You know that sinking feeling when you realize you've been chasing a project for three months — only to find out the owner already had a GC in mind before the architect even sharpened their pencil? Yeah — that one stings.

McKinsey put a number on it: 70-80% of a project's success is determined before construction even begins. Which means if you're showing up at the bid table hoping to compete on price alone, you've already lost.

The good news? There's a better way. And it doesn't require you to hire a fleet of estimators or mortgage your equipment yard.

It requires you to rethink when and how you engage with clients — and to finally kill that spreadsheet you've been nursing since 2014.

Four things that actually move the needle — none of which involve Excel macros:

1. Get Called Before the Architect

Here's the goal: you want clients calling you before they call the architect. Not after the drawings are 60% complete and they're panicking about budget. Before.

It's like ordering the steel before you've done the soil tests — sure, you might get lucky, but you're probably going to have an expensive problem on your hands. That's exactly what happens when owners dive into design without early GC involvement.

You stop being the guy who shows up with a bid and start being the guy they call when they're not sure the deal even makes sense. You're not just the team who builds what's on the drawings. You're the ones who can provide cost models during site selection, run feasibility studies before a single line is drawn, and offer constructability input from day zero.

This isn't about being pushy — it's about being valuable before the architect draws the first bathroom.

When you're involved at project inception, you can flag site issues before they become change orders. You can help owners understand what their budget will actually buy. You can save everyone — including yourself — months of wasted effort on a project that was never going to pencil out.

When you're involved early, you're not fighting for the work — you're already in the room.

2. Formalize Your Constructability Reviews

Every GC does some version of a constructability review. You look at the drawings, you mutter something about the mechanical room being too small, you fire off an RFI (probably to the same email thread from 2019), and you move on.

But there's a difference between informal feedback and structured deliverables.

Formalized constructability reviews — conducted at the 30%, 60%, and 90% design milestones — turn your expertise into something you can actually point to. You're not just complaining about the drawings. You're documenting issues, proposing alternatives, and tracking resolutions.

The Construction Industry Institute has found that every $1 invested in constructability reviews returns $10-$20 in project savings. (Yes, those are CII numbers — they've held up for decades.) And when you skip this step entirely? Change orders can add 10-25% to the total contract value — and yes, that's the polite estimate.

Think of it like getting a home inspection before you buy. Sure, you could skip it and hope for the best. But when you discover the foundation is cracked six months in — that's a $40K lesson in why inspections exist.

Mid-market GCs think formal reviews are for the $50M jobs. Then they absorb a $90K change order and suddenly have time for documentation.

3. Embrace Collaborative Delivery Methods

Traditional hard-bid, lump-sum contracts have their place. But they're also inherently adversarial. The owner wants the lowest price. The GC wants to protect margin. The subs want to cover their risk. Everyone's incentivized to hold information close to the vest.

Collaborative delivery methods — like Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) or Construction Manager/General Contractor (CMGC) — get everyone pulling in the same direction. (Yes, collaborative delivery — the thing your bonding agent keeps trying to explain at the holiday mixer.) They formalize early GC involvement. They create a structure where everyone wins when the project succeeds.

It's like the difference between a pickup game where everyone's hunting for their shot and an actual team with plays — one's chaos, the other's how you actually win.

FMI research shows that effective preconstruction engagement leads to 40% higher client satisfaction. Projects with formal processes see 30% fewer cost overruns and 25% faster delivery. (That's the kind of data that gets you a seat at the owner's table — not a folding chair in the lobby.)

Those aren't marginal improvements. That's the difference between a profitable year and one where you're wondering where the work went.

Worth learning. The acronyms are ugly, but the margins aren't.

4. Kill the Spreadsheet (Use Purpose-Built Preconstruction Tools)

We need to talk about that spreadsheet.

You know the one. It started as a simple bid tracker. Then someone added a tab for estimating. Then another for client contacts. Then someone's nephew "fixed" the formulas, and now nobody trusts the numbers but everyone's afraid to start over. (Sound familiar? You're not alone.)

Here's the reality: GCs win only about 1 out of every 6 bids they pursue. That's a lot of effort spent on work you'll never build. And when you're managing that pipeline with a cobbled-together mess of spreadsheets, emails, and sticky notes — you're not just inefficient — you're leaving money on the table.

The math is simple. A 5% improvement in your bid-hit ratio can translate to an additional $160,000 in annual profit for a mid-market firm. That's a new hire. That's a skid steer. That's margin you can actually feel. (Or, if you prefer, that's roughly 1,600 mediocre job site lunches you didn't have to eat.)

Purpose-built preconstruction software doesn't just organize your bids — it enables everything else on this list. It gives you the data to have intelligent conversations with clients during site selection. It tracks your constructability reviews so they're actually useful. It helps you demonstrate the value you bring — which is exactly what collaborative delivery methods demand.

The spreadsheet was great when you had three active bids. But if you want to scale, you need tools that scale with you — tools that work the way your team actually works. There's a cost to disconnected tools, mind you, but that's where an integrated preconstruction platform comes in.

The Bottom Line

The construction industry is getting squeezed from every angle. Labor shortages (the AGC reports 94% of contractors struggle to fill positions), rising material costs, and increasingly complex projects mean that simply being "good at hitting schedule" isn't enough anymore.

The GCs who thrive in this environment will be the ones who shift upstream — who become indispensable before the first shovel hits dirt.

Get involved early. Document your reviews like they're going to court — because one day they might. Pursue contracts that reward collaboration. And upgrade your tools. (Your estimator will thank you. Possibly with actual words instead of a heavy sigh.)

McKinsey estimates that optimizing preconstruction can drive up to 35% in capital expenditure savings (the IT systems needed to boost efficiency and long-term value). That's not theory — that's the difference between guessing and knowing what you're walking into.

So ask yourself: what's that spreadsheet actually costing you? To read another blog on this topic, be sure to check out From Spreadsheets to Systems: 5 Ways GCs Use CRM to Win More (and Better) Work.

Buildr was built for exactly this kind of work. But that's a pitch for another time — and you've got bids to run.

Right now? Just make the first call. Everything else follows.