Construction Trailblazers: Paving The Way to Excellence

[00:00:00] A lot of builders are always looking for ways to boost profit margins, and they are missing a really important tool that is right in front of them.

Today we're going to dive into it with Megan Shapiro. Welcome to Construction Trailblazers Paving the Way to Excellence, your go to podcast for innovation, success, and streamlined excellence in the building industry. I'm Samantha C. Prestidge, your host and expert in ops and team building. I've seen the transformative effects of adopting People focused, tech forward, lean practices, and these changes not only boost company revenue, but also restore peace of mind for owners overwhelmed by the daily grind.

On this show, we bring to light leaders who are innovating across the industry and creating outstanding results, inspiring you to forge your path to excellence. So I have the great honor of introducing Megan today. She focuses on helping C suite construction leaders innovate through their contracts. So they can have more profitable projects.

She's really our go to for all things legal and risk management and [00:01:00] construction. She's a partner at a firm in California, but also helps clients across the US as the construction contract coach. She is one of the funnier, more down to earth people that I get the absolute pleasure of interacting with, and she's got an unprecedented passion for actually caring about her clients and fighting on their behalf in the construction contract world.

So Megan, like I said, you have this love of contracts. You really argue that a lot of leaders maybe aren't handling their contracts efficiently, efficiently, or they just don't realize like the golden nuggets in their contracts. So tell me more about that. What are most of us missing?

I think the biggest The thing that most construction leaders are missing when it comes to contracts is the opportunity that they pose.

So I think a lot of times people look at contracts as just sort of like a necessary evil part of the job, right? It's just a box to check, like, Okay, we've got to review the contract, we've got to sign the contract, we've got to get the contract in the job file. and then we go and do the real work. And [00:02:00] I think that's a huge missed opportunity for most construction leaders.

There are so many ways that you can leverage the contract itself to strengthen and deepen your relationship with the GC if you're the sub, or with the owner if you're the GC, that can then be leveraged into additional work opportunities in the future. There are ways you can use the contract to shift risk, of course.

Most people, uh, understand that on a fundamental level, but maybe don't necessarily. really realize the power and the nuance of the intricacies of how you can do that. Um, and then certainly there are specific changes that you can make within the contract that can actually increase your profit margin in the long run.

So I think it's just a huge missed opportunity for most construction leaders.

That there's like so many things to unpack there. And like you said, like, even when I'm putting my contracts together to work with my clients, I'm like, okay, this will protect me really, if something goes south, I'll still get paid.

And that's what I'm thinking of with my contract. Like it really lives outside of the contract. Um, and I don't like, [00:03:00] again, you've, you've said like four different things, relationships, the opportunity for future projects, um, and all of these things. So let's really start with relationships because most people, you say contracts, you get into like the legal headspace and you're like, Oh, either like, I don't want to deal with this or it's going to be boring.

I don't want to read this. So how are you really leveraging this for better relationships?

So I think that really comes down to the strategies that you're using to negotiate the red lines and markups that you do want to try to push through. There are so many ways that you can present the proposed red line or revision in a way that strengthens the relationship and makes it seem to the other side.

Like, well, let me rephrase that. It doesn't make it seem that way because that seems a little, let's cut that part out. Let me rephrase that because that sounds really nefarious and I don't, it's not true. What I meant to say was, um, there are ways that you can present your red lines and proposed changes to the other side that, that really shows them that there are specific changes that can benefit both sides.

[00:04:00] Oftentimes these contracts are written by your outside counsel. Maybe you, if you have inside counsel, but they're usually written by attorneys and the people who are then tasked with negotiating the contracts. on the ground don't have any real input on what the contract says. They have very little, um, leverage or bargaining power when it comes to making those red lines and changes.

And so from a relationship standpoint, when you're proposing red lines, you need to look at that person as your teammate. Empower them to help them make the pitch to whoever it is on their side that's going to make the decision about whether or not the red line or revision is approved. Empower them with the language to use to show that these changes actually will benefit all of us.

And if you approach your negotiations of your markups through that lens of we're a team, we're in this together, we are true trade partners, and these changes will benefit both of us and will protect both of us in the long run, then you're going to be far more successful at getting your changes and your redlines pushed through, for one.

But for two, the [00:05:00] person on the other side is going to really start to see you that way. They're going to say, oh wow, This person, unlike the previous people that we've been dealing with, they're not just self interested in pushing through these red lines and revisions. They really are looking at this as a holistic project, and they want the project as a whole to be successful, and all of us who are part of it to be successful together.

Um, it also, This also really reminds me of an episode with Clint Schmitz, and we'll link that in in the notes for our listeners, but Clint brought up an amazing point of how so much of the project is planned and figured out before the actual project begins, and then you have these GCs or, you know, whoever's actually doing the work that's involved at the very end for the actual build, but then they don't have a say in a lot of things.

So I think another, another really important Part of your approach is that you advocate for these project leads or these project managers to leverage the contract, to leverage the clauses in that contract as tools for project success. So let's break that down a little bit. Like, how do you go about that?

How do you go about [00:06:00] like really teaching them how to understand these tools? Because I bet most of them have not really ever looked at the contract before and what really is in their power to do anything about it?

Yeah, so I will say that I am continually surprised in a good way when I have conversations with project managers, mostly, um, at subcontracting companies.

That's who I mostly work with. Um, some GC, some owners, but mostly subs. And I'm always continually surprised at the number of project managers that say, no, no, I read the contract from beginning to end. So I, right. I know. And I'm always like, you guys, you're like, you're, you're after my own heart here. So I'm always super excited to hear that they're doing that at least.

But then that's sort of where it ends for them because usually they don't have the training or the experience and their, their companies, the construction companies that they're working for haven't invested in teaching them what to do with it after that. It's great that they're reading the contracts from beginning to end.

Don't get me wrong. That's obviously [00:07:00] step one. It's foundational. But if you don't have a base of knowledge, After that, then it's kind of a little bit pointless, right? I mean, again, still do it, still do it because there'll be enough in there, particularly when it comes to scope types of things that a project manager who has not been trained on construction contracts will still be able to pick up on.

So again, always do that. But if you're not being empowered with the knowledge of how to really leverage that, then you're missing a huge opportunity. And so what I do is I go into the project managers or, uh, the contract managers, depending on how the company is structured, there are different people that they put in charge of the contract.

I like to talk to the people who I say own the contract, right? Because my, my method advocates for one person on each project team owning the contract. That's not to the exclusion of others that are involved in the project, reading the contract, being comfortable with the contract, being conversant with the contract.

That's not to that exclusion, but at the end of the day, there needs to be one [00:08:00] person who owns the contract who is completely responsible for being able to tell everybody, inside and out, what the contract says, what the contract requires. So I like to deal with the people who own the contract. Once I've got the right people in the room, then we really break it down, and we read contracts from beginning to end, and again, most of them have said, I've done this before.

But when we do it together, and I go through each tiny little individual phrase, Because literally, if you're reading a construction contract, through that lens for the very first time, there's something to talk about in every single sentence. And so it kind of opens up their eyes, right? They're like, oh my god, those words aren't just words on a page, they actually mean something, which means I can use them, right?

Yeah. The first step is that we go beginning to end, let's read this contract beginning to end, and let's break it down and talk through it. Then we circle back and talk about the real key phrases that actually make a difference, the sort of like big players. The ones where, um, they're super important for either risk allocation [00:09:00] and risk shifting, or they're very important in terms of profitability on the project.

Or they're really important in terms of that relationship maintenance. There's something about the key phrases that really make them extra hyper important, where we really want to drill down and focus on the specific details of those particular provisions, specific red lines that you need to make that might be deal breakers, or that I would advocate should be considered to be potentially deal breakers.

Ultimately, the decision would be made as a business decision. But I want to empower you to at least know the risk that you're taking if you continue on and you take a deal breaker clause, right? And so we really dig deep. There are about eight to ten, usually in most construction contracts, of those kind of like big player, key contractual provisions that we go through.

And then we cap it off by talking about those negotiation strategies that we talked about just a minute ago, which is, okay, great, now we've talked about the red lines that you want, now let's talk about how you can actually push those through and get those accepted by the other side.

I love that because one of the things I preach so much is like simplicity, right?

[00:10:00] And so you're breaking everything down in a way that like makes sense, right? That's taking legal jargon or like the runoff sentences and contracts that we all get confused. And we're like, where's this comma? Therefore, what happens, right? You're breaking That in a simple way that we can all understand. I want to back up to the idea of like, yeah, you've read the contract, but so what, like that reminds me of, I spent a lot of times talking to managers.

Right. And I'm like, Hey, have you asked your team about this? I'm like, yeah, I actually have had a conversation and I'm like, okay, so then what did we do about that? And that's where it stops. Right. So it's like, great. We've got step one down. That's an awesome step. I don't want to diminish like the energy put into that, but there's also like other steps that now need to happen, right?

And you're really helping to guide them along that, um, and then understanding those, like, all those key phrases of, like, this is really, you know, now we can negotiate this and now we can put this into practice. And the other thing you said that was awesome was, like, someone needs to own this. I [00:11:00] think, you know, In whether it's construction or any industry, accountability is the buzzword I hear so much of like, Oh, how do you hold your team accountable?

Or like, we need to hold ourselves accountable to things. And I'm like, that's an awesome buzzword. What does that look like in practice? You can't have accountability if you don't have ownership. If someone is not really responsible for this, then like, Where does the accountability fall, right? Um, so walk me through, have you ever had an instance where ownership was like really unclear and it really took a while, but we had to maybe go through some processes on the project end to understand who's supposed to own this and usually who is that person?

Yeah, so if you have not had the philosophy of there needs to be one person who owns it, I, so let me back up. Normally when I will go into a company, when I, so I do two types of, two types of training versus coaching. I'll do one on one coaching for individuals. Usually that's the person who owns the contract, right?

It's typically project managers. On the other side of that, I will come in to whole construction companies and do trainings [00:12:00] for all of their project managers, for example. So typically what I experience is if you haven't had that mindset shift of like one person must own the contract, there's this overwhelming sense of team within construction companies that I'm sure that you're used to dealing with and you see too, Samantha, right?

So when I walk in, everybody is super proud to tell me like, we all own the contract. They're very proud of that. And I'm like, great. I love that energy, but who's the one person. And they're like, what do you mean the one person? And I'm like, who's the one person who is like, knows the contract inside and out?

Who's the person you go to if you have questions, or you're confused, or who needs to send a written notice under the contract? Who's that person? And I get a bunch of blank stares. Crickets? Right? And so then I explain to them, the problem with the attitude of we all own the contract, we're a team, the problem with that is then there's no one person who's responsible.

And so every, it's easy for everybody else to assume somebody else is handling it, is doing it, [00:13:00] is taking it, is right, like sending the change order or sending in the RFI or responding to the written notice to perform. Whatever it is, it's easy for everybody to assume somebody else has got it covered if there's not clear delineation of the one owner of the contract.

So that's the first hurdle is like, I love the team mentality guys. Let's keep it up, but we still need to have one person. So once we get that one person, in most companies it's the project manager. Um, in some, some subcontracting companies I see contract managers. I don't love for that person to be the one person.

If, like, I'm the consultant and they're asking me for my opinion, I would prefer it to be the contract manager, or I would prefer it to be the project manager. The reason being, for companies that are organized with a quote unquote contract manager, That person is the one person in the company who's reviewing all the contracts and signing all the contracts, and that's their only job.

They're not then involved in the project, usually. On the other hand, the project managers are the ones who are involved in the project, right? That's their whole job. So I'd rather have [00:14:00] the project manager who's going to be managing this particular project be the one person who owns the contract, because then they're in it, right?

They're, you're not having to go back to a contract manager who's like, Who's completely disconnected from what's going on in the field, what's actually happening on the job, and then trying to get clarity about a specific nuanced question. Instead, you've got the PM who's been running the project, right?

So once I get the PM, who I, that's who I would advocate that it should be, is the PM. I've created a tool that I give to all of my clients. It's called like the one page cheat sheet and it's really two pages. Cause I couldn't get it to be one. I know right? I tried so hard but I was like there's just too much.

But it's a fillable, it's a word document, it's a fillable form and it goes through and it's literally like. Put in here as you're reviewing the contract, these key things. And so it takes out, it makes it, it spoon feeds it to them. They don't have to try to decipher what's going to be most important. It's all right there.

All you have to do is plug and play. And then that gets attached to the job file. And so that's important because we all know, unfortunately in our industry, there is a lot of turnover, [00:15:00] particularly with project managers. Oftentimes a project manager does not last at a company through the duration of the project.

That's no big deal if you have this cheat sheet because the new PM who comes in then picks that up. They should ideally, again, read the whole contract for themselves, since they're taking on the job, but they've got that cheat sheet to help them. And so there's, that's, that's often an objection I get to this one ownership idea is what happens when they leave, we all have turnover.

That's my answer. You, you have a system in place so that turnover is no big deal. You've made it easy for that person to come in and pick up the file, right? Pick up the contract, pick up the job file, and take over and hit the ground running. So that's sort of, that's my approach, um, to it. I, it's actually a long winded way to get back to the question you actually asked me, which is, yes, I have seen, um, the sort of not that issue, not that approach, and it can be problematic.

That usually manifests in the form of having a contract manager. I recently did a training at a construction [00:16:00] company, it was a subcontracting company, and I did the training for the PMs. They had the team mentality of we all own the contract, but I was, they were able, they were quickly able to get on board with like one, one owner mentality, but it was really interesting because I did some polling, some like one of the live polling while we were doing the training, and even though they were not set up to have a contract manager, they were set up with a project manager system, there was one person in the company who signed all the contracts.

One person. Yeah. And so it was really interesting because I was like, okay, well, who owns your contracts? We all do. Who signs your contracts? This one person. And so there was this big, right, disconnect. And I'm like, okay, well, great. Then when you have a question about the contract, who do you go to? Do you go to the project manager?

Do you go to the person who signed the contract who doesn't really have any involvement in the job? How does that look for you guys? What problems are you seeing as a result of that system? And so, um, so yeah, I, I have seen it organized in different ways, and I don't necessarily think that it's the most efficient, most productive, and ultimately, therefore, [00:17:00] the most profitable way to do it.

That, I, I think, once again, there's the simplicity of like, we've got a cheat sheet. Like, how can we break, like, let's structure this in a way that, like, legally we've got our asses covered with our contract, but now let's take that information in a way that's really easy for you to use in your day to day work, and that is missing, I think, in, in, One that a lot of contracts, a lot of process documents kind of across the board and it's like, yeah, you got to take the hit by the bus.

approach of like, if this person's not here tomorrow, but we can't let that stifle us, right? We can't be so scared about turnover that we then negate all structure in our teams. Um, and so what's also interesting about your contract manager situation, and this actually, we have an episode that's coming out right before this episode does guys.

So it's episode 11, um, on flatter org structures. And so often we see a problem And we're like, Oh, I need someone new to oversee this problem. Let me create this supervisor or manager position. So kind of similar, like, Oh, we don't have control of our [00:18:00] contracts. Let's introduce a contract manager. But do we really need that?

Like that's not efficient. Now we're just paying this big old salary for someone to read through red line Signed things that really has no involvement and no buy in, no ownership of like project success. I'm wondering in those situations, going back to something at the beginning, we talked about like one of the, one of the reasons we want to focus on our contracts is our relationships with our vendors, right?

And that intentionality. So do you find when we have, when companies have a contract manager that you then have to coach on like the intentionality behind it a little bit more?

Okay, so this is going to be a really unpopular thing to say.

Oh, everyone buckle in. I love unpopular, controversial opinions. I

know.

I'm going to, I'm going to alienate some people with this one. The biggest challenge with contract managers is that they think they know everything and they don't want to learn and they don't want to hear it.

So

that's [00:19:00] my biggest challenge. If I'm, if I am, if I am asked to come into a situation where there is a contract manager, they think that the fact that they've reviewed a thousand contracts in their career is enough and they don't need more.

And it's, it's really interesting because it's this, it's this fine line balance for me as the, as the attorney, depending, or the consultant, depending, right? Cause I'm like, Okay, I'm not diminishing at all your experience. Experience is incredibly valuable. However, let me tell you this story about this catastrophic lawsuit that I had to litigate that lost the company millions of dollars over this one clause that you're telling me is fine.

Let me show you why it's not fine. I bring a different set of experience of like the worst case scenarios. Most times, to your point about contract managers being Uh, removed from the actual process of the, of the project, they oftentimes don't know when claims or issues arise, particularly when they happen years afterward.

Right? If it's a, if it's a claim or an issue that comes [00:20:00] after the construction is complete, they never know about it. So from their myopic view, and this isn't their fault, this is just the nature of the setup, which is one more reason it's flawed in my opinion, from their myopic view, it was all fine.

Nothing happened. No bad things happened. And it's like, yeah, from your standpoint, I can see why you think that. That's why it's important to have this different viewpoint of like, I'm the one that gets called in when it goes south. You have no involvement in the project, so you're never going to know about it.

You're not going to be helpful to the attorney. You're not going to be helpful to the project manager. So we don't need you when it goes south. We got it covered, so you're never even going to know what happened. And so it, it's like hitting a brick wall of like, There is risk here just because you are unaware of how it can go south does not mean that it does not go south.

And so that's kind of the biggest challenge is contract managers. I think they know it all. They're very arrogant and they don't really want to learn.

I feel like we need Sorry, contract

managers.

No one from that, Megan. Don't cancel her, guys. This is great [00:21:00] advice, right? Like, maybe we need to just introduce an inconvenience fee for future clients that have contract managers.

I know,

right? Or, I think the takeaway is if you are a contract manager and you are bristling and are offended at what I'm saying, Don't be that contract manager. Be the one that proves me wrong. Be the one that's like, no, I love to learn. I want to know how I can be better at this because I would love, and if you are one of those, you come at me in my DMs because I want to know you.

I want to know you. And I will proudly go on LinkedIn and I will say, I was wrong. This is so and so. They are a contract manager and they do it the right way.

Yes, I want, I love the invitation to like be proven wrong. That is really what we should strive for, I think, is like, I am, I'm confident that this is the issue, but if you can prove me wrong, I totally welcome that.

And also like the humility that we really need in a position of saying like, there is a better way to do this. It sounds like though, if someone, if a company does have a contract manager and okay, we're not going to fire this person, then we just need to introduce some transparency, right? I think that's also an element [00:22:00] along with like the lack of ownership that we see when we're trying to push accountability.

We also don't see transparency for the full circle, right? We don't close the loop in a lot of positions. And this is not just related to contracts. We can see that in, Oh, like. We see that in accounting. Like, you guys don't see the outstanding bills and invoices that have not been paid, right? Or in HR, like, there's so many areas where, um, we don't see the closing of the loop.

And so no one ever really understands the consequences of not following a process or not doing something. So, okay, so we understand that, like, contract managers, if you have that structure, maybe rethink that, call, call Megan, or have your contract manager be a little bit more humble, right? Or

involved in the process, maybe just being your, how you're using your contract manager.

Yeah,

right. Like don't just introduce this new layer of management if there's not a real purpose and intention behind it. Right. Okay, but now we we've got an owner for the contract. Hopefully it's someone that's really involved in the project, whether it's your [00:23:00] contract manager or your project manager.

What now is our next step?

in terms of reviewing the contract?

Yeah, so okay, let's say that we've reviewed the contract, we've redlined, we have the power of negotiation, now the project is in play, what is our next step of like, I'm empowered to maybe enforce this contract, but really how do I go about that?

Yeah, so that's really where that like cheat sheet is going to come in because Ideally, you're never gonna need to use it, and ideally the next step to your point, Samantha, is that we just do the work, and we complete the work, on time, on budget, we close out the project, and we move on to the next. That's ideally, like, my job is over.

You never need me again, I don't talk to you for the rest of the project, you go on your way, and have a smooth project. That's ideal. If that doesn't happen, that's where the cheat sheet comes in, because what's most likely to occur if you're not having just a smooth process, or even if you are having a smooth process, it just is part of it, right?

Sometimes you're going to need change orders, of course. [00:24:00] Sometimes you're going to need RFIs. Sometimes there are going to be delay issues. Sometimes there are going to be notices, things like that. And that's where that cheat sheet really comes in to help you out, especially for project managers who are managing multiple projects at one time.

Like, I think 99, I feel comfortable saying 99. 9 percent of project managers do. I'm leaving room for the potential like project manager who's managing a 10 million project. And so that's his only job,

but

most project managers are managing multiple projects at once. And so it's easy to get the contracts confused.

Again, that's where the cheat sheet comes in, so your field guys come to you or the superintendent comes to you and they've got a question or an issue or something that needs to be dealt with with regard to the contract. Instead of racking your brain or going back over and having to re read the whole contract beginning to end to refresh your recollection because you're managing so many different projects, you can go to that cheat sheet.

And so, let's use, uh, let's say you're a subcontractor who receives a notice to perform, or a notice to cure a defect. And so, let's use, uh, let's say you're a subcontractor who receives a notice to perform, or a notice to cure a defect. There's going to be a timeline associated with how long you have to cure in the contract, and instead of having to go [00:25:00] dig through it, that, that'll be right there on your cheat sheet.

You'll say, okay, we received the notice at this date and on the, on this date, at this time, that means the timeline has started to trigger. We now have 48 hours. Or if you follow my suggested red lines, you've probably switched that to business days. But usually it starts out as hours. We've got 48 hours to cure.

So now you know that. You're not wasting those precious hours going back to the contract, figuring out what the timeline looks like. You know your deadline and now you can actually execute. And so that's really where the cheat sheet comes in for the, for the ongoing. work that's happening on the project while it's going on until completion.

Okay, awesome. And then, yeah, I think that, again, having something that's simple to refer back to, like, I don't have to dig for that. That's one of our fundamental things when we look at, like, do you have a lean structure in your business is organization. Like that is the thing that will cause so much frustration, waste so much time, and just like, Piss somebody off if they can't find the information that they need, right?

Okay, so we've got our cheat sheet. We've [00:26:00] saved some really valuable time. One of the points that we had earlier, right, was not just about vendor relationships and efficiency, but it was also about our profitability. So where do we really see us saving profits and saving money on a project because of contracts?

Is it just because of time saved? Or again, are there more golden nuggets that we can realize here?

There are potentially golden nuggets that are available for you, and those are usually going to be in the change order section, right? So, that's really where you can kind of bump up or increase the profitability.

That's a really nuanced case by case, contract by contract analysis that's going to tie in. the scope that's attached to the actual contract itself, whether or not the bid became the scope, or if there were changes between bid and scope, if the bid was attached to the contract as the scope. So that one, that's where it really starts to get super detailed and nuanced, and there aren't as many generalities when it comes to that, but there are opportunities there if you know what you're doing and you know what you're looking for.

Which is the key, right? Do you [00:27:00] know what you're doing? Are you the contract manager that's like, I've reviewed a thousand contracts, I've got this in the bag, right? Do you know what you're doing and do you know what you're looking for? Like, do you know where the risk really lies, right? Like where the money could be lost on things.

Exactly. And that's the other, that's the other half of the equation. In addition to finding opportunities to increase the amount that you're making on the project through change orders, the other part of that of increasing profitability, we're talking about profitability, we're talking about bottom line, right?

Not top line, we're talking about bottom line. And so. One of the bigger ways that the contract can help you increase profitability is through mitigating potential losses down the line. And so that again is even more specific of an analysis of the individual contract. But again, there are ways that you can make sure that the risk shifting and risk allocation measures that are in the contract are setting you up so that you're not going to end up losing money on this contract at the end or even years later.

And that then of course comes back and contributes to your overall profitability.

So I think we've [00:28:00] covered a lot here, right? And I, if I was a GC, my gears would be turning so fast and I'd be like whipping out contracts to start reading them right now, right? So, and obviously if we, if, if you are that GC, if you are that sub and you want to look at your contracts, you definitely should be reaching out to Megan, right?

Because again, she works with clients across the U. S., not just at her firm in California. But. Something else we'd love to do on this podcast is just break things down into, again, that those simple, simple action steps. So let's say someone's not quite ready to work with you, Megan. What is that action step that you're like, Hey, this is what you need to do for at least a little bit of an impact right now.

So I actually make my, this is sound, this sounds like such a self serving answer and I hate it, but this is the answer. And I don't mean it to be self serving. I think it's just the biggest impact for the lowest. It's like the biggest reward for the lowest risk, which is I actually make my cheat sheet available to everybody for 9.

It's nine bucks.

Oh my gosh, guys. Yeah, it's nine dollars. It's just like two coffees at Starbucks. I know, that's what

say. That's [00:29:00] what I'm like, I mean, yeah, I guess it's like a little bit of like a salesy answer, but like, it's nine dollars. But also, if like, you really can't swing the nine dollars, no judgment, send me a DM and I'll just give it to you.

It's like, it's nine dollars, it's no big deal. But that cheat sheet is really like, sure, working with me is an investment, I get that. Let's say you are a project manager at your company, And you are like looking down the road of like, I would love for my company to invest in training us. But that's a long game.

I want to be better myself at my job now. Start with a cheat sheet. You can implement that in your contracts, on your projects, within your company without needing any buy in from your bosses, right? I mean, like, you could just do that. It's your own little cheat sheet. So I think that's the easiest, like, that's the easiest next step to have the biggest impact.

Because again, That cheat sheet walks you through the key things that you need to be paying attention to. So it's almost a little bit like, I don't know, maybe I'm too old, but I don't know if anybody remembers CliffsNotes. Do you remember CliffsNotes? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like a CliffsNotes for the overall [00:30:00] contract training because of the questions that it's asking you for the cheat sheet to be filled out properly.

So that's the quickest and easiest way, I would say, to really get started and make a big impact right out the gate.

I think that sounds like she's inviting you guys to have a secret superpower that like the rest of your team all of a sudden is going to be like, Oh my gosh, how is Billy Joe doing all these amazing things?

How is he not spending all this time digging in these files and how is he improving relationships? Well, it's because Billy Joe's got this cheat sheet, right? And this is his superpower to go run his project. I would also recommend beyond the contracts, guys, anything in your, whether it's like managing your team.

Whatever process that you have, you have a cheat sheet for. Like, that is the simplest way to make your day to day easier. Um, so go spend the nine dollars. Don't get Starbucks today. Um, Starbucks for me is usually like fifteen, twenty bucks anyway. Having this cheat sheet is way, way cheaper than that. Um, and if you have a bigger issue, then just reach out to Megan, right?

Whether it's training. Or it's really going [00:31:00] that line by line detailed analysis of a contract, which by the way, let's back up because you said earlier, like, hey, if you've done the contract, right, you've got this cheat sheet, then you should be kind of done with this project, they shouldn't have to reach out back out to you.

So for for our listeners, is that does that mean that like, hey, we maybe need to evaluate our contracts for every project? Or really, how often should we be evaluating these things? Transcribed by https: otter. ai

So I think that depends on what position in the contract you are in. So if you are, for example, the owner, and you've got a prime that you're using with the GC, or if you're the GC that has created the prime that you're using with the owner, or you're the GC that has created the subcontract that you're using with your subs, then yeah, I would say that those probably should be reviewed and updated by an attorney in your state.

I would say every couple of years is probably a good idea. Um, out in California, the laws around contract language and construction laws change about every two to three years where you'd want to just be making sure that you're on top of those things. So if you're the one who's drafting the contract that you're using in your [00:32:00] projects, I would say every two or three years you should have it reviewed and maybe updated by a knowledgeable construction attorney who's licensed in your state.

If you're on the receiving end of contracts, if you're mostly a sub or maybe a material supplier or a sub tier subcontract who's really just receiving contracts that you're then asked to redline and sign, then that obviously is a little bit of a different process. For that, I would suggest taking the time and investing.

It doesn't have to be me. There are, I'm sure there are a thousand other ways that you could do this, but take the time and invest in learning how to properly review and redline a contract. And then once you have that skill set, you're You really don't need it again. And so it's like a one time investment up front.

And then, I mean, you might want to do it every few years or maybe every five years, just if the laws in your state are changing, or if as you're reviewing the contracts, you're starting to notice some sort of, um, changes that are kind of systemic within your industry and the contracts that you're seeing.

Like, for example, post COVID, All the [00:33:00] force majeure clauses that were always a part of contracts changed dramatically, right? In post COVID world, right? So then for the first two years after COVID, all we did was force majeure clauses. So if you see something like a trend like that, then you might want to then say, okay, we might want to reinvest in some, in some updating our training.

Um, on the other hand, like I was using the example earlier where, um, a subcontracting company brought me in to train all of their project managers. That might be a thing that you want to do every few years because you're going to have turnover, right? And so you, when you bring in new project managers, when you've had a few of them, you bring them in.

On the other side of that, for me personally, when I do those trainings, I do have an option when we're negotiating what, what the training is going to look like to record it. And so that way you can just. have the recording for when you do get new project managers. It's less of an investment to bring me back in to do the whole training all over again.

So I would say it depends on what, what side of the contract you're on, how often you need to actually, um, re update or reinvest.

Yeah. So I think part of with that as well is like, it's not just turnover. It's not [00:34:00] just regulation. Two to three years is, A good span of like things are most likely to change in the business, right?

It's not just about industry trends, what's going on in the world. Did we all of a sudden have another pandemic? Right. Unlikely, but you know, um, but two to three years is, is enough time for like, Hey, have you scaled? Are you now servicing a different type of, Customer or different types of projects. Has your team expanded?

So not only do we have turnover, have we maybe gotten away from those flatter org structures and we have some more vertical layers that we need to invest in training or we need to just kind of re evaluate things, right? We, I think point blank, you should be evaluating a lot in your business with it, like every two to three years anyway.

So I think that's a, that's a really good timeline for people to stick to.

All right, Megan, this has been just an absolute pleasure. I think, again, that we have not realized the golden nuggets that sit in our contracts and how we can really use that beyond just like, gotta sign this, and use it as a tool our project managers can really use every day to have more profitable [00:35:00] projects, to have better relationships, to have better less of those day to day fires that we're way too accustomed to in the construction industry.

So thank you again for joining us. For those that are listening, we will include Megan's LinkedIn, her website, definitely recommend following her. We'll also include that link to that phenomenal superpower cheat sheet. Again, under 10, highly recommend you grab that. And thanks again for joining us, Megan.

Thank you so much for having me. This was a ton of fun, Samantha. I always love chatting with you.