and there's a
couple of scrap pieces.
We're picking all that up andthis also includes cleaning
outside around the door or thewalkways that we got in and out
(16:54):
from.
I want, um, maybe a bale ofpine straw to cover where the
guys wash their brushes out.
I want to leave the houselooking like a brand new home I
wanna end well, and it charged450 bucks to clean that space so
I can send a cleaner out therewho has that eye on it.
If someone says, hey, no, youknow what, I'm gonna clean it
myself.
Take that line off there.
Okay, I just want you to know.
(17:14):
I'm gonna put in writing.
I'm gonna put zero thiscleaning line item out and say
client chose to clean themselves.
This means the site will beleft dirty and scraps, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah.
I'm going to put that on thequote.
So when they sign it, I've gotan agreement that they did that.
And so towards the end of thejob, when they say, hey, this
doesn't look good, and you knowI want to give you your final
payment, say let me have mycleaner out here.
(17:36):
You know you took it off thequote, can I?
Can I put it back on there?
But now there's an expectationof the way the job site's gonna
be left at the end and I've gotdollars budgeted to make it look
good and end well on the job.
So again, I ran through 10 ofthose very quickly.
If you're driving around yourtruck listening to this, go back
(17:56):
and listen, take some notes Ifyou want the full list of this,
let me know.
Hit me up.
Go to proshruck360.com and I'llsend you a copy of these 10
things and how to do it.
Love to kind of show you aroundthe software and how to set it
up this way.
If you're one of our coachingclients, on our next meeting
let's talk about this and let'sstart building out your job
templates.
So all of these things areincluded and we make sure we
(18:18):
capture them.
If you want to talk aboutcoaching, if you want to talk
about software, if you just havesome questions about how the
heck you need to be doingsomething in your company, I'd
love to have a conversation withyou.
Go to ProStruck360.com and goto the Contact Us At the bottom
of the Contact Us.
My calendar is on there whereyou can schedule a call with me.
So go to our website, schedulea call directly with me.
(18:46):
I love to have a phone callwith you.
Uh, if, if you're interested inany of this stuff or just have
a have a question about how torun your company, all right,
thanks so much for listeningthis week and we'll talk to you
next week.
Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good,
the bad and the ugly of growinga successful contracting company
.
Welcome to Contractor Cuts.
My name is Clark Turner.
Thank you for joining us againthis week.
So today we're doing anotherCoaching Cuts, which is our
shorter version, where I talkdirectly with you about things
(00:24):
that I cover in my coachingsessions with our clients.
So I wanted to cover today areally important topic.
Last week we covered estimates,how to build estimates, things
that you can do to compete, aswell as how do we defend
ourselves against the low balloffers that sort of thing.
If you haven't listened to lastweek's start there, go back and
(00:44):
listen to that one.
It's a really good one.
This week we are talking aboutthe 10 things that contractors
forget to put on their quotebefore the job starts that they
end up losing money on that theyeither have to pay out of their
pocket or they're those earlychange orders where we're going
to have change orders,potentially on a job.
I don't want to use those upearly and make a client upset on
(01:05):
stuff that I should have caughtoriginally.
So today we're going to listthe top 10 things that I want to
see on every single estimateNow, before I get into it, if
you're in our software, thereare job templates.
In the ProStrux 360 software youcan build a job template and
what that is.
You can add a bunch of lineitems and save it as a template
of a normal estimate.
So when you're starting a jobyou can say, hey, I want to use
(01:26):
my standard template and you canhave all of these items already
listed on there.
You can do a kitchen renovationtemplate, you can do a basement
, you can do an addition, youcan do a new construction
template.
But you build out thesetemplates with all of your line
items already on it, where allyou have to do is select it,
edit those line items, deletesome, add some, change
(01:46):
quantities and it takes a40-minute estimate down to about
five minutes.
What's great about that isthese 10 things I'm about to
talk about today.
You can go ahead and prep andhave on those estimates.
That way you're not forgettingthem.
You're not having to rememberthem every single time and add
this stuff on Now.
Again, these 10 are not goingto be on every estimate, but I
like to have it in my templateand delete them off if I don't
need them, as opposed to havingto try and remember them every
(02:08):
time.
I'm writing an estimate, allright, so let's run down the
list of the top 10 things that Iwant to see on your estimate.
Number one and we've talkedabout this in other podcasts,
I'm not going to spend too muchtime on it is your due diligence
, your pre-construction duediligence line item.
I want you to be charging theclient for the time you're
spending before you startswinging a hammer.
(02:28):
The due diligence if youhaven't listened to the podcast
a month or two ago is where wetake the time.
We slow down and we say hey,listen, we've got a very close
estimate.
During this due diligenceperiod, we're going to charge
you $1,000, $1,500, $3,000,$6,500, depending on the size of
(02:49):
the job, amount of work we needto do During the due diligence.
I'm building out your Ganttchart.
I'm building out yourselections workbook so we can
pick out every single materialbefore we get started.
I'm doing my MEP walks andwalking the crews on the job
site or pulling the blueprintsand showing it to my vendors and
my crews, and I'm making surethat every dollar is accounted
(03:09):
for and every selection ispicked out to where, once we
start construction, there's nota lot of discussion calls to the
client hey, I need this pickedout.
Hey, don't forget this.
I need that paint color by nextTuesday.
And then it doesn't get pickedout and so we can't order the
paint.
Now we're behind schedule.
Right, all of the stuff thatyou need to do to prep for the
job we do during due diligenceand we charge them for it.
(03:29):
And I explained to our clientsaying hey, listen, I'm going to
take some money from all of ourline items and pull it out and
this money is the due diligencemoney and in that money I'm
going to spend all of our timeconverting the estimate into a
quote.
So by the time we get out ofdue diligence and we're starting
construction, I've got a quotebuilt that you are down to the
(03:50):
penny spent.
We've got your final materialselected, the flooring that you
want, the light fixtures youwant.
All of that is on the finalizedquote.
To where now the numbers arelocked in.
It also allows me to walk onour estimates.
I might throw $10,000 for theHVAC.
Now, during due diligence, I sitdown with my HVAC technician
and say, okay, this is whatwe're doing.
(04:11):
This is the look.
It's very similar to thatprevious job we did.
I budgeted about 10 grand.
They look at it and say, yeah,according to this, let me get
you a quote and it ends up beingat $10,800 for what we need to
do.
I then take that and edit theestimate to where those final
numbers are, converting from anestimate to a quote.
So that due diligence perioddon't do for free, don't do all
(04:32):
hours and hours and hours ofwork for free for clients, for
them to go with anothercontractor.
We want to charge for the duediligence and make sure there's
a separate line item on there.
It's hard to pitch in thebeginning, when you're first
starting to do it.
Give me a call, let's hop on acall and I'll help you do it and
we'll practice running throughit.
But having that due diligenceline is so important.
(04:53):
So that's number one.
Second thing that I want to seeon that quote I want a design
line, I want an interiordesigner, some sort of layout.
Obviously, if you're doing anew construction, there's going
to be already architect design,all that stuff in it.
A lot of additions will havethat.
But when you're doing a kitchenor a basement or a bathroom, a
(05:13):
lot of times there's not adesigner involved, it's the
homeowner wants to do a newkitchen.
Here's some pictures.
I've thought I've seen that Ilike Can you guys do something
like this?
I'm not a designer, I'm acontractor.
I enjoy the design.
I enjoy that side of it.
I can do it for you, but I'mgoing to charge you for it.
You know we would charge $500to do a sketch up and rendering
of the kitchen and we'll justour project manager will do it
(05:35):
for you or one of our people inour office will do it.
But we are going to charge tothink through the design phase.
A couple of reasons we do this.
Number one you're spending timeon it.
We want to charge if they wantus to design it.
They come with an exact design.
We're quoting it.
We're thinking through it andgiving them a quote and then
executing the work.
Great, we don't need a designline on there.
But if you don't know what youwant, if we have an interior
(05:56):
design line on there, we've gotinterior designers that we work
with and we say, listen, I'mgoing to pay for two hour
session with this interiordesigner.
That's on our quote.
It's a part of our quote.
I want them to help you pickstuff out, if you want, if you
have me pick out your paintcolors, we're going to be
painting the house purple.
You don't want that.
You don't want me doing yourselections.
I'm a general contractor, I'mnot a designer.
So it gives a spot where I canask the client, hey, who's doing
(06:19):
the design work?
By asking that when I'm goingand reviewing the estimate,
they're automatically theassumption is I'm not doing
design, I'm charging you for it.
We're going to hire a designer,they're going to handle it.
If you want me to do somerenderings, if you know AutoCAD
or SketchUp or something, youwant to charge someone to do it,
great, but have a charge to doit.
Don't do that stuff for free,all right.
(06:40):
Next line on there I kind ofmentioned in the last one
architects, renderings, any sortof engineer, all of that stuff
we need to put on there.
Obviously, if you are doing anaddition or a new construction,
there's going to have to be allof those things, an arborist
potentially.
I like to have it on there andhave that conversation with the
(07:02):
client.
Even if we're doing a kitchen,even if we're just doing a
bathroom, I'm going to say, hey,do we?
Are we getting renderings?
Are we getting drawings?
Again, that's similar to thedesign.
But I want to make sure that,if they are expecting that, that
we've got a budgeted line itemfor it so we can have that
conversation.
They can see the price on it,they can see our budget amount
(07:26):
for the architect and for theengineer and that will fluctuate
depending if it's a new kitchenversus a new construction
versus an addition.
Right, all those are differentprices.
If you need those prices, callyour architect, say hey, I'm
trying to do roundaboutbudgeting numbers for my
estimates.
Help me with this.
How do you charge for this?
How do you charge for that?
Go through that and they willlove to give you those prices.
You lock them into yoursoftware, you put them into your
line items, you selectarchitect, new construction.
(07:46):
Boom, it's already pre-writtenon your estimate.
You're good to go, so make surewe're charging for that Now.
Again, this is one of thosethings that is going to be a
change order.
If you forget it, on stuff likean addition, if I forgot to put
an architect on there, we'regoing through the estimate, we
get some signatures, we're readyto start and I'm like, okay,
well, we need an architect.
Oh crap, I didn't put that onmy estimate.
Hey, we need to add this on.
(08:08):
And so, before we even gotstarted, I'm hitting them with
change orders to be things thatactually happened during the
project.
That actually is a valid changeorder.
That wasn't because you wereincompetent as a general
contractor and didn't build theright estimate, but stuff that
comes up changes, requirementsby the city, that sort of thing
(08:31):
I want to keep for my changeorder.
I'm sorry, conversations, nothey, I forgot to put an
architect on our quote.
I'm sorry, conversations, nothey, I forgot to put an
architect on our quote.
Next thing, after we get all ofthat, our designs let's start
thinking about how we're goingto prep this job site.
So, number one that I'm goingto put on there port-a-potty,
port-a-john, whatever you callit in your area I'm going to
have one of those on there.
Two of those multiple months weprice it out by the month, and
(08:59):
so, whether it know whether it'sa month, month and a half,
three months, it is a per monthcharge.
That's preset in our software.
So I put that in there.
I say, okay, this project's afour month.
I click on four, boom, mypricing's on there and it's and
it's set.
Osha, you got to have one ofthose on site, even if you don't
.
I don't want my crew walkingthrough a house, going to the
bathroom in the client's guestbathroom or their hallway
bathroom, so I want to have oneof those on there.
(09:23):
If the client says, hey, takethat off, I don't want to pay
for that, say great, whichbathroom can all my guys use in
the morning after their coffee?
Right, and so we.
It helps us have thatconversation of expectations as
well, as I'm going to have topay for that, and if it's not on
the quote, it's a hardconversation about another
change order as well as well.
I, you know I assume that youguys were taking care of that
I'm not going to pay for that,you know, after you've already
signed the quote.
So make sure that that's onthere.
(09:45):
Next, temporary utilities right,when I do electrical sometimes
you know talk with yourelectrician about.
But we need a temple.
If we're adding new electricalsomewhere, there's going to have
to be a temporary electricalpole that we've got to do
separately and a permit for it.
Or let's say we're working on aproperty and there's not going
to be power on.
I need to budget for agenerator.
I need to budget for a watertruck to come if there's no
(10:07):
water on it, there's all of theutilities that you might need
temporarily.
Have that as a line item onyour standard template.
So when you're going throughbuilding your estimate you can
see it and say do I need that?
No, I don't Delete it off.
You're not going to use that onevery single job, but having it
on there allows you to eithercharge for it or delete it off.
But those type of things areassumed that that's part of the
(10:30):
quote, right?
So it's a lot harder to get achange order for that than like
an architect, because onsomething like that you're
saying, hey, I need to have agenerator and they say, well,
you knew the power was off, youquoted it that way.
I assume that that was part ofyour quote.
And now there's this push andpull with the client thinking
you're taking them for granted,trying to take money from them.
Another line item we do it's acheap one job box, right, I'm
(10:52):
putting a four by four postsoutside.
I'm getting a box, whether it'sa custom built one that you do,
or one from Home Depot I'mputting a couple hundred dollars
on there for that.
I want to post it so I can putall my permits on there, all my
paperwork in there.
But we need a charge for that.
So it's a line item so we canmake sure we budget for
purchasing what we need topurchase and assign someone to
install it and that sort ofthing.
So again, that's somewhere thatwe've lost money on.
(11:14):
We've forgotten to put that onthere and we just do it because
it's difficult to change order.
Something like a job box to beable to have the permit box out
there.
So make sure that that's onthere.
It's a small one, but again,two, three, $400 on every single
quote really starts to add up.
Next, now this one I sometimescharge for, sometimes don't, but
(11:34):
I want it on there, whetherit's a $0 line item or I'm
charging for them.
But I want to have separateline items on my estimate for my
inspections, right?
So if you are doing permittingon the property and you have
inspections, I want to haveinspection number one,
inspection number two,inspection number three as line
(11:55):
items on there.
You can charge for those.
Say, hey, I'm going to spendhalf a day waiting for the
inspector to show up, meetinghim, walking him around, so I
charge per inspection.
I'm breaking it out as opposedto just lumping it into some of
this stuff or other times it'spart of your quote and so you're
just doing a $0 line item.
But by doing that there's acouple of things I can do in my
software.
Number one I can schedule it onmy Gantt chart and see when my
(12:18):
inspections are and say, hey,I'm gonna tie the inspection
line to the sheetrock that'scoming next.
My drywall line can't startuntil the inspection's done.
So if I move that inspectiondown, my drywall and everything
else shifts on my timeline.
So I can see my new accuratetimeline in the job.
So I can see where all myinspections are visibly on my
(12:38):
Gantt chart, on my calendar, byhaving those line items in there
.
And then I'm going to assignthe line items to myself or my
project manager, so their nameis beside it and they say, once
we pass an inspection, boom,mark complete.
Even if it's a $0 line item,great, we can still mark it
complete and show, hey, this isthe date that we passed the pass
, the inspection, and it's allnoted on there.
Clients can see it.
(13:00):
It's just additionalinformation.
That's super helpful andsometimes you can charge for
that stuff as well.
Next thing site protection.
This is the big one that we'velost money on.
That is super easy to chargefor because you can give the
client the option right.
So, site protection I mean Iwant to put cover all the
flooring right.
If we were walking throughhardwoods, I need to put some
(13:21):
sort of protective covering onthose floors.
Countertops I want to cover thecountertops.
Plastic walls between rooms, onthe rooms.
We're not working in Stuff likethat, where I'm thinking
through keeping the propertyclean and protecting the areas
that we're not working in, thosethat stuff adds up and that
stuff, who's setting it up,who's tearing it down, who's
(13:44):
cleaning up?
At the end, all of that stuffneeds to be on the quote and you
can easily charge for it,because if the client says, hey,
what's all this for?
Well, we don't have to do that.
There's just going to be dustall over your entire house or
there's going to be mud acrossthe floors.
If you're fine with it, or wecan charge for this.
It's a couple hundred dollarline item, it's not a big deal,
but having it on there allows meto sign someone to do it,
(14:04):
allows me to charge for it andnot have that leaky bucket of
dollars just pouring out of mypocket that I'm not accounting
for All right.
Number nine on my list is goingto be landscaping.
Again, this is one that willfor sure be a change order, but
I don't know why, but we alwaysforget about it.
Now, on new additions, on newconstruction, we you're not
going to forget it, becausethat's that's kind of one of the
(14:25):
standard things we talk through.
But a lot of times we're doing,uh, some exterior work, we're
doing new siding, we're adding,you know, changing the roof out,
or you know, maybe we'repushing a kitchen two feet, uh,
out into the yard or a roomextending a little bit, a minor
addition that we're doing on theproperty.
What are we doing with thelandscaping outside?
(14:45):
Is it going to be mud whenwe're done?
Is it going to be torn upbushes?
Because we did all this siding?
If I start talking through thatnow, the torn up bushes were
budgeted for and expected wherewe need to work on that, as
opposed to, if we don't havethat on there, don't talk about
it with the client.
We mess up some bushes and somegrass and they're like, hey,
you guys suck at what you'redoing.
You need to come back out hereand fix this for free If it's on
(15:07):
my quote and say, hey, listen,when we're doing all this siding
, you know all these bushes needto get trimmed back, and
afterwards you're probably goingto want some, you know some
sort of mulch or somethingaround the base of this.
You can have that conversation,charge them for it.
They're thankful that you'rethinking through that stuff and
now you're not having to coverthe cost and they're happy with
it.
Right, you're saving yourreputation, saving your dollars
(15:28):
and covering your basis on yourquotes to where you're not
thinking about more fires thatare happening later on.
So make sure landscaping is onthose jobs, even on interior
jobs.
Right, I got guys walkingthrough the back, around the
side of the yard to the back.
Hey, when I have 14 guyswalking through here for three
months straight finishing thisbasement and doing whatever's
happening on the interior of thehouse, we're going to have some
(15:50):
tearing up of your, of yourgrass over here.
Do you want to do somethingabout that?
Do we want to plan for seedingafterwards?
No, that's fine, I've got alandscaper He'll handle it.
I've had that conversation upfront.
Now they can't be mad at me atthe end when it's when their
grass is dead where we've beenwalking.
So have that line.
I'm on there, even if it's justa discussion point with the
(16:10):
client, if you're going to bewalking through the yard, that
that sort of thing.
And the final line, number 10,that we that I always like to
have on there.
You should always have this onthere cleaning.
I want a super clean line andwhat this is is we have a
cleaner come through and we listout what we're doing.
Now a great example we're doingabout to start a basement.
It's a full basement.
(16:30):
It's an unfinished basement.
We're just finishing it.
We're entering through theoutside.
We're not walking through thehouse.
So the cleaning that we'redoing is we're going to wipe
everything down.
We're going to mop the floorsafter we install them.
We're going to wipe everythingdown.
We're going to mop the floorsafter we install them.
We're going to make sureeverything's cleaned up.
Um, you know my flooring guysdo their cuts and there's a
couple of scrap pieces.
We're picking all that up andthis also includes cleaning
outside around the door or thewalkways that we got in and out
(16:54):
from.
I want, um, maybe a bale ofpine straw to cover where the
guys wash their brushes out.
I want to leave the houselooking like a brand new home I
wanna end well, and it charged450 bucks to clean that space so
I can send a cleaner out therewho has that eye on it.
If someone says, hey, no, youknow what, I'm gonna clean it
myself.
Take that line off there.
Okay, I just want you to know.
(17:14):
I'm gonna put in writing.
I'm gonna put zero thiscleaning line item out and say
client chose to clean themselves.
This means the site will beleft dirty and scraps, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,blah.
I'm going to put that on thequote.
So when they sign it, I've gotan agreement that they did that.
And so towards the end of thejob, when they say, hey, this
doesn't look good, and you knowI want to give you your final
payment, say let me have mycleaner out here.
(17:36):
You know you took it off thequote, can I?
Can I put it back on there?
But now there's an expectationof the way the job site's gonna
be left at the end and I've gotdollars budgeted to make it look
good and end well on the job.
So again, I ran through 10 ofthose very quickly.
If you're driving around yourtruck listening to this, go back
(17:56):
and listen, take some notes Ifyou want the full list of this,
let me know.
Hit me up.
Go to proshruck360.com and I'llsend you a copy of these 10
things and how to do it.
Love to kind of show you aroundthe software and how to set it
up this way.
If you're one of our coachingclients, on our next meeting
let's talk about this and let'sstart building out your job
templates.
So all of these things areincluded and we make sure we
(18:18):
capture them.
If you want to talk aboutcoaching, if you want to talk
about software, if you just havesome questions about how the
heck you need to be doingsomething in your company, I'd
love to have a conversation withyou.
Go to ProStruck360.com and goto the Contact Us At the bottom
of the Contact Us.
My calendar is on there whereyou can schedule a call with me.
So go to our website, schedulea call directly with me.
(18:46):
I love to have a phone callwith you.
Uh, if, if you're interested inany of this stuff or just have
a have a question about how torun your company, all right,
thanks so much for listeningthis week and we'll talk to you
next week.
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