The Construction Leading Edge Podcast

Construction business owners doing $1M–$20M: fix your preconstruction and handoffs so you can stop firefighting and build a profitable business that runs without you. For custom home builders, remodelers, commercial GCs, and trade contractors, this podcast shows you how to design a real preconstruction process and nail the handoff from office to field. If your projects are slipping, profit is bleeding out through rework and giveaways, and everything lives in your head, you'll get practical systems to tighten precon, cut chaos, and turn your construction business into a more profitable, controllable machine that runs without you. Over time, you'll use what you hear on this show to: ✅ Buy back your time– spend less of your week in day‑to‑day fires and more of it leading, selling, and actually living your life. ✅ Maximize your profit from the work you already do instead of just grinding for more volume. ✅ Scale with confidence – grow the business without doubling your hours or

The Construction Leading Edge Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Todd Dawalt, with 200 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Todd Dawalt hosts The Construction Leading Edge Podcast, a business show with 200 episodes published.

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  Episode #463

  Stop Putting Out Fires by Building a Real Pre-Construction Process | Ep. 463

  Sep 28, 202623 min

  On this rerun episode of the Construction Leading Edge podcast, custom home builder Eric Brownson sits down with our Director of Customer Success, Leyah Hostetter, to talk about how he used to wake up three hours behind, stuck in reactive mode and buried in daily firefighting. Here's how building a real pre-construction process changed how he runs his construction business. ⚡Schedule a Business Evaluation Call with The Construction Leading Edge Team: HERE For twenty years, Eric Brownson ran his construction business the way a lot of custom home builders do: as the backstop for everything, taking on all the work his crew could handle and waking up most mornings feeling three hours behind before his feet hit the floor. The days were reactive, the stress never let up, and he'd convinced himself that hair-on-fire pace was simply the cost of building high-end homes in the mountains of Colorado. A couple of realizations flipped how he saw the whole operation. First, he wasn't alone in it; builders everywhere were fighting the same fires. Second, and harder to swallow, the chaos traced back to one part of his business he'd spent decades treating as an afterthought: pre-construction. Naming that gap was one thing. Doing something about it is where this episode really opens up. Eric gets candid about what he had to let go of and what shifted once he put a real pre-construction process in front of his projects. If you're a custom home builder or remodeler stuck in reactive mode, starting jobs before scope and selections are fully dialed in, his story is a look at what's waiting on the other side. Hit play to hear how he's climbing out, in his own words. Key Takeaways: 00:00 Introducing Eric Brownson of Sweet Homes 01:26 Business Evaluation Call 03:58 Eric's Background and Business 06:18 Waking Up Three Hours Behind 08:20 Thinking You Live on an Island 10:26 Belay: Reclaim Your Time 12:02 The Pre-Construction Light Bulb 15:54 Clients Motivated to Make Selections Early 18:00 How the Team Responded 19:00 Handing Off Project Management 20:42 Mornings Are Back Additional Resources: ⚡Get started with Belay Solutions: HERE ⚡Follow us on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn. ⚡Subscribe to our YouTube channel. ⚡Visit The Construction Leading Edge for more information: https://constructionleadingedge.com/ The Construction Leading Edge Podcast helps construction business owners maximize their revenue, eliminate chaos, systematize their work, and win back their time. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode! #ConstructionBusiness #ContractorMindset #GeneralContractor #BuilderCEO #ConstructionSales #ConstructionLeadingEdge #ContractorGrowth

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  Episode #462

  Why Generic Business Coaching Never Works for Your Construction Company | Ep. 462

  Sep 21, 202617 min

  Kris Miller runs a commercial, multifamily, and residential construction company in Denver, and he is on his way to cutting his workweek from 80 hours down to 10. In this episode, he shares the construction business systems that got him moving, from a simple weekly client update to an accountability chart that finally put the right people in the right seats. ⚡Schedule a Business Evaluation Call with The Construction Leading Edge Team: HERE For years, Kris and his two partners treated the rough handoff between preconstruction and the field as just part of the job. They would get enough information to start a project, then spend the build tracking down answers they should have had on day one. It worked well enough, but it came with long hours and a steady stream of fires to put out. A few changes started to move the needle. The first was a weekly update his team now sends to every client, an idea so simple that Kris and his partner Mike wondered why they had not done it years earlier. The second was mapping their whole process onto a whiteboard and getting honest about who really belonged in each seat. Leyah and Kris get into what those shifts did for the team, and why the easiest one had the biggest effect on customer questions. Underneath the systems sits a bigger goal. Kris has already brought his own hours from 80 a week down to 40, and he is aiming for 10 by the end of the year. He talks about why he never bought into the grind, and what it felt like to take his first real trip since finishing the program. He is not all the way there yet, but he is close to running the company without being in the middle of every decision. If you are tired of running your construction business on guesswork and long hours, this conversation is worth your time. Let's get into it. Key Takeaways: 00:00 Introducing Chris Miller of KLM Construction 03:14 Life Before the Program 05:38 Construction Does Not Have to Be Chaotic 07:26 The Weekly Report That Killed Client Questions 09:28 Why Generic Business Coaches Failed Him 11:52 The Accountability Chart Light Bulb 13:06 Nailing the Handoff 14:08 From 80 Hours Down to 10 15:32 Done With the Work Work Work Mentality 16:14 Closing and Next Steps Additional Resources: ⚡Get started with Belay: HERE ⚡Follow us on Facebook, Instagram , LinkedIn. ⚡Subscribe to our YouTube channel. ⚡Visit The Construction Leading Edge for more information: https://constructionleadingedge.com/ The Construction Leading Edge Podcast helps construction business owners maximize their revenue, eliminate chaos, systematize their work, and win back their time. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

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  Episode #461

  How to Turn Customer & Employee Excuses Into Action | Ep. 461

  Sep 14, 202640 min

  Every construction business owner hears the same objections: now isn't a good time, this will take too long, and it's too big to tackle. In this episode, Todd Dawalt breaks down the three excuses that keep customers and employees from taking action, and the calibrated questions that get them to move. ⚡Schedule a Business Evaluation Call with The Construction Leading Edge Team: HERE If you run a construction company, you already know the moment. A prospect tells you now just isn't a good time, and the job stalls out and dies. Or you ask an employee to take on a new process and they say they don't have time, so the change never happens. Push too hard and they dig in. Back off and nothing moves. You can tell there's something underneath the excuse, but you can't quite name it, and you definitely can't get past it. In this episode, Todd Dawalt walks through the three excuses that show up again and again in the construction sales process and any time you try to get your team to change something. The catch is that these excuses don't sound like excuses when you're the one making them. They sound like facts. Todd breaks down the distortion of reality hiding behind each one, and the kind of questions that get the other person to inspect their own thinking rather than dig in and defend it. And there's one more place these excuses show up that hits a lot closer to home than most owners expect. If there's a decision you keep pushing to January, a hard conversation you keep putting off, or a project that feels too big to start, this one is for you. Give it a listen before your next sales call or team meeting, and see how many you catch yourself making. Key Takeaways: 00:00 The Excuse That Killed the Deal 01:20 Excuse 1: Now Is Not the Right Time 05:08 The Doctor and the Busy Schedule 06:04 Jedi Questions for the Timing Excuse 08:02 Excuse 2: It Is Going to Be Too Hard 10:12 Belay: Get Your Time Back 11:48 The Real Cost of Doing Nothing 13:20 Jedi Questions for the Inconvenience Excuse 14:02 Excuse 3: It Is Too Big to Tackle 16:44 The Mount Everest Problem 20:12 What Construction Business Owners Do to Themselves 22:36 Now Is Not the Right Time for You 26:02 This Is Going to Be Too Hard for You 29:18 This Is Too Big for You 33:24 Three Steps to Break the Pattern 38:46 Which Excuse Are You Using Most? Additional Resources: ⚡Get started with Belay: HERE ⚡Follow us on Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn ⚡Subscribe to our YouTube channel ⚡Visit The Construction Leading Edge for more information: https://constructionleadingedge.com/ The Construction Leading Edge Podcast helps construction business owners maximize their revenue, eliminate chaos, systematize their work, and win back their time. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

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  Episode #460

  Why Starting Projects Too Soon Is Killing Your Profit | Ep. 460

  Sep 7, 202634 min

  Todd Dawalt explains why starting construction projects before they're fully ready creates "dead days," the hidden overhead that bleeds profit out of your business. This episode breaks down the "just enough to start" trap and how a complete pre-construction handoff and buyout protect your schedule and margins. ⚡Schedule a Business Evaluation Call with The Construction Leading Edge Team: HERE Most construction companies are rewarded for movement. Everybody wants to see sawdust and smell diesel, so jobs kick off the moment there's "just enough to start." Todd Dawalt calls this the just enough to start trap, and it's where dead days come from: working days on an active project when real production could have happened but didn't. Nobody's doing billable work, yet your overhead keeps burning. On a company spending $2,000 a day just to exist, those hidden losses stack up fast. Here's the part most owners miss: a dead day shows up in production, but the cause almost always lives back in pre-construction, sometimes months before the job site ever goes quiet. Todd breaks down the five root causes of dead days and why the empty job site you're staring at was almost never created on the job site. Chasing the fix during production means barking up the wrong tree. The fix runs counter to instinct. Todd makes the case that starting sooner rarely means finishing sooner, then walks through what it takes to hand a job off complete, so your field team isn't finishing the planning while they build. He also shows why throwing more sales and more people at the problem only makes it worse as you grow. If your jobs start loose and finish late, this episode shows where that profit is going and what to change first. Key Takeaways: 00:00 Starting Sooner Is Why You Finish Late 01:00 What a Dead Day Costs You 07:26 Free Buyout Playbook 08:14 The Hidden Profit Bleed Nobody Tracks 09:50 Your Daily Overhead Burn Rate 15:38 Belay: Get Your Time Back 16:30 Stop Blaming Your Subs and Super 17:32 Five Root Causes of Dead Days 24:00 Start Slow to Finish Fast 24:54 Step 1: Finish Selections Before Handoff 25:50 Step 2: Buy Out Before Production Starts 26:40 Step 3: Own Pre-Construction Accountability 28:32 Why Growth Makes It Worse 32:28 Business Evaluation Call Additional Resources: ⚡Download the How to Buyout a Construction Project Playbook - HERE ⚡ Get started with Belay: HERE ⚡Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. ⚡Subscribe to our YouTube channel. ⚡Visit The Construction Leading Edge for more information: HERE The Construction Leading Edge Podcast helps construction business owners maximize their revenue, eliminate chaos, systematize their work, and win back their time. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

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  Episode #459

  How to Design Your Construction Business for Growth, Profit, and Freedom with Tom Raisanen | Ep. 459

  Aug 31, 202651 min

  Designing a construction business with the right systems and processes from day one is how you build for lasting profit and freedom. New Hampshire home builder Tom Raisanen shares how he set up pre-construction, project handoffs, a CEO schedule, and his first hire so the company can eventually run without him. ⚡Schedule a Business Evaluation Call with The Construction Leading Edge Team: HERE Here's how to build a construction business that runs without you, starting with the systems most owners wait too long to put in place. After 15 years in his family's construction business, Tom Raisanen struck out on his own and launched Raisanen Home Builders in Southern New Hampshire. Most builders chase projects first and deal with the business side once chaos and burnout force the issue. Tom built the systems and processes to grow before he hired anyone or broke ground on his first new home. On this episode, Todd Dawalt and Tom get specific about what that looked like. They dig into charging for pre-construction as a profit center, and why a paid process filters out tire-kickers and funds real planning. They break down nailing the handoff from estimating to the field, with drawings and selections locked in up front so the schedule doesn't stall. Tom explains why he gets every selection made before the build starts, and how carrying allowances sets builders up for change-order fights later. From there, they get into how Tom runs his week like a CEO, planning each day ahead so he does owner-level work instead of grabbing a hammer because it's the easy thing. He shares why a virtual assistant was his first hire and how she keeps him accountable to protected CEO time. Narrowing his focus to the Big Five keeps him out of the hundred-item to-do trap. If you want more control and fewer costly mistakes while you build a company that can eventually run without you, this one's worth your time. Key Takeaways: 00:00 Building the Business Right From the Start 02:28 Free Resources: Builder CEO and Buyout Playbook 06:16 Introducing Tom Risanen of Risanen Home Builders 09:34 Business Evaluation Call 12:06 Why Tom Built Systems Before Projects 15:22 One Estimating Mistake Can Cost You Everything 17:00 How Tom Started Charging for Pre-Construction 21:10 No More Free Estimates 22:26 Nailing the Pre-Construction Handoff 28:06 How to Get Clients to Make Selections on Time 30:28 The CEO Schedule and Staying in Your Lane 33:00 Why a VA Was the First Hire 37:46 The CEO Alliance and the Power of a Peer Group 43:08 Construction Does Not Have to Be Chaotic 47:28 One Piece of Advice Before You Make the Jump Additional Resources: ⚡Download the How to Buyout a Construction Project Playbook - HERE ⚡Builder CEO Weekly Operating System - HERE ⚡Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. ⚡Subscribe to our YouTube channel. ⚡Visit The Construction Leading Edge for more information: HERE The Construction Leading Edge Podcast helps construction business owners maximize their revenue, eliminate chaos, systematize their work, and win back their time. Follow us on your favorite podcasting platform so you never miss an episode!

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