Episode 440: 3 Keys to Operating from a Position of Strength in High-End Remodeling with Andy Kolp

Todd Dawalt (00:04.074)

Andy, welcome back to the podcast. How’s it going today?

 

Andy (00:06.912)

Hey, thanks for having me, Todd. I appreciate the invite.

 

Todd Dawalt (00:10.27)

Yeah, you bet. So let’s start here. What’s the name of your company? Where are you located? And what kind of work do you do? Then we’re going to talk about some pretty interesting stuff.

 

Andy (00:24.418)

Yeah, so it’s Epic Building Company. We are central Ohio, so Columbus area surrounding suburbs. Most of our work is residential remodel, renovation, addition, kitchens, basements, things like that. We do a little bit of new construction work that seems to be gaining some steam here recently. But we’re in.

 

our 22nd year of business and it’s been predominantly remodeling over the years. And then a little bit of plumbing as well. I started a plumbing company a few years ago. So yeah, it’s pretty good mix for us.

 

Todd Dawalt (01:03.54)

Yeah. So I was thinking about it. We’ve been working together for six years now since we’re recording this in early 2026 and we started in late 2019. Yeah. And it’s been interesting to to watch you gone through several iterations of setting annual goals and then achieving those goals and growing.

 

business. And last year in 2025, you set out a goal at the beginning of the year to operate from a position of strength. So I want to talk about that for a few minutes. First of all, why? Why was that an important focus for you? Why did what happened? To the extent you’re comfortable talking about it that led you to say

 

2025 needs to be the year of increasing our position of strength.

 

Andy (02:07.069)

So we, 2023, 2024 for us brought about some growth. We were taking on larger projects. I believe 2024, we finished up one of the largest remodel projects we had had to date at that time and a few other large ones. And we were also finishing up a new construction project. I think, you know, we,

 

had some turbulence through those projects. Ultimately, they were successful with happy clients. But, you know, we had to, we had to bend a little bit for some of those clients. And we had to make some decisions that were in the best interest of our clients, or the project, maybe more so than the best interest of our company, things like that. So

 

You know, at the end of the year, every year, my team and I have adopted a process where we go through, you know, what went well in the year and what didn’t go so well. And as part of that process, at the end of 2024, we were kind of looking at some of those things and some of those decisions that we had to make and just realized that, you know,

 

We made those decisions because we were owning the fact that we weren’t in the best position possible with our clients. you know, say on a remodel project or something, it’s like, well, we didn’t educate them as well as we could have, or we didn’t define that scope of work as tightly as we should have, or we should have put that as an allowance instead of a fixed number, or the list goes on.

 

You know, I’ve read the book Extreme Ownership several times and I’m a big fan of it. And I think sometimes I take it to heart where everything’s our fault. And so, you know, my team very much the same. And so we started to look at what went well, obviously that’s a big part of what we do, but also what didn’t go so well and try to figure out how can we fix those things that didn’t go well.

 

Andy (04:29.291)

And ultimately through a number of iterations and brainstorming, our team came up with that position of strength mantra. And the whole goal of that was to solidify our or fortify our position of strength through every area of business. So, you know, starting with pre-construction, through contract phase and the contract language and through construction. And we started to look at individual ways of

 

How can we do that? And I think we started looking at the issues that we had and trying to solve those problems, know, so those specific ones didn’t happen again, but then it just kept building and building and building and kind of took the ball and ran with it. So that’s really how it came about was, you know, some lessons learned, but also a desire to be in a position with

 

our clients, our trade partners, and even our team members internally that, you know, we’re putting our best foot forward. We’re, standing from a position of strength to where, we don’t have to make decisions that are, are based on emotion. They’re based in fact and reality, because we’ve done our due diligence and we’ve covered our bases and we’ve educated the client or we’ve given, written that scope properly, or we’ve gotten numbers from our trade partners on down the line. So.

 

I would say it’s not really been one specific area. It’s kind of across the board. That was our whole mantra for everything we did and still is. It’s just not our technical focus for this year, but that’s where we started.

 

Todd Dawalt (06:10.238)

Yeah. You some people would say that with the kind of projects and the clients you’re working with, you’re doing custom remodeling, high-end remodeling, these are wealthy people. Some people would say, I can’t enforce anything on my clients. I kind of have to let them have it their way. And we have to cater to their whims and desires, which is the opposite of operating from a position of strength. What would you say to those?

 

folks who are working with these kind of projects and they feel like they just have to do whatever the client says.

 

Andy (06:49.933)

So I would say, know, back to the first question momentarily, I think we had a project where we let the client have it their way. It was a new construction project. And I personally made the mistake from the very get go in pre-construction of letting that client dictate the way things went. out of all the lessons, that was the biggest one. It was

 

It was a new construction project. you know, great relationship with the client. just, they were dictating how things went. And ultimately the project took a lot longer than it ever should have, had a handful of issues along the way. And we didn’t make, you know, we didn’t make the profit margins we should have. So, you know, back to your question, that was the original, one of the major catapults for this. So.

 

The challenge with letting your clients have it their way is you don’t.

 

It’s hard to systematize anything or if you have a system and you’re letting the client run it, then your system is useless. And everything that you do kind of depends on the client, their mood, their reaction to something, so on and so forth. you know, structure and systems was a big part of our position of strength. We had things, but there was holes in those systems and structures. So we decided to analyze those, figure out where the holes were.

 

can close the gaps. And I think, you know, most people crave structure. That’s what I found with our clients. Most people are more impressed by the fact that we have structure and that we have those systems and that we do guide them. We’re still very custom and we still let the client have it their way as far as finishes and selections and things go. But they follow our process through and

 

Andy (08:56.415)

We still have to course correct and we still have to pull them back and say, no, we have to get back on our process and our system. but ultimately the clients are happier. They get a smoother project, a smoother process with less issues. And we’re being proactive, you know, proactiveness was one of the big things about that position of strength is us being on the offensive as opposed to the defensive.

 

Just an education and letting the clients know the information, what to expect, all that kind of stuff. And that’s been a game changer for us.

 

Todd Dawalt (09:31.635)

Yeah. I want to talk about some of the specific parts of the pre-construction process that have helped you improve that position of strength. But I want to go back to something you said. You had this one specific client, and you’re probably not alone, I’m sure you’re not alone, where you said the client dictated certain parts of the process. What was going on there? Can you explain what were some of the things that the client dictated?

 

or had more influence over than they should have that led to some of those problems that you mentioned.

 

Andy (10:09.611)

Yeah, I think a big part of it was, you know, at that time we didn’t execute pre-construction as well as we could have or should have. In other words, we started the project too soon. Client, you know, was one of those that has construction experience, you know, has done several projects, been around the industry from a family level, things like that.

 

So, just had a background to where they thought they knew what was right for them versus trusting us and what, trusting us to walk them through the process, present the options and help them with decisions. So, we waited, we lost time in decision-making. They were a little too involved with our trade partners on site.

 

you know, come to find out, you know, just in some things that I wish I could have enforced, I had some gaps in our contract language, you know, and, and overall our timing and the overall project suffered, you know, because of it. And it wasn’t, like I said, great person, nothing personal against them by any stretch of the imagination. It was just, it’s hard when you say have it your way in the beginning.

 

And then you realize, my gosh, I’ve gone down this path that’s not good for anybody. It’s really hard to say, okay, no more having it your way. We’re going back to the way it needs to be. It’s hard to do that midstream. And I think that was a big correction we made. And definitely a lesson learned. was a different size project, a different scope project than we had been involved with before. So there’s always learning curves on those. And that was a…

 

It was a hard lesson to learn, but for the best in the end.

 

Todd Dawalt (12:16.842)

I’m pause for a minute. I’ve got something going on upstairs. I’ll be right back. And then when we come back, I wanna talk about why pre-construction was a major focus, and then dig into that. Apologies. I’ll be right

 

Andy (12:20.494)

No problem.

 

Andy (12:28.813)

Sure.

 

Todd Dawalt (13:33.514)

Okay, I’m back. All good, all good.

 

Andy (13:35.488)

All good.

 

Todd Dawalt (13:39.944)

Okay, so in the process of figuring out how to operate from a position of strength, you determined that there some opportunities in the pre-construction phase to do that. Why?

 

Why did pre-construction become such a major focus for you to improve your position of strength?

 

Andy (14:05.381)

you know, very much like building a house. you know, there’s a foundation that holds the whole process up or the whole house up. know, pre con I relate pre construction to the same kind of thing. pre construction is the foundation for the project. And if it’s done properly, you can build anything upon it. That’ll be, it’ll be a fantastic project. if not, you’re going to have problems down the road.

 

And the project I referenced obviously is a good example. But I’ve seen since we started doing the pre-construction process in more detail five years ago or so, I’ve seen the benefits of what it can do for us.

 

planning the project properly. And the more we’ve gotten into this and the longer we’ve gone in this five year stretch of project planning, we’ve gotten significantly more detailed with it. We’ve gotten, our handoffs have gotten better. All of the information that we’re asking, the questions we’re asking, all of that, it’s gotten so much better that the construction side of things now is like almost too easy.

 

And, you know, I think when you don’t do that, and we obviously had a case where we didn’t do it as well, it’s like a smack in the face. You realize how important pre-construction is. So it was a good place to start. You know, I think a couple issues we were having, you know, it were just getting official bids and numbers from our trade partners.

 

That’s a pre-construction thing. It’s an estimating type thing for us. A lot of our trades are smaller companies. They’re guys that are working in the field by day and have to do office work by night. But position of strength, not necessarily project related, but financially related, we were missing budgets in some cases because we were guessing at numbers. Or even if we got numbers from trades, they were via text.

 

Andy (16:26.561)

that didn’t have context with it. It was a, will be $10,000 and I’m trying to guess, does that include X, and Z? So that was a big thing that we moved towards writing scopes of work so that we could distribute to our trade partners to say, this is exactly what we need you to bid. And then doing that through our project management platform. All of that stuff.

 

you know, was a step in the right direction of the position of strength. Because now when we have projects, we get numbers for what we need to from our trades. And then when they try to build me something different, we can look at it and say, well, hold on a second. And it gives us the leg to stand on. It gives us that position of strength versus me saying, well, I never got a bid. That seems about right. I guess I just missed it. I lost $3,000 on that cost code. Um, so

 

Pre-construction was a logical place to start for us because there were a number of things, I’d say there was more contributing to weakness in pre-construction than in construction at the time. So that’s why we chose to start there. And we just took it several different directions within the pre-construction process.

 

Andy (17:54.581)

Todd, I can’t hear you.

 

Todd Dawalt (18:01.384)

Okay, there we go. That’s on me.

 

So I want to talk about a couple of those crucial parts of the pre-construction phase in a minute, but I want to go back to a couple of things you said that I think may surprise people. One thing you said that may surprise people was that pre-construction is the foundation of the project that sets it up for success. And there some people who would say, like, they don’t even recognize that pre-construction is a phase. It goes straight from sell the job,

 

to do the job and then you kind of figure it out as you go.

 

Todd Dawalt (18:42.066)

When you say, what would you say to those folks who are hearing about this pre-construction phase for the first time? What would you, what are the benefits for them to actually think about and focus on the pre-construction phase?

 

Andy (19:00.813)

So we’re a little bit different than maybe some larger custom home builders in the fact that we’re fixed price. I know there’s a lot of cost plus guys out there and even in the remodeling world as well. We’re predominantly fixed price. So my point of view has always been I want the customer to know exactly what the dollar amount they’re spending is before they sign on the dotted line, before we start the project, all that.

 

You know, most people have a allocated number for the project and if it goes over by too much, people run out of money. It’s kind of common sense. So, you know, and I’ve always adopted the philosophy that there’s three things that come between a client and a contractor. And, you know, one is schedule. Two is financials and three is communication.

 

Communication generally solves everything. It kind of solves the first two, the financials and the schedule. But nevertheless, financials are a big part of the overall process. And most residential customers have an emotional attachment to their dollars. So what we want to do is we want to define what the project is actually going to cost. Well, in my opinion, it takes three components to determine that. You need a design.

 

It’s finalized 100%. You need a scope of work. And it’s very important in a remodeling world because there’s usually a start and stop point within a given structure. You know, house, you’re starting in the kitchen, stopping here. And then material selections. So you got to know exactly what you’re putting in to determine how much it’s going to cost. you know, how do you do those three things and how do you get to a number?

 

that’s meaningful for the client if you don’t plan the project. And that’s to me why pre-construction is so important because we’re doing the bulk of the planning, or even all of it. Like for us, we may leave paint colors and a few straggling things like a cabinet hardware selection or something like that, but literally everything else is 100 % defined and selected before we’ll start the project.

 

Andy (21:21.855)

And that’s by design. We know exactly what the project’s going to cost us, what the expense to the client is, barring change orders, of course. And we’re also doing investigative work for our remodel projects in the pre-construction phase. So we’re not guessing at what’s behind the wall. We’re cutting a few holes here and there. We’re doing some investigative work. So it’s a comprehensive process that we are getting paid for.

 

But it really plans our projects out and tries to limit issues before they become issues in the construction process, which cause time and, you know, dollars and things like that.

 

Todd Dawalt (22:03.496)

Yeah. Some people would say, the remodels are so tough, just sign them up on a cost plus contract and then figure it out later. You do fixed price. What are the problems that you see with cost plus contracts?

 

Andy (22:25.537)

I’ve done a handful of cost plus projects over the years. Most have been larger projects, new construction or large scale remodels. What I have experienced myself and then talking with several acquaintances who in this industry, I think a lot of times, and even my experience with this project I was referencing earlier,

 

You know, there’s a connotation that’s cost plus. can do whatever. doesn’t matter. The budget’s fine. I’m going to be covered in the dollars later and that kind of thing. And I think that that can be where it comes back to bite you because if you have a hypothetical project budget of call it $500,000. Yes, the builder’s technically covered if you go to 550 or 600 by the contractual obligations.

 

But do think your client’s going to be super happy with the fact that they went up to, you know, they spend another 500 or another 50 or a hundred thousand dollars? Probably not. And most clients are fine to say, yeah, that’s great. I’ll prove that change. I’ll, I’ll do this. I’ll do that. But then when they realize how much it costs in the end, you know, they make it a, a, prove a change when they’re, spent $200,000.

 

And they don’t realize the impact of it until it gets to the end where it’s all adding up. So that’s one of the big reasons I prefer fixed price is that it just, it’s like buying a car. know exactly what you’re getting for the dollar amount that it says and off you go. Like there’s no question. Um, but in order to do that, we also have to define things, especially, like I said, in a remodeling study, we have to define start and stop points and be very clear on what they are getting for that number.

 

which does require a little bit more work on the front end, but at the same time, it protects us. It creates that position of strength because when the client says, I thought you were painting the whole living room, you can say, no, that’s not in our scope. It’s written right here. This is exactly what we’re So hopefully that makes sense.

 

Todd Dawalt (24:43.464)

Yeah, yeah, I think that the cost plus contracts is can be a bit of a trap. puts you right into the what we call the just enough to start trap. Yeah, we don’t we don’t need to know that right now. We can figure it out as we go. And yeah, we’ll just we’ll just do it on cost plus. And it seems I think the perception is that it limits the risk for the contractor, but it just creates a different set of risks.

 

So we know some people who are dealing with some pretty significant problems because of a cost plus contract that didn’t go very well. So I am not a fan of the cost plus contract because what I think is best is everybody knows what we’re building and how much it’s gonna cost before we get started rather than in the middle of the project or toward the end. I think it’s…

 

I think it’s risky. Some people would think cost plus contracts reduce risk. For me, I’ve seen enough of them go badly that it’s even riskier. So I think it’s slippery. It’s a nice trap that people step into because they think, well, let’s just get this client signed up now because if they really knew what it was going to cost, they probably wouldn’t sign up, which is not a good way to start a relationship.

 

It’s much better to say, hey, look, this is what we’re building, how much it will cost, this is how much I will make as the contractor. And everybody knows what they’re getting before they start. You mentioned that you get paid for pre-construction, which is one of our mantras around here. We’re big fans of getting paid for pre-construction. And one of the, there are lots of…

 

questions and challenges people have around that. People who are doing free estimates will ask things like, well, how can I possibly get paid when everybody in my market’s doing it for free? But I think a really good question to answer is, what’s in it for the client to pay you for a pre-construction services agreement rather than a free estimate? How would you answer that question, Andy?

 

Andy (27:02.285)

So I had a call today with a client that has worked with an architect. They have a set of preliminary drawings that define the project. It’s an addition. And it defines the project size in a very, very rough scope of work, just with the drawings they have. And the client mentioned that they had

 

You know, I was the third or fourth contractor they’ve talked to. They’re just out kind of trying to get a feel for who’s out there and what they offer and all of that. And, you know, what I try to educate clients on is the fact that, you know, if you’re getting numbers solely based on that set of drawings, there’s a lot of room for error or not even error, but comparison errors. So you could be comparing.

 

apples to oranges to bananas instead of apples to apples. Because the way with most drawings, I’m gonna lump everyone into this, but most drawings show you the footprint, the size and square footage, the roof details and things like that. But many don’t specify the type of window, the roof material, the trim material, the finish levels, all of that kind of thing.

 

And, you know, we all know that there’s a wide variety of, of what materials costs. could do very bargain basement cabinets and you can do completely custom cabinets. And for the same kitchen, you could be a hundred and a hundred, $200,000 difference just in the cost of the cabinetry. So, you know, with the, the getting paid and what I pitch to our clients is it’s an opportunity to take the next step, you know, whether.

 

whether they’ve done drawings with an architect or, you know, we help them with drawings, defining the project in totality will ultimately get them to an accurate number. The more defined the project is, the more accurate the number is. And so, you know, just, educate clients from the very beginning that, you know, encourage them, go out and talk to different companies, see how they do it.

 

Andy (29:23.254)

But understand that until you have the project and all of the details identified, there can be a vast difference in what contractor A charges versus contractor B or C. And most people understand that, you know, it’s like, it’s just education, right? You can only get numbers on the information you have. And there’s a million questions. We all know that in any construction project, there’s a million questions to get answered.

 

until those questions are answered, I’m guessing. I’m guessing at certain things, right? So, you know, just the way we do pre-construction is we offer them the opportunity to take the next step with us. Obviously, our end game is to build their project. But we, you know, we offer it as a standalone service to plan the project out for them. And more often, I would say 90 plus percent of the time we plan their project and just

 

our services through that agreement process. We’ve built a rapport with them. They see how we communicate all of that, and it ultimately gets us the project. But I also jokingly refer to it as our dating period with the client. Every client’s not for us, and we’re not for every client. So if I see red flags through that process, it gives us the opportunity to say, hey, it’s been great, but this project is not shaping up.

 

as a good fit for us or vice versa. know, it’s there’s an escape closet in there for both parties and it works well for us. It’s been a total game changer in our business. It’s been a total game changer as far as planning and really the resulting of the construction process and how much easier that’s become. You know, I have an awesome team that, you know, that contributes to both pre-construction and construction and

 

We actually keep our pre-construction coordinator involved through the construction process as well. She attends the milestone meetings and things in the construction process, which helps provide some continuity and selection details in that. yeah, it’s, know, anybody that’s considering doing a project should absolutely do pre-construction.

 

Andy (31:47.372)

you know, construction company out there that doesn’t have a pre-construction process, I would highly encourage you to, you know, get on the train and do that because it’s a game changer for your business and your clients. And it’s a different source of revenue as well.

 

Todd Dawalt (32:05.758)

Yeah, yeah. What I like to say is that really successful construction companies are actually great pre-construction companies masquerading as construction companies. You just don’t see the pre-construction work. That’s the secret is it’s in the pre-construction phase. So speaking of the pre-construction phase, I want to dig into…

 

Andy (32:27.063)

Absolutely.

 

Todd Dawalt (32:31.194)

a couple of the parts of the pre-construction phase that you believe are most important. what would you say are the one or two specific steps in the pre-construction process that gave you the highest leverage or that helped to increase your position of strength?

 

Andy (32:52.494)

I think kind of hand in hand, the scope development and the bid process. We switched project management software, which kind of spurred us to do this a little bit more in depth. We’ve always been pretty good at scope writing, but we’re getting better.

 

and we’re providing more information and more detail to it. In doing so, it’s helping us bid projects a little bit easier and a little bit faster and increasing the position of strength by just giving more background and more parameters for our trades to bid from and our clients to see and understand. for example, in every one of our specs now, as the work in progress like

 

We didn’t do all this in one year, but we’re working on it. But in our specs now, we have it broken down into like three sections. So we’ve got a project specific details section that says, okay, on this project, this is everything that’s specifically pertains to this project within a certain category called plumbing, right? So it’s the plumbing scope of work for the Smith project. And then,

 

In that we have a material specifications or a general plumbing specifications that’s going to say, this is how we want the plumbing work done. Specifications stuff. want copper stub outs. want quarter turn shutoff valves. want on down the line. And then we have a client education section within that spec line that just describes the things that can happen with plumbing.

 

Some of the expectations things, you know, when you shut the water off to the house to rework some water lines or something like that, you turn it back on. You can expect, you know, air to purge from the lines or, know, you can expect that somewhere along the line, maybe we forget to relight the water heater when we do some work on the gas lines or something like that. whatever it is, we try to, try to provide a list of things that we’ve run into over the years.

 

Andy (35:13.708)

an educational component for the clients and then point to that when we get to that point in the construction process. So we’re almost teeing up an easier construction process by setting this up in pre-construction because we’re giving them the tools to look at it and say, hey, plumbing is upcoming. I should look out for these things. And it’s just a good way to kind of catch three birds, one stone.

 

Todd Dawalt (35:33.706)

Hmm.

 

Todd Dawalt (35:40.468)

Mm.

 

Andy (35:43.328)

And then we can also take those bids or take those scopes and those specs and send them to our trades and say, is exactly what we need you to bid. So it works kind of both ways on that front. So I’m going to cheat and say that’s one big game changer because those two kind of go hand in hand. The other thing that we’ve really gotten into is meeting our clients and getting them introduced to our construction manager.

 

before we start the project. we also have, you know, kind of at that time, we have a trade partner site visit day where we’re walking our trades through the site. You know, before we did a lot of it with pictures and just plans and stuff like that. But in part of that scope development and part of that planning process, you know, I’ve been doing construction my entire life. My construction manager, Jeff, has been with me for 12 years and has been in construction for his entire life.

 

We’ve got a good background, but I’m not an HVAC guy. I’m not an electrician. I don’t see all the problems that they run into on a daily basis, nor does Jeff. So getting our trades out to the sites through the pre-construction process gives them an opportunity to say, you need to make sure you plan on this in your bid. And we’re going to need to do this or that.

 

And that helps, that builds credibility with our clients because we don’t have to go back to them and say, hey, we missed this or this is the surprise because now it’s not a surprise. We figured it out ahead of time. It keeps the numbers where we said they were going to be. It allows us to define things in our scope of work and, you know, catch problems before they happen and all that kind of stuff. So those are probably two of the biggest things, you know, but there’s so many more.

 

Todd Dawalt (37:36.361)

Yeah. Here’s the thing about pre-construction activities. Like it’s all of these things will be done during the project, right? If there’s a if you’re remodeling a house, if there’s a problem behind the wall or above the ceiling, you’re going to find it. If there’s something that has to be done, you’re going to find it. If there’s scope of work that has to be bought out, subcontractor that has to be hired, the work has to be done at some point.

 

and you’re going to find it. And what most people do is they do just enough to get started and then they figure it out as they go at the worst possible time, which is after they’ve signed a contract, when they run into the problems. And what I’m hearing you say is like what you’re doing with your pre-construction process is you’re just pushing all of that stuff, as many of those problems…

 

pushing that all to the front before you sign a construction contract. Let’s go do some recon. Let’s get the, let’s really dial in the scope of work. Let’s get the subs involved, the trade partners involved during pre-construction. Let’s figure out all of the problems before we sign a construction contract. And that saves so many problems. But I run into this resistance from people who are like, I don’t have time to do pre-construction.

 

Well, you’re going to deal with 100 % of these problems. They’re all there. You just get to choose when you deal with them. Are they going to be a fire? Or are you going to do them on your terms? And that seems like what you’ve done a really good job of is deciding, one of the best ways for us to operate from a position of strength is we will choose when we deal with these issues. And we’re going to do them. We’re going to deal with them before we sign a construction contract.

 

Yeah. So one other thing you’ve you’ve done a really good job of something that won you the inaugural DaVinci Award that is on the shelf behind you that we gave out in Nashville. That’s right. The DaVinci Award for Innovation and Running a Construction Business gave that out at our event in October 2025 in Nashville was the the

 

Todd Dawalt (40:00.871)

Epic Weekly Rundown. And give us a quick summary of that rundown and what sort of results you’ve seen since you’ve implemented that.

 

Andy (40:14.818)

Yeah, this was definitely another one of those operating from a position of strength results or things, you know, something that came from that. You know, we were having at times just we had, you know, project managers sending stuff out on the weekends, just trying to catch up and get clients information. had clients reaching out on the weekends with questions about what’s upcoming. We had

 

Disconnects on budget we had you know meetings that clients didn’t realize they had or selections They didn’t have all that kind of stuff and you know with our project management platform All of the information is housed in there, but you know in all the years. We’ve been doing this we’ve kind of realized that clients just Don’t look at they don’t go to all of the different places within this platform, so The idea was let’s be proactive

 

and let’s send them a summary version of everything that’s pertinent to their project on a weekly basis. So, I’ve through a few iterations of this, but I think we started in April or May of 2025 and have been doing it every Friday since. It’s basically a PDF file, we use Google Docs, but turn it into a PDF file.

 

And we cover, you know, the weekend review. So basically what happened on the site this week, which is more or less a summary of job logs and information. just quick summary and it’s written in like normal terms, you know, electric finish, you know, hung lights, place receptacles, cover plates, things like that. Like it’s not technically written in a construction jargon or anything like that. It’s, definitely client related. but the weekend review.

 

We do the week ahead, just very broad strokes, what’s going to happen this upcoming week. We’re very nonspecific on dates and times. It’s just, this is what you can expect. Plumbing finish, electric finish, floors, whatever it is. And then we move into any open selections that there’s a change, the request that they need to decide on, or if there’s a paint color, whatever, and we put just a.

 

Andy (42:39.466)

an open selection or an open decision section in there. We cover financials, so we always start with the original contract. Any change order requests are included in there, so approved or not, we put the approved change orders in there, additions and subtractions on any open allowances. There’s a handful of things that we leave as allowances through the process, that kind of stuff.

 

and then we kind of finalize it with where their contract sits. So every week we’re sending them, this is where your project is financially. We also, we bill bi-weekly on our fixed price. So our, basically they have a draw schedule that’s every two weeks. So we’ll put their next, you know, upcoming payment or two in there and how much they paid to date. So we just summarize the financials. Again, this is all in our project management software, but.

 

We’re now putting pertinent information for the client in one place. Then we go into talking points. So things like, hey, we’re painting next week. It might smell a little bit, paint fumes, things like that. Just be aware. That kind of stuff might be a question we have or a clarification we need, something like that. We’ll put those in there. We do upcoming meetings.

 

If there’s any one of our milestone meetings we’ll put on there for the client, things like that. And then just a quick note from their construction manager. And it’s usually pretty basic like, hey, I love the way the countertops look after they were installed last week or something like that. Or maybe just a quick, things are coming together nicely or whatever it may be, but a nice note from their construction manager. And we send that out every Friday.

 

proven to be a game changer for us, we have not, I think, I think in, since May, so, you know, 10 months or so of doing this, I’ve probably gotten six or seven client, like construction client messages through our project management system on a weekend. And usually it’s like, well, that’s great. Thanks. Thanks for the update or.

 

Andy (44:59.286)

You know, an unrelated thing, like it’s, limits the questions from the client because we’re giving them information. It limits surprises because we’re saying this is what your project costs. I told you about it last week, whatever, you know, it’s right there. you know, from a position of strength standpoint, you know, if, we were ever to have an issue with the client, like the information is there weekly, I’m, being proactive in sending it to you. So.

 

There’s never a way a client could say, I didn’t know, I didn’t know that’s where we were at in the total. Like I’m literally putting it in front of you every Friday through the duration of the project. So, definitely a game changer for us. it’s been very well received from our clients. you know, we’ve had, I’ve had a lot of success with it. And in the end, it probably takes me five or 10 minutes per project.

 

to draft that up. I it’s a templated thing. not like it takes me two hours to do it. It’s five or 10 minutes per project, and that’s it.

 

Todd Dawalt (46:06.602)

I love it. Yeah, I really like the basics. Hey, this is what we did last week. This is what’s coming up. Here’s what we need from you. And I really like the financial summary. This is where you are to date. Here’s when your next invoice is coming out. Here’s what you’ve paid. You’re pushing that information to them proactively. Yeah, I love it. Love it. And you brought some hardware home from Nashville for that. our

 

folks at the live meetup voted on who had the best idea and that was the best one. So simple, so powerful, no reason not to do it.

 

So now let’s talk about as a result of the work you’ve done with operating from a position of strength, getting your pre-construction process dialed in, getting your team dialed in, getting these things implemented. You are, it’s been fun over the past year to hear about the freedom that you’ve experienced, some of the time you’re able to get away from the business, to travel.

 

Andy (47:18.04)

Hmm.

 

Todd Dawalt (47:19.752)

new things you’re up to talk a little bit about. Yeah, what what does that freedom look like for you now? And what what do you what would you say are the the keys that have helped you experience that freedom?

 

Andy (47:43.031)

Yeah, you know, six years of working with you and construction leading edge. it’s been, it’s been great. there’s been so much that’s changed. I, you know, I think when, when I came to you, I had one other employee maybe. and I was in the field still quite a bit. You know, we did some self-performed stuff. We’ve, know, our company looked a lot different than it does right now.

 

and you know, it was, it was at that time I was at the point where it was like, this is good for me. but I knew if I wanted to keep, you know, the guy that I had working with me at the time around, which I absolutely did. And he’s fortunately still works here today. you know, I was going to need to level up a little bit. And so that’s why I came to construction leading edge and, you know,

 

Little did I realize what life was going to look like six years later. You know, I think there’s been several iterations of this over the years and we’ve kind of honed it in, but I think we’re in a really good spot right now. I’ve got an awesome team. They are so fantastic. They do so much for our clients, for myself.

 

in developing processes and systems and things like that. And what it’s done is really allowed me to spend more time working on the business. You know, there’s that old cliche working in the business versus on, but it’s a very real thing. And it’s allowed me to spend more time working on the business because of how great they are at what they do. And it’s exponentially moving us forward. And in doing so,

 

You know, I’ve been able to not be involved in things as much as I used to be. You know, I used to be in the field every day and on projects every day. You know, now I go to the projects two, three, four times, maybe at the most because they’re managed well and the systems that we have in place are working and clients don’t…

 

Andy (50:09.464)

call me, they don’t talk to me. We’ve done a good job in pre-construction and kind of setting the hierarchy of the management structure. I’m just out of the equation. And I go for support and curiosity more than anything these days, just to see how things are looking and maybe a final thumbs up. But it’s nice. I don’t have to do that. And we’re working towards that in pre-construction as well.

 

to allow me to focus time and things on sales and those kind of things. But in the meantime, I’m trying to take time for myself a little bit. Over all these years, this is year 22 for us. In all these years, I’ve worked a lot and I still do and I enjoy it. I’m not complaining at all.

 

But now, like the longer days and the longer hours are by choice, not out of necessity. And I also kind of subscribe to the work hard, play hard theory. you know, I don’t mind putting in some time, but I’m going to take some time as well. have a son that’s about to graduate and go to college. So try to spend some time with him. I have another son that travels all over the country for soccer.

 

So I never miss a game. I go take him on every trip. Not because, you know, I have to, but because I want to and I get to, you know, and I’ve started taking some time for myself and, you know, introducing some new hobbies and things like that. I’ve, you know, I, one of the construction, the Theo Alliance members, a good friend of mine and I spent several days hiking the Appalachian Trail in the fall.

 

the week after in advance. So it was two weeks off. And I came back and I didn’t have to worry about catching up or anything like that. was just, you know, roll right back into the flow. And even while I was gone, I probably took four or five phone calls in two weeks. So it’s been pretty amazing. Carved out a lot of freedom for myself, my family.

 

Todd Dawalt (52:21.268)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Andy (52:30.262)

You know, and I frankly, I’m trying to do the same for my team as well. think, you know, we’re, working towards a system where we don’t all have to work a lot. You know, we, we work because we want to, and because we love it. but I, you know, I’m the kind of person, I don’t feel right if I’m working 20 hours and everybody else is working 60. That’s just not going to work for me. So, you know, trying to create this system to where it works for our team as well.

 

to where they can have some freedom and they can enjoy their families and they can do those kind of things. Because really that’s what life’s all about.

 

Todd Dawalt (53:07.508)

Yeah, yeah, I love it. It’s been fun to hear about the trips and honestly, I’m a little envious of some of the things you’ve done over the past couple of years. Maybe hesitant to try to convince my wife to let me do some of those things, but I’ll give it a shot.

 

Andy (53:21.454)

Yeah.

 

Andy (53:25.326)

I’ll do, I can put in a good word if it helps.

 

Todd Dawalt (53:28.17)

Yeah, she would probably listen to you. It might come better from you guys. So I’ll take you up on that offer. You mentioned the CEO Alliance. So you’re one of the founding members of the CEO Alliance. It’s a very small group of folks, pretty tight-knit. It’s kind of hard to describe. People ask me about it. It’s kind of hard to describe. So how would you describe the CEO Alliance and then what it has done for you?

 

Andy (53:59.759)

Oh, it is, I would say it is tough to describe. It’s one of those things that’s, it’s a feeling as much as it is anything. You know, I think we, I was like, I you said I was kind of one of the early members and kind of been there since the beginning. You know, but the, at its core, it’s people that do very similar things to what I do.

 

You know, what any, you know, we all are, all in the same industry or generically in the same in construction. Um, I think. You know, one of the things that, uh, we all deal with is just feelings that are hard to express to your normal friends that you, that don’t go through what you do. You know, they don’t go through the ups and downs emotionally or the challenges, the stress levels, the.

 

financial decisions, the weight that we all carry, unless they’re entrepreneurs. And so being in a group or around a group of people that deal with those same stresses, those same emotions, those same frustrations, things like that, it’s a game changer. remember a very vividly remember a dinner that

 

We had, you were part of it and there was a group of us that were at one point all CEO Alliance members and just talking about fears and the challenges and the things that we all deal with and dumping those on your wife at night or your significant other at night and trying to avoid that. So we bottle them up and all that kind of stuff. the CEO Alliance has provided a

 

It sounds corny, but it’s support group, you know, for stuff like that. You know, and beyond that, like it’s full of people that are there to elevate their game, which in turn elevates your game. So, you know, you got a support structure. You’ve got a, you know, a mentor group or a coach that is going to uplift you and make you better.

 

Andy (56:22.062)

You know, we’re all competitive, you know, business owners, you’re competitive. So there’s a, you know, there’s certainly a thing like, man, if he’s doing it, I can do it. Or if he’s doing it, I can do it better. So you get some of that, you know, there’s a, you know, friendships. I mean, I have some of my, you know, best friends I see every week on Zoom and twice a year in person. But, you know,

 

like guys and gals that I would trust my business to if it ever came down to it. I really can’t say enough about the group of people that are there. They’re all very like-minded. They’re all very just good to the core people that deal with the same things you do. it’s like, you could hand pick

 

all of your friends from across the country and like it’s all in one room. It’s hard to explain. And my wife put it best with like, just how like if we go out to a party or something, you know, I’m not an outgoing guy. I’m not going to stand and be introducing myself to people I don’t know. You know, generic party, but in a construction group setting, it’s like I’m with my people.

 

It’s like, what are you? Who are you? You’re going out and you’re talking to these people and you’re excited. And I’m like, they get it. They know who they are and what they do. they’re like me. It’s cool. I really can’t say enough about it. I know that was kind of a corny explanation, but it’s just something you can’t really describe very well. It’s emotion more than it is anything else.

 

Todd Dawalt (58:16.894)

Yeah, is. People have asked me, Todd, how did you how did you put this group together? And the answer is, I don’t know. Somehow we found the right group of people. And it is it’s a fantastic group of people. My favorite thing is when we have our live meetups twice a year just to spend time with folks and the relationships that have been developed are are pretty incredible.

 

So, yeah, it’s I think there are some groups out there where it’s all about tactics and strategy and learning hacks and business. And there’s some of that, but it really is the CEO Alliance is very different. It’s such a tight knit group of people. It’s it’s pretty remarkable. Yeah. I appreciate you being part of it. And thanks for sharing that. All right. We are.

 

about out of time here. So a couple more questions for you.

 

What’s your hometown? And if a town in your area, and if somebody’s passing through, where’s the one place they need to go to, whether it’s a restaurant or a bar, that they cannot miss in your area?

 

Andy (59:35.406)

So I’m actually, live in a small town, about 20 miles east of Columbus called Pataskala, but we’re essentially Columbus area.

 

I guess I would say there’s an old time steakhouse called The Top that is a pretty, it’s a Columbus staple, so it’s very solid steak. I mean, it’s like an old style fancier restaurant, that makes any kind of sense. if you were coming up here for dinner, I would take you to The Top.

 

Todd Dawalt (01:00:16.83)

The Todd?

 

Andy (01:00:18.356)

No, the top. T.O.P. Yeah, I probably wouldn’t go to a restaurant called The Todd. I’m just being honest.

 

Todd Dawalt (01:00:19.722)

I was gonna say if it’s called the Todd, I’m there.

 

Todd Dawalt (01:00:29.258)

I’m not sure how to feel about that. But the top, got it, got it. Good stuff. Last question, if folks want to learn more about your business, what’s your website? I know you’re not a big social media guy, but you do have a really nice website. So where should people go if they want to follow you or connect with you?

 

Andy (01:00:30.412)

Hahaha.

 

The top, yeah.

 

Andy (01:00:48.62)

I’m not…

 

Andy (01:00:55.51)

Yeah, our website is epic building company dot com. And our contact phone number and everything’s on there. Be more than happy to chat with anyone they wanted to reach out. My email is Andy Andy why at Epic building company dot com. And, you know, I’d love to hear from anybody and be happy to answer any questions.

 

I have conversations. Like I said, I always enjoy connecting with people in our industry, sharing my experience and pre-construction, things like that. And there’s always something to learn. It’s one thing I’ve gathered through CEO Alliance and your live meetups and just industry meetings and things like that is there’s always somebody that knows a lot more about something than I do and would love to check.

 

Todd Dawalt (01:01:51.348)

Yep, I appreciate that. Good stuff, Andy. Thanks for sharing. it’s been a lot of fun working with you for the past six years now and look forward to watching your continued progress. So thanks, man.

 

Andy (01:02:03.95)

Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for everything. It’s been great.