Free field guide · 10 pages
The scripts, the form, and the ledger that let you stay generous and still get paid. You never become the contractor who says no.
10 pp. · PDF
Contents
P. 02
No single “can you just” is worth fighting over, which is exactly why you say yes. The worked example runs eight events per project across twelve projects and shows what it takes in revenue to replace at a 12% net margin. Substitute your own numbers. The point is the multiplier.
P. 03
"Yeah, we can definitely do that. Let me price it out for you and get you a change order." Three things happen in that sentence and all of them matter. It handles about 80% of situations on its own.
P. 04
The small extra, the verbal number on the spot, the one you actually want to gift, and the request that turns out to have been a mistake. Tone does more work than wording, and the guide says exactly how each one is delivered.
P. 05
Description written so a stranger could build it from the paragraph alone, reason for change, a cost breakdown across materials, labor, sub, equipment and overhead, and a schedule-impact line. Long forms do not get signed, so it stays on one page.
P. 07
A do and do-not table for giving things away and getting credit for it. Full retail rather than cost, shown weekly in the same place rather than once in month four, written as a value rather than a discount so it does not invite negotiation on the price.
P. 08
A change order is a contract amendment and is governed by the same payment rules as the original contract. Covers the California deposit cap under §7159.5 and what front-loading means, with instructions to confirm the rule in your own state.
P. 09
The specific givens that show up on nearly every residential job: while-you’re-here adjacency, extra cleanup and haul-off, salvage and re-stacking, design revisions. Each with the wording that handles it and the one genuine discount that is true enough to be persuasive.
Preview
Spreads from the 10-page file you get.
Who wrote this
@joserojasbuilds
Jose still builds. These guides are written out of jobs that were actually run, which is why the details are unglamorous: gate widths, dumpster tonnage caps, and the sentence you say when a homeowner asks for a number while you are standing in the dirt.
This is for you if
This is not for you if
Before you give us your email
It does if it arrives in week four as a confrontation. It does not if you name the process casually in week one and use the same sentence whether the item is worth $200 or $20,000. Script 5 on page 4 is specifically for the request you want to gift: you still gift it, you just put it on the change order at no charge with the value shown.
You do still handle it. The difference is that it gets a number next to it. The ledger on page 7 exists because the contractors who protect their margin best are not the ones who say no most often, they are the ones who give away plenty and get visible credit for it.
No, and the guide says so on page 6. It is a starting structure, not a legal document. What makes an amendment enforceable, and what notices it needs, varies by state. Have your attorney adapt it to your contract and your jurisdiction before you use it.
10 pages · Free · PDF
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