Construction / Trades · Discovery Call
Discovery Call Questions for Construction / Trades: A 25-Minute Playbook That Gets Past "The Tags Are In The Truck"
Your prospect took this call between a pre-con meeting and a field walk. He's a VP of Operations or a General Superintendent, he's got a phone that rings every four minutes with a super asking where the man-lift is, and he has already sat through two vendor pitches this year that opened with a logo slide. He booked you because something specific is bleeding — probably change work that never got billed, probably a job that came in three points under bid margin and nobody can say exactly why.
He will hand you the surface symptom in the first ninety seconds: "our field paperwork is a mess." That's worth nothing. Underneath it is the mechanism — the foreman writes the extra work on a T&M tag Tuesday, the tag rides on the dash of an F-250 until Friday, the PM writes the COR the following Wednesday, and the owner's rep says "first I'm hearing of it." Under that is the cost: unapproved change orders sitting as a percentage of contract value, days from field work performed to COR submitted running north of a week, DSO at 60–75 while payroll runs every Friday. And under that is the stake: what the Project Executive told the CFO at the last WIP review, and what happens at the next one.
This playbook is a hard 25-minute structure for getting to layer three or four before minute sixteen, with the exact language to use out loud. Do not demo. Do not say the word "platform" unless he says it first — he's probably already bought one, rolled it out, and watched adoption die inside a quarter. Your job is to diagnose, quantify, understand how a purchase actually gets approved in a shop where the owner still signs the checks, and leave with a dated next step that both of you said out loud.
The discovery call script
Say it in your own words. The structure is the part that matters.
- 1
Before you dial — write the clock on your notepad
0:00–2:00 Frame. 2:00–16:00 Diagnose. 16:00–20:00 Path. 20:00–23:00 Relevance, 90 seconds max. 23:00–25:00 Dated next step. Also write these three words at the top: TAG. FADE. WIP. If you get through the call without hearing all three, you stayed on the surface. And write this reminder: three follow-ups per thread before you change subject. Most reps ask one and end up with eight symptoms and zero mechanisms.
- 2
0:00–2:00 — The frame (do not re-pitch)
"Thanks for clearing the time — I know Tuesdays are usually a walk day for you. When we talked last week you said something I wrote down: [their exact phrase — e.g. 'we find out about the change work at the WIP meeting']. That's the only thing I want to dig into today. Here's how I'd like to run it. I'm going to ask questions for the first fifteen minutes or so. I'm not going to show you anything, because I'd rather tell you flat out this isn't a fit than burn a demo slot on something that doesn't touch your problem. Fair? Still good for twenty-five? And is there anything you want to make sure we get to, so I don't run us out of time?"
- 3
2:00–6:00 — Layer 1 to Layer 2: get the mechanism
Open the thread with one question. Not five. "Walk me through how extra work gets from the field to a COR today. Start with the foreman noticing the work isn't in his scope, and take me all the way to it landing in front of the owner's rep." Then shut up and let him narrate. When he stops, three follow-ups: • "Walk me through the last time that actually broke. Which job, and what happened?" • "Who physically carries that piece of paper — the foreman, the super, or does the PM come get it?" • "Where does it sit between the field and the accounting system? Is anybody re-keying it?" If he says "we've got a process for that," the follow-up is: "On paper, sure. On the [name a job he mentioned] job — did it run that way?" What you're listening for: the number of hands the tag touches, whether anyone signs it in the field, and whether the GC's superintendent acknowledges the work the day it happens or three weeks later.
- 4
6:00–11:00 — Layer 3: the cost, and then "how do you know?"
"Roughly, how many days from the extra work getting performed to a COR sitting in front of the owner's rep? Best case and typical." [Let him answer. Then:] "And on a job that's, say, four million self-perform — what does the unapproved change order number look like at any given time? As a percent of contract value, if you track it that way." [Then the beat that separates you from every other rep:] "How do you know? Is that off the WIP, or is that your gut?" If he says gut — that's a finding, not a dead end. Say so out loud: "That's actually the thing I'd want to nail down. If nobody can prove which jobs it's happening on until month end, then the number could be twice what you think and you'd have no way to know." Follow the fade thread the same way: • "Last twelve months — how many points of gross margin fade, bid to as-built, across the book?" • "When a job fades three points, what's the split — real labor hours against unbilled scope, backcharges, or rework?" • "At the postmortem, who ends up holding the bag? The PM or the super?" Then count to three after he answers. Do not fill it.
- 5
11:00–16:00 — Layer 4: the stake, whose number this is
"Whose number does that fade show up in? Yours, or does it land on the Project Executive?" "Who else in the building is complaining about this — is the CFO seeing it in DSO and retainage, or is it still an ops conversation?" "What did you tell ownership you'd have fixed by when? Was there a number attached?" "If it's still running exactly like this next spring, when you're closing out the [job he named] — what's the conversation you're having?" The question that gets the political answer: "Is there anybody internally who thinks this isn't a real problem?" That one usually surfaces the PM who's protecting his own numbers, or the owner's brother-in-law who runs field ops.
- 6
Minute 6 trap — "So what is it you guys actually do?"
Thirty seconds, tied to what he just said, then hand the ball back: "Short version — it's a way for a foreman to get a T&M tag off the jobsite the same day, with the GC super's signature on it, in under a minute with gloves on. So [the PM he named] isn't reconstructing it Friday from memory. But I'd be guessing at whether that matters to you until I understand one thing: on the jobs where the tags do come in on time, is it the foreman or the super driving that?" If he pushes a second time, give him a clean sixty seconds, then: "Can I go back to the thing you said about the drywall crew? That's the part I'm not clear on." Almost everyone lets you.
- 7
16:00–20:00 — Qualify the path (not BANT, consequence)
"Say you decided this was worth doing. What actually happens next in your shop — who gets pulled in? Does the CFO have to bless it, or is this your call up to a number?" "Have you tried to fix this before? What did you buy and what happened to it?" — then the real question — "What did the guys stop doing first, the daily report or the change tickets? And how many weeks in?" "What's forcing the timing? Is it a specific job closing out, an insurance renewal, the audit, a new controller?" "Is this a line item that already exists in general conditions or overhead, or does one have to get created?" "And honestly — what happens if you just keep running it the way you run it now? Is that survivable?" If nothing is forcing the timeline and the answer to the last one is "we'd be fine," you have a pleasant conversation, not a deal. Say so in the CRM.
- 8
20:00–23:00 — Targeted relevance, 90 seconds, only what he raised
"I'll show you one thing and then we'll figure out next steps. You said the drywall thing — eight guys promised, four show, and nobody tells the super until 7:15. The piece that matters there isn't the notification, it's that six months later when the GC comes at you with a schedule claim, there's a timestamped record of manpower on site by day and by trade. That's the document that ends the argument. Same mechanic on the T&M tags: the foreman's photo, the hours, the GC super's signature, timestamped, in the office before he's off the ladder. So when the owner's rep says 'first I'm hearing of it,' you've got the date he signed it. That's it — that's the whole idea. Which of those two is the bigger fire for you right now?"
- 9
23:00–25:00 — Playback, then the dated next step
Playback in three sentences, his words: "Let me make sure I've got this. Extra work gets done, the tag rides in the truck, and it's eight or nine days before a COR is in front of the owner's rep — so you're negotiating from memory and getting it cut. You think unapproved change orders are running two to three percent of contract value but the honest answer is it's not visible until the WIP review. And the pressure is coming from your CFO because DSO's sitting around seventy days while payroll runs Friday. Did I miss anything, or get anything wrong?" [Wait. This is where the last hidden detail falls out.] Then prescribe: "Based on that, the useful next thing isn't a demo for you — it's forty-five minutes with you, Danny [the General Superintendent he named], and whoever owns the WIP, where I walk the exact path a T&M tag takes on the hospital job and show you where it gets caught. Not the general tour. I've got Tuesday at 6:30am before your huddle, or Thursday at 4. Which one? And bring one thing: the last COR that got negotiated down. I want to look at the dates on it." Send the invite before you hang up. Confirm out loud who's on it.
- 10
What goes in the CRM — his words, not yours
Bad: "Prospect has change order documentation inefficiencies." Good: "'I've got a foreman in Bakersfield with four months of tags in a milk crate behind his seat. Found it when the truck got totaled.' — Says fade on the Mercy job was 9 to 3 points, blames it on backcharges but admits no field record to fight them with. CFO (Renee) raised DSO at the last WIP meeting. Bought a platform in 2022, supers quit doing daily reports 'about five weeks in.' Owner signs anything over $15K. Next call Thurs 4pm w/ Danny (Gen Super) + Renee, reviewing the Mercy COR log."
How the call actually sounds
Prospect on the left, the rep on the right.
Rep
Thanks for making the time. When we talked, you said you find out about the change work at the WIP meeting, not when it happens. That's the only thing I want to dig into today. I'll ask questions for about fifteen minutes and I'm not going to show you anything — I'd rather tell you this isn't a fit than waste your morning. Still good for twenty-five?
Buyer
I've got maybe twenty. Look, I'll save you some time — we've been down this road. We bought a system in 2022, spent eleven grand on it, and my foremen used it for about a month. So if this is another app for the field, I'm probably not your guy.
Rep
That's useful, actually. What did they stop doing first — the daily reports or the change tickets?
Buyer
Dailies. Dailies went first. The change tickets limped along a little longer because the PMs were on them about it. But by, I don't know, five or six weeks in, it was back to paper and text messages.
Rep
Walk me through what a change ticket looks like now, then. Start with the foreman standing there realizing the work isn't in his scope, and take me to it being in front of the owner's rep.
Buyer
Foreman writes it on a T&M tag. Hopefully gets the GC's super to sign it, which is maybe half the time. Tag goes in the truck. Comes to the office when he comes to the office — Friday, usually, sometimes not. PM writes the COR, sends it up. That's it.
Rep
How many days is that, typically? Field work performed to COR in front of the owner's rep.
Buyer
Depends on the job. Week, maybe ten days. On the good jobs it's faster.
Rep
And on the bad ones?
Buyer
… We found four months of tags in a foreman's truck last year. Milk crate behind the seat. Only found them because he got rear-ended and we cleaned the truck out.
Rep
What was in the crate, dollar-wise?
Buyer
We billed some of it. Most of it we ate — you can't go to an owner's rep in October with a tag from June, he'll laugh at you. Call it sixty grand? On a four-and-a-half million dollar job. And that's one truck, one guy, one job I happen to know about.
Rep
That's what I want to ask about. Across the book right now — unapproved change orders as a percent of contract value — what's the number?
Buyer
I don't have that in front of me.
Rep
Could anybody get it to you today?
Buyer
Not today. Controller could probably build it off the WIP by end of month. Which is sort of the whole problem, isn't it — I'm running a fifty-million-dollar backlog off numbers that are six weeks old.
Rep
… [three seconds] Whose number is that when it goes bad? Yours, or does it land on the Project Executive?
Buyer
It lands on me. I told our CFO in January we'd hold fade under a point and a half across the book. We're not going to. Mercy came in at three points under bid margin and I still can't tell her with a straight face whether that was backcharges or unbilled T&M, because there's no field record to point at. The PM says one thing, my general super says another, and I'm in the middle refereeing.
Rep
So if I hear you — the fade is real, the cause is genuinely unknown, and the reason it's unknown is there's no timestamped field record. It's not a reporting problem, it's an evidence problem.
Buyer
Yeah. That's fair. But I'll tell you right now, my answer to that can't be 'make the foremen fill out more stuff.' I've got guys in their fifties running my best crews who won't touch a phone, and I'm not losing them over software.
Rep
Agreed — and I wouldn't roll it out to them. Here's what I'd propose instead. Forty-five minutes, you, your general super, and whoever owns the WIP. I walk the exact path a T&M tag took on Mercy and show you where the evidence should have been captured. Then you decide whether it's worth running on one job with two foremen — one who's fine with a phone and one who's your loudest holdout. Thursday at 4, or Tuesday before your 6:30 huddle?
Buyer
Thursday. Bring something for the CFO too, she'll ask about DSO. And I want to know what happens when the GC makes us use their system — I'm not running two.
Rep
Noted, both. Sending the invite now — you, Danny, and Renee, forty-five minutes, and the ask is you pull the last COR that got negotiated down so we can look at the dates on it. I'll answer the two-systems question first thing.
Objections you will hear
What they say, and what you say back.
| Objection | How to answer it |
|---|---|
| “My foremen won't use another app. Half of them hate smartphones.” | Then don't roll it out to all of them. Pick two — one who's fine with a phone and one who's your loudest holdout — and run it on one job for three weeks. If the holdout can't do it in under a minute with gloves on, we've learned something cheap and you've spent nothing. The test isn't whether he likes it. The test is whether the T&M tag gets to your office the same day. |
| “Margins are single digit. Software is a luxury line item.” | Agreed, which is why I'd rather talk about the unbilled work than the subscription. What's your honest guess on change work performed last year that never got billed, or got negotiated down because the paperwork was late? Self-perform contractors your size tend to land somewhere between two and five hundred thousand when they actually go count it. If it's a tenth of that, this pays for itself on one job — and you cancel it if it doesn't. |
| “We already bought a platform. Nobody uses it. I'm not doing that again.” | Fair — and I'd bet the rollout was 'here's the login, here's a training deck, see you at the safety meeting.' What did they stop doing first, the daily report or the change tickets? I'm asking because if the answer is 'both, in about five weeks,' we should figure out whether this is even a software problem or whether your supers were never actually held to it. If it's the second one, I'll tell you and I'll go away. |
| “Talk to my PMs, they handle the field paperwork.” | Happy to, and I will. But your PMs will optimize for their own jobs, and you're the one looking at fade across the whole book. The question I'd want answered before you hand me off is whether unbilled change work is a two-job problem or an every-job problem. Your PMs won't tell you that — the WIP will. |
| “Our backlog is booked through next year. We're too busy to implement anything right now.” | That's exactly when the leaks are worst — busy is when the tags stay in the truck, because the foreman's covering two jobs and doesn't come to the office. I'm not asking for an implementation. I'm asking for one job and one foreman. If you're too busy for that, then you're genuinely too busy, and I'll call you when the fall jobs close out and you're doing postmortems. |
| “We do this in the accounting system already. It's all in there.” | It's in there eventually — the question is when. If the tag hits accounting Friday instead of Tuesday, you're billing three days late and arguing from memory. Honestly, how long from the extra work happening in the field to a COR in front of the owner's rep? If it's more than a week, you're negotiating from a weak position every single time, and that shows up as fade, not as a data problem. |
| “The GC makes us use their system on that job. I'm not running two.” | You'll run two either way — their system is for their record, not yours. Your guys are already double-entering into a spiral notebook and a text thread. The version I care about is the one that documents your labor hours and your manpower counts when there's a backcharge fight at closeout, because their platform will not be on your side that day. |
Questions reps ask about this call
- What are the best discovery call questions for construction and trades buyers?
The ones that force a narrative, not a rating. Start with "Walk me through how extra work gets from the field to a COR today — start with the foreman realizing it's out of scope." Then follow up three times before changing subject: "Walk me through the last time that broke, which job?", "Who physically carries the tag?", and "How many days, field work performed to COR submitted?" Then ask "How do you know?" — if the answer is gut feel rather than the WIP, you've found the real problem, which is that the leak is invisible until month end.
- How do I get a General Superintendent or VP of Operations past the surface answer?
Ask for a specific job, not a general process. "On paper, sure — but on the Mercy job, did it run that way?" Supers and ops leaders talk in jobs, crews and dates, not in workflows. And use silence: after they say something heavy — a number, a name, a fight with the GC — count to three. The sentence that follows the pause is usually the one about who's exposed, whether that's the Project Executive, the CFO, or them.
- Which metrics should I actually quantify on a construction discovery call?
Four, and you don't need all four. Days from field work performed to COR submitted — the single cleanest proxy for whether change work gets billed at full value. Unapproved change orders as a percentage of contract value. Gross margin fade in points, bid margin versus as-built. And DSO plus retainage outstanding, which is the CFO's or Controller's language, not the field's. Get one number and one "how do you know?" and you have a business case. Get eight symptoms and you have nothing.
- They already bought a platform and adoption died. Is the deal dead?
No — it's your best qualifying question. Ask what they stopped doing first, the daily report or the change tickets, and how many weeks in. If dailies died first and change tickets limped, the field will tolerate a tool that touches money and won't tolerate one that only feeds the office. That tells you exactly how to scope the pilot: two foremen, one job, three weeks, and the only success metric is whether the T&M tag reaches the office the same day.
- How do I handle it when a Senior Project Manager or Project Executive tries to hand me off?
Take the handoff, but set a question first. "Happy to talk to your PMs, and I will. But they'll optimize for their own jobs and you're the one looking at fade across the book — before you hand me off, is unbilled change work a two-job problem or an every-job problem?" That reframes you as diagnosing their book rather than prospecting their org chart, and it usually keeps the ops leader on the next call instead of exiting the deal.
- What's a good next step to close a construction discovery call with?
Never "I'll send some information." Prescribe a named session: 45 minutes with the ops leader, the General Superintendent they named, and whoever owns the WIP, walking the exact path a T&M tag took on a specific job — not a product tour. Give two times, one of them early enough to sit before the morning huddle. And attach a homework item that makes the next call concrete: bring the last COR that got negotiated down, so you can look at the dates on it together.