Epi 194: If You Price Jobs Like THIS, You Are Bleeding Margin

Owen sits down with Rick, founder of Estimating Online, to expose the brutal truth about pricing building projects. For years, the industry relied on pumping out free estimates and playing the volume game, hoping to land a few contracts. Rick explains why this outdated model treats your expertise like a cheap commodity and slowly drains your margins.

Rick shares his experience from running Blue Level Estimating. He was doing six or seven quotes a day, but his builders were still losing jobs because clients were given unrealistic budgets by architects. He breaks down exactly why you must charge for quotes, how to filter out bad subbies, and why deducting your estimating fee from the final fixed price contract is a massive mistake.

They also dive into the danger of trying to do everything yourself. Using a brilliant sports analogy, Rick and Owen explain why hiring elite specialists is the only way to scale a profitable construction company and get off the tools for good.

🕒 Timestamped Key Points

• [04:45] Why $120k in-house estimators are a thing of the past
• [07:38] The danger of playing the volume game with quoting
• [09:50] Why charging for quotes is no longer taboo
• [11:00] Why you must never credit the quote fee back to the client
• [16:42] The harsh reality of quoting against bad architectural budgets
• [19:10] The physical cost of building a software company
• [24:18] Why relying on generalists will cap your business growth
• [28:23] The sports playbook for hiring elite specialists

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