The reputation has to be priority. And when you start introducing clients that aren't supportive of what you do, who you are, and even things like providing material, you could be doing this as an investment to your future or as a marketing job, but now you're in a position where you put out a product that you're not happy with. Okay, you did all this work, you took this large concession. You're not making any money you thought you could market it, and now it's a
product that you don't want to market. What's up? Guys? Welcome back to modern craftsman. Today, I want to talk about what you would walk away from a job for this conversation that's come up quite a bit, and even recently, we've walked away from some jobs that just weren't the right fit for us. And, you know, I know we all struggle with it. We get, you know, emotionally tied to clients and projects, and we're in the midst of it, and we, you
know, and it's just not going well. Well, I think that there's a real case to have in terms of walking away when it makes sense, and you're gonna hear some examples that both Tyler and I have have worked through. Hear about some jobs that we ultimately did walk away from, even some jobs that I wish I walked away from, that I didn't. And what all of this has to do
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for the Creator one and the Pioneer one and the H label work spec t shirt. I came across this question the other day, and I found it interesting because, well, I'll get to real examples, that even these last couple months and years. But the question was, what would you walk away from a job for? And the question was really rooted in the fact that, you know, we they were asking me specifically where it's like we're so committed to doing particular type of process. Projects. You
know when? When is it that we decide to basically say no, or when do we walk away from a client? And specifically, we had more than one project that we actually walked away from last year, and we kind of got into this long discussion about you, are you blowing your charge record like a Nintendo game.
So I don't know if you can hear that, but I like and I'm plugging it in, and it just keeps making this noise where it's like, Bloom blue, and I I guess there must have been water on the counter and the other room where it was sitting, so I think it's wet. So yeah, I'm trying to dry it out before I, like, fully fry my computer sick. But we had a we ended up walking away from her project, and we were talking about, like, you know, why? Like, what? What
really drove us to do that? And, you know, I'll be honest, it was, it was a really difficult thing to do, because you sign on these projects, you want to be a good steward to the project, to the client, and we had a very difficult conversation. And truthfully, you know, internally, I was nervous, you know, going to a client saying, Hey, we we're no longer going to
proceed with this project. And the particular project we were in, pre construction, there was a lot of planning, and it just it started to evolve in all these different directions with no real clarity. And, you know, despite the meetings that we would have, or we try to get on the same page and summarize things, it was just it felt as though we hit the mark on that. And then it would be like, Yeah, but you're, you know, we're not, I need you to do this. And it was just constantly like adding
things that were out of our scope. And ultimately, you know, I let the client know that, hey, you know, we're gonna part ways. We just don't feel like as though we're going to be, you know, a good partner in this. You know, the expectation coming into it was one thing. Now the expectation has changed, and I can sense the frustration this early on. And we're just, you know, I don't feel as though we are delivering and we're going
to be able to deliver to your expectation. And client responded basically, you know, hey, I understand, you know, I appreciate you being upfront. Can we chat? Of course, was this during pre construction? During pre construction, yeah, and we, they want to hop on a zoom because they're remote. And I remember the Zoom being kicked way out. It was like a week or week and a half from when I informed them, like, great, I get to spend the next week, yeah, what this zoom call is
going to to entail. And ultimately, they were just, you know, they asked, you know, what went wrong, where you know, and
what can they learn from it, which I so appreciated. And you know, we weren't obligated to necessarily, like, refund any money, though we gave our pre construction fee back, you know, less the cost that we had incurred, simply because we, we were the one that ultimately canceled the contract, but we just explained to them, you know, when, when we got into it, we had this expectation that we were going to help really plan everything out, and then all sudden, it turned into this kind
of handyman list of things. And we're just not a handyman company, and we're not, we don't have the manpower to do these miscellaneous projects, you know, you know, in and out of the home where it's we were supposed to do this really big project all in one shot. And it really got me thinking about this conversation about, well, what would you walk away from a
job for? And, you know, and that, that one can be summarized in the sense that we were just being asked to do things that were outside of our scope, and in just putting us in a position where we would not be successful, we would fail miserably and make the client upset, and in tarnish our relationship. There's other things that we're asked to do that were more tied to, like legal obligation, which was going to put us in a position where we were, you know, how do
I say this? You know, basically, like, could have been involved in some sort of lawsuit where, like, that was, that'll do it. I was like, Listen, I'm not, we're not interested in doing that. And when we started the project, I had that conversation. It was like, No, we're not, you know, there's, there's no pending lawsuit or anything. This was a previous contractor, and that evolved and, you know, and change. And I was in, it wasn't
even just us that was uncomfortable doing that. But then all sudden, our trades are like, Wait, I don't want to be involved. I don't want to write a report that could potentially be used in a legal, yeah, suit. So they were like, I'm not interested in doing the job. So we explained, you know, at this point, you know, we can't get involved. We don't even have not it's not even that we're uncomfortable, but we're getting to a point where we can't even staff the job appropriately,
because. Is, rather than us just doing our job or being, you know, we're getting involved in something that is much bigger and, frankly, just something that we don't want to be part of. Yeah, I, I would say that coming into a project that has previously failed, or in the midst of a project where a contractor walked away, is a huge red flag for me. I've done a couple of them. Early on. I've had one, maybe a couple that have gone successful. One was a buddy of mine who asked me to do
a project, and I was like, I can't work for friends. And then he hired somebody else, and it was like, really bad. And he called me and was like, Dude, I I need help, and that was fine. But the couple other that I like distinctly recall, I kind of knew I shouldn't have done it in the first place, but I didn't have enough confidence to just say no or walk away from it, and
it pretty much wound up exactly how I and I envisioned it. And I think the big thing to consider when you're pulled into a project like that is that there's always two sides to a story, and it might not just be, hey, this contractor did crappy work. You know that a lot of times it's a challenging client that's creating that environment and doesn't understand how to properly work with contractors, and then you're dealing with
trust issues and everything else. So it's I've walked jobs, and, you know, when I was younger, I think when I had a little less confidence in myself, and I've, you know, balked at what other people have done, or or judge somebody for the work that they put in place. But typically, it's that way because of many different factors, and not just that person wanted to rip somebody off or didn't know what they were doing.
Yeah. I mean, you, you probably, we've probably talked about the other, another project that we did a takeover on and, I mean, looking back, I mean, this is God, I forget I looked at the contract at some point. I mean, it was definitely pre COVID, and we worked all the way through COVID to completion. I mean, it
was just, it was a very small, I shouldn't say very small. It was a very average size, two floor condo in Boston, and it was a takeover, and they were pretty far through roughs when we took it over, and when we, you know, when we had met with the client, the expectations were extremely high, like, you know, as we went through the project, I would Consider the expectations to be unreasonable, yeah, especially, you know, a constant, negotiated
price. But we, when we took it over, we realized that there was a lot of things wrong, and if we were going to be held to, you know, held accountable for this, we needed to go backwards. And we undid a tremendous amount of work, but there were certain things that we didn't and I remember, you know, I, I mean, the truth be told, I remember taking on that job because I was like, this is an opportunity for me to do something that is, you know, more aligned with what we want to be doing, like we
hadn't. We absolutely had the ability to do what was being asked, but we just hadn't been awarded that opportunity. And frankly, the design and the expectation, the challenging expectations, was intriguing to me. And, you know, looking at the original contract value, you know, we could have never done that project for what we originally signed it for, and we ended up being like, 5x that. And even we recently looked at it from a financial standpoint, we didn't make any money on that
job. We lost it. We actually lost a ton of money on that job, because how long it went on. And there was things that were outside of our control. And there was, you know, obviously COVID And that, but it really just tied back to what you said is there was this level of expectation that was just borderline unreasonable, yeah, and, you know, and that is, to your point, part, I would say it's three part. It was the client had these expectations that were unreasonable, and it
was, you know, which you know, can? I can blame them for, but I can also blame myself in the sense that I didn't communicate what the expectation should be. And instead, I basically was, you know, heard what they said, and said, All right, we're going to achieve that. And then we had some trades on that job that
were extremely difficult to work with. That, you know, kind of had this, I've deemed it like the artist mentality, where it's like, budget and schedule don't matter, just let me do my thing and it will be done when it's done. And that, you know, there was, there was trades on there that was, you know, literally took years to complete. And then had these micro, I'll call them micro issues. And the the micro issues just were, you know, the
expectation was that it would be perfect. And when there's a micro issue, it's everything, yeah. Yeah. So then it's like, rip it out. And we literally ripped out part of the work twice, put it back together, and then there was, like, a different issue with the results. So then we had to, then it, like, started the whole process over again. Knock on wood, like we're done, yeah. And there hasn't been a single peep about, you know, from the client and, you know, but it just, it's
a frustrating process because we, we took it over. We knew we could, we could accomplish, or we thought we felt, we felt as though we could accomplish what they had asked for. But it was just that it was this complete uphill battle. And, you know, thinking back, one of the things that I certainly regret is not pushing, you know, again, this is years years ago, I think five or six years ago, when is when we officially started that project. No architect. You know, we had an architect that
basically do a permanent set of drawings. But you know, when you, when you're talking about super modern, super contemporary, reveals details everywhere, I mean, and you're not detailing that stuff out on the drawing, it becomes just
this compounding cost in time. Oh, yeah, because you're, I mean, you're having to figure out everything, yeah, and like it, there's no way to capture that time, account for that time the client doesn't feel like that's equitable time they're paying for, even though that would have been in pre construction or design, if you're getting a bunch of heads together to discuss how this, this were to be built.
You know, you know what you just said, We interviewed for a job yesterday with a client, and this came up, and I said it would be really, it's unfortunate that you can't do it, but it would be really interesting to see if someone approached the same exact job and one said, I want to go through pre construction, and the other said, I want to skip pre construction and I just want to build it, yeah, and see how
that, that that unfolds. And you know, because I would argue that there's going to, there's going to, there's absolutely going to be some sort of compromise on the let's just build it process. And it's either going to be, you know, you're not going to end up building to the the intention, the intended design, so you're gonna make all these compromises, and it's going to end up as a a minus b plus product versus the a plus that
it was designed. Or you're going to end up over budget, behind schedule, yeah, like, they're like, it's it's highly unlikely that it ends up exactly as expected, on time on budget, because I just don't see a world where unless or I guess the third option is that it ends up on time on budget and of
expectation, but the builder makes no money. Yeah, I think that it's difficult enough to design and execute a project without putting a proper plan and like, or with putting a proper plan in place, like even doing all of that, you still run in to roadblock. You still run into challenges. There's still compromises that there's still not, you know, not necessarily
meeting expectations. And I think that you it just makes it that much harder if you don't put, you know, a plan in place prior to you don't have some sort of benchmark roadmap to go off of it's not as though, you know you do pre construction and it's done deal. Everything's buttoned up. Good to go. You still are experiencing all of that. You're just not really giving yourself any sort of chance to check all of those
boxes for your own business and for the client. I think it is important to note that one of the options is that contractor not making money, because that's, I mean, that happens a lot more than you know. I think even a client understands, yeah, I think a lot of it is self inflicted. Totally Yeah. You could argue that all of it self inflicted, yeah, and it's just it. It's just expecting that this is what needs to be done at this price. There's no other options.
There's, you know, you can't charge more. There's not a market for it. And just going through the motions and putting work in place and not managing a project correctly according to scope, schedule and budget and just thinking, hey, this, this is, this is the standard for the industry. This is what you have to do. It's hard to make money, which is a completely different conversation. Well, the the argument that keeps coming up with, oh, it's just a
different market. My market doesn't support, you know, that price point, my argument there is, there's a couple of things happening. Number one, those guys that aren't making money and losing out on these projects, or losing out on these, on profit on these projects, is, you know, falsifying the actual cost of construction, where it's like, well, that guy built it for $500 a square for. What it's like, but he made no money. Yeah, like, he literally either made
no money or he lost money. So, like, so you're, you're, you're building this average based on the fact that you're these failing construction businesses are driving the average down the other side of it is the the again, back to pre construction, is what happens in pre construction, is that you guys, or when you're pricing something, you're either a not putting enough work into pricing it so it's not super accurate, so you have all these false allowances that aren't, that
aren't, you know, adequate enough. So then you end up having to ve things last minute, or, you know, take it on the chin, and the other side of it is, you know, from a speed perspective, if you're when you're working through pre construction, if you're besides accuracy, you need to get that
information to the client quickly. Because, you know, another I can tell you about another failed job is, you know, pre construction for us, you know, we were in pre construction for a project for over a year, and it was, you know, and we were, we were there. We were working constantly, like, hundreds of hours into this, this project and design was was unfolding faster than we were pricing. And I remember in that exact moment, I remember exactly what happened
in that moment when I was like, Oh, shit. Like, they're, they've already moved on to design development, on the interiors, and we haven't even got our, our updated pricing finalized, yeah. And we, you know, internally, we, you know, that job ended up not happening, like at all. They just canceled the job. Don't want to build it, put the property in the market, like
that was way too fatiguing. I don't know where we fell off base, like we started this project at one number ended up double like and it and I sat down with that client, I and I want to understand, you know, in all in this whole experience over the year that we've spent together, walk me through where you felt as though the failure points were And the number one
thing he said was just speed. I just, if you had communicated faster, when, how much that this was going to cost, I would have felt more comfortable, you know, pulling, pulling the the rope in a different direction. And, you know, and I think that that's why, you know, that's why we promote pre construction so much and talk about, you know, our interview yesterday, you know, I kept talking about with the client. I'm like, I'm not trying
to beat a dead horse here. I'm just my The reason I push this so hard is because I want to, we all want the same goal. We want to build the house that you want. And the only way to build the house that you want, at the expectation that you expect, is to understand, going into it, what like, truly, what this is going to cost, and how long it's going to take, and how you're going to build it. I so obviously, like what you're talking about is expectations, communication, a
lot of red flags in that. I think for me early in my career, somewhat along the same lines of not not having enough, like belief in myself, and not feeling as though I really had established myself enough to tell clients that they didn't have the budget for what they wanted done, and I over executed
a lot. So So now, like a big thing that's going to make me walk away from a project very early on is just the unrealistic budget expectations, yeah, and it's, I think that affected me more when I was younger, because, again, I didn't have, like, the wherewithal to pull back and not over execute. I
wanted to protect my reputation. So even if they didn't have the budget, and I was signing the jobs, I was over executing on those projects, which was costing me so much time and so much money, where it's like, I look back at a lot of those projects, and the budget was sufficient, it just wasn't
sufficient for what I was doing. And you know, back then, I could be doing those projects for that cost, but I should have, I should have had the mindset where it's like, I just can't do this 100% this doesn't need to be near perfection for this price, and communicating that to my clients, I have enough confidence in myself now where it's like, yeah, we can do this work. I have the ability to put the team in place and to execute this, this work contract in this design as you see fit, but for
what you want to spend, we can't do that. So if there's certain aspects of the project that you want that way, yeah, we can do them to that standard, but if you want the overall project to that standard, it's going to be X amount more. And I just, I don't think I had the knowledge or the confidence to have that kind. Conversation with the client. So whatever the budget was, I would say, oh, yeah, this is good. This is the top of the
market. This is all I can get. I'm just going to take this project and I'm going to turn it over and it's going to be the best thing ever. And without managing that project correctly, I was just losing so much time and money, especially with employees, because it wasn't just my own time. Like you're literally bleeding budget, and by the end of the job, you know, you have subs coming in, buttoning up jobs, and you're like, I don't have any budget left on this, this project for
it. So you're you're learning too late, and then you're starting the next job to try and catch back up. And it's just this, like, vicious cycle of digging yourself deeper and deeper. I agree with that, but I'll push back on the sense that I do think some clients just have no idea. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it's, you know. And so there is that self educate like that, or that educating the client, you know, early on, hey, you know
what your expectations are, is really aligned with this. You know, whatever price per square foot, however you want to communicate that. But, you know, I've had, I've had clients where it's like, yeah, I just don't see why that. Like, why would it be, why would it be $800 a square foot, when my but, you know, I really want to be at 500 and I've been told I can do it
for that. And so that's where, you know, where I'll come in and do say, a rough order of magnitude, you know, budget, where I can walk them through kind of a line item budget, or I'll pull out an example of another project and walk them through how it adds up. Because I think sometimes when you get into these projects, that the there's just this failure to
understand all the bits and pieces that go into it. Yeah, where it's, you know, there, I'll give you an example where I just finished pricing a small project for a project in Boston, and it's, it's definitely a project that, you know, it doesn't fit, I wouldn't say it fits our criteria, but it opens up an opportunity for projects that do, it's in a it's in a high rise building. So what happens with those is you become a preferred contractor, and then you start doing more and more
work in those buildings. And there's certain buildings that everyone wants to be part of. So this is exactly that type of job. It's an opportunity job. But, you know, I'm chatting with someone you know, that's that works in the building. And he, you know, they decided to price it with a couple of builders, and the initial feedback is like, Nick, you're way you're
way high. Now I'm looking at it. It's not a huge job. And if for me to be way high, says I'm either doing this and making money, and no one else is making money, the expectations are different, or I'm including things that someone else is in. And that's usually what it comes down to, is that someone strips stuff out of it and makes all these exclusions to obviously make a number look better. But I was, I was going through, and I've said it before, our proposals and estimates are
super dialed. There's 1500 line items in it. Everything is added up. So when you're when you're when I'm going through with the client, you can see item by item, what stuff cost, yeah, and, you know, and I was going through it today, making sure I didn't miss anything. And I, actually, I did miss a couple things, but, and they're small items, but, you know, it's like there was a note on one drawing that said, please include film for the window, for the office doors. It's like, All right,
well, that's 1000 bucks, yeah, you know. And that's, you know, sure, that's not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but, you know, did the other builder capture that and in and when you start adding all of those things up, it's, you know, across, you know, again, 1000 line items, it adds up to a lot of money really quick. And that's a big reason why we were so transparent in that process, because we it makes it easy for a client to understand. Is like, oh, that this is, you know, yep,
$1,000 makes sense. I do want the window film, you know. And when they're seeing it at that level. You know, they're they, you know, essentially, they're self validating the cost. And sure, some clients say, Yeah, this is all great. And, you know, I understand that all these line items make sense, but the overall number is too high, yeah? And it's like, Sure, what
do you want to take out? Because I can sit here like you want to take out the big things, like, boom, boom, boom, you know, now, now I'm 50% but you need HVAC, you need plumbing, you need electrical, you need the mill work, and it's just, you know, and so it gives, at least for us when we're going through this
early on, even at a ROM or pre construction. It gives the the client the confidence, but also the the autonomy to kind of pull the levers that makes sense to them, and ultimately, you know, we're collaborating on how to get this project to be feasible. I've had projects that I've walked away from, just from like communication style. Or the way that people have spoken to me or treated me, or my team, where I'm like, oh yeah, we that this isn't going to be a good fit. Like this is probably
foreshadowing how this project's going to go. Like, I had a project for a client that's can afford whatever they want to do. You know, a referral did all of the screening. And then when I was there measuring for the project, there was an issue with something with the cleaner in the shower door, and the husband was like screaming at the wife, if if this person does this one more time, they won't have a job anymore. And like, it wasn't the
wife's fault. And like, it was really a non it wasn't a huge deal. But I was like, I finished measuring, and then I, like, said my goodbye. And at that point I was like, This is not a job that I want to take. Like, if somebody talks to me like that, I'm going to have a difficult time just being my best professional self. I also think, like, if they talk like husband and wife, they if they don't respect one another, yeah, for sure. Like, I, you know,
that's definitely something that is a red flag for me. If I'm meeting with both of them and they're rude, inconsiderate or disrespectful to one another, like, fuck that. Yeah. Well, it's like you're supposed to respect the most, for sure, and then also, it's like every single decision that you're going to have to make on this project that we're gonna be a part of that's gonna be the attitude and, like, the foot that they're putting forward. So I've always that's been a huge
indicator of somebody being a fit. Like people are always asking us, how are you screening your vetting your clients? Like, to me, it's even how they reach out via email, how they communicate that you know what their first words are saying. So like, something that I typically turn down or don't really put much stake in, is when somebody reaches out to me and, like, their first words are, hey, like, want to know how we get a price to do this, or, Hey, wanted you to come out and give
me an estimate. And a lot of that is just lack of education, but if they have the mindset that that's how they're going to go through this process. For me, that's a that's a pretty big red flag where it's like, I can either take the time trying to educate them and win this client over, or I could wait for the next email that comes in that says, hey, got your number from so and so really loved your work. We were over at their house this weekend. They had a party. You know, their their
first floor looks amazing. Want to, want to talk to you and get a little bit more information about what your process looks like. To me, that's like, all right, green light, let's, let's extend this conversation and spend my time here, rather than the person who just had this expectation that for right or wrong, or whoever they came up with this, that just we are obligated to go do something for free for them and how to like what do they what do they need to do for me to come visit them
and give them ideas and free pricing. So communication is a huge thing for me, and how they reach out, how they treat people on my team, how they how they talk, like, I've had clients who have tried to manage subs and spoke to them a certain way where it's like, I need to draw a hard line in the sand right now that this isn't how this gets done. Yeah, yeah. I had, I mean, I've had some, I've had one client in the past that I would say maybe two. But the one I'm thinking of is
that they treated my team incredibly poorly. Yeah, and you know, they we had a woman on our team, and he actually went out of his way to call me and basically apologize for the way he spoke to her, but no one else, like, strictly, strictly her, like, I shouldn't have spoke to her that way. But then proceeded to basically say the rest of us were imbeciles, and, you know, like, completely belligerent. And it was, it was difficult, because in the moment I I'm looking at like, how do I
get out of this? And you know, you know, absolute screaming match. One day I show up, like we're trying to get into the job. We're told that we're not allowed to get into the project. Our tools are locked in his house. He's not giving them back. Like, get the f off my property. And I'm like, Holy shit, man. So I just sat there in my in the driveway, and he's in his house, and he called me, goes, What are you doing? I'm
like, I'm just waiting for things to simmer down. Like, we, you know, we're, we're literally, like, five days from completing the project. And I just figured I'd wait and we'll, we'll get this resolved. And I think, ultimately, like, and I. Hour and a half went by, and we were, like, allowed back in, and it was just, it was so frustrating and so disrespectful along the whole way. And we were, you know, we were
finishing the job. I mean, it was a unbelievable project, super, super detailed we had, we actually did a lot of the design in house on this one. And it just like everyone was ecstatic, like it was just like, this super high level of execution. And then, you know, that last 5% of the job it was, you know, a microscope of, this is wrong. This is wrong. This isn't what I approved. This is like you and taught to and then Pair that with, I want you to do this. I want you to do that. Can you
also do this? Can you also do that? This growing scope. I mean, we end up being like, the scope from a contract value, I think, grew by like six times. Yeah, and I remember being in that position where it's like, I want, I need to walk away. I want to walk away. This isn't this isn't good for my team. This isn't good for the morale. Like there's no respect, there's no appreciation, and listen to what you said earlier. There's always two sides to the story. Whoops is ringing through my
speaker the there's always two sides of story. I don't think that there is, like, not here, like, I will be the first to admit, like, where we went wrong and and if we, if we had done anything wrong, like, be the first admit that it was just, it was just a very unique situation with someone like you, like you mentioned, someone that can afford anything and feels as though we're, you know, just, you know, servants. Yeah,
that's the it's a huge problem. I always, I always said that, like, part of what I wanted to do for the trades is just gain more respect. And I think that anytime that a client treated me or my team as though we were below them, or like, indentured to them. It was, it was a hard no for me, which along the same lines, like I've had projects or leads from the outset, where I just had this gut instinct where I'm like, this isn't the right
one. And I don't know how many times I got burnt by like them convincing me that yeah, like, this is a great fit, or tempting me with like, yeah, it meets everything else. It meets the budget. The design is cool. It's a great opportunity. And somehow I get persuaded. Or like, the sting of the last one wasn't bad enough, but I had a gut instinct from the outset that it eventually led to future problems and manipulation. But like, I knew it was there all along, and whether it was just
being hungry, needing work. You know, again, the opportunity there, that that golden carrot, whatever it may be, but like the
gut instinct is a real thing. And I cannot stress enough for you guys and girls who have this instinct within your gut that's telling you to walk away from that job, how important it is, regardless of how hungry you are, because all that's going to happen is it's going to go south, and you're going to cost yourself so much time, so much money, and so much of your reputation, your mental health, your sanity, which you'd I'd rather see you have no work and sit at home and try and work on
your business than lose money working for somebody that you knew that you shouldn't have. And like, I have so many I have. I have those jobs as as recent as, like, within the past two years, where I still, like, haven't learned, and I'm not doing that many jobs per year, but I'm like, I can't get I can't get away from this. It's the same thing, like designers, like, there's certain designers that I should just say no to, and I know that I should say no to, and I didn't. And it's the
same thing, like, it burnt me so badly, do we? There was an architect a couple years ago that a friend of mine, who's a builder, and myself, we were both working with with this architect, and we would commiserate through text message like, about the nuances and the frustrations. And he finished his project first and and and I was like, How'd it go? He goes, at the end of the day, it was, it was alright. And I was like, Alright. Six months ago, you said you'd never work with this
guy again. What's your thought now? He goes, Yeah, we would. And I was like, Dude, I don't know if I could do it. We finished the job. Yep. It's like, the sting has worn off. This thing is worn off. But I also think that there's something to say about obviously, like, I mean, depending on the situation, like the belligerent client, no, this thing doesn't wear off. On that an architect, that's difficult. It's like, all
right, you learn, you learn how to work with them. And you know, they're, you know, maybe they're, maybe they didn't make your life hell. It was just a different process. But it is. It's like, you, you kind of sit back and think about it after the fact and realize, okay, well, yeah, there's frustrations, but there's still a lot of benefit to working with some of these people.
But yeah, some things can be challenging, like in the heat of the moment as well, when you're emotionally invested in a project and there's a there's a ton of stress and timelines, yeah, you just need to
understand, like, what's the like, what's the upside? One of my favorite examples of this is a client we didn't work for, and it was in 2021 this architect reached out insane house, insane like, I think they, I think on the front side of the house there's this 22 story, I'm sorry, 22 foot, that's, that's a big that's a high rise, a 22 foot curtain wall. And so, like, commercial curtain wall. Like, yeah, hell yeah. Like, this is, this is dope. I want, I want this house. And so I'm going
through the drawings. I hop on the phone with the architect. I'm like, you know, going through? I'm like, Hey, is like, hey, is there a budget set? And I want to say they were like, yeah, he's trying to be 3 million. And I was like, wait, what? He's like, he wants to be 3 million. He knows it's gonna be more, but, like, that's his goal. I'm like, we're taught this is an 8000 square foot house for the 22 foot curtain wall I'm from, yeah, like, we're this is $1,000 foot, if not
more. Like, what are we talking about here? And he's like, Well, he's still interested. He wants to know, get a price for you. And we I'll never forget, I was headed to Charleston that day, and the the his I promised the proposal on Friday, and I'm literally in Logan Airport, on my laptop, sitting in security like, typing the email and I and I send the email, I close my laptop, put in my bag, I get to the security checkpoint, my phone dings from the architect, and he goes, holy shit, $8
million this isn't gonna work. We'll talk soon. And I was like, Dude, I'm like, okay, like, this is just like, the expectation. Like, what? Why am I spinning my wheels here? So we are the clients. Like, hey, I'll meet with Nick. I'd love to hear his process. So we get on a phone call. I'm standing in our rental down in Charleston, in the backyard, and I'm giving him my spiel, and he goes, Nick, I have to say, Man, I love this. Like, you are obviously an artist. Like, if you built this house,
it would literally be a piece of art, and it would be perfect. I just don't give a shit about that. Yeah, I want to build this house for $3 million I want a big ass house, and I don't, and I just want to do it as cheap as I can. And I was like, I like the emotion that went through my mind was like, frustration, sad, annoyed. And then I was like, but I appreciate that. Like, I obviously wish I knew that sooner, yeah, but I appreciate
the fact that you just like, straight up. You know, you it was like a shit sandwich, but, you know, you gave me a compliment, but in the middle it was like, but I don't want to work with you. And you just spent 60 hours wasting your time pricing this project, yeah, but at the same time, like, you probably should have known that from the get go as well, with like, what the architect said, like, so, yeah, 100% and I at it as like, whatever. Like gave me the opportunity to
price another $8 million house. It gives me experience blah, blah, blah. Like gets me in the maybe the door for a future project. And interestingly, that are like that architect showed up in my inbox recently. He is responding to one of our, like, marketing emails talking about 45 wood oak. And I was like, hey, whatever happened to that job? And he goes, Oh, no, he
never built that house. Yeah. I'm like, yeah. Like, of course, he didn't, like, no one was doing that for $3 million I think on, like, the smaller jobs, also something that always has been. I just saw this the other day on plants from an architect, where it was owner supplied materials. And to me, that's like no no for like, client supplied, yeah, yeah, like materials, or what like finishes, like kitchen cabinets, was like owner supplied cabinets. Owner supplied
fixtures. To me, that's just it. It's not in the grand scheme of things, it's not a big enough price, and it cost me too much headache over the years. Any like anything, even I had a project which was another hard No, I should have said no, working for a neighbor, and I knew beforehand neighbors and friends and. Other hard No, but, like, it was a neighbor wanted
me to do their kitchen. Told my wife No, didn't really ever want to do it, or love the guy that much in general, just like a hard personality, and did it, and then it was like, oh, I want to save a couple bucks by supplying these things I had already, you know, that was already at this point, five years into my career, hard, no. And then gets a fireplace sink. I go to get countertop template, or I go to fit it into the cabinet, because they're all like, every one of them is
different, and I open the box up and the sink is damaged. That was like in his garage. So now it's like, I can't get countertop template until you get a new sync here, because all
of these sinks are slightly different in size. So this just wound up costing me how much time to my schedule and process, where I'm like, I just, you know, this is the type of thing where, if the if he was that adamant about it and I couldn't educate him as to why it wasn't a good idea, yeah, that's that's a hard no for me. Would you have done it if you were compensated for managing that and compensated for, like, the the loss?
I still would want somebody else in charge of it, like, from like, a designer's perspective, right, where designers are supplying materials, I've learned that I'm fine with that, but I need to put an allowance in there for me, accepting me, like understanding what these things that they purchased, how they go together, and if there's missing parts that it's going to take me time to go through and figure out what's missing. So I'm fine with doing that, if a professional did the measuring
and is accountable. But for me, it's still tough because, like, realistically, I'm char, like, I have to back charge the designer for that. Like, I can't really charge the client for that. Hey, what's this charge in here for you, accepting the designer's delivery and making sure, like, to me, that's like, if you're selling it, you should be opening up and then you should be delivering it to the project, if you're putting the markup on it and everything else. Yeah,
I'm with you. I would say that we're more lenient in the sense that I'm fine with owner or designer provided material, but we are capturing, you know, time and markup on that stuff, and primarily, like plumbing fixtures, is a huge one in Massachusetts, because Massachusetts has crazy plumbing fixture codes where it's like, there's all these fixtures that you can buy, but they're not mass compliant. Yeah, so who's, who's checking to make sure this stuff works, and also, you know,
are you then sending me to spec? And then I'm asking my plumber to look through this stuff and make sure none of this stuff is too much of a headache. Like, you're, oh, you're already, I'm, I'm already, like, no, yeah, no chance. Like, it is with everything else that's going on. Why? Like, what are you saving yourself? Tell me what you want, and I'll send it to my vendor, and you'll pay the markup on it. It'll be warrantied if you buy
this and this breaks in two years. I'm not warranting it. My plumber's not going to come fix this for free, so like you want to pay it, just it comp. And to me, what ends up happening is it's you're damned if you do. You're damned if you don't. If you don't make money on it, you're screwed if you do make money on it now they're pissed because you like, charge them money. Yeah, so it's like, I don't know. I'd rather be damned and make the money and at least cover my ass. So that's just
something that's been a hard no for me for a long time. It's led to more challenges and things that I either can't account for, cost me time, headache, or lead to just like resentment on a project that I think isn't healthy for, like, the overall project, I think, and your projects are smaller scale to where I think if we were doing a kitchen renovation, they were like, we're just gonna Buy the cabinetry ourself. Like, at that point, it's just there.
There's such big percentages of the overall budget that it makes less and less sense where, for us usually, like, on a main like on a house, everyone wants to buy the appliances because they can put it on their credit card. That's one thing I don't buy.
I'm like, I'm fine. And they're like, Well, what if we buy the plumbing fixtures and, like, there's, we've had a couple of scenarios where we'll do all the work and we're getting paid for all the specifications, working with the architect, make sure everything is good, and then they just call the plumbing company and give them the credit card because they want the points. That's fine, but we're still, we still get the markup
on it, yeah, that's fine. Or if they're providing something is like, that's fine, but we have clear language saying we are not responsible for any of this. If it's damaged, if we need to work with it, we need to return it. We need to repair like you are accepting full responsibility on it. And usually that's enough. Where it's like, all right, you handle it, and if not, then we
also communicate. Eight that you know best, we're going to also get the best pricing, you know, even, even though a lot of these plumbing supply companies, they they market this stuff retail, and then you go in as a regular homeowner, and then they're giving you a wholesale discount anyway, yeah, it's like, sure, but we in, in theory, if we have a good relationship with these we should be getting a deeper wholesale discount, or be, be leveraging a group buying discount, or something like
that. So, and we pass that on where it's like, Hey, we're passing on the best price, like, we still get our fee on everything, but we're at the line item pricing. You know, you're paying less if you're ordering it with us, and we're taking responsibility.
You know, one of the biggest things for me with that is that, just like I'm I want to be accountable, and I want to own everything, and I don't want to be frustrated, and even, like plumbing fixtures, if I'm owning it, if I'm purchasing it, if I'm determining the spec on, if I'm providing that, where the block needs to go for the plumber, and something winds up being messed up, like I'm the only One that I can be angry at where, like, if somebody else does that, my plumber is not going to be
happy. I'm not going to be happy. It's making them come back again, whether, whether I'm getting paid for it or not, when that happens multiple time over a job, or when that happens every job with your plumber, finally, they're going to be like, Dude, what the hell is going on? I don't care if I'm getting paid for it, I'm on another project. I have to pull off like you're just making my life hell yeah, it just doesn't
make sense. So for me, it's like, in order for me to get the results that I need, which, again, this is like, why I would walk away from a project is this is my process, and if you aren't good with my process, then you shouldn't hire me, because it's not just like it's about the overall process, it's about the price, it's about the expectation, the communication, what I do right, what I do wrong, my strengths, my
weaknesses. This is part of my process, and if this doesn't fit your program, then you should as a client, as a customer, you should be finding somebody who does fit that program, because that's that important to you, and I think understanding that helps you understand who your client is, who you should be marketing, to how you should be vetting your clients, and
everything else. But at the end of the day, for me, my process and what I would walk away from, what I'm good with, how I vet clients is all based on protecting my margins and protecting my reputation, because, like, I need to make money to be in business, and I also need to preserve and maintain my reputation to continue to be in business. And once somebody jeopardizes either of those things, especially
reputation. Like, when you want me to do something that I'm not confident in, or that I have to leave my name on, or that just doesn't look good, and I'm concerned with somebody comes and walks that project and sees all of this dumb molding around the bottoms of the cabinets that didn't need it. Like, regardless I'm getting paid to install that shit or not to me, that's like my reputation, and I'm not okay with that. And it really
frustrates me. It's not about the money at that point, it's not about the profits at that point, it's about ensuring that it's something I can be proud of, that when somebody comes in and walks in, they'll be like, Oh, yeah. Like, he did this job. That's a great job. I think that's a great point to end on. Is like the reputation has to be
priority. And when you start introducing clients that aren't supportive of what you do, who you are, and even things like providing material, you could be doing this as an investment to your future or as a marketing job, but now you're in a position where you put out a product that you're not happy with. Okay, you did all this work. You took this large concession. You're not making any money. You thought you could market it, and now it's a product that you don't want to market. What's
also you work. You worked 15 years to be in business. People longer than that, even if it's five years you've been business one year, you've been working so hard to create this reputation for yourself. Now you're going to allow some clients program to jeopardize your reputation. To me, that's like, where you draw the line in the sand, where it's like, I've worked really hard to get here. I'm not going to allow your program to jeopardize my
future, in the future of my business, right? If you guys want to be part of these conversations, we're going to be doing a live workshop once a month on Instagram, on one of our posts, just comment workshop on one of the posts, we'll send you the information on that so you can sign up. And like I said, we're going to do this live so you guys can join us. We
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Been putting out this, what I would think is a killer Monday morning email, and I'm sharing a lot more transparently about what's going on in my life and my business and, you know, just.
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Yes, I trust my mama. You're no match for my bad karma.