Owning a construction business can feel like spinning 20 plates at once.
You are trying to keep sales, estimating, preconstruction, procurement, field operations, client communication, and trade partners moving at the same time. Every new project is supposed to be smoother and more profitable, but too many of them eventually fall into the same cycle of missing information, urgent questions, delays, and owner involvement.
The problem may not be the quality of your people or how hard they work. It may be what happens when a project moves from one phase or person to the next.
In this episode of The Construction Leading Edge Podcast, Todd Dawalt shares the Nail the Handoff framework. He explains four crucial handoffs that can determine whether a construction project runs smoothly or becomes a costly clarification exercise.
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Who This Episode Is For
This episode is for construction business owners who want smoother projects, stronger margins, and fewer questions returning to the owner.
It is especially relevant if you:
- Own a custom home building, remodeling, commercial general contracting, or specialty trade business
- Feel like you are constantly managing too many moving parts
- See information get lost between sales, estimating, preconstruction, and operations
- Have estimators waiting for missing information from the sales team
- Receive subcontractor bids that are difficult to compare
- Start projects before selections, scopes, trade partners, or long-lead items are ready
- Have field teams that receive just enough information to start instead of everything needed to finish
- Spend too much time answering project questions and putting out fires
- Want to strengthen the office-to-field handoff
- Need a team-owned preconstruction process that reduces chaos and owner dependency
Problems This Episode Helps Solve
This episode helps answer questions such as:
- Why do good construction projects deteriorate into chaos?
- Where does information get lost between sales and production?
- What are the most important handoffs in a construction project?
- How can we stop estimating from being based on assumptions?
- Why are subcontractor bids so difficult to compare?
- What should be complete before a project is handed to the field?
- How do we escape the “just enough to start” trap?
- What should a preconstruction handoff checklist include?
- How can handoffs reduce rework, delays, and profit bleeds?
- Which part of the handoff process should we improve first?
Episode Summary
Todd compares construction projects to a relay race.
A relay team can have some of the fastest runners in the world and still lose because of one bad baton exchange. The handoff is not a minor detail between the important parts of the race. It is an event that must be trained, designed, and executed correctly.
Construction companies often focus heavily on the work inside each phase. They try to improve sales, estimating, procurement, preconstruction, and operations. But they spend less time defining how complete information moves between those phases.
That is where many projects begin to break down.
When a handoff is incomplete, the receiving person has two choices: guess or ask questions. Guessing creates expensive mistakes. Asking questions creates interruptions, delays, and more owner dependency.
Todd identifies four important handoffs.
The first is from the customer to the contractor. During sales and early preconstruction, the contractor must understand the client’s goals, problems, constraints, expectations, budget, and desired result.
The second is from sales to estimating or preconstruction. The estimator should not begin until the sales team has provided the complete plans, requirements, client information, and other details needed to price the work properly.
The third is from the estimator to subcontractors and suppliers. Clear bid packages and scopes of work help bidders understand what to include, exclude, identify as an alternate, and clarify before returning a price.
The fourth is from preconstruction to operations. This office-to-field handoff should give the production team everything it needs to finish—not simply enough information to mobilize and begin work.
Todd recommends starting with the final handoff and working backward. Define what operations needs, then improve the earlier phases so they consistently produce that result.
Key Takeaways With Timestamps
00:49 – Stop trying to spin 20 plates at once
Todd explains that construction projects can become simpler when the company focuses its energy on three or four critical handoff points.
03:12 – World-class speed cannot overcome a bad handoff
The United States men’s relay team had elite runners but failed to reach the Olympic final because of a botched baton exchange.
04:14 – Construction companies focus on running instead of the exchange
Most contractors work to improve sales, estimating, and production but pay less attention to how information moves between those phases.
05:37 – Weak handoffs keep owners trapped in firefighting
Missing information creates calls, texts, emails, rework, delays, and project questions that continually return to the owner.
07:55 – Incomplete handoffs force the team to guess or ask
When employees do not receive everything they need, they either make assumptions or escalate the question. Both options can become expensive.
10:19 – Treat every construction handoff as its own event
Like a relay coach, the company should define, practice, and improve the exchange instead of assuming it will happen naturally.
12:39 – Handoff one: Customer to contractor
The first handoff occurs during sales and early preconstruction, when the contractor receives the goals, needs, expectations, and constraints from the client.
13:20 – Do not build a solution before understanding the problem
Todd shares an example of homeowners considering an attic conversion that did not support their long-term goal of aging in place.
15:05 – Unclear expectations create future resentment
When the contractor and client carry different assumptions about the project, scope, timing, and budget, the relationship begins on an unstable foundation.
17:08 – Use a needs assessment checklist
A structured checklist can help the sales team uncover the client’s goals, business or personal needs, budget, timing constraints, and expectations.
18:17 – Handoff two: Sales to estimating or preconstruction
Before estimating begins, sales must provide the complete information required for the estimator to perform the work.
19:37 – Missing information creates circular communication
When estimators lack plans, schedules, selections, or requirements, they must pause the work and chase answers through sales and the client.
20:41 – Use a pre-estimating checklist
The checklist defines what the estimator needs and gives sales a clear standard for what a complete handoff looks like.
22:05 – Handoff three: Estimator to subcontractors and suppliers
The bidding process becomes another critical exchange where incomplete documents and unclear scopes create uncertainty.
23:01 – Do not ask subcontractors to guess what to price
Without clear direction, trade partners may include different assumptions and scopes, making their bids difficult to compare.
24:29 – Bid leveling becomes chaotic when scopes are unclear
Todd describes receiving inconsistent prices on large commercial projects and the time required to determine what each bidder included.
25:25 – Create detailed bid packages for the highest-risk trades
Clearly define what each bidder should include, exclude, identify as an alternate, and provide as a unit price or lead-time concern.
28:58 – Handoff four: Preconstruction to operations
The most important handoff occurs when the office transfers responsibility for the project to the field team.
29:32 – Some companies have no real preconstruction handoff
The project moves directly from a signed contract to mobilization, leaving production to solve unfinished sales, estimating, procurement, and design work.
31:28 – Give the field everything needed to finish
The goal is not to give operations enough information to start. It is to provide what they need to execute and complete the project successfully.
31:52 – The “just enough to start” trap creates construction chaos
Todd argues that many apparent labor, productivity, and operations problems are symptoms of a preconstruction deficiency.
32:36 – Treat the handoff like a loan closing
A bank does not close a loan when only most stipulations are complete. A project should not be handed to production until the required conditions are met.
33:45 – Use a handoff checklist
The checklist should define what must be complete before operations accepts the project from preconstruction.
34:56 – Include critical project-readiness information
The handoff may include the signed contract, contacts, permit status, detailed scope, long-lead items, buyout status, purchase orders, and subcontract agreements.
37:10 – Bonus move one: Work from right to left
Start with the preconstruction-to-operations handoff, define what the field needs, and then work backward through estimating and sales.
39:28 – Bonus move two: Build the process with the team
Employees are more likely to implement a process they helped design than one created by the owner and handed down to them.
40:07 – Bonus move three: Get paid for preconstruction
Custom builders and remodelers should recognize the value of preconstruction and stop giving away the planning work as a free estimate.
41:47 – Strong preconstruction can make construction feel easier
Todd shares Andy Culp’s experience that clearer information and stronger processes reduced issues and simplified the construction phase.
42:40 – John Springstead reduced hours while increasing revenue
Todd describes how John improved preconstruction, reduced his workweek, operated with fewer employees, and increased annual revenue.
44:10 – Do not try to fix everything at once
Start by identifying where information is lost, expectations are unclear, and the receiving team is forced to guess.
45:41 – Grade the office-to-field handoff
Todd asks owners to give the handoff an A, B, C, D, or F based on how much of the required information is truly ready.
46:28 – Calculate what the weak handoff is costing
Consider rework, delays, giveaways, team frustration, client trust, owner stress, and the risk of trying to grow before correcting the process.
Key Concepts From This Episode
Construction Handoff
A construction handoff is the transfer of information, responsibility, decisions, and project context from one person or phase to another.
A successful handoff gives the receiving party what they need to complete the next phase without guessing or repeatedly chasing answers.
Needs Assessment
A needs assessment captures the client’s goals, priorities, constraints, expectations, budget, timing, and underlying problem.
This creates a stronger foundation for design, estimating, and preconstruction.
Pre-Estimating Checklist
A pre-estimating checklist defines the information that must be present before an estimator begins working on the project.
It reduces delays, assumptions, and circular communication between estimating, sales, and the client.
Bid Package
A bid package gives subcontractors and suppliers clear instructions about what to price.
It may include scopes, inclusions, exclusions, alternates, unit prices, assumptions, schedule information, contracts, and long-lead requirements.
Just Enough to Start Trap
The just enough to start trap occurs when a project enters production with only the minimum information needed to mobilize.
The field team then becomes responsible for completing selections, procurement, buyout, scope clarification, and design coordination while trying to build the project.
Office-to-Field Handoff
The office-to-field handoff transfers a fully prepared project from preconstruction to operations.
A complete handoff gives production the contracts, scopes, contacts, schedules, procurement status, trade commitments, and decisions needed to finish successfully.
Resources Mentioned
Construction Leading Edge Resources
People Mentioned
Recommended Next Step
Grade your current handoff from preconstruction to operations.
An A-level handoff gives the field nearly everything needed to finish. A C- or D-level handoff gives them enough to start but leaves major details, procurement, decisions, and scopes unresolved.
Once you have assigned a grade, identify the first missing condition that repeatedly creates questions, delays, or rework. Add it to a handoff checklist and define who must complete it before the field accepts the project.
The Buyout Playbook can also help strengthen one of the highest-risk areas inside preconstruction.
If weak handoffs, incomplete preconstruction, and owner dependency are limiting your profit or ability to grow, apply for a Business Evaluation Call.
Client Success Stories
Want to see how other construction business owners are applying these ideas?
Watch client success stories from builders, remodelers, and general contractors who have worked with Construction Leading Edge to reduce chaos, improve their systems, and build companies that run with less owner dependency.
Related Episodes
Episode 430: Nail the Handoff System: Build a Rock-Solid Preconstruction Checklist Your Team Actually Follows
Todd Dawalt explains how builders can eliminate chaos, delays, profit bleeds, and field confusion by designing a team-owned pre-construction process that fully hands projects from the office to the field.
Episode 436: How John Springstead Doubled Revenue While Cutting His Work Hours
John Springstead shares how implementing pre-construction, nailing the handoff, clarifying roles, and letting his team own the work helped him reduce chaos, increase revenue, and cut his weekly work hours.
Episode 438: Your Customers Experience Your Systems, Not Your Intentions
Todd Dawalt explains why customer trust breaks down when a builder’s systems cannot support their promises, and why pre-construction is the key system for creating clarity, confidence, and a better client experience.
FAQ
What are the four crucial handoffs in a construction project?
The four handoffs are customer to contractor, sales to estimating or preconstruction, estimator to subcontractors and suppliers, and preconstruction to operations.
Why are construction handoffs so important?
Each handoff determines whether complete and accurate information reaches the next person. Weak handoffs force employees to guess, chase answers, or escalate questions to the owner.
What should be complete before estimating begins?
The estimator should receive the relevant plans, client goals, scope information, requirements, specifications, schedules, and other details needed to price the project without relying on avoidable assumptions.
How can contractors receive more consistent subcontractor bids?
Provide detailed bid packages that define the expected scope, inclusions, exclusions, alternates, unit prices, assumptions, schedule requirements, and lead-time information.
What is the “just enough to start” trap?
It happens when the field receives enough information to begin work but not enough to finish. The production team then has to complete unfinished preconstruction activities during the project.
What should an office-to-field handoff checklist include?
It may include the signed contract, key contacts, permit status, detailed scope, schedule, long-lead items, buyout status, purchase orders, subcontract agreements, selections, and other project-readiness conditions.
Which handoff should a construction company improve first?
Todd recommends starting with the handoff from preconstruction to operations. Define everything the field needs, then work backward to improve estimating and sales.
Todd Dawalt
Founder of Construction Leading Edge and host of The Construction Leading Edge Podcast
Todd Dawalt is the founder of Construction Leading Edge and host of The Construction Leading Edge Podcast. Since 2014, Todd and the Construction Leading Edge team have helped construction business owners systematize their companies, reduce chaos, improve profitability, and build businesses that run with less owner dependency.
Full Transcript
Todd Dawalt (00:49.262)
Do you ever feel like owning a construction business is like spinning 20 plates at a time and you have to focus on all 20 plates at once? Does it feel like getting your projects done is way harder and less profitable than it should be? Maybe every new project that comes along, you’re like, this one’s gonna be different. It’s gonna be simpler, it’s gonna be faster, and we’re gonna make money. But they all end up the same way.
What if you didn’t have to spend 20 plates at a time in your construction business? What if there were just three or four specific points in every project that you could focus your energy on that would make your projects smoother, make them more profitable, and would free you up from the day to day? Well, you’re listening to the Construction Leading Edge podcast from constructionleadingedge.com, where we are all about systematizing your construction business.
to maximize freedom, impact, and wealth. My name is Todd DeWalt. I’m the founder here and the host. And my team and I have helped over 400 construction companies eliminate chaos, grow their profits, and grow their team. And every one of those clients, we have taught this framework too that I’m gonna talk about today. So today we’re digging into a question that could change the way you run your projects.
Question is, what are the three or four crucial points in every construction project that make the difference between smooth, profitable execution, and chaos, and frustration, and disappointment? In this episode, you’re going to learn a framework that will turn what may feel like calculus or magic of running a profitable construction business and turn it into a simple process you could follow that’s more like addition.
maybe seventh grade algebra. So whether you are a custom home builder, a commercial GC, a remodeler or a trade contractor, this framework is going to help you because it applies to every type of project. So be sure to pay attention. You may want to take some notes and be sure to listen all the way through so you can find out how you can get some bonus points and make this framework even more powerful for you.
Todd Dawalt (03:12.078)
So let’s go back to 2020 in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. The U.S. men’s four by 100 meter relay team had some of the fastest runners in the country, frankly, some of the fastest men on earth, and they still failed to make the final. They didn’t even get a shot at a medal because they messed up one specific part of the race. It’s not that they weren’t fast. Here’s how reporters described it. They described the U.S. team
as the favored United States, but they were undone by quote botched handoffs, one specific botched handoff. And they summed it up this way, despite the U.S. having world-class sprinters and some of the fastest men on the planet, the team was disqualified on a bad handoff. So here’s the thing about relay coaches, track coaches that…
that focus on the 4×100 meter relay or any kind of relay where they’re passing a baton. They don’t just focus on the running. They treat the handoff like its own event because it is. The handoff, the exchange from one runner to the next, has a very significant effect on the final time. And history has shown that even world-class speed can’t overcome a bad handoff.
It’s the same way. I’ve been in construction for about 30 years now. I’ve managed $300 million worth of projects. I’ve managed a company that grew up to 50 employees. I’ve owned my own business. I’ve been a subcontractor, general contractor, and owner’s rep. And what I found is that construction projects are a lot like a relay race. But most builders, contractors,
whether it’s trade contractor, GC, they focus on, if it was a race, they focus on the running part. They focus on the sales phase and they focus on the estimating phase and they focus on operations. They focus on building, producing, solving, pushing the job forward, but they don’t spend enough time on the handoff between those phases. And that’s where most of the chaos starts. So what does that chaos look like?
Todd Dawalt (05:37.838)
See if any of this sounds familiar to you. Maybe you are saying things like, I am spending too much time putting out fires, too many problems land in my lap. I’m getting 50, 75, 100 phone calls, texts and emails a day. People asking me project questions. Maybe you’re working more hours than you want to. 50, 60, 70 hours trying to keep up. Maybe you feel like you’re chained to your desk. You can’t get out of the day today.
If you’re like a lot of people, you’re saying, this business that I started to have more freedom is now consuming more of my life than it should. It’s preventing me from having taken a freaking vacation or being preventing me from being present at home with my kids. And maybe you’re saying we are busting our ass. We’ve got a great team. We’re working hard, but we’re just not making enough money. And
Maybe your customers are starting to scrutinize things and you’re getting the sense that they’re losing confidence in you. Maybe you say, have good people, we have good projects, we have good customers. We want to do the right thing, but we just keep making mistakes. We keep messing up. And here’s where it gets really frustrating. Here are some of the ripple effects of this. You’re not just…
putting out individual fires, you’re paying for the same fire two or three times because the real problem never got solved upstream. you’re… I talked to one builder who said, we’ve had the same exact problem on four houses in a row. Every time something falls through the cracks, it doesn’t just create that mistake, it creates… it has ripple effects. There’s the rework, delays, frustration, and another problem that rolls…
uphill to you. And that’s why you can’t get out of the day to day. Because when the baton gets dropped or people don’t even think about the handoff, you end up being the cleanup crew. You’re the backstop that picks up all of the pieces. And that causes you to end up working too many hours, not because your people are bad, but because too many things are just
Todd Dawalt (07:55.096)
getting handed off half finished. There’s this half ass handoff or maybe not a good handoff at all. And when the handoffs are sloppy, your team has to do a couple of things. They can just guess, they could fill in the gaps or they can ask you. And when people guess in construction, it gets pretty expensive, right? And these bad handoffs tend to snowball.
Don’t they? They show up later as missed details. If something gets missed early on in the project, you’re just building on top of it. And then it just snowballs. You also have confused subcontractors. Your team gets frustrated. The customers start to feel it. They start getting unhappy. And then there’s a financial impact to all of this, right? And then if the field gets just enough to start,
instead of everything they need to finish, then production turns into this giant clarification exercise. Hey, what are we doing here? What about this? Where’s the selection? They’re constantly asking questions. And that’s when you keep getting dragged back in, not because you don’t want to be involved, but because you’re the only one who knows what was supposed to happen, or you have to make the call. So now, you’re stressed out in the present. You are
behind on the future and you’re still paying for mistakes that were baked into the project before the project even started. And maybe you’re wondering what problems are lurking in your projects that are just waiting to rear their ugly head. When is the other shoe going to drop? What the F is coming down the pike next? And then there’s your customers. They may not see the busted
botched handoff, but they feel it, don’t they? They feel it when the team looks disorganized, when it’s obvious something got missed, when answers are slow, and then confidence begins to erode. And then that turns into its whole other snowball effect where they pull out the microscope, they start to scrutinize everything, they start to pace slowly, et cetera. So.
Todd Dawalt (10:19.682)
What do we do about it? What do we do about it? How do we fix this problem? Well, we take a page out of the playbook from the track and field coach, the relay coach, the 4×100 relay. See, they don’t just focus on running, they focus on the handoff too. When they’re training, they don’t just focus on running. It’s like, well, just hand the baton off, right? They f…
they train on how to properly hand off the baton, the exchange. They know that you can have the fastest, most talented runners on the planet, but if you don’t nail the handoff, the whole thing falls apart. And frankly, it doesn’t matter how fast you are, how talented you are, how good your runners are, if you screw up the handoff. And it’s the same way on a construction project, okay?
But that’s what most builders do. They just focus on being the best at sales, being the best at estimating, being the best at maybe pre-construction, which most people have a pre-construction deficiency. Some are really focused on operations and quality, but they don’t focus on the handoff. If they were relay coaches, they would focus on the running part, but they don’t spend enough time on the handoff.
What I’m here to tell you is your projects get much, much simpler if you use this framework that I call Nail the Handoff. Okay? And just look at the handoff points because a construction project is a series of handoffs and every project has three of these handoffs, some have four, but every project has three of these handoffs and if you’ll just…
invest the right time and energy in these three or four handoffs and focus on nailing the handoff at these three or four places. It goes from calculus or magic to simple math. Instead of spinning 20 plates at once, you’re focusing on three or four distinct handoffs in your project that I call nailing the handoff. Things get much simpler. I’ll talk about and share some examples of what happens when you do that in a few…
Todd Dawalt (12:39.372)
minutes. So let’s talk about, let’s walk through these handoffs, right? Maybe you’re wondering, okay, what are these handoff points? I’m going to walk through four handoffs, three of which every project has one of them, most custom builders and remodelers and general contractors will have. So handoff point number one is the handoff from the customer to the contractor. And this is the handoff that happens during the sales process.
and early on in pre-construction. So here are a few mistakes that often get made. The contractor, you start moving too quickly without understanding the client’s goals. You start putting together pricing, scopes of work, etc. without really understanding, without having a good handoff from the client to yourself, from the customer to the contractor. This is where you’re on the receiving end and you are extracting the information you need from your customer.
What this looks like is the team doesn’t clearly define the client’s constraints, their priorities, or get them leveled up on expectations. And what happens is the project gets sold before the real problems are fully understood. What does this look like? For example, one of my clients several years ago was a remodeling contractor in Louisiana. And he had a client that came to him and said, hey,
we are considering remodeling for our home. And we’re thinking about remodeling our attic. They had this unfinished attic space that they wanted to put a bedroom and a bathroom and maybe laundry room in the attic. And as the remodeler started going through it, he found out that the clients were thinking about aging in place. They were in their 50s or 60s and they were.
thinking about making some improvements to age and place. And what they failed to think about was they would have to go up steps to get to this new space. So they had this idea in mind that wasn’t really going to fit their needs. So the remodeler could have spent lots of time putting together, spending time and energy on this thing, putting together a solution and pricing, and only to find out, well, this doesn’t meet their needs.
Todd Dawalt (15:05.144)
which would have been a complete waste of time. So here’s some of the ripple effects. we don’t nail the handoff from the contractor or from the customer to the contractor during the sales process or the early pre-construction process, the project starts out on a shaky foundation. Expectations are fuzzy. Client has expectations, you have expectations, and they are, could be miles apart. And here’s a…
A quote to remember, unclear expectations are premeditated resentments.
If you have expectations on how your client is going to behave and you’re not clear with them, and if they have expectations and they’re not clear with you, you’re just setting yourself up for premeditated resentment. The other ripple effects include scope starts drifting early, the team ends up solving the wrong problems, maybe missing important ones. And then if we don’t understand what the needs and the constraints are, especially on a design build project,
Design is based on bad information. Estimating is based on a bad design because it’s based on bad information. And then you end up with a project that’s just a mess. So here are a few things that are crucial at this step. And then I’m going to share a tool that you can use. And I’ll share a tool you can use at each of these crucial handoff points. So when you think about the handoff from the customer to the contractor during the sales process, you need to get a clear understanding of
their goals, the problems that need to be solved. If this is a business, they have business needs that need to be solved. If it’s a homeowner, they have specific problems they want to solve. You need to get clear on their hopes and dreams, get clear on their constraints. Maybe they have some timing constraints. This is where budget comes into the conversation. And you really want to get clear on the
Todd Dawalt (17:08.812)
the expectations that need to be set up front. And one tool that you can use at this step is a needs assessment checklist. A needs assessment checklist. And this is a tool that helps you capture the key information at the very beginning so that the baton gets passed very cleanly from the customer to you into your process. So instead of just
taking what they give you, imagine having a needs assessment checklist. You can sit down with your customer and say, okay, tell me about what are the problems you’re trying to solve here? What’s the underlying need? If it’s a business, what are the business needs you’re trying to solve for? Is this a right now problem? Is this a two years down the road problem? What are your expectations on timing, budget, et cetera? But a great tool at this phase is a needs assessment checklist.
And you may find out that it’s not a real project. You may find out that they have champagne dreams in a nickel beer budget, so to speak. And you may not want to find that out, but it’s better to find it out very early on before you spend a lot of time on it. So handoff point number one is the handoff from the customer to the contractor during the sales process. Handoff point number two.
is the handoff from sales to estimating or pre-construction. So this is where the salesperson or the business development person who’s been talking with the client is going to hand off the project. They’re going to hand off the baton to the estimator or the pre-construction team member who’s going to advance it to the next step. Here are a few mistakes that get made in this process.
Salespeople are notorious for not being super detail oriented. So what happens is the estimator doesn’t get all of the information they need. So the salesperson says, hey, this project is ready to estimate, whether it’s a commercial project with a bid date or a residential project for a homeowner, it sits on the estimator’s desk for a few days, they finally pick it up, they look at it and like, well,
Todd Dawalt (19:37.218)
I don’t have all of these information. I don’t have the information I need. Like the plans are incomplete. There are discrepancies within the plans. There are plans that are, there are details that are missing. And when that happens, the estimator either has to just put it off to the side or they have to make some assumptions. And you get into the circular motion where the estimator is calling the salesperson. Hey, where’s the door schedule?
and they work on that a few hours later. Hey, I’m trying to do a window takeoff. What kind of windows do they want? Hey, it looks like they’re thinking about this. Have they thought about this? So get this phone game going between the estimator, salesperson, maybe they’re getting the client involved. And then the ripple effects of that, when the estimator doesn’t have what they need, scope gets missed, numbers get built on guesswork, things get left out.
budget becomes shaky even before the job starts and then production ends up paying for estimating mistakes later. Or maybe your estimator puts an insurance policy on top of it to cover all of these contingencies and eventualities and the gaps and the project is just way over budget. It can’t be built. So what’s crucial at this step is that the estimator needs, they need a complete handoff.
Think of it as if the salesperson or the business development person is handing off this project to the estimator, and the estimator needs everything that they need to be able to do their job. So this means there has to be a clear definition of what information is required before estimating begins. And it’s the sales or business development person’s job to hand that information off to the estimator. So the tool, very simple tool for this would be a pre-estimating checklist.
This is a checklist that defines what the estimator needs in order to do their job correctly. It also tells the sales team what a complete handoff actually looks like. So imagine how this would help the salesperson to gather all of the information. They hand it off. They can review this pre-estimating checklist and know with confidence that they have everything that they need. And when the estimator picks up
Todd Dawalt (22:05.432)
this project and they have time to start working on it, they can have confidence that everything’s in there because there’s a pre-estimating checklist. Handoff point number three is the handoff from the estimator to subs and suppliers. Okay? Handoff point number three is when the estimator hands it off to subs and suppliers, this is the bidding phase. When the estimator…
is sending the project out to get pricing from subs and suppliers. Here are a few mistakes that get made. Let me know if any of these sound familiar. The estimator gets the bid documents and they send them out to the subcontractors without being reviewed first. So they’re incomplete. They’re missing details. So subs get incomplete or inaccurate documents. So…
They’re kind of in the same boat that the estimator was. They have to ask questions. So then the sub’s asking the estimator question, the estimator’s asking the sales or business development person, and maybe they’re having to go back to the customer. So we’ve got this, we have four people involved now. And then when there’s a, after the bid documents have been sent out to all the bidders, if there’s a change, you have to send out an addendum. Now you’ve dropped a rock in the pond.
so to speak, and you have to make sure that everybody you’ve sent bid documents out to gets, has this addendum, this change. Or sometimes bid documents are sent out without any direction and subs are left to their own devices and they just price it however they want. They have to guess what scope they should include. They have to guess about lots of things. So they just, they just price it however they want to.
And one of the biggest mistakes here is that the contractor does not clearly define the scope. Even if they do have complete bid documents, they don’t clearly define the scope of who should price what. So the ripple effects of that mistake, bids come back in and you’re comparing apples to oranges. And there’s this bid leveling exercise that has to go on. It’s really complicated.
Todd Dawalt (24:29.686)
about six or eight months after I graduated from college, I ended up as an estimator for a large commercial general contractor. And I actually thought I was gonna get fired because they had taken me out of the field and put me into estimating. Funny story about that. I was an estimator and I bid on a couple of large commercial projects and bid day was just crazy because we would send out bid documents to our subs.
And these were five, six, eight, $10 million projects a long time ago. So they were big projects. And then on bid day, we would get these prices in from all of the trades and they’re all different. And there was this extensive bid leveling that had to go on lots of phone calls and adding numbers. And it was just, it was kind of crazy. And I said, this is nuts. After a couple of those projects. And then I started.
before I would send out bid documents, I would put together bid packages, clearly defined scopes of work that I wanted the millwork guy to price or the electrician or the drywall guy or the painter. Hey, make sure it include this. The MEP guy, hey, make sure you include this, exclude this. And I remember getting phone calls from subs saying, this is so helpful. Thank you for doing this.
These are some problems you can avoid by simply doing one thing. There’s one tool you can use, and that is to create bid packages or detailed scopes of work for at least the key trades on each project where the most risk is. Now, that’s gonna be different for most of you, but look at your projects and think, okay, where’s the most risk? Where’s the most financial risk?
Where are the most problems? How can I clearly define the scope of work that I want these guys and gals to include in their price? So when they finally get to my job and it’s time for them to put a price together, I want to make damn sure they have everything they need, that the bid documents are complete, they have a clear scope of work to price. You may even want to give them a bid form to complete.
Todd Dawalt (26:49.838)
And if there are alternate prices or unit prices you want them to provide to you, get that stuff upfront, put it in your bid packages. So your bid document, your bid package, your scope of work that you send to them should include the following. What they should include, what they should exclude, what alternates to price, what assumptions to call out, and ask them to maybe even identify lead times.
on specific things. If there are long lead materials, ask them to give you lead times. If you really want to lock it down, include a project schedule. Makes it really simple. So think about when you get to the contracting phase, what are some of the things you want to lock down? I’ve even sent out bid packages that included the contract. This was as an owner’s rep, because we would select a general contractor on a…
$20 million project and then there would be lots of contract negotiation. So I said, you know what? Let’s eliminate all this stuff and let’s put the contract in the bid documents and say, this is it. This is what you’re bidding. So if you have an issue with the contract, you need to bring it up during the bidding phase and then not try to negotiate after the fact. So during the estimating estimator to subs and suppliers handoff,
put together a scope, a bid package or scope of work, at least for the key trades where most of your risk lives.
All right, handoff point number four. This is the handoff from pre-construction to operations. This is the handoff from the office to the field. You’ve won the job, you have a signed contract, I hope, and it’s time to execute this project. So handoff point number four is the handoff from pre-construction to operations.
Todd Dawalt (28:58.434)
Here are some of the most common mistakes that happen at this point. Number one, there is no handoff. Number one is that there’s a complete lack of pre-construction and it goes straight from sales to operations. We got the job, let’s just mobilize to the site and we’ll figure it out as we go. So mistake number one is a complete absence of a pre-construction handoff.
A other mistakes is that there is some sort of a pre-construction process, but the field teams get just enough to start, and these famous words are said. They don’t need to know that right now. We’ll figure that out later. So materials are not fully lined up. Key documents are incomplete. The field team doesn’t even know who the key contacts are. They don’t have contact information for the owner or…
subcontractors, subcontractors aren’t selected, long lead materials aren’t identified and aren’t ordered, and the team just figures it out as they go. And there are these little fires that just pop up. we need a we need an electrician. well, I guess we’ve got to select one. Then, we start backtracking. And while this guy’s price is no good anymore, or he’s booked up for the next 12 weeks, now we have to go find somebody else. And you have price increases.
As I mentioned before, production turns into this giant clarification exercise. Your subcontractors inform and end up doing selections, buyout, negotiation, and chasing down design details while they’re trying to build the project. There’s all of this time and energy wasted chasing information. There’s often a tornado of changes once these problems come up.
It’s usually urgent. like, right now we have this problem that has punched us in the face right now and we have to get it solved. So everything has to stop so we can put this fire on. The team gets sucked into this black hole of urgency, right? Then the delays and the missed details multiply and the cost increases start to add up and the frustration begins to build for the field. The client starts to feel it.
Todd Dawalt (31:28.162)
and you start to feel it as well. So here’s what’s crucial at this step. The goal at this step from at the handoff from the office to the field, from pre-construction to operations is, think about it this way. You want to give the field everything they need to finish instead of just enough to start.
just enough to start trap is the number one problem that needs to be solved in the construction industry. Okay, this is a hill I would, this is what a hill I don’t know that I would die on it, but this is a hill I would fight on is that we don’t necessarily have a lot of the problems that people talk about labor shortage, productivity crisis, young people don’t want to work, blah, blah, blah. Our number one problem is a pre construction deficiency.
And it’s the just enough to start trap. It’s this tendency to say, let’s do just enough to start and we’ll figure it out as we go. The best way to think about this handoff, if you want to get out of this mess, is to think of it like a loan closing. Okay, if you’ve bought a piece of real estate or you’ve purchased a home or a car, if there’s financing involved, there is a loan closing. And when you go to the closing table, there’s a…
a list of stipulations that must be met or the loan doesn’t go through. If there are 25 stipulations that have to be met and you have 23 of them, they’re not just going to say, hey, that’s close enough. Let’s close the loan and we’ll figure out the rest later. That’s not how banks work. You have to meet 100 % of those stipulations and that’s how this handoff should work too. Frankly, that’s…
That’s the way to think about all of these handoffs. It’s like a loan closing. Come together, there’s a handoff, and the receiving end doesn’t take it until they have everything that they need. Just like a bank is not going to let you take the keys to that house until they have all of their loan stipulations met. So there should be a clear list of stipulations that must be met before the project gets handed off from pre-construction to operations.
Todd Dawalt (33:45.782)
And one tool for this phase is a handoff checklist.
Todd Dawalt (34:39.31)
Ahem.
Todd Dawalt (34:56.494)
Okay, here we go. That handoff check checklist should include the crucial information and conditions that must be in place before the field takes the project, before the project is handed off to the field. Things like, signed contract, contact information for all parties. What’s the status of permits? A detailed scope of work. Long lead materials should be at least identified, maybe even ordered.
project, what’s the status of the buyout of the project? Ideally, your field team has a stack of purchase orders and subcontract agreements where the project is bought out and their job is to simply execute the plan.
So think about the handoff from the office to the field and think about it like a loan closing where there’s a handoff checklist that’s where everybody on the team agrees this is what constitutes a project that’s ready to hand off to the field and you actually sit down and review it, the operations team, your operations manager or…
and or project manager looking at it and everybody understands that if they say, look, we don’t have this, this thing is, this item is missing. They’re going to push that project back across the table to pre-construction and say, let me know when it’s done. That’s what a good handoff looks like. So those are the four crucial points in every, three of those points happen in every project. There may not be
a needs assessment. There may not be the handoff from the client to the contractor. If you’re a public works contractor, it may just may just go straight into the bidding phase. But if you are a remodeler, a design build contractor, if you’re a custom home builder, then those are the four crucial handoff points. And if you’ll just focus your efforts on nailing those handoffs,
Todd Dawalt (37:10.766)
things get a lot simpler, okay? Now, if you want to make this more effective, there are a few bonus moves you can make. If you want to get bonus points to make your handoffs more effective, here are a few things you can do. Three things. This is specifically for the first two or for everybody. The third one would be for remodelers and custom home builders. So number one is think right to left. You may be wondering, well, which handoff should I start with?
My advice is start with the last one. Start with the handoff from the office to the field, from pre-construction to operations. This is what we do with all of our clients in our Systematize Your Construction Business program. When I’ve done on-site deep dives with 15 or so companies where I go and spend a couple of days with their team, this is what we focus on. Start with this handoff, get that completely designed, get it dialed in, and then…
The reason you start with that one is when that one’s really dialed in, you start to work from right to left and think, all right, well, this is out at the right side of the page, the handoff from pre-con to operations. Let’s move from right to left. What can we do in the third handoff? What can we do in the handoff from our estimator to our subs and suppliers that would make things more effective? And then you may think, well, what are some things we could do
in the handoff from sales to estimating that would make it better. And then what can we incorporate into our sales process that would make this thing work smoother? bonus point number one, if you want bonus points, is work from right to left. Really get your pre-con to operations handoff nailed and dialed in first and then work from right to left. Number two is resist the urge to build this yourself.
Build it with your team. Your team.
Todd Dawalt (39:18.786)
Ahem.
Todd Dawalt (39:28.268)
Number two, if you want to get bonus points is build this with your team, build these processes with your team. This is where our clients, the builders, remodelers, commercial GCs, trade contractors, this is where they get the most leverage, where they see the biggest changes. They get their team involved in the development of these processes because people will run through walls to carry out a process they were part of developing and they’ll find every reason.
your process won’t work. Number three bonus point, if you are a remodeler, a custom home builder, maybe even a light commercial GC doing small projects, if you’re doing outdoor living, deck builder, pool builder, anything that does involve some design and selections, you need to get paid for pre-construction. Okay? So if you’re a custom builder, remodeler, fo’ sho’,
You need to stop giving this work away for free. This is the number one thing to change in your business that will revolutionize your business is stop doing free estimates. So a strong pre-construction process is incredibly valuable for you, but it’s also incredibly valuable for your clients and you should get paid for that. So those are a few things you can do for bonus points.
So as I mentioned before, most builders, most general contractors, most construction companies, in my experience, that I’ve been working with, I’ve been in construction for 30 years now, most of them, if they were relay runners, they spend most of their energy on the running part. But as I mentioned, relay coaches know that the handoff matters just as much. So if you want…
your projects to get simpler, smoother, and less chaotic, then you need to start treating the handoff like its own event. And if you want some help with that, if you know you need to get your pre-construction process dialed in and you want a proven system for doing that, the next step is to go schedule a business evaluation call with my team. There’s a link in the show notes to do that, or I’ll talk about that some more in a minute. Now, I want you to imagine this. Imagine you have…
Todd Dawalt (41:47.182)
these four handoffs nailed. You’re nailing the handoff at these crucial points. Imagine in your business, imagine that your business, that pre-construction is done so well and the handoffs are so clean that the construction side of things actually gets dramatically easier. It’s easier. Here’s what Andy Culp said back on episode 417 when I asked him about…
what it did for him to get his pre-construction process dialed in. He said all 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 almost like it’s too easy. The clients are happier, they get a smoother project, a smoother process with less issues. And that’s what happens when expectations are clear, when scope is defined, when selections are made, and the team’s not guessing their way through the project.
On episode 436, when I interviewed John Springstead, he said, pre-construction, bar none, is the most important thing he’s done. It streamlines everything. John said, having a good pre-construction process completely transformed the way we do work from that time forward. It was like, now we’ve got something here. And John said the effects didn’t just stop at the project level, they show up.
and had a pretty profound influence on the rest of his business and his life. said, now I have a 34-hour work week where three years ago I probably worked 60 hours a week. And from a financial standpoint, he said three years ago they did 1.7 million in volume. And now they have two less employees and they did 3.1 million in revenue. So that’s…
Just a couple of examples of what happens when you nail the handoff, when you focus on pre-construction. Construction gets easier. Clients get a smoother process. They get a better experience. The business gets more efficient. And you, you get your time and maybe your sanity back. So that’s what can happen when you stop dropping the baton and you really start treating the handoff like its own.
Todd Dawalt (44:10.678)
event. So a lot of builders spend all their time focusing on the running part of the race, sales, estimating, operations. They focus on building, producing, solving problems, driving things forward and grinding. But as we’ve said over and over, relay coaches know that the handoff matters just as much as the running. And if your construction business feels, it feels harder than it should.
If you’re constantly putting out fires, if things just keep landing on your desk, if jobs seem to start smooth and then they just deteriorate into chaos, then there’s a pretty good chance that the baton is getting dropped at one or more of these handoff points. But don’t try to fix everything at once. Don’t try to spin all 20 plates. Start by looking at your handoffs.
Look at where the information is getting lost. Look at where expectations are fuzzy. Look at where people are forced to guess or ask questions. Look at where the field is getting just enough to start instead of everything that they need to finish. Because complicated problems get much easier to solve when you have a framework, when you have a formula to follow. And one of the best frameworks…
for a construction business is to identify the key handoff points in a project and tighten those up. That’s how you make the business simpler. That’s how you reduce the chaos. That’s how things, the game slows down for you. And that’s how you stop being the cleanup crew and you can actually move into that CEO role. Now, before you move on from this episode, I want you to do one thing. If you’re listening,
To this point, I want you to think about your handoff. How well you hand off projects from the office to the field, from pre-construction to operations. And I want you to give your handoff a letter grade. A, B, C, D, or F. an A plus handoff means when we hand off a project, every detail is covered. There are very few questions. They have everything they need to finish.
Todd Dawalt (46:28.142)
A C or a D handoff means they have like 60%, 70 % of what they need. And maybe you’re guilty of that just enough to start trap. So think about that. And what letter grade would you give your handoff from the office to the field? Is it an A? Is it a C? Is it a D? And then ask yourself, think about this. What is that bad handoff costing you?
What’s it costing you financially and rework delays, giveaways, costs you have to eat, profit bleeds, in other words, what’s it costing you in stress? How much is it costing your team when they get dropped into a project without what they need? What’s the cost?
with your clients when details get missed, things feel disorganized and confidence starts to erode. And then here’s the real question. If you’re thinking about growing your business, what happens if you try to grow your business without fixing this? What happens if you take on bigger projects without solving the handoff problem? What if you try to scale up, if you want to increase revenue 25%, 50 % or maybe you want to double, what happens?
What might break first if you try to fix this? If you try to grow, do you get more profit, more freedom, or do you just get sucked right back into more firefighting?
Do you just get bigger messes, bigger mistakes? Do you get more stress and more things rolling back in your lap? And that’s the danger. I’ve seen a lot of people try to scale their business without fixing this just enough to start trap and the problems grow exponentially. So if you don’t solve this now, growth is not going to fix it. Don’t think we just need more work. We need to hire more people. We need to…
Todd Dawalt (48:30.328)
take on more projects because bigger projects won’t fix it, more revenue won’t fix it, more sales won’t fix it. Those things will just amplify the problems. They will just throw gasoline on that fire. So if you know your handoffs are weak, if you know you lack a pre-construction process, if you know things are falling through the cracks, if you know too many things keep falling back on you, if you know you can’t grow this thing until you make some changes, then…
Don’t just listen to this episode and move on. Don’t just nod your head and say, yeah, we should do something about that. Yeah, we have a C or a D handoff grade and then don’t just do that and move on. Do something about it. Take some action. There’s help available. You can either DIY the solution or you can find a proven system. We have a proven system and if you want to talk to us about our proven system for helping you get out of this
and get you to a point where you’re nailing the handoffs, the first step would be to book a business evaluation call with my team. So the link to book that call is in the show notes or the description for this episode, or you can go to constructionleadingedge.com forward slash apply, A-P-P-L-Y, that’s constructionleadingedge.com forward slash apply.
We’ll get on a 30 to 45 minute call. We’ll help you identify where the baton is getting dropped, what it’s really costing you, where the hidden profit may be in your business and how much hidden profit there may be. And then ultimately what you need to do to fix it before it costs you even more. We’ve helped hundreds of construction business owners nail the handoff and every one of them, every person you’ve heard on the podcast, every person I mentioned in this episode, every person we’ve helped.
They took the same first step. They scheduled a business evaluation call. So if that’s you, take action, go to the link in the show notes and book your free business evaluation call. It’s not for everybody. There are some qualifications. Or you can go to constructionleadingedge.com forward slash apply. Thanks for listening.
Todd Dawalt (50:47.502)
If you got some value out of this podcast episode, me a favor, leave a rating, a review. It helps get the word out and it means a lot to me. I hope this helps. See you next time.
