A while back I wrote about being the contractor an owner is relieved to draw - the twelve things that make a DOT engineer say we never have to worry about you guys.

A few of you wrote back and pointed out the obvious. That essay was about looking up. Most of the leverage in your company points the other direction.

So here's the other half. Same idea, flipped: what makes you the prime a good sub actually wants to work for.

And before anybody skips this because you self-perform most of your work — the best subs in your market have more work than they can take. They are choosing. Every year they sit down and decide whose jobs to chase and whose to price high enough that they hope they lose. You already have a number in that meeting. You just don't get to see it.

Here's how it gets set.

1. Pay them fast, and don't make it a personality trait

I've written before that paying on time is a secret weapon and I'll keep saying it. When a sub knows your check lands the same week every month, they price your work differently. Not because they like you - because their cost of money went down and their risk went down.

The version that actually matters is what happens when you haven't been paid. Most primes go quiet. Tell them. "Owner's slow on estimate seven, here's where it is, here's when I expect it." A sub who knows where they stand can manage. A sub who's guessing calls their bank.

2. Give them a schedule they can staff to

Not the bar chart. The real one - when do you need them, how many days, how many crews.

Then tell them the second it moves. A sub who finds out on Thursday that Monday moved has already committed people, and now he's eating that somewhere. Do it twice and you've taught him to pad your number. When you rain out, they are your second call.

3. Don't make them chase a change order

They did the work because you told them to. Now they're carrying it, and they're carrying it at your direction while you sort it out with the owner.

Own the timeline out loud. Tell them what you've submitted, when you expect an answer, and whether you're going to advance any of it. The worst version of this - and I've watched primes do it - is using the owner's slowness as free financing from a company a fraction of your size.

4. Never share someone’s pricing

Everybody in your market already knows if you do it.

You'll pick up a couple points on a job and lose the next three good numbers because the best subs quit giving you their sharp price. They'll still bid you. They'll bid you safe. You'll never see the money you left, because it shows up as jobs you didn't win.

5. Let their foreman talk to your foreman

Some primes route everything through the PM. It's tidy and it's slow.

The two people who actually know what's happening are standing forty feet apart. Let them solve it. You'll hear about it at the end of the day and it'll already be done.

6. Tell them once, directly, when they're wrong

If their crew is underperforming, say it to their face and say it clearly. That's respect.

What isn't respect is the email with six people copied. Now it's a record, now his people have seen it, and now you've turned a fixable problem into a defensive one. I've never once seen the group email work. I've seen the phone call work almost every time.

7. Back them when they're right

An inspector leans on your sub over something that's actually a plan issue. You know it. Everybody knows it.

The easy move is to stay out of it - it's not your scope, and it costs you nothing to let him fight it alone. That's the move he'll remember. Step in, and you've bought something you can't buy any other way.

8. Give them what you promised on site

Access. Laydown. A place to park. The pad ready when you said it'd be ready.

Small stuff, and it's the fastest way to lose somebody's respect, because a sub sitting there with a crew and no work front is doing math on you in real time.

9. Remember they have a WIP too

Their job with you is one column on a report somebody is going to grill them about. Retainage you're sitting on that they can't collect is cash they can't use to make payroll on the next one.

If you're holding money over a punch item that isn't theirs, you're financing your job with their balance sheet. Release what you can release.

10. Follow both the contract and the golden rule

Dot your i’s and cross your t’s. Notify and document. Require a bond where appropriate. Hold the standard high.

Remember that things happen that the contract doesn’t cover that involve you sticking your neck out for someone when it’s inconvenient and the right thing to do.

What this is really worth

None of this is charity, and I want to be clear about that, because "be nicer to your subs" is a sentiment and sentiments don't survive a bid day.

This is pricing.

A subcontractor's number to you has your reputation baked into it. Not as a line item - as a feel. How much contingency do I need on this one. Do I have to protect myself on the change orders. Will I get paid in thirty days or ninety. Am I going to be sitting on my hands in April waiting for a pad.

Every one of those questions has a dollar value, and the answers are already written before you send the invitation.

The prime everybody wants to work for gets sharper numbers on bid day, gets the phone call when a sub sees something wrong in the plans, and gets a crew moved to his job instead of somebody else's when it's tight in June. That's not goodwill. That's margin.

And it works the same way it works with owners: the deposits are small and the interest is enormous. Our market is small, everybody talks, and you're compounding it in one direction or the other whether you're paying attention or not.

Go ask your best sub what it's like to work for you. Not in a survey - on the phone, and mean it.

Then sit with the pause before they answer.

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