Stop Giving Away Estimates For Free

We make the case for paid pre-construction planning agreements as the antidote to vague allowances, incomplete plans, and square foot myths. We show how charging for thinking builds trust, protects margins, and delivers permit-ready clarity clients can use.

• why square foot pricing misleads on custom builds
• materials and selections that swing budgets
• how a PCPA replaces allowances with real specs
• trade input, code checks, and scope writing
• aligning budget, timeline, and expectations
• defining quality in measurable terms
• protecting margins by billing for intellectual property
• filtering tire kickers and finding builder-client fit
• deliverables clients keep even if they walk
• treating planning as insurance, not a cost

Send me a DM. I’m happy to share my experience with this and how to make this a process that wins for everybody

Chapters

• 0:05 Back After A Hiatus
• 0:39 Why Free Estimates Fail
• 1:49 Square Foot Pricing Misleads
• 5:28 Materials That Swing Budgets
• 8:16 Choose Builders For Fit Not Price
• 10:41 What A PCPA Includes
• 14:56 Dating The Client To Build Trust
• 19:24 Allowances And Anchors Gone Wrong
• 24:41 Incomplete Plans, Real Consequences
• 29:16 Align Budget, Timeline, Expectations

Transcript

Carolyn McMahon: 0:05

Hey y'all, welcome back to another episode of Feed Me Your Construction Content. I'm Carolyn McMahon.

Josh McMahon: 0:10

I'm Josh McMahon.

Carolyn McMahon: 0:11

Boo. We made it to a second podcast in 2026.

Josh McMahon: 0:14

Yes, we are. I think we're officially back. Two in a row. After a one-year hiatus. We're back.

Carolyn McMahon: 0:20

Right. But man, we're um we're coming in hot. It is uh Sunday evening.

Josh McMahon: 0:27

Right at the last minute, snowing outside. We should be watching football, but we are uh recording this pod.

Carolyn McMahon: 0:33

Yes, uh, but you know, that's we showed up. We showed up.

Josh McMahon: 0:37

Yeah, you know, that's all that matters. You know, we were talking a little bit last week about pre-construction planning agreements, and I and I thought, man, that'd be a great discussion to talk about because even in my coaching program, The Builder's Edge, I really talk a lot about a pre-construction planning agreement and why more home builders and remodelers and even trades need to go to this type of process. Because, you know, the thing is, um I believe that if you if you don't do some kind of planning agreement or design agreement or collect some money up front, then you're giving away your intellectual property for free. You know, because estimating, true estimating is not free, right? Like clients would come to you and say, I need a price to build this house. Okay, cool. One million dollars.

Carolyn McMahon: 1:30

Well, how did you get there?

Josh McMahon: 1:32

Well, you just said you needed a price. I gave you a price. And and and that's really the thing, right? It's like I need to know a lot more information before I can just give you a price.

Carolyn McMahon: 1:44

Okay, well, well, how about just square foot?

Josh McMahon: 1:46

And square foot is great, right? That's what everybody uses. You go to the MLS, you go to Zillow, price per square foot is X. Well, the problem is the price per square foot, while everybody uses that, it's not an accurate measure of what a home actually costs to build. You can have a 1,500 square foot house that costs$450 a square foot to build. Because of the the foundation type, uh, the grade that you're dealing with, the fit and finish of the home, the insulation package, the windows in the home. Do you know that uh windows can range from, hey, our house that I'm building right now, I don't know,$3,500 window package? That same window package for a premier window line could be$60,000. Like, what about the front door? What about the toilet? What type of toilet do you want? Do you want the 99 special from Walmart? Or do you want the$15,000 one that's Wi-Fi connected that's from Ferguson?

Carolyn McMahon: 2:44

Or how about the one where it's like, well, you know, we've got this nice architectural shingle in there, and it's like, oh, well, I wanted metal seam roof. And it's like, oh, oh, oh, okay.

Josh McMahon: 2:53

Yeah, standing seam roof. What about slate?

Carolyn McMahon: 2:56

That's a huge swing.

Josh McMahon: 2:58

What about natural stone on the outside of the of the house or or builder grade stone where it's four to six inches thick so that you can see the reveal around the doors and windows because you like the way it looks. There's so much that goes into the price of a house that it's really difficult to say what the price of a house is. So I think it's it's difficult. Now I will say if if somebody wants a free estimate, I think you as a builder or remodeler have to know what's your minimum standard. If I say I got a 2,500 square foot house, what would it cost me to build it? Okay, just off the cuff, here's my minimum standard. It's gonna cost you$225 a square foot to build it. Price will be X based on the multiplication. You can do that, but the problem is, in my opinion, professionally and personal, if people are just asking for the price, they're looking for the cheapest price. And when you're building a home, it's not transactional. Guys, this is a two to three year commitment in many cases. When you think of the warranty period, when you think of the pre-construction period, when you think of the build period, you want to work with somebody because they're the cheapest? You want to work with somebody who you you connect with, you feel good about, you're comfortable with what they're doing. Which would you choose? Because when you think about buying a gallon of milk, you can say, ah, bet gallon of milk is$4.79, whatever the price of the gallon of milk is, right? And that's easy to wrap your head around. But when it comes to building a house, it's not the same thing. So you can't just give a person an estimate and just run with it, you know?

Carolyn McMahon: 4:38

Well, right. And so for that person who who wants that, you know, free estimate and you want the cheapest. I mean, I I don't know. I don't think I would be hiring the cheapest builder.

Josh McMahon: 4:49

Well, I I I think that's the problem. What I would encourage everybody to do, consumer and builder, is find the builder that you relate to, that you're comfortable with. Because again, this is there's gonna be some hard decisions in this process, there's gonna be some disappointment, there's gonna be some highs and lows. You wanna make sure you've got a guide and a home builder that you're comfortable talking to. Right. And you, the builder, you want to be comfortable talking to that client.

Carolyn McMahon: 5:21

Well, let's let's talk about this. I mean, you know, so what is included in a PCPA?

Josh McMahon: 5:28

So I think this is gonna this is gonna differ for everybody. The way that I've structured our program is very simple. Any document or item required to get a building permit or to build that house is included in the PCPA process.

Carolyn McMahon: 5:43

Oh, so I'm not just giving you a fee just to tell me how much my house will cost.

Josh McMahon: 5:48

That's exactly right. The the fee is is calculated based on the items that's gonna be part of that with with a markup. So we're making some money. We're not making enough money to really do anything, but for me, this is a dating process. I want to date you the client, and I want to know that I want to be involved with you for the next three years. I mean, look, I we've been doing this for a long time, okay? We don't need practice anymore. We know what we're doing, and we don't need to give away our services for free.

Carolyn McMahon: 6:16

Right.

Josh McMahon: 6:16

And we don't need to work with assholes. I don't cuss anymore, but man, I'm not working with assholes. Sorry, not doing it. I'm tired of it.

Carolyn McMahon: 6:25

So you're saying that that period, that dating period, well, that's the great time to determine whether you want to continue this relationship.

Josh McMahon: 6:34

Absolutely. I mean, the number of people who meet someone and marry them right away is very low. And the number of people who do actually do that, I'm wonder what the actual success rate of that is. Well, well, look at the number of people who build a house, go through that period, and get a divorce. It's hard. It's really freaking hard. So you better make sure the builder you pick is somebody you can trust, right? And for us, we want to make sure the same thing. Because what goes into a free estimate, plan review, budget modeling, trade input? I need to know from the trades how what how are we gonna do this, what's it gonna cost, uh, what type of equipment, code and zoning checks, scope clarification? My God, you know how much time we could spend on just scope, writing the scopes, getting it all dialed in, knowing exactly what you want versus what I want. Because I can write the scope, but what if you don't want that?

Carolyn McMahon: 7:31

Right. And then again, that's not a free estimate, that's a paid estimate.

Josh McMahon: 7:36

Yeah, but if it was free, if you were still doing free, I'm just talking about all the stuff that you're doing for free.

Carolyn McMahon: 7:43

Oh, gotcha.

Josh McMahon: 7:44

And and here's here's the thing I want you to think about. If you're giving somebody a free estimate, they're not tied to you. How many other builders do you think are giving them a free estimate? It could be a handful. There could be four of us out there doing the exact same thing, and I know this to be true because I've had trades say, Oh, yeah, this is the project, it's X, Y, and Z, and it's this client. I'm like, Yeah, how do you know that? Oh, because this builder's already asked me about it. Oh, okay. So they're shopping for the lowest price.

Carolyn McMahon: 8:12

Oh, right. I mean, so let's let's take an example of someone um recently, right, who came to you um and we were not the first stop, right? Second or third, I think we're a fourth, third or fourth, right? And so this pre-planning agreement was completely foreign to this person because the previous builders had given, you know, free estimates. And I'm sure that they had spent some time with the builder to get something, but you were able to see their proposal, yep, and there were a bunch of allowances on it. And what's an allowance mean?

Josh McMahon: 8:48

Allowance means it's just uh like maybe it's a guideline number. It's not even a it's not even a it's not even a backdrop. Like that number could be 10 times higher, 100 times higher.

Carolyn McMahon: 8:59

But but what do you mean? It it they knew what I wanted.

Josh McMahon: 9:02

And the client was adamant about my price is 1.4 million. I've got a price. And I'm like, you've got a an allowance of 1.4 million from a builder that's no longer in business.

Carolyn McMahon: 9:12

Right. So you started challenging them on what kind of things? Like, well, this I don't see this, I don't see your sheet say say what's what's the exterior of your home, what's your home's veneer, what type of shingles do you have, what type of an appliance is. But I but I picked all that stuff out. No, you didn't. It's not on here.

Josh McMahon: 9:30

A big thing for me is always gonna be windows first, cabinets, and tile. Those are my three really big items because you can really swing the pendulum one way or the other. And so when I looked at the house plans, I said, Oh, the window package is gonna be$60,000. We're gonna do a nice quality grade window. This is this is a house that deserves great windows. Um, cabinet budget, I think, was like$90,000 or$110,000. Very good budget. Uh tile budget was$80,000. And so when I looked at the proposal from the other builder, it was like$10,000 for windows. I'm like, they're installing what type of windows in the house? Well, I don't know, windows. Right. You don't understand the differences between the windows. So you're getting vinyl windows in a$1.4 to$1.9 million build. To me, I just I wouldn't do it if it was my money.

Carolyn McMahon: 10:22

Well, and there's also tiers to vinyl windows, too. Oh, yeah, right.

Josh McMahon: 10:26

Absolutely. Absolutely right. So that's where I think it's great to get a free estimate, but you didn't really get anything. Well, it's a disservice, it's a massive disservice. And the real problem here is that now they have an anchor of of X that the builder's no longer around to do, and you're trying now to go find which builder can build it for that price. And that's a really tough position to be in. So you got a free estimate, but you don't really have anything.

Carolyn McMahon: 10:54

I mean, this lady had a water feature in her house.

Josh McMahon: 10:57

I mean, this house was incredible for sure, right?

Carolyn McMahon: 11:01

I mean, I couldn't, I couldn't get past that.

Josh McMahon: 11:04

Well, and and I think as I think about like the drawbacks of these free estimates, where they really hurt is that clients are just shopping numbers. Yeah, and when it comes to home building, I think home building has to be solution-oriented. You have a frustration or or something that's driving you to want to build a new house or move. There's something, there's some dissatisfaction. We're here with a solution to help you fix that dissatisfaction, and that's what we need to do. Um, also, if you're getting if you're shopping free estimates and free number, you know, free um pricing, plans are probably in incomplete.

Carolyn McMahon: 11:43

Right. You had another buyer um who had a set of plans, right? But they weren't for this. They they weren't buildable plans, right? So there that's another element. You can have plans, but they're not buildable.

Josh McMahon: 11:56

Yeah, that that's exactly right. We dealt with that when we built our first spec house. We we bought a set of plans from from online, and the dimensions didn't even add up. Like they had five foot one for the tub, it's five foot, right? So so that so then like we didn't catch it early enough, so we had to do things additional on the fly to make it work. And it's like you can buy the set of plans for cheap online, but can you build it? Can you build it in your locality? Does it have the right details in it? So you might be pricing something that's not actually what you're going to build, which means you're gonna pay more. And if you've got a bank loan, maybe that's a problem. So you need to be really cautious. So that's why I think the pre-construction planning agreement, while you're paying money up front, you're paying for a service. And the clients that we've had that come to us and say, we we every every client's free consultation. It's probably one to two hours consultation. I want to understand how you build what you're interested in, what's your dissatisfaction, what are you looking for, what's your your expectations, what's your ideal budget? I want to know what your ideal budget is because if your ideal budget and your expectations aren't in alignment, I can't build your house. If your timeline ideal budget and expectations aren't in alignment, I can't build your house. I'm not of the the mindset that of uh you know scope, quality, price, you pick two of the three. I'm not of that mindset. I think they all have to be equally sized. Because if if you if you try and pick two of the three, you're always disappointed.

Carolyn McMahon: 13:32

Right.

Josh McMahon: 13:33

Right? I like I got the because if you get it for the cheapest price, then you're upset that the quality's bad. Or then you're upset that it took too long. Right? You're always gonna be disappointed in something, and that means that's what you'll always talk about. Because how many friends do we have or customers we've built for that are still complaining about the quality of something in their house? Right.

Carolyn McMahon: 13:58

But you know, it's it's interesting though, no one will ever say, Well, you paid this much for what kind of quality did you expect? No one has that conversation.

Josh McMahon: 14:09

No, because because I think for the for the most part, quality is just understood. I'm gonna get a quality product. But here the here's the problem with quality. Quality is very subjective, right? Because your level of quality is probably perfection. And my level of quality is not perfection, it's it's more exceeding the standard. Right. And and that's that's that's a misalignment, right? So you have to fish that out of the client and understand where are they at, because if their expectation is perfect, you know, my question is always going to be, how do you define perfect? And not that I want to be a jerk, I need to understand, can I meet your expectation? I might not be the right builder for you.

Carolyn McMahon: 14:49

Right. If you are going to, you know, hands and knees with a flashlight, look at all your molding, you you know, you're right on top of it, you're not at arm's length. I mean, I would steer clear.

Josh McMahon: 15:01

I I've got that picture of that buyer who was on their hands and knees looking at the baseboard because they wanted to make sure that it was right. And I'm like, you can't make this stuff up, man. I gotta take a picture of it. There's nothing creepy about that.

Carolyn McMahon: 15:13

Did they lose a diamond earring or a contact on the floor? It's like, no, they're looking at their baseboard and shoe molding.

Josh McMahon: 15:19

Yeah. It's so true. And that's why I think when you when you do follow kind of this process and you get some money up front to provide a service, I just think you create that trust. Because in that small payment, the work that we can deliver, we start to develop trust between us and you. Because listen, for for us, trust is non-negotiable. If we don't trust you, we can't work with you. And if you don't trust us, you can't work with us. Right. And it is okay. Because, man, you've got to trust that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do to get you the favorable pricing, to get you the product that you want, and et cetera, et cetera. And I got to trust that you're gonna pay on time, you're you're gonna be that great client that we're looking for. So this is a real key piece for me is that you start to create that trust. If you give something away for free, people don't value it the same.

Carolyn McMahon: 16:09

Right. And and I think what we've had to learn and you've had to lean in personally is that you do not deviate from this, no matter what, right? You had this amazing opportunity and and you you did think about maybe, well, maybe I will go through the motions and I'll do this and I'll you know define some things for them. And I'm like, nope. Did you collect any money? Nope. Nope. And I'm like, the no. I'm I'm the bad. I'm I'm the you know, the no, the buzzkill in the house. Like, no, you we we don't deviate from the process because when you do, I mean it's a slippery slip. I mean, you can you can mold it a little bit, like some buyer, you know, had plants or some buyer already had this. And so you can you can mold it to to fit the need, but at the end of the day, you we're not we're not going through the motions.

Josh McMahon: 17:02

No, and and and I think that's the the key to it, and and you know, full disclosure, the the reason that I considered it is because it was a great build.

Carolyn McMahon: 17:10

Right.

Josh McMahon: 17:11

And and I'm like, well, if they can get comfortable with the budget number that it needs to be, which I thought it would needed to be 1.9 million, this would be a great build. Like I was really excited about building in that community, building that home, building, you know, everything was like, this is it. This is this is I'm I'm you don't get excited about building houses after 25 years of doing it as much as you did before, but there's gonna be projects that you're like, this is the one. I'm excited about this project. Like I get excited about things that are different.

Carolyn McMahon: 17:40

Yeah, and and I'll say that those people are not completely gone. You were you were transparent. You're you know, like, hey, all of my expertise says this about your home build, and it's not going to be this, it's going to be this. And you know, if you know, if you need to, you know, have a personal conversation, you need to put it on hold so you can either realign your plans to fit your budget, or you have to increase your budget to get the plan that you want. And and they appreciated it and they were very kind and they're like, hey, you know, we need to think about some things, and we'd love to touch base with you in a couple months.

Josh McMahon: 18:20

Well, that's exactly how it was left. They said on multiple occasions they really appreciated my transparency and my honesty, and they felt really comfortable with me. And I'm like, look, at the end of the day, I want you to get the product that you want to get, I want you to be happy. And I was able to tell with your help too, you you pushed me back, and it was really what I needed. But then I was able to tell them, like, I can't build this house for the price that you've got set. There's no reason for me to go through the motions and do all this work and take any money from you because I don't think it can be done. Right. Somebody else might be able to do it. And I I mean, great, right? And I'll be like, damn, maybe I could have done it. But I'm not gonna deviate from our process because the moment you start deviating from your process, trying to make something cheaper than what it needs to be, you spend a lot more damn time chasing making somebody something cheaper for somebody else, and nobody values that. Right? So that's my favorite thing to be focused on now is that people want things for cheaper. So they try and go outside of the process. And what happens is you're getting it for cheaper because I'm the idiot running around trying to find the option, trying to put all the pieces together, trying to make all these things work, square pegs, round holes. But you got it for cheaper.

Carolyn McMahon: 19:31

You got it for cheaper on me, and you didn't say thank you to me because you don't even you don't even realize it, or they're just gonna bitch about the quality because it was cheaper.

Josh McMahon: 19:40

Yes, exactly. So I think you have to be cautious. Your process is the way it is because of your experience. So don't deviate from that, right? I think that's super important. So here's the thing like from a coaching perspective, if you're interested in, hey, I want to do a pre construction planning agreement in 2026, I want to. Be paid for my estimating services. This is not a sales tactic. That's the first thing to throw out there because some people are going to say this is just a sales tactic. This is not selling. This is there's nothing sales related about this. This is guiding. This is a professional service agreement where we agree to guide our client through the process to start from cradle to permit submission. Everything in between those two milestones. Start a project and submit for building permit. That's what you're doing in this professional service agreement, whatever you call it. So you have to determine what items do we need to put into there. Are we fixed price? Are we cost plus? Um, reviewing the building plans, reviewing the schedule. Like you can really go through and dive into all that. So the way that I would price it is consider your team's time. Time is our enemy. Right? And I think we all need to start looking at it that way. Time is our enemy because you you have a limited amount of time. So if you're spending time on something that's not bringing you value, then you're wasting your time. So you've got to make sure you're compensated for that time because you will quickly go out of business. Even if you've got a pile of cash, you'll quickly go out of business, or you'll lose people because you're not fulfilling their value and their time. So think through that stuff. And I think you know, the last point on that is that we're we're not selling a house at that stage. That's kind of the thing you got to wrap your head around. Like, I'm not trying to hit my home run here. I'm just trying to get on base. And what I'm doing is I'm engineering a predictable outcome. So as I go through this process, everything is pointing to you're going to work with us and we're going to work with you. Because I've got that opportunity to really grow and build our relationship. We're going to have much better budgets if we do this, we take our time and do it. So if you're doing it for free, you're going to cut corners because you're like, I want to do this anyways. And then you're going to sabotage yourself, you're going to create that relationship with your client. I think ultimately you're going to have much less surprises and you're going to have a great build. And I think, man, if you've ever spent any time in the field or the office side and doing the selections and all that, knowing that you're going to have a good build feels really good.

Carolyn McMahon: 22:24

Well, I just like the the personal part about, you know, you get to know the client, and then you can make suggestions that are meaningful to them. You find out what's important to them. I mean, earlier on, you you don't know. You don't know what their, you know, their sticking points are. Maybe it's not an amazing, you know, appliance pro appliance package. Exactly. They don't need to put all the money in there. Maybe it's this. You just you need to find out what's important to them. And without doing that, it's just, it's, I don't know.

Josh McMahon: 22:59

It's it's really hard. So I tell you that, look, my big things for me is gonna be insulation, windows, appliances, things, you know, whatever, right? That might not be your concern. You might be like, I don't really care about energy efficiency, I don't care about hugging trees, I don't care about these things. So what you have to do is you have to determine, hey, what are your non-negotiables?

Carolyn McMahon: 23:19

Right.

Josh McMahon: 23:19

What are the most important things to you? How are you gonna use the space? Because you might be fixed on something that we can guide you in a different direction because of our experience and what we know. And that's my intellectual property. So I'm willing to give away some of it for free on this podcast and other sources, but for the most part, you gotta pay for that. We've got to pay to play. You gotta pay to play. I mean, I I think for all builders, we need to be thinking about we need to charge for our brain. Lawyers charge you for what every seven minutes now?

Carolyn McMahon: 23:55

Oh my god.

Josh McMahon: 23:56

It was 15 minutes at one time. Now I think it's seven minutes. So every seven minutes you're paying a lawyer. Well, what makes the lawyer worthy of seven minutes of pay, but not a builder? Well, you tell me his education, his going to college for X years, that's that's with a value. Guys and girls, we got our education in the field. Some of us went and got master's degree, doctorate degrees, whatever you got. You have the education. Your brain is just as valuable, just not in law. Your brain is valuable in building. And doctors don't know anything about building, and lawyers know anything about building. We know building, so charge for your time, not just your hammer. So we always think of things like in work in place or work in progress. Like I can see it, I can charge for it. Well, your intellectual property is valuable too, so we need to charge for that. Um, I think every builder and remodel is going to be different on the fee they charge. So set a clear fee tied to your deliverables and don't deviate from it. Don't change based on this house plan or this this square footage or this. Now we charge the reason you don't want to change is because your people have a hard time getting comfortable with it. People have a hard time charging for their intellectual property. I'm just telling you from experience, it's really hard. But if you can say it's$10,000, it's 1% of the total ideal budget. It's whatever that number is, you know it, you just rattle it off, there's no thinking involved. You can credit the fee towards the build, but I would be cautious about that because the things that you're doing are required to build the house. So if the build is$1 million and the pre-construction stuff that you're doing costs you just say$20,000, you're gonna credit the$20,000 towards the build, but the$20,000 would have been part of that build price. So you're not giving them back the money. That's the only thing you want to be cautious of.

Carolyn McMahon: 25:55

Well, well, and I'm sure, and you know, the giving back isn't gonna show up in another line item because you again, you have to charge for those items.

Josh McMahon: 26:04

Yes, you have to charge because it costs you money.

Carolyn McMahon: 26:06

I mean, the only thing that you would, you know, credit in in such a way is you know, maybe maybe the plans didn't take as long as you had originally thought and you know and budgeted. So certain things like that, and I think that there's an understanding, and I think you've actually given a credit before.

Josh McMahon: 26:25

I I um so so the way that I do mine is everything's cost plus when it comes to the pre-construction. Because I'm like, look, I'm not trying to get rich on this. Yeah, I want to get to know you, I want to, I want to be comfortable with you, I want you comfortable with me, I want to be your builder. But if I'm not, that's okay.

Carolyn McMahon: 26:40

Right.

Josh McMahon: 26:40

I'm I'm gonna make a small fee to do this stuff. But the reason that I really like it is that it weeds out the tire kickers. I mean, there's no greater strength than just saying, hey, I'm not your builder, no problem. Goodbye. You're just looking for the cheapest price, no problem. They're down the road. Right? And I might be the cheapest in this scenario, but I'm not I'm not desperate to go and wine and dine every single person that comes to my door. Right? Though you will you are at some point in your career, but if you're confident in this type of process, which I have been, and look, there were months where it was like, are we on the right path? Maybe we need to change this up because we're not getting enough work. Trust me, it works, it's worth it. You you just got to stay the course. You know, and and the last really big thing that I like about this is it protects our margins. We're able to have more control of the budget, the estimate, um, and everything that's gonna cost. And so then we can control our money at the end. Because if you're not charging for your estimates, you're not charging for this time, it goes against the bottom line. Your net profit is decreased because of this service not being charged. And if you're really savvy and you've got certain people on your team, estimator, designer, etc., you bake their salary into the pre-construction planning pricing structure. And then you can say, hey, if I do X million in pre-construction planning, this is the amount of money I collect, I can pay the salary of these two individuals. Do you know how much that improves your margins?

SPEAKER_01: 28:18

Mo margin.

Josh McMahon: 28:19

Mo, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 28:21

Mo margin.

Josh McMahon: 28:22

It's good, and that's just a simple tweak in your process. And the clients that are serious, I mean, look, if we're talking about a$500,000 build, you know, you're probably not gonna be able to charge a ton, but you're gonna be able to charge enough to be sure that they're serious and they can afford this build. But the two, three, four million dollar buyers, they can afford this kind of thing. And if they can't afford it, they probably can't afford the house. So you gotta like, this is another way to like, oh, this is a red flag. Okay, this is not for me. And I think that you know, the the piece for homeowners, this is the the piece that you can help them understand. You're not paying for just a number, you're not paying for, oh, yeah, the number to build my house is X. You're paying for actual deliverables. Deliverables that if you say McMahon Custom Homes is not my builder, no problem. Here's all your deliverables. You can go to another builder, you can submit for a building permit at the end of this process. Right. That means something because if you go through this process for four or six months, pre-construction can take a lot of time depending on what you're building. You've still got something to show for it.

Carolyn McMahon: 29:28

Right. You're not starting from ground zero. And again, the the hope is that doesn't happen. Because, you know, as a as a person who's built a house, I mean, I do not want to start that dating relationship over again.

Josh McMahon: 29:40

Right. No, absolutely not. I think that if we had gone through that type of thing, I don't know that we would do it again.

Carolyn McMahon: 29:47

Yeah.

Josh McMahon: 29:48

Like I think even from the builder side, it's exhausting. Like you want to have a lot of confidence that these are your buyers and you're you're excited about building for them. Like we've got a client now that, I mean, just great people. I can't wait to put a shovel on the ground for them because they're they're just that great. They're energized, they're engaged, they really respect what we're doing, quick on feedback. It's like those clients get me jacked up. I I really enjoy that piece of it. Um, the last two points I really think is uh the best builders aren't the cheapest or the most prepared, and this process ensures that you're prepared. And pre-construction planning, it's not a cost, it's not a cost. Don't think of it as a cost, think of it as insurance. This is just insurance to make sure that your client is going to get what they want.

Carolyn McMahon: 30:34

Yeah, love that.

Josh McMahon: 30:38

That's good. I mean, I think we got to wrap on this thing. I'm pro pre-construction planning agreement. You know, send me a DM. I'm happy to share my experience with this. I'm happy to share how to make this a process that wins for everybody. And the reason that I'm willing to give this one away is because I hate hearing a client say nobody else is charged me for that. I'm not doing anything special. I think that home builders in most of our industries are race to the bottom. And man, that's such a sad thing. Because as we look around and we say, we don't have enough labor in the blue-collar world, why do you think that is? We're racing to the bottom. We gotta, we gotta hold our heads high. We gotta we gotta have some pride in what we do. And we need to charge for our intellectual property so we can pay our people, right?

Carolyn McMahon: 31:27

Right.

Josh McMahon: 31:28

That's a wrap.

Carolyn McMahon: 31:29

See ya next time.

Josh McMahon: 31:31

See ya. Yes.