09/07/2026
Early on — right around the time I was having my wake-up call about
pricing — my wife was doing the books and the collections. She had no
exposure to the construction industry whatsoever. And she thought the
way we were expected to wait for our money was ridiculous.
Pay-when-paid appalled her. "We provide a service," she'd say. "We
should be paid on time like any other service or goods provider." I
agreed with her, of course. I'd also been indoctrinated into the
practice for so long that I couldn't see it plainly anymore. So I
took a sideline approach and watched it play out.
# # It took an outsider
That's the part I keep coming back to. Everybody in this trade
accepts the terms because everybody in this trade accepts the terms.
It took someone the industry had never gotten its hands on to look
at it and say the obvious thing out loud.
She hammered out the terms with every new customer. She was the
gatekeeper — nobody got to me until they'd satisfied her first. And
as long as I made sure we delivered a premium service, the new
clients came around quickly and we held them to it. The established
clientele was another story. Turning that ship around took years.
Today every proposal we send states it plainly: all invoices are
date-certain terms. My company will not sign an agreement with
pay-when-paid processing. Every negotiation starts there, at square
one.
# # "That's not negotiable"
Clients are reluctant at first. Most will say, "Oh no, we can't agree
to those terms. That's not negotiable." Trust me — they'll all make
exceptions once they're convinced you're the best outfit for the job.
When they see they're getting the service they need, they accept and,
honestly, they're happy to comply.
Because think about who the standard terms are really for. Either
the GC who expects the subcontractor to finance the entire project —
or the GC protecting the project from a sub they can't be sure will
perform. I don't want to work for the first one, and I'm certainly
not in the company of the second.
# # The fair side of it
I'll give the other side its due, because the trepidation is real. A
contractor doesn't want a sub ahead of them on payments who then
underperforms, or can't deliver, and leaves them holding the bag.
That's a valid concern. Personally, I think I've earned that trust
with a demonstrably unblemished history — but I understand that a new
client doesn't know that yet.
So I tell them it's a leap of faith, and I lay out how it actually
runs. Give me a deposit and pay me on time, and yes, at the onset I'm
ahead. That's the price of committing my resources to your project.
At the end, you're holding my retainage — now you're ahead. And we
all know how that goes. Even my best customers get tight with that
retainage once they've got everything they need from me and I'm the
one standing there with my hand out.
Nobody is asking for the other guy's money. I'm asking to be paid for
the work, on the date we agreed, the way every other business in the
world gets paid.
# # My two standard lines
I've said these so many times they might as well be on the letterhead:
"I am not a partner or a bank. I will not finance your project."
"It is no concern of mine whether you've been paid or not. Unless you
can say I haven't done the work, I expect to be paid as per our
agreement."
You'd be surprised how often that's the end of the discussion.
— Dean Davids
