Work · 05 Design-build contractor · Engagement
A San Diego design-build contractor.
Design-build shops sell, design, estimate, permit, build, and warranty, with the same handful of people touching all of it. Leads arrive by phone, text, website, and referral. Jobs live in whoever’s head took the call. It works right up until it doesn’t.
- Client
- A design-build contractor in San Diego, California.
- Where
- Remote. On accounts the client owns.
- Engagement
- Paid discovery, then a fixed-scope build. Handed over with the option to operate it.
- Handoff
- Training for the team, plus a written fix-it guide.
- Support
- Optional, scoped and priced separately.
- Published
Play Operated AI systems Specification and discovery Context stewardship Adoption and training How an engagement runs
01 What the engagement covered
01
Lead intake
One intake path for inquiries, a pipeline with stages and owners, and acknowledgments and follow-ups that fire without anyone remembering.
02
Work management
A job pipeline on the client’s own account, from estimate through closeout, with the records and templates the office runs on.
03
Knowledge base
The pricing rules, process steps, and templates the team reaches for, organized so an assistant answers from them instead of guessing.
04
Adoption and handoff
A short written playbook to match the systems, training for the people who run them, and a fix-it guide for whoever is on duty when something stalls.
Phone, text, website and referral inquiries land on one intake path with stages and owners, where acknowledgments and follow-ups fire on their own. The job pipeline runs from estimate through closeout on the client's own account with its records and templates. A knowledge base holds the pricing rules, process steps and templates so an assistant answers from them. A short written playbook, training for the people who run it, and a fix-it guide sit under all three.
The pattern Why it worked
Systems in the client’s accounts. A document the team will open. A guide for the bad day.
The same shape fits most owner-run businesses past the spreadsheet stage: one intake path, one place work lives, one written version of how it runs, and a handoff that works whether or not I stay to operate it.
Sound like your shop?
Thirty minutes, no prep. Bring the thing that is slow.