Hey everybody, thought I would kick off a new post for August. What are your goals for this month and what are you trying to get out of the community? Mine are pretty simple and straightforward 1. Keep experimenting with AI and sharing what I'm learning 2. Keep making a ton of youtube videos 3. Keep learning about construction project management and working out the best way to deliver projects and run a construction business Keen to hear what you're goals are and what you want to get out of the community

What’s your social media presence like, and have you built any workflows or automations around your content? Curious what people are actually doing here — what’s your presence like, what content works, and have you built or developed any workflows, content automations, scripts, etc. to make it easier?

Why most of small and medium businesses are not hiring schedulers to build a detailed plan for the works on site ?

A bad estimate doesn't just lose you the bid — it loses you the bid you actually wanted to win. Here's the thing nobody talks about: contractors don't usually lose money because they bid too high. They lose money because they bid too low on the wrong items, and too high on the wrong items — and it cancels out into a number that looks "competitive" but is quietly broken. Most people treat estimating as a math exercise — measure, multiply, add markup, submit. But estimating is really a risk exercise. Every line item you rush through is a bet you're making with your own margin. The pattern I see over and over: 70% of a takeoff is straightforward (walls, slabs, standard finishes). The other 30% — site conditions, scope gaps, ambiguous specs, exclusions — is where the actual risk lives. And that's exactly the part that gets rushed when deadlines are tight. Fix isn't "estimate faster." It's knowing which 30% deserves the time, and building a system so you're not re-solving the same risk every single bid. I've been doing takeoffs and bid prep for 6+ years now (residential, commercial, industrial). Happy to share the checklist I use to flag high-risk line items before a bid goes out — let me know if anyone wants it.

We’ve been cost plus over the years- mostly because the work is self performed and we’ve more or less created ourselves a job but not really a business. We are looking to move into more fixed price model, and wondering what you all are doing and any advice would be great!