A proposal for Jon at Standley Design and Build.
When we sat down, the thing that struck me was how much of the business you're holding in your head. You know which leads need chasing, where every job has got to and what each one is worth, but that knowledge is mostly in your head rather than written down anywhere. The tools you've got are each holding a piece of it and none of them talk to each other, so you end up being the thing that joins them up.
That's got you a long way and the pipeline speaks for itself. The difficulty is growing past it, because at the moment nothing moves unless you're the one moving it.
Here is what I saw when you walked me through it:
| What slows you down | What it looks like today |
|---|---|
| Producing quotes | The meeting goes well, then the quote is hours of typing. You told me this is the hardest part of the week. |
| Copying between tools | You dictate to Claude, copy the result, then retype it into a HubSpot template. |
| Leads that will not go away | Disqualified leads keep reappearing in your task list. You tick them off and they come back. |
| Knowing who to chase | No single view of how old a lead is, whether you have contacted them, or who is worth a call today. |
| Planning decision dates | You want to quote during the eight week wait so work can start the day approval lands. Right now those dates live in your head. |
| Too many screens | HubSpot, Buildertrend, WhatsApp, Gmail, Drive, spreadsheets and Claude. You moved between all of them in an hour. |
| Finding things | Four clicks to see a photo in Buildertrend. No reliable way to know which drawing is the latest. Finding previously sent documents and WhatsApp conversations. |
None of this is a criticism of the tools. HubSpot is good at leads. Buildertrend is good at giving customers a view of their project. The problem is that nothing talks to anything else, so you are the part that carries information between them.
Small phases. Each one has to be useful on its own before we start the next.
I am not going to try to replace everything at once. That is how these projects end up taking eight months and getting abandoned. We build the one thing that saves you the most time, get it working, and then decide together what comes next.
One place to run the business, and the quote tool inside it. This is the part that saves you the most time immediately.
| What you get | What it does |
|---|---|
| Voice to quote | You talk into your phone after a meeting. The system writes up the job, you set the total, and it produces the itemised quote as a branded PDF. |
| The board | One screen showing every job and what stage it is at. Drag a job across as it moves. |
| The job record | Click any job to see everything about it in one place. Notes, files, history, quotes. |
Two minutes in the car. The same way you already talk to Claude.
YouPulls out the customer, address, job type, what they want and the planning position.
AutomaticCorrect anything misheard, then type the number the job should come to.
YouSplits your number across the trades, following the pattern in your own past quotes.
AutomaticBranded PDF ready to send. The job appears on the board with everything attached.
AutomaticNothing sends without you. Every quote waits for you to look at it. Ten minutes of checking instead of an evening of typing.
You finish a meeting and sit in the car. You navigate to our tool on your phone, press record, and talk for two minutes the way you already talk to Claude. Loft conversion, L shaped, side return, address, what they want, what they said about budget.
You stop. A few seconds later the screen shows the job written up properly: the customer, the address, the type of work, the list of what is included, the planning position and the next step. Anything it has misheard you correct there and then.
You type in the number the job should come to. The system breaks that number down across the trades the way your existing quotes do it, using your own past quotes as the pattern, and shows you the itemised list. You adjust anything you want to adjust.
You press generate and get your quote as a branded PDF, ready to send. The whole thing is on the job record from that moment on.
The important part: you set the price. The system never guesses what a job is worth. It only does the breaking down and the typing, which is the bit that takes you hours.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Site set up and preliminaries | £9,600 |
| Scaffolding | £4,800 |
| Strip out and structural opening | £11,400 |
| Steels and structural works | £14,400 |
| Dormer construction and roofing | £21,600 |
| Staircase and first fix carpentry | £10,800 |
| Electrics | £7,200 |
| Plumbing and en-suite installation | £12,000 |
| Plastering | £8,400 |
| Second fix, decoration and snagging | £13,200 |
| Building control and certification | £6,600 |
| Total, excluding VAT | £120,000 |
The split comes from your quotes. Trained on fifteen to twenty of your real ones, per job type. A loft splits differently to a refurb.
Change anything. Move a figure and the rest rebalances, or lock a line and redistribute the remainder.
Nothing is invented. Anything you did not say is left blank rather than guessed, so you can see what is missing.
One screen with every live job on it, arranged by what stage it is at, in your stages: lead, contacted, qualified, architectural package sold, drawings, planning submitted, awaiting decision, technical, quote issued, deposit paid, on site, complete. We will use whatever names you actually use for consistency.
Each job shows the customer, the address, the value and how long it has been sitting there. You drag it across as it moves. Click into any job and everything about it is on one page.
It works on a laptop and on your phone. Save it to your home screen and it behaves like an app, without needing anything from the App Store. If we decide to build an app, that would be extracted to an additional scope of work.
Blue means it needs you. One colour, one meaning. Uncontacted leads, quotes going cold, planning about to land. Everything else stays quiet.
Decision dates are on the card. You can see what is about to be approved and get the quote out during the eight week wait.
Your name on it. Your logo, your colours. Nothing on this screen says anyone else's brand.
These are all things you raised, and they are all worth doing. They are not in the first build because I would rather get the quoting working and in your hands quickly.
| Phase | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Phase 2 | WhatsApp conversations pulled into the job record. Emails and drawings filed automatically, with the newest drawing always marked. Lead ageing and planning decision dates on the board. |
| Phase 3 | A customer login so your clients see photos, progress and documents under your name. A simple app for contractors to upload site photos, which can then trigger stage payments. |
HubSpot stays. Your Meta leads land there and it works. Replacing it in the first build would double the length of the project for no immediate gain. Once the new system is proven, we can look at whether HubSpot is still earning its keep.
Buildertrend stays. Your customers are using it on live jobs and pulling them off it mid project would not be fair on them. Phase 3 gives you your own customer view, at which point you can decide.
WhatsApp integration comes in phase 2.
Phase 1 is four to five weeks of build time from the point I have what I need from you.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Scoping, this document and the designs | No charge |
| Phase 1 build, 20 to 25 working days | £10,000 fixed |
| Fixing anything broken in the first 30 days | No charge |
| Hosting and running costs after launch | £40 per month |
| Later phases | Scoped and priced separately, only if you want them |
There is no monthly fee for new features and no retainer. When you want something added, we scope it, I price it, you decide. If you never want anything else, you pay £40 a month for hosting and that is it. Of course you can host yourself if preferred.
The £40 a month covers keeping it online, backed up and secure. If something I built breaks, I fix it.
You have offered to settle this against the building work rather than paying cash, and that works for me. Before Phase 1 starts a contract between us both is to be written up. I am happy to do this if preferred.
To start, and nothing here is urgent beyond the first two: