The Profit Builder Unscripted

Start getting paid for pre-construction services!

• Vicki Suiter • Episode 42

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Are you pouring time into project planning only to have homeowners walk away with your ideas for free? It’s time to start charging for pre-construction services!

In this episode, I sit down with veteran contractor David Davidson, who shares how one change helped him stop the profit bleed — and boosted his reputation at the same time.  That was a surprising benefit he’d not expected!

David talks about the turning point that forced him to rethink how his company handled the front end of projects, and the surprising upside of asking clients to pay for pre-construction services.

If you’ve been feeling undervalued or stuck giving away your expertise, this conversation will show you a better way.

🎧 Plus: David has generously shared his pre-construction agreement templates (see the resources below)!

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

David's pre-construction agreement templates

Resources:

Connect with Vicki on social media:


If you love listening to this podcast, please leave a review in Apple Podcasts.


Vicki Suiter (00:00)
If you're a general contractor, builder, design, build firm, and you find yourself losing money at the beginning of a project because you're giving away a bunch of your time and not charging for it, or if you're finding that people are not valuing and respecting what you do and struggling to sell projects, then you want to listen to this recording. This is all about how do you shift that in your business. And my guest today, David Davison, is an amazing, successful contractor who has overcome those challenges in his business and graciously and graciously shares his tools and resources that he's implemented to make that change in his business. Hi, I'm Vicki Suiter and welcome to the Profit Builder Unscripted.

Let's jump in.

Today's topic is so much fun. I'm here with my guest, David Davison from Austin, Texas. And I'm going to have David introduce himself in a minute, but I'm just going to tell you, you're going to love this conversation. I have such respect and admiration for you, David, and can't wait for us to jump into this conversation. So first of all, let me say thank you for being a guest on the podcast. And would you just tell people a little bit about you and your business? And then we'll kind of jump into today's topic, which I'm super excited about.

David Davison (01:23)
Great. Thank you so much for having me. This is very exciting. We've done it before and I had a great time. And so I've been looking forward to the day to kind of expand on what we've talked about in the past. I am a master certified kitchen and bathroom model and a master re-modeler with Nari. I'm a big proponent of the Nari single, if you will. I mean, it brings a whole lot to the table for re-modelers.

I co-own a realty restoration in Austin, Texas. Founded it right after 9-11, so I'm 23 years in. And I just, I'm passionate about what I do. I am the chief operating officer. My son has a master's in architecture and he runs the of the business. So I just try to keep it all in the guardrails as we go along. I'm an amazing staff and I just...

It's so much fun to help people realize their vision, what they think their vision is in project. so all these years, people keep asking me, how much longer are you going to do this? As long as I get up and I still smile and I enjoy it. I'm a 5 a.m. person and I'm brain dead at 4.30. So I try to work through that during my day and just have fun.

Vicki Suiter (02:36)
That's awesome. I love that. You know, you and I, you were just mentioning about how we first met and the passion that you have about what you do has shown up for me since the very first time we met. We met in San Diego. I was a speaker at a national NARY conference and you were there with a bunch of people from the NARI chapter and just made me feel so welcome what I appreciated is right away when we started talking and you started telling me about your passion for NARI, but also how you run your business and your passion for running your business. I just instantly liked you. And I instantly saw how you were somebody who is always looking to take the next hill and always looking to improve yourself and your business.

And it just and I like you. I and we've had many conversations since then over the years. And as you say, you've been a been a guest on the podcast before. Actually, you were a guest when it was a blog. And I'm very excited for today's conversation for us to talk about pre-construction agreements and how to get pre-construction agreements in place. And you have really mastered this and you have been so gracious in the past to share some of your templates and I'm going to share them again today with this episode. 

But I wanted to talk with you. think that part of this conversation today is not just about the process of how you do pre-construction agreements, getting it into, first of all, there was something that wasn't working when you decided, hey, I need to get that in place. So I want to talk about that. I want to hear about that. But also, like how did you implement it and make that change? Because I think sometimes, well, I think often, when we're embarking on implementing a big change like that in our businesses, that it's challenging. It's challenging to teach ourselves to be able to have a different kind of conversation with prospective clients. It's challenging to get the system in the process to stick with our teams and our practices of how we used to do it, how we're doing it differently, and to be able to build confidence around it. 

And so that's really, I would love to maybe just start with the part about what was it in your business that wasn't working that had you go, gee, we need to get a pre-construction agreement in place, something needed to change, what was that?

David Davison (05:05)
know, we have a building team within our shingle that was very knowledgeable, had lots of experience. We were continuing to run up against this thing of clients having unrealistic expectations or just trying to see how far they could push the envelope with meeting with builders and, you know, trying to get their project off the ground, but not really wanting to go the traditional design, bid, build route. 

So as we were continuing to develop kind of processes, we identified that, look, you know, we're valuable. We bring a lot to the table. We're no different than you as a consumer would go to your doctor, your dentist, or your attorney. You depend on them for professional services and you're willing to pay them for those services. So if we elevate or we lift ourselves up to a point where, yes, we have all those skills. 

We have all the background. We have the information. We should be paid for those as well. And it makes you as a professional perform at a higher level. Yeah. Being paid for those services versus if you're just giving them away.

Vicki Suiter (06:13)
Yeah. So did you find that in the before you started to make this shift, and I'm interested to know how you did that, right? But that you were you losing money? Did you find that it was eating into your profitability?

David Davison (06:26)
Absolutely. I mean, you can't, it's hard to put your finger on what that cost is from client to client because they all make decisions differently. They all are, you know, have different ideas and they, you may have one client that trusts you explicitly and just lets you take the lead. And then you may have another client that has two or three friends that the one's a soccer mom designer and you know, you're bad thing. So, you know, as I found that we started, you know, missing our clients, that this is the best route, we elevate our services.

Vicki Suiter (06:59)
Yeah, yeah. So not only were you not making money, but I also like I'm hearing that thing when you talk about elevating your services that you made a decision, you realize that people were not valuing you, were not valuing your professionalism, were not valuing the skill and the talent and the value, right, that you were bringing to those relationships. So it's also that as I'm hearing you

If I hear you correctly, it's like you realize there was a perception of who you were and what you were doing that was incongruent with what you knew you were delivering, the team that you had. You had all this skill and talent and gifts that you were giving people and they were treating it without value and without respect. Yeah.

David Davison (07:43)
Exactly. And I think parallel with that, about the same time that I started developing and really kind of honing in on this pre-construction services agreement was when I was really ramping up my engagement in the Austin Nari chapter. And we had a couple of really strong members that had been since we originated the chapter in Austin. And one of them is a very dear friend of mine and a mentor that kind of took me under her wing.

Her business, company, it was a family business similar to ours, but they've been in business over 50. And she, you know, continued like we, when we met in San Diego, she was one of the people that you met and we, cause we carried on conversations over the years, you know, we start seeing, bouncing ideas off each other of how to refine this process. So I wasn't going alone, but at the same time, I had a whole, whole set of ideas and procedures that I thought would work.

And I just kind of sharpened those by bouncing ideas off of her and seeing what they were doing and so forth, kind of back and forth.

Vicki Suiter (08:44)
Yeah, nice. That's awesome. Man, it's so powerful to be part of a community, right? Of like, first of all, like-minded people, people who are in our world, who understand our world, and people that we can bounce ideas off of. I love that. I, too, like you, have found that to be very powerful when I'm embarking on doing something in my business or I want input, like somebody to bounce ideas off of.

So how did you, so you got like, first of all, you were losing money. Second of all, you were not being valued and respected for what you were bringing to the table to these clients or prospects. How did you, like, what was the point that you said, no, I'm not doing this anymore. Like, what was that? What was that moment when you said, nope, we're gonna change. And then, yeah, would you just speak to that? And then, cause it takes courage, right?

That's a big move to make. Let's just acknowledge that. Anybody who is listening this who doesn't have pre-construction agreements, like it gives you like, you I just had this conversation with somebody earlier today, quite frankly, like it gives you a little bit of butterflies in your stomach. You're like, like when people will do that and it's like, well, they, you know, will they not pay it? And so what was the moment that you went, nope, we're doing this. And then how did you get past that?

David Davison (10:02)
I mean, it's a double kind of a double edged sword, but we had a project that we had had in house that we were working with a client on for me. They strung us out probably two and a half months. And, know, so we had all that expenditure of time and energy and of our process of trying to develop their project and no cost to them. And they just decided, no, I think we're going to go back to the traditional Zion

build model and not move forward with this. And at that point, it was kind of my aha moment where I'm like, this is not why I'm going to do business. This is not how we're going to continue to do this. yes, we probably will lose some jobs. But the other thing was having had these conversations with my mentor and having younger members coming into NARI.

You know, we're seeking advice of someone that had MCR certification and the master certified kitchen and bath, you know, and I even taught it for a couple of sessions so that the helps these younger members, they were all striving with the same problem. So I'm to myself, you know, it's part of that leader mentality is we can do something for the greater good of our whole Austin association if we really refine this process.

that was kind of the driving force behind it. I mean, I taught in a vocational training program as a professional for years in night school. And I just love educating the next generation of tradespeople. And now I find myself a director of our Austin Foundation for Workforce Development. And it's just a passion that I have. So I think the more you educate and the more people come to the realization of, look, I can do this too. 

It's that old adage of rising tide lifts all boats in the harbor. Yes, we may be competitors at certain times on projects, but when it really boils down to it, this is a people business. They want to do business with someone that they can trust, that's genuine, that has a passion for what they do. And I think that kind of parallels with.

Vicki Suiter (11:51)
Yep. Yeah, I love that. So how did you go about, if you had this moment, this project, two and a half months of hard work into it, and you went, oh, no, we are not doing this anymore. What's the, like, how did you start to make this transition? I just think anybody listening is gonna probably wanna go, all right, great, like I had that moment, probably have.

How did you make that change? And how did you know what to include and not include in it?

David Davison (12:40)
Initially, it was very abbreviated, you know, with the services provided under the pre-construction services. But I just went into every meeting with a potential client with the mentality that I just explained a few minutes ago about the doctor, the dentist, the thing. And I would tell them exactly that. Well, professional, you trust me enough to be in your home. you know, most houses involve central...

area of the home being renovated, you the kitchen or the main living or an addition thereof or whatever. I'm in the nucleus of your home. Our team is going to be in the nucleus of your home for six to nine to 12 months, depending on the size of the project. Well, we need to establish this relationship early on. And I'm going to show you the value of how you go about this. You're not going to spend two and a half or three months with a third party designing whatever that design professional single is, whether it's an architect, interior designer, whatever, designing something that when it ultimately comes down to it, you can afford to build. 

And then you're back to square one to redevelop. The processes started off as selling it along those lines. And at that time, I was working with a couple of different interior designers so I could bring in the one that I felt like. Their chemistry, that the chemistry of the client.

or the project nature. So it just kind of grew and it wasn't an overnight thing. I mean, I'm still refining this.

Vicki Suiter (14:06)
Some of the biggest challenges you faced when you were, I love first of all that you started having a different kind of conversation with clients about who are we, what do we do, you know, building that trust and building that awareness, right, for them to have a greater sense of clarity about that relationship, who you are, what you bring to it, so they have more confidence in how that relationship moves forward.

How did you navigate the rest of that?

David Davison (14:34)
A piece of that was when I met with them, you know, I've been doing, I've been in construction all my life and I can identify basically the time when a house was built, it's the kind of the building practices were being utilized at the time. And one thing I would explain to them is I don't have to open up your walls or your ceiling to figure out what the mechanics of your home is, what the structure is, what's going to be involved in.

Most of the time, know, the big thing that people get hung up on clients do is load-bearing walls. Well, it doesn't take very long if you're a seasoned professional to figure out whether something is a load-bearing wall. Every once in a while you might get bit, but for the most part, you're paying attention and you're looking at all the details when you're there visiting with the client in their home. That kind of helps sell your professionalism and your ability to evaluate. I guess the

The next thing that came into play is, you know, I want to be on board with this pre-construction services at the earliest stage possible, because trying to keep this process as big as the mammoth can be in the guardrails sometimes can be tough. And so help them understand that look, I'm going to give you some industry partners to go look at materials that are, you're not going to Hope Depot or wherever and trying to fight that deal. These are professionals they have on staff people that will help guide you through the process. They know that if they get stumped during this process, they'll me on my cell and I'll help them through it. So I think pre-vetted industry partners, if you will, was a big selling point. The fact that I've cost accounted, you'll love this, I've cost accounted every job since we went in business 23 years ago.

I have it broken down into cost codes. So I can have a pretty good idea after one hour meeting with the client of where they're headed as far as budget. Our historical data shows that we're within 7 % of the meeting one way or the other.

Vicki Suiter (16:32)
So it's great, because now you're able to, in that conversation with somebody, say you can give them a ROM, rough order of magnitude, and a rough budget of, here's what this might cost based on per square foot before you go through the process of all the detail, Which I think that's a really important, I talk with people about this about,

when you use your job costing information in that way, it's not a guaranteed price, but it starts to build your confidence, right? As a builder to be able to know, all right, well, if I have that information and I know that, you know, there's a certain, I do a certain scope of work, it's not a guarantee, right? But at least when you're having that conversation early on in money.

Right? That you don't have somebody who's got champagne tastes and then, you know, a beer budget. That's, you know, that's where that disconnect and that discomfort can come, I think. So I love that you're having that conversation early on with people, right? Using the data that you already have is, I would imagine, and I know this from working with other people, that it makes the rest of the conversation a little easier when you're talking about now, now we're going to figure out what you want, but let's be clear about what you can afford.

David Davison (17:48)
Exactly. And I'm also very forward with them, you know, what is your financial threshold? is your, what are you willing? And so many people don't want to tell you that initially, you know, look, that's like you're going to the doctor and them not telling you the full diagnosis, but they don't think you can handle it. Let's get down to a real level here and let's talk about, and I need both parties on the same page, you know, so whether it's

and wife or domestic partners or whatever it is, whoever the players are, I want them in that first meeting together. I don't want to try to play catch up with someone at a later time because they weren't available. That's a really big thing for me.

Vicki Suiter (18:27)
I'm sorry, I have to tell you this really great story of this, of one of the best ways I've seen people handle that whole money conversation with people. It was a specialty contractor who came to our house, who I knew really well actually through Nary. And he did sound and like automated shades and that kind of stuff. And I said,

Listen, I'm not sure what I can really afford or what I know that you do beautiful work, but I'd like to just kind of get an idea from you. And he said, well, before we start walking through, he goes, what's the budget you want to stay within? And I'm thinking, I really have no idea. And there's part of me that doesn't want to offend him. There's part of me that doesn't want to sound stupid. So I'm like, honestly, Scott, I have no idea. He said, well, let's play a game. He says,

I'm gonna say a number range and you're gonna tell me if that feels comfortable to you. And he said 100 to 150. I'm like, absolutely not. He goes, okay, 75 to 100. I'm like, no. He goes 50 to 75. I go, probably not. Like, it's just not that important to me. And he goes, okay, 25 to 50. I'm like, probably my max would be 25,000. And he's like, all right, great.

He says, now you're gonna walk me through every room and you're gonna tell me exactly what you want. And I'm gonna tell you, if I think that's completely like that one thing alone is gonna eat up your whole budget, I'm gonna tell you that. So it's like, he said, the best way for me to be able to give you a proposal that's within the range of what feels comfortable to you. And again, this is a specialty contractor. goes, then the more I know about that before we even start, then I can guide you as we're going along to make a good decision. 

And I just thought it's such a brilliant way to handle that whole money conversation because it's uncomfortable, right? I think contractors think that people don't want to tell them. But what I realized for me at that moment is A, I really had no idea. B, I didn't want to offend them. And C, I didn't want to sound stupid. And so I think it was such a fun way to have somebody address that conversation right off. 

Anyway, I didn't mean to get waylaid there on the pre-construction conversation, but what I appreciate you're talking about too is that in that conversation about we're going to have a pre-construction agreement, you're talking about dollars and cents. It's not that you're going into it and saying, well, we're gonna just charge you time and materials until we figure it out. you're tackling that part of it early on. 

So that's awesome. All right. So then tell me like, how did you, so you started to change the conversations at the front end with how you were talking to clients and educating them about who you are and what you do and how your process is and using the data to kind of give them a range of a rough order of magnitude and a budget. Tell me how it, how did you implement it in terms of with your team and shifting the practices internally. And then I'd love to hear like how it's made a difference in your business.

David Davison (21:34)
So the implementation, I guess, was not as hard as I thought it would be. And a lot of people would think it would be. We kind of sat down with my team, my office team, sales, project management, estimating an architect. And we kind of talked through the catch points for what things that were creating problems for us in the previous model. We were working for two and a half months, and it ended up being for free kind of thing.

And so we identified the, you know, things that would help clients, you know, many of them don't, they don't understand the building codes. Certainly don't understand zoning and neighborhood overlays, which is huge in a lot of municipalities, you know, particularly in Austin. And I've talked to people all over the country that, you know, deal with the same thing. So they don't know, they don't understand the tree ordinances, they call any heritage trees. So.

When you start talking about these talking points with your team and look, we cannot address these things early on in the process versus late in the process where they keep you up. So you don't tell a client, you can do a thousand square foot addition, actually you have issues. One of those things I just mentioned, that's going to circumvent anything over 600 square feet, you know, because impervious covers, I mean,query ratios, all these things that play into it. 

You know, we started putting together a checklist, if you will. And so we would take that checklist, I would take it to a sales call meeting with a client. Said, here are the things that you don't think about or may not have thought about. And some architects are really good at identifying half of these. Some of them may be two thirds, but they don't get the full list. And some of these things can really bite.

So it helped us kind of sell it inside to our team, but also be able to sell it outside to a potential client. I actually would take that checklist with me to meet with the client and say, are the things that you're going to get in pre-construction services.

Vicki Suiter (23:36)
Brilliant. that already starts to tune their thinking, right?

David Davison (23:40)
Exactly.

Because they don't want to be spending money that they're wasting. I don't want to waste my time. I want to help the next person realize their dreams instead of worrying about something like that.

So it was painful, wasn't. Looking at the forward thinking goal was really pretty easy to make it all come together. And then it was a matter then of just refining the process. We're a fixed fee contractor. We don't do cost plus work. I've done two cost plus works in 23 years and I just almost got to put a gun to my head to do that.

Cause I think it opens up a whole can of worms and you know, people trust you much more when you tell them you're a fixed fee contract. You're going to give them a fixed price to build their project based on the scope documents and the drawings and the material selections. It just kind of, you just kind of see the look on their face. They just kind of settle down. And some of those questions are those battle scars that they've heard from other friends and stuff that have been through a cost plus scenario.

So all of sudden relax and they start listening to what you're really telling them.

Vicki Suiter (24:45)
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting the whole kind of the whole mindset around time and material billing projects. So one thing for sure is that in your process of doing pre construction makes it so that when you are doing fixed price that you have way more good information to be able to start that project with that is going to stack the odds in the favor of that project coming in on time on budget, right?

But I think people who do TNM work sometimes think, well, it's just sort of this panacea. But the truth is, in some ways, your reporting is much more arduous. And your accountability is much more like you have way more, if you're doing it well and minimizing your risk, the burden of proof is really on you at that point and can be very burdensome.

If you don't do that, I've also seen it where people have lost huge amounts of money because people stop writing checks, right? And you're all the way into it. So yeah, I totally, totally agree with you that, you know, as much as fixed price sometimes can seem like it's a better deal. The truth is time materials, there's never such a thing as an open checkbook. Somebody always, always wants to know what's it going to cost me. So yeah.

Yeah. So tell me just to share a little bit about how is putting this in place in your business made a difference in your business? So when did you do this originally?

David Davison (26:11)
2011, well, 11 and 12. So I'm 12 years in, years, 11 years in. It just transformed our balance sheet, basically. I mean, because we weren't, we were, we were probably giving away $60,000 a year services. And so as we made this transition and it wasn't overnight, but

Vicki Suiter (26:12)
Okay, so it's. Okay.

David Davison (26:33)
As we made this transition, started seeing the fruits, the effort of the pain points of doing it realized on the bottom line kind of thing, know, checking that profit, you know, what do you call it? The profit bleed your book. It's so exactly. So, you know, we'd work really hard on the construction side to make the profits and then we'd be giving it away and bleeding it on the design side or the project management side. So.

Vicki Suiter (26:46)
With leading profits.

David Davison (26:58)
And as we kind of just locked into that, this is the only way we're going to do business. We're not taking on projects outside of the realm of working through our process and how we do things and showing them the benefits. You know, it just really started to transform our numbers. And it helped us sell more projects as well because people started, you know, kind of as I talked to folks and

in the community and involvement in other things. I would mention, know, Dari and the membership and how we all work together and things like pre-construction services, all that. it's like, of a the little lights started clicking on. It was more of a well-thought-in, I guess, in the community kind of thing. And then, you know, the costs, what we developed, say, let's just say we go, we're on the fifth project when we started this. 

By then, I've got documentation together to take to a meeting and a binder and say, look, this is kind of the process. This is how we go about it. This is steps along the way. This is your financial outlay on the steps along the way. So you could get through schematic design and to this budget, you know, and decide, I don't think we really want to go that far into it. We want to back, scale it back. 

Well, it makes perfect sense at that point versus having signed a whole set of beautiful documents with a third party design group and not being able to afford to do the project.

Vicki Suiter (28:24)
Wow. So three key things I heard. One, you stopped bleeding profits on the bottom line from giving away a lot of time. Two, it interesting. I love that you said it actually helped you get more work because it elevated your reputation in the community about who you were and had you be more respected and valued for what you do by putting it in place. And thirdly,

It helped people make better decisions early on so that they didn't waste a lot of time designing something that wasn't a right fit. Yeah, I love that. Nice, nice.

David Davison (28:59)
We kind of break it down for them in what could be expected in this process. What's my commitment financially through this process of pre-consumption services? It's basically broken down into three components. the first one is measuring the existing house, documenting it into the Autodesk Revit program, and then putting together a couple of just 2D schematics of what could be done based on what we know about.

the requirements for permits, the neighborhood overlays, the zoning, all these kind of things. We're bringing all that in and they're not having to talk to professionals to get to that point. What makes a big difference?

Vicki Suiter (29:37)
Yeah, I could totally see that. Yeah. So you just made people's lives easier too and help them. And it's that thing as I'm listening to you, it's like when we have more clarity, we have more confidence. And when we have more confidence, we take more powerful actions. what your process allowed you to help the client have that greater clarity and you, right, to be more confident about saying this is what it's gonna take and for them to have their eyes wide open about, now I understand? 

So it's awesome. Awesome. Well, good job. I would love to hear your, just as we wrap up here before I give you my rapid fire questions, I would love to hear your thoughts. Like what would you say to somebody who is

David Davison (30:08)
Yeah.

Vicki Suiter (30:23)
Either kind of struggling through this process or looking at wanting to do this for themselves, what advice would you give them? And I know we're sharing you graciously, if you're okay with it, I'm still going to share those tools that you shared with me before about your pre-construction process. So thank you for that. Is there just final suggestions or thoughts that might help somebody who's about to embark or wants to embark on this process?

David Davison (30:47)
Think the biggest thing is just to understand it's not an overnight process. you're fighting off in pieces that you can attain in a reasonable amount of time. And the document you're going to share is probably two versions ago. But it gives you the basics of how to kind of move forward. And I think if you just wrap your head around it and get to a point where you're confident in your sales ability to sell it as a business tool. 

Your clients are gonna see that and they're gonna buy into it. Whereas if you're just kinda, I don't know, this is kinda what we're thinking, that kind of deal, you have to be committed. You have to take it a step at the top.

Vicki Suiter (31:26)
Great, that's great advice. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for sharing your experience, your wisdom, your story. I knew this would be a rich and great conversation. And you're so generous in the way that you share with people. And so thank you. Thanks for.

David Davison (31:42)
I love it. mean, I, you know, you can share my email address. I'll answer questions people have. I'm proud of that.

Vicki Suiter (31:48)
Well, that's very kind of you. Thank you. So rapid fire questions. Are you ready? All right. What's your favorite personal book or podcast?

David Davison (31:51)
You bet.

Sure.

Tony Robbins, Unleashing the Power Within. I really like it. I mean, you know, I grew up in the Bible belt and my mother gave me a dose of Proverbs every morning before I could put a ball morsel in my mouth. And so I can tell you that as I've gotten older in life, I still fall back on a lot of those things that I, you know, she taught me. And, know, that would probably as a personal book Through the Book of Proverbs.

Vicki Suiter (32:25)
All right. Cool. And favorite business book or podcast.

David Davison (32:28)
No, I listen to so many.

Vicki Suiter (32:30)
Just one that comes to mind, it doesn't have to be the...

David Davison (32:33)
I actually probably get more out of Pro Remodeler and a lot of their stuff that they have on there because they have so many segments. as they're taking it to another level and I really enjoy those, it helps me kind of, some of those help me think along the lines of my clients. Try to be answering their questions and be kind of one step ahead of them.

Vicki Suiter (32:52)
Cool, nice, nice. All right, what's your favorite food or meal?

David Davison (32:56)
Mexican food.

Vicki Suiter (32:57)
Mexican. Alright.

David Davison (32:58)
I love Tex-Mex. I love anything to do with spicy. And so that's my favorite. mean, my staff knows it. My family knows it. It's like, they don't want to ask me where we're going to the restaurant because they know what they're eating.

Vicki Suiter (33:11)
That's funny. That's great. I remember going to a really great Mexican restaurant with you and Christy when I was there, Tim and I were there. It's awesome.

David Davison (33:18)
You know, I love to, I'm passionate about cooking. I build kitchens and you know, that's always fun. But it's, when I go out, that's what I like. it's steak, I'm gonna cook it at home. I feel like I can do, but it's just as good a job as it gets.

Vicki Suiter (33:27)
Nice.

Yeah, I'm kind of like that too. If I go out, I want to eat something that I wouldn't make at home and definitely not something that I'm really good at making. But like you, I definitely have a passion for cooking and I love cooking. yeah, nice. What is last question? What is something that you're grateful for right now?

David Davison (33:50)
I mean, I'm just, I'm so fortunate. you know, I get to work every day with my youngest son, who's the runs our architecture and design services. I have a lady, we bought a smaller company and gets back and rolled it up into our company. And he came along with the package and she is just a dream. You met her in San Diego and, she, she makes my life really good. I mean, she stays on top of it.

And she's always looking forward ahead and trying to circumvent any things that come about. And now that I'm on the Nari National Executive Board of Directors, she's having to pick up more of my stuff. so it's not picking and screaming. It's joyous. so, you know, I'm a firm believer, as you've told me before, get the right people on the bus and get the right people in the right seat on the bus. agreements in place and depend on your team and don't try to circumvent their efforts. 

Let them do their thing and encourage them along the way. So I'm blessed to have an awesome team.

Vicki Suiter (34:52)
That's great. That's great. Yeah, that is a key role for us as leaders at some point, right? When we get out of the role of being the technician and realizing that our greatest contribution and value to our company is to mentor and coach and train the next generation, you know, or our team around us. Yeah, I love that.

David Davison (35:10)
We as business owners turn the corner is when we realize that we need to spend more time working on our business versus in our business.

Vicki Suiter (35:18)
Absolutely. Totally agree.

David Davison (35:20)
I think that makes great strides in promoting your business, moving forward kind of to the next level.

Vicki Suiter (35:26)
Yeah, completely agree. Well, David, thank you. I always love our conversations.

David Davison (35:32)
I love it too. It's far, few and far between.

Vicki Suiter (35:35)
I know. I so appreciate you sharing your wisdom, your experience, certainly your tools and templates that are in the link down below. For anybody who is listening or watching this, I highly encourage you, if you do not have a pre-construction process in place, by all means, try it, give it a shot. You deserve to be valued and respected for what you bring to the party, and this is the opportunity for you to up your game.

and to really develop a business model that is supportive of being successful for the long haul. So, all right, thank you for being here.

Make sure to check out the links below where David has generously shared his pre-construction process. There's three documents that will help you be able to implement a pre-construction process in your company. And as he said, stop losing money and bleeding profits out of your bottom line from giving away your time and elevate your identity and reputation in your community that you become the contractor that more people want to work with because it'll help you increase your process and help people have a greater sense of clarity where they have more confidence and are able to take more powerful actions. 

And that includes both you and your prospects. All right, thank you again for being part of this community. If you are not subscribed, please make sure to subscribe to this channel if you want be able to get more content like this.

And if there are other people that you know who you think would get value out of it, please share it. And maybe check out my channel. There's a lot of topics on there about profitability, about building great teams, about building a more successful contracting business. And if you're somebody who is looking for support in growing your contracting business, make sure to check out the link below for my Contractors Collective Group. It's a peer group that is all about providing that kind of support that David was talking about today's video that will help you be able to get a team of people and a coach of me to be able to help you grow your contracting business. 

And it doesn't require anything other than getting on a call with me and finding out a little bit more about it and seeing if it's a right fit. All right, thanks for being part of this community and I look forward to seeing you next time on the Profit Builder Unscripted.


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Vicki Suiter

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