Consultation & Site Visit Preparation
From the moment a consultation or site visit is booked to the moment the principal arrives, the client is prepared, the information is gathered, and the firm arrives knowing the property and the project.
- Tier
- Foundational
- Build order
- 2nd of 7 for custom builders
- Shape of it
- 8 steps
- At launch
- Runs supervised, with you approving what goes out
The problem this solves
The consultation is the most expensive hour in a custom builder's sales process, and it is frequently the least prepared. A principal drives to a site and spends the first half hour establishing facts that could have been gathered beforehand: the property, its age and condition, the scope the client imagines, what an architect has already drawn, whether planning permission exists, and crucially what they think it will cost.
Then the meeting produces a head full of information which becomes a written follow-up later, from memory, in the evening.
And for design-build firms particularly, the client often arrives with wildly inaccurate cost expectations formed from television, and nobody has calibrated that before the meeting, so the whole conversation is spent managing disappointment.
How it works, step by step
Every wait, threshold and branch below is a value we set with you during the build, against your stages and your language. None of it is a default we impose.
- What starts it
Step 1Trigger
The consultation is booked. The client immediately receives a confirmation naming the date, who is coming, how long it takes, and what would be useful to have ready.
Step 2
A preparation request goes out: existing drawings or surveys, any architect involvement, photographs of the space, and what they are hoping to achieve.
Step 3
Cost expectation is calibrated before the meeting, gently, with the firm's real price-per-square-foot ranges for comparable work. This is the single highest-value message in the system and it prevents most wasted consultations.
Step 4
Anything returned attaches to the project record before the visit.
Step 5
The day before, a confirmation goes out.
Step 6
The principal receives a brief: the property, the scope, the referring partner, prior conversations, the client's stated priorities, and the qualification from System 1.
Step 7
On site, capture is structured: existing conditions, constraints, access, services, client priorities, photographs, and initial scope.
Step 8
The visit cannot be closed without a recorded next step: proposal by a date, further information required, or an honest decision not to proceed.
How it gets built
Built inside what you already run
- Buildertrend
- CoConstruct
- JobTread
- Houzz Pro
- Procore
- or whatever your office already runs on
Nothing to log into and nothing to license. If a system needs a record your platform does not hold, we add the field to your platform rather than starting a second one beside it.
This is the actual build order, in the phases its own steps fall into. It runs in supervised mode first, with you approving what goes out, until you are happy with the tone.
- 1
Agree
Agree confirmation and preparation content with the principal.
The thresholds, the wording and the names are yours. We write them down with you and get the consequential ones signed off.
- 2
Agree
Write the cost-calibration message with the principal. It must be honest and specific or it does not work, and it will feel uncomfortable to send the first few times.
- 3
Build
Build the preparation request and make returning it easy.
Built inside the software you already run, against your stages and your language.
- 4
Build
Build the unconfirmed queue.
- 5
Build
Design on-site capture with whoever runs consultations. If it is slower than their notebook it will not be used.
- 6
Build
Push the brief to what they already open.
- 7
Prove
Run supervised for three consultations.
It runs with a person approving what goes out until you are happy with the tone. Nothing sends unreviewed on day one.
What changes after it goes live
How it runs today
The consultation is the most expensive hour in a custom builder's sales process, and it is frequently the least prepared. A principal drives to a site and spends the first half hour establishing facts that could have been gathered beforehand: the property, its age and condition, the scope the client imagines, what an architect has already drawn, whether planning permission exists, and crucially what they think it will cost.
After this one is live
Consultations start as design conversations. Cost expectations are calibrated before the meeting rather than during it, which changes the emotional tone of the whole relationship. Write-ups happen on site. And the consultations that were never viable are identified before somebody drives an hour.
How to measure whether it worked
Your arithmeticRun with your numbers, not ours
Two numbers already in the business: consultations that did not proceed to a proposal, valued at the loaded cost of a principal's half-day with travel, and proposals abandoned on cost after design work, which is the more expensive of the two.
We agree the baseline before anything is built, and we do not take credit for things that were going to happen anyway. There is no figure on this page claiming what we have produced for somebody else, because there is no verified figure to publish.
What we will not do
This is from the same delivery document as everything above it. It is on the page because a supplier who has not thought about it will not tell you, and you would find out later.
Client privacy is the primary exposure. Custom building clients are frequently wealthy and deliberately private.
- Never expose a client name, address, project value, floor plan or photographs of their home in any demonstration, template or marketing asset.
- Photography and case-study permission is obtained explicitly, in writing, and recorded. A permission granted for one use is not a permission for all uses.
- Several clients will have a confidentiality expectation even where no NDA exists, and some will have an actual NDA.
Contract and lien law.
- Draw requests, lien waivers and retainage are governed by state statute, and the requirements differ materially between states. Any automation touching draw documentation must be built to the specific state's requirements and reviewed by the builder's counsel.
- Change orders are contract amendments. An automated approval flow must produce something that satisfies the contract's own requirements for a valid change order, which frequently means a signature rather than a click.
- Nothing in these systems constitutes legal advice about lien rights or notice deadlines, and no automation should be relied upon for statutory notice timing.
Messaging.
- TCPA and CAN-SPAM apply. Consent per number, quiet hours in local time, immediate opt-out honoured across every system.
- Subcontractors and suppliers are businesses, but the same consent and opt-out discipline applies.
Subcontractors are not employees. Any system that assumes subcontractor adoption will fail. Systems must work with the trades as they are, and where a system genuinely needs subcontractor participation, that must be flagged to the builder as a commercial negotiation rather than a configuration step.
Nothing here is legal advice. State contractor licensing, lien statutes, building codes, contract law and consumer protection rules can each add requirements.
Nothing here is legal advice. Rules in this area have moved more than once recently, and every template that states a commercial term or a guarantee goes to your own counsel before it goes live.
Seven systems forcustom builders.
We build one at a time and prove it moved before starting the next. The tiers are the dependency order, not a price list.
Tier 1Foundational
Nothing arrives late or unowned. These come first because everything above them assumes they are true.
- 1Enquiry Capture & Qualification Before Design HoursProtects design hours, which is the scarcest resource, and captures the architect introductions that currently live in email threads.
- 2Consultation & Site Visit Preparationyou are hereProtects the most expensive hour in the sales process and calibrates cost before the meeting.
Tier 2Growth
The recoverable money. These work the pools the foundational systems have made visible for the first time.
Tier 3Flagship
One connected system end to end, plus what the owner reads on a Monday. Only once the pieces are proven individually.
The tiers are the dependency order for custom builders, not a price list. Most firms do not start at the first one, because the order is a default and the call is where it gets changed.
A note on sequencing this trade
Sequencing note specific to this trade. The build cycle is six to eighteen months, so System 5 cannot be proven inside a normal engagement window. Prove Systems 1 through 4 on live projects, and implement System 5 on projects starting during the engagement with the understanding that its results arrive after it. Say this at the start rather than being asked about it later.
Back to the custom builders overview for the stage map and where these fit.
Is this the oneyou need first?
Often it is not. On the call we look at what is actually costing you most right now, which is frequently a different system from the one that brought you to this page. If there is nothing worth building yet, we will say so.