Episode 333:14October 23, 2026

Sean Kurtz on winning jobs by sending the number first

Sean Kurtz got a builder's license after COVID and had a fully booked calendar three months later. Sean explains why so many early jobs came from simply sending a number, how the team runs an AI takeoff alongside every estimate to catch missed materials, and why new contractors should fix sales before operations.

Sean Kurtz

Owner, Michigan Rose Construction · Saline, Michigan

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The short version.

  1. 01

    Answering is the advantage

    Prospects kept telling Sean that Michigan Rose was their fourth call and the other three never got back to them. A lot of early jobs came from simply sending a number.

  2. 02

    Fast and wrong is worthless

    A quick quote that's off either costs you the job or costs you the margin. Speed matters, but accuracy is the goal.

  3. 03

    AI checks the estimate

    The team estimates the usual way, then runs an AI takeoff as a sanity check on materials and hours. It has caught things like the screws nobody priced in.

  4. 04

    Sales before operations

    Build out operations with nothing coming in and you're paying for nothing. Get a sales process working first, even if you keep tweaking it for years.

By the numbers.

Every figure is Sean's own, from the episode. Tap one to hear it.

4thContractor they called, and the only one who got back to them16:053 monthsFrom builder's license to a fully booked calendar01:5230%Over the other quotes, and the bid is gone26:0210 to 20Projects for one missed line item to cost thousands10:47

An estimate with a sanity check.

How Michigan Rose Construction prices a job, as Sean described it on the show.

Before

One pass at the numbers, and missed materials found on site

Now

Every estimate checked against an AI takeoff before it goes out

  1. 1

    Estimate the usual way

    The team runs its normal internal estimating process.

  2. 2

    Run an AI takeoff alongside it

    AI tools calculate the materials, and roughly the hours, as a second opinion.

  3. 3

    Compare the two

    Anything the estimate missed, like the screws on a job, shows up before the number goes out.

  4. 4

    Send an accurate number fast

    Small jobs like concrete can be quoted within the hour. Bigger additions get a scope of work for the subs first.

The fourth call

Sean started Michigan Rose Construction after COVID, when the large general contractor Sean worked for was having trouble. A builder’s license came first, to see what would stick with friends and family, and three months later the calendar was full. The surprise was how often the job came down to answering. Prospects would say Michigan Rose was the fourth contractor they’d called, and they’d never heard back from the other three. Sending a number was often enough to win.

Fast, but right

That doesn’t mean fast at any cost. Sean is firm that a quick, wrong quote is worthless: too high and you lose the bid and the customer’s memory of you, too low and you’re eating 20 percent. So the team estimates the usual way and then runs an AI takeoff alongside it as a sanity check on materials and hours. It has caught things like the screws nobody priced in, which is nothing on one job and thousands over ten or twenty.

Clients have changed too. They expect updates around the clock, and Sean doesn’t want to spend the day texting them or pay someone to. The high-level updates are automated, with a person still behind the rest.

Sales before operations

Sean’s advice to anyone starting a contracting business is to get sales and marketing in order first, even though it sounds backwards. Building operations with nothing coming in means paying for nothing. And you’re always your own best salesperson: the first marketing agency sent bad leads because the sales process wasn’t ready, and the second one worked once it was.

Chapters and transcript.

The full conversation, lightly edited for reading. Bracketed text marks a cut or an edit. Pick a chapter or a timestamp to jump there.

00:07

David V. Kimball

Welcome to Retooled, a show where we talk to business leaders about how they've equipped their organizations to adapt to change over time. Today, we are speaking to Sean Kurtz. I am David, your host. I'm joined again by my co-host, Dylan. Sean is the owner of Michigan Rose Construction based in Saline, Michigan. And we're going to ask him all about how he got into the business, how he started it and how it's evolved over time based on the rapid changes in the marketplace. Sean, thank you so much for being here. We'd love to hear a bit about you and how you got your start.

00:45

Sean Kurtz

Thanks so much for having me on, David and Dylan. Excited to be on. So, basically, I'm originally from Southern California. I actually played football out at Eastern Michigan University, so that's my first shift to the Midwest. Met my wife here, sort of stuck around, and three kids later made my roots pretty strong in Michigan. So I love the state. I love the area. I'm really happy to be raising a family here. And growing a business. So, basically, I started the business kind of post-COVID, just kind of after the current, the general contractor, large general contractor that I was working for was having some issues nationally. And I had done concrete and masonry and pavers, you know, as a younger person, as a kid in high school and college. And I was, you know, sort of worried. I was putting my feelers out. For other jobs. And I was like, well, you know what? Hey, the best way to do this is I'm going to get my builder's license. I'm going to, you know, do some friends and family and, you know, get my name around, see what sticks. And got my builder's license. Three months later, I quit before, you know, they were kind of doing some layoffs and things like that. And I quit because I had a fully booked calendar just from, you know, the very little amount of, you know, just word of mouth and a tiny little bit of marketing that I had done to bring this up.

02:12

And it just showed me there was a huge need in the community, in the area, and that, you know, the good word goes around. So, you know, we got bigger and better jobs and have been growing ever since.

02:26

David V. Kimball

That's amazing. So, what, you said you started, was it 2022? Is that what you said you started? What led up to that? I mean, you mentioned that your calendar was full and you saw the writing on the wall and you took action. But before that, your experience doing competitive sports and things like that, what would you say your past experience gave you the confidence to do that? Because people in your position have the option to do that. They could start their own business at any time, but not all of them do, but you decided to. So what do you think contributed to that?

03:03

Sean Kurtz

I want to say stupidity. It's a little bit of that was like, you should, like, go for it. Like, I'm behind you. I, you know, I trust you and you'll do great. And, you know, it is a big leap of faith, right, to take that on because it's, you know, and as we all learn in, you know, owning our own business, it's not easy. And, in fact, you know, if you told me it was going to be as hard as it's been, I wouldn't have believed you. So, you know, there's so much that goes in and out. And, You know, when you are the first and last word sometimes and, you know, there's no one to fall back on. You have to lean on yourself and have the confidence. So to answer your question, I believe that, you know, I could do it, really. I mean, I just had this internal belief and I just, you know, I had always been someone that is a little bit, you know, not risk averse, but the opposite of that. I'm willing to take some risks. In my athletic career, I was never the biggest, the fastest, the strongest, but I was always the one that, like, outworked everyone, right? And so I've always known that I've had that work ethic that can take me far. So I trusted that a lot and it's worked out.

04:28

David V. Kimball

So grit, do you think it's, you know, you're talking about grit. Is that something that you learned or something that's, like, part of your personality? I love the word grit.

04:38

Sean Kurtz

I think that it's something that I've had from a young age. I also have a father who owns his own small business, you know, and basically my parents were divorced very, very early on in my life. And so I mostly lived with my mom, and a lot of things, I didn't get everything that, you know, other kids in my neighborhood and around me got. And I just had to work, you know, really, really hard to go after what I wanted.

05:16

Dylan Baker

Awesome. Awesome, man. Like we, I mean, David and I are obviously the co-founders of a small business, you know, and we know just across about every other vertical, it's very competitive. Like, would you say there was ever a point to where you were making the shift to become a contractor that things got, you know, so hard to where you almost gave up? And like... Resorted to a plan B or was there never a plan B and you stayed on the path?

05:46

Sean Kurtz

Great question. And I'll lift the veil a little bit. In 2025, we had some people fraudulently did some things that really hurt the business. And it was at a point in time where we were growing so rapidly. And I never had a plan B. There was no plan B. There's never been a plan B. You know, I've always, but it got to the point where, you know, again, you know, the first sniff of, you know, oh my gosh, like, you know, I've never had money problems. We've been growing so rapidly and so fast and taking on so many jobs. And, you know, we hit a speed bump. It hurt. It hurt me mentally. Right. It took me some time to, to get past it. And, you know, I finally recovered, but it took me a long time. And I think if I would have. Had a plan B, you know, I would have thought deep about it because it's, you know, there's, you talk to most founders and, you know, entrepreneurs, they always, this is a common story. I'm not unique in any capacity, right? But when it does happen to you and when, you know, stuff does start going wrong, like the only way, the only way past it is forward. So you, you can't, you can't think about, oh, I can do 10 different things because then you take your eye off the prize and, you know, a hand up. It's not like I was, I thought about it. I thought about a hundred different ways, right? Like what should I do, you know, start thinking about selling kidneys, right? Like what, if stuff hit the top dollar, man, what would I do? And, you know, just keep doing your thing, just keep building it, keep getting business, keep doing great things for your clients and, you know, good things will happen and it's worked out.

07:36

Dylan Baker

There's a book by Cal Newport called... Deep Work. I don't know if you're familiar with it.

07:41

Sean Kurtz

I'm not.

07:42

David V. Kimball

It's a great book. One of the things it argues is focused attention is just a dying art. And I think that's true. There are so many opportunities, which is a good thing, but it can lead to a lot of analysis paralysis. And if you're not laser focused on something and you're above all the distractions, you'll come up with plan B, C, D, E, and then you'll fall short. I'm curious, you mentioned you had that really tough time in 2025. What, since 2022, basically when you started, there have been a absolute tsunami of technological changes that have occurred. What, how have you adapted to those technological changes and do you incorporate anything internally that helps you accelerate with like something like automation or anything like that?

08:34

Sean Kurtz

I mean, I'm constantly working with things like that. I mean, there's... So many tools out there right now that are, you know, there's, you still, the labor's not changing, right? There's still guys that have to go to job sites and perform the work, right? But the things that, well, A, let's just start on the client side. Clients' expectations, right, are changing because of, you know, the amount of communication that they could have 24-7, right? So you have to change with that, right? The automation is a huge part so that you're not constantly, you know, I could be on my phone 24-7 texting clients, like, with new things. Like, it's just not a good use of my time or even if I paid someone, I don't want to pay someone to just text for eight hours a day, right? Or, you know, it's, so we, you know, we came up with systems and processes to try to help automate that. Obviously, there's still a huge human touch behind it, but, you know, sort of the high-level stuff, we're trying to automate as quickly as we can. And then it goes. Even before a project has even begun, on the estimating side, there's huge strides being taken in the AI automation of takeoffs. It's still a work in progress, but if you're not doing it or using those tools, it's a huge disservice to you for your time and to your client because, A, it takes more time to get them estimates. So we still have our estimating process that we follow internally, but we are running, like, basically a background check, like a sanity check with our AI tools, you know, to make sure that we're calculating all the material correctly, we're calculating, you know, expected hours, things like that. The labor side is a little bit delayed on this, but the material side, I mean, there's been a lot of times where it's saved us substantial amounts of money just because it's like, oh, man, you know, I forgot to include the screws on this job, right? You're like, okay, well, one project isn't that big of a deal. Maybe you can eat that, but do that over the course of 10, 20 projects, right? All of a sudden you're losing thousands of dollars. That is just straight profit loss.

10:57

So, there's a huge wave of AI and automation coming into this world. And if someone signs the dotted line, prices can still change for materials pretty quickly.

11:10

David V. Kimball

So if you have the faster you get estimates up and everything set and things are moving, then the more predictable it is for you and your bottom line, too.

11:22

Sean Kurtz

Absolutely.

11:23

Dylan Baker

We had an episode recorded the other day, and the gentleman we had on the podcast was actually a collegiate athlete as well at the University of Utah. And he was telling us about how he was running the contracting business during COVID. And I was like, I was kind of aware of the cost of goods and stuff during COVID, and I threw something out there, kind of like a curveball, and I was like, hey, man, I remember lumber being super expensive during COVID at one point. How did you navigate that? And he said that lumber overnight went up almost 100% cost-wise, and he was in the middle of jobs, of ordering goods. And out of nowhere, just get these insane costs of goods that just, you know, like, I mean, your lumber doubles, and then, you know, you have to go to your client about that after the dotted line's already been signed, and you're like, hey, like, we obviously don't want to, like, put this on you. And then they ended up coming to terms and, like, splitting the cost of goods. But have you ever had any situation like that to where you had to, like, reel a deal back in, like, and kind of, like, take control of, like, situation and find, like, common ground or anything?

12:39

Sean Kurtz

Not, we've been very lucky as far as like material changes. We're just kind of starting to see that now with the recent tariff issue with Canada and things like that. Michigan's been very [...] The time that really comes up is, you know, it's just being a consultant for your client on, you know, where things are, like material costs, you know, how long it's going to take to get to us, right? What's the lead time on it? That, you know, we're incurring on, you know, having to wait so long, right? So there are things like that, but, you know, we're lucky enough. We haven't been affected by that. But, you know, in a true sense of like, oh my gosh, all of a sudden lumber prices are over 100% higher than they were now. They are, they are steadily increasing.

13:43

Dylan Baker

Wow, man. I mean, I can't, like, in the industry that David and I are in, I don't necessarily know if we've ever came to a situation where, like, you know, a subscription or anything like that is, like, doubled overnight. Do you, like, recall anything like that, David?

14:01

David V. Kimball

No, I have seen it in the marketplace, though. I saw Evernote subscriptions, like... [...].

14:47

Sean Kurtz

I mean, for the most part, right, like there's still things that get drawn up architecturally, which, you know, requires engineering, which requires, you know, all sorts of things. But most of the time, right, like construction really hasn't changed too much, right? Like there's code, you follow the code, you know, you have span tables, you have certain limits within those, and you, you know, you complete the product, you know, the core of the product is the same. Now the exterior, right, there's a million different ways you can finish something. But how things are actually constructed, it just depends on what material you're using, and, you know, how, what the code book says. I mean, in basic terms.

15:51

David V. Kimball

You said earlier that word gets around and that's how your calendar filled up. Do a little self-bragging. Why do you think that your calendar filled up?

15:57

Sean Kurtz

I mean, when I was first starting and just talking to people, they're like, I was just so surprised about how many people are like, we called. You're our fourth contractor we've called out. And we haven't heard from the other three. And it's been weeks, right? I mean, there's just so many times where we won projects simply because we gave them a number. We said, okay, you know, hey, here, you know, it's $10,000. You know, it was $100,000. And they're like, okay, well, we called two other people and they said they either didn't call us back or said they weren't interested. And so here you go. We need to get this project done. I mean, it was crazy. I, you know, now I'm more used to it when I hear stuff like that, but. And it's, you know, that's, that was how I really made my mark in the beginning. And then, you know, like I said, word gets around, like once the finished product is done, you know, how did you make people feel? How's the end product look? What did you actually accomplish? And, you know, how can, you know, how can you turn that into more customers? So, you know, you've got to ask.

17:02

Dylan Baker

I, there's, there's like a marketing guy, like in our industry, his name's Alex Hormozi, I don't know, you've probably seen his videos online before. He talks about selling the results rather than like the service itself. So, like, would you say like, you know, like your social online presence like helps you with bringing in more clientele with, you know... [...].

17:41

Sean Kurtz

[...] We make sure we post, we post a couple times a week. You know, we post all of our own products for the most part. It's in this industry and with, you know, it's what you're selling isn't necessarily the project. Like for the most part, when you're talking to people, you're talking to potential clients, they are, if they're set on doing the project, they're going to do the project. They don't need you to sell them into it. They need, they need to have the confidence in you or in the company that you're going to be able to accomplish this in a reasonable fashion and give them the product and the project that they want, right? So really you're selling yourself, right? You're selling your team's capacity, expertise, timeline, right? You're saying, hey, here's a plan that we have come up with in order to accomplish this. Here's the pricing that we have. And here you go. Now, where are we at on the spectrum of pricing? Are we high? Are we low? All that figures out, but most of the time, the clients that we are going after, obviously, price is a factor, but they're not just going after low bid. They're going after the people that made them feel the most comfortable. And that's the clients that we want, right? Because we're not in the game of just chasing the lowest dollar amount and trying to win. Those kind of companies, in my opinion, probably don't last very long. So they have to stay small, which is fine, but that's not our plan.

19:13

David V. Kimball

So what I'm hearing from you is there's kind of two elements that kind of set you apart and then inevitably your org, which is responsiveness and then trust. And I feel like if you have responsiveness and trust, the price conversation matters a whole lot less because you're getting a more predictable outcome. And that's what everyone seems to kind of be after, which makes sense. That's what I'm after when I'm trying to work with someone. I'm not, I'm thinking about, am I going to be able to get something out of this? Because everyone's self-interested, and that's what it comes down to. So if you're serving their needs, then you're going to be on top.

19:48

Sean Kurtz

Absolutely.

19:49

Dylan Baker

Nice. Awesome. You live around Canton, I think I saw.

19:54

Sean Kurtz

So I actually live in Saline, which is about 10 miles south of Ann Arbor, southwest of Ann Arbor.

20:02

Dylan Baker

So I grew up in Cincinnati. I grew up going to Detroit and Canton and Ann Arbor a lot when I was younger. Like Ypsilanti and stuff.

20:18

Sean Kurtz

I'm pretty familiar with the area.

20:20

Dylan Baker

One of my best friends I grew up with, him and his wife, they own a restaurant in Ann Arbor called Basil Babe. Have you ever heard of it? He got married a couple years ago, but him and his wife own a Thai restaurant in Ann Arbor. It's called Basil Babe. It's awesome from what I can tell.

21:04

Sean Kurtz

I think they shut down, and that's mud on my face. I should probably know that because that was kind of a staple in the community.

21:13

Dylan Baker

So your team now, do you work with any subcontractors, or do you mostly keep it in-house when you do your jobs and bids?

21:34

Sean Kurtz

So we have a small team. It depends on the size of the project. Obviously, you know, the... Trades, Mechanical, Electrical, HVAC are all licensed subcontractors that we use. Depending on the size of the job, we do have a small inside team, but we do have subcontractors that we trust on the framing, the concrete, the drywall side, all the trades. We have partners that we work with basically on every job.

22:00

David V. Kimball

Are there any partners you've worked with recently that you felt like did a good job and you want to give a shout out?

22:08

Sean Kurtz

I'm trying to think of, well, obviously our, you know, our electrical is AF Electric, AF Smith Electric out of Ann Arbor. They're amazing partners of ours. Fathom Plumbing is amazing partners of ours. Those are two names that jump right off the bat for us.

22:27

David V. Kimball

How did you find them and how did you establish trust with them over time?

22:33

Sean Kurtz

You know, funny enough, you know, we, we had obviously other. You know, people that we're using in those trades and we like to be loyal, you know, loyal for the most part. But the other guys had been getting booked up, you know, they were getting some big projects. They're like, hey, they weren't as responsive. They're just like, you know, hey, we're not trying to push you, but, you know, you got to schedule this out four weeks. You know, I'm so happy for them, you know, no problem. I completely understand.

23:07

They were communicating, they communicated with us, but when you got to get stuff done, got to get stuff done, right? And so we reached out to a couple of different people. We obviously like sort of, it's a little bit trial and error, right? And you have to make sure that you are being very, very selective and you have meetings with them beforehand. You know, you make sure that, you know, you follow their work. They are who they say they are. Usually they have at least some sort of online presence and reviews that you can see. And, you know. It was just, it was sort of a tryout, right? Like, hey, you know, we have three different projects open. We can try out a couple of different projects here. And, you know, some, a lot of them, we just really value responsiveness. And, you know, if you're like, hey, there's something that we're all human beings and there's something that you put in that's incorrect. It's not going to pass inspection or it's messing up some part of the job that you need to take care of. I want to say, you know, I want to hear, hey, I'll be there tomorrow. Or, you know what, I'm going to drop whatever I'm doing. I'll make sure I'm there, you know, at 5 o'clock and I'll get that done today so you guys don't have to be delayed. All right, like that's stuff that we like and we try not to put people in that position. But sometimes it happens, right? When it's like, hey, you know, you call them five times for a problem. They don't answer. They call you back at 8:30 at night and they're like, oh, I'll get to you. Today's Wednesday.

24:32

I'll get to you next Wednesday. You're like, okay, well, I'm happy for you. You obviously have a lot of business going on. But it's not going to work out with us because we need people that are, you know, able to, you know, be more responsive.

24:47

Dylan Baker

Dude, I like the whole like idea of like speed to lead, like being able to get a quote out and stuff like within what? Like, I mean, you're doing that within a day or two, right?

25:01

Sean Kurtz

I mean, it just depends on the amount, the size of it, right? Like if it's concrete, right, I could do that, you know, in an hour. We can do that as my team in an hour. If it's a $200,000 or, you know, $300,000 addition, right? Like it's not just we can calculate it and bring it to and develop a scope of work that we then provide to our subcontractors. Our ultimate goal is not necessarily speed, even though speed is crucial, but accuracy, right? Speed and inaccuracy is worthless, right? To a client either on the high end or on the low end, right? Because clients, I'm not going to do a job where I'm going to lose 20%, right, of cost, right? So I'm going to go back to the client. If it's an inaccurate quote and I got to them in a day and I hold my hand out, they're going to be [upset]. They're probably not going to give it to me. Same, vice versa.

25:53

If I come back to them and I say, hey, you know, we're X and X amount of money. And they're like, well, we have three other quotes from reputable companies. They're all 30% less than you, right? Then, you know, you lose the bid, right, which is a bad part, but then you also kind of lose the opportunity to maybe, like, win future business with them because they're like, they're always going to remember that you were the guys that blew everyone's doors off on a project that, you know, when they got three other quotes that were roughly the same. Now, it depends on, you know, the size of the project. If it's, you know, $100,000 and you're 30% higher, you know, you're at 130 compared to 100, right? That's a pretty substantial amount. Compared to like a $10,000 project where you're at $30,000 compared to $10,000, well, that could be a, you know, that's within margin of error in my opinion.

26:49

Dylan Baker

If you, like if you had one piece of advice for someone starting out in your industry and they wanted to start their own general contracting business, is there anything that you would suggest that they do or act on first, I guess?

27:07

Sean Kurtz

Get your sales, like it sounds counterintuitive, but if your sales aren't right, like there's so many like contractors that I know or heard through the grapevine of like not able to bring it in. You need to get your marketing and sales in order and have a process for that, like as quickly as possible. You know, is it going to be perfect right off the bat? No, you're going to have to tweak it a hundred. I'm five, six years in. I'm still tweaking it. I'm still thinking about ways that we can portray value to our clients or potential clients and, you know, and bring in business because you don't want to start with operations first. And I say that with how important operations are, because if you build out your operations, if there's nothing coming in, you're just paying for nothing, right?

28:07

Dylan Baker

Absolutely.

28:08

Sean Kurtz

You get your sales and marketing correct and scale from there. And it is painful. I wish that I just had a million dollars in the bank and I could pull it out and I could sit on it for, you know, I knew I could build my operations first and then bring the business in. But it has to go, it has to follow the step. You have to have an input to have an output.

28:31

Dylan Baker

Oh, I was going to say that kind of correlates to our industry or software, for example, like there's a lot of amazing services and products out there and people could spend all this time building these awesome products, services, and offers. And it literally means nothing if your distribution is [bad] or it's not. Or you have no audience. I mean, distribution is everything, man. Like you said, you're trying to get 1% better every day, like you're still tweaking everything and polishing it. And I think you being a business owner for the last few years, you probably have started to realize that distribution really is everything. And I think that is a great piece of advice for, you know, someone starting a business just in general, not only in contracting, but like you should be like using your referral network. You should be, you know, using your family, literally everyone you know, you should be trying to plug in your service product at any given time. And if people trust you and like you, they might take a chance on you. But, David, go ahead.

29:34

David V. Kimball

No, that was great because I was going to say that's really good advice, but then the question always goes to, well, am I going to do it myself? Am I going to hire someone? In your experience, where have you found success in doing that? Because I would imagine most people in most industries would listen to what you're saying and go, you know what? That's probably right. We don't have enough leads. We don't have enough clients coming in. Am I supposed to do all this myself? Am I supposed to outsource it? What am I supposed to do? What would you say to that person?

30:06

Sean Kurtz

Do what is best for you. You're always going to be your best salesperson. So if you're not able to sell it to someone hiring a marketing agency or another salesperson is just putting a Band-Aid on a broken arm. It's just not going to work. So if you're not able to sell it yourself or provide the value, maybe you're not a salesperson by heart or by training, which is fine. But, you know, you have to have the fire to be. Become one, or at least be moderately successful on telling people about your business, right? Because if you're not able to do that, you can't expect other people to do it for you, right? So it starts there. And I've tried it a million different ways.

30:54

I had success with marketing agencies. I've had not success. I would say if you're going to do it, again, processes in the very beginning, especially on your sales process, it has to be clean. It has to be dialed in because, again, mine wasn't that way. And when I hired my first marketing agency to help us out, I got bunk leads, and I've wasted a bunch of money. And, you know, it just didn't work out. And, you know, it's a little bit of them and us, but, you know, I'm always, again, the former athlete in me. I always point the finger back on myself and accept responsibility, right? I need to be better about that. And once we got better at that and we hired another marketing agency that worked out for quite a while, you know, leads were great. We had a lot incoming and, you know, it's worked out. So just I would say in the very beginning, you know, you have to create the demand and then you can find the supply like you find the supply on the back end. I mean, that's because without demand, supply is worthless. [...] If you're not creating the content that we need, like, we're not being very valuable to you. And, you know, that went a lot farther than, you know, them trying to sneak in a few more months of retainer, right, on that. And that was when we started kicking up our marketing, our social media presence. But they had that honest conversation with me about, you know, hey, if you're not going to go out and create the content that we need, then, you know, you're kind of wasting your money. And I appreciated that, you know, because it always works out in the end. Right. Like, you're never going to get by For a long period of time, you can get by in a short period of time with certain people, but you're not going to get by it long term, you know, taking the easy buck.

What came up.

The tools Sean mentioned on the show. We don't take money from any of them.

AI takeoff toolsA second check on every estimate's materials
Automated client updatesThe high-level updates clients expect around the clock
Social mediaPosts a couple of times a week
Marketing agencyLeads, once the sales process was ready for them

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