1. Figure out who the masons are first

2. What is the next action to be taken?

- Look at the action taken & out of what the salesman offered up from the exchange what would be the next step?
- Find the likely champions for what you need to know?
- Who are the historic winners, how well  do you know your competition? 
- Get the short list of the decision makers? 

3. Price is always a driver / what is the second likely most important driver of this decision for this person? That means architects, contractors, and mason can have competing interests. Be of mind what their interest is? 

4. Hunting buddy’s, relatives and friends are a hard combination to beat. Opportunity exists when they are already over committed or are already busy on other projects. We need relationships that get us this kind of information, to have relationships we must have exchanges other than just business? This is why we add contact data all the time about the people we sell to. Wife names children hobbies anything that is their interest is fair game and personal. When you have a personal relationship it gets personal, keep it that way.

5. In commercial work you must be careful not to breech protocol with the masons. Confidential exchanges you get as a supplier should not be shared with competitors. Masons are also against your talking direct to the contractor. When you do this they resist giving you the work.

6. Commercially at some point you must align with the masons they are your best repeat customer in commercial work they lead.

7 Residentially bringing a mason to the contractors table early can be a positive; MAYBE?

This is a good example of a lesson plan to qualify the project and evaluate our potential of winning the job based on who the likely players are? Accept edits or offer hints to help others contribute to the overall intelligence we have on our customer base. Information we need to serve them well & thrive.

  •  Here we decide to GO / NO GO in approving the budget to go forward with the bid.

  •  We are spending money by committing our limited estimating resources to the task. 

  •  What is the provability ratio of getting the job? 

  •  How well do we know the players? 

  •  What are our strengths we can offer in their perspective what is valuable?

Overall, what is the score or percentage chance of us getting it? Our goal is to categorize it. Mold to stone is complex or easy? Who? Factory target dates available? 

RESULTS / Where are they?
- What value add information did this exchange offer? 
- What was recorded on the project? 
- What could we do that would better our chances of getting the job?