A proposal for Jon at Standley Design and Build. Revision B, updated after going through your quotes, roadmaps and HubSpot.
You sent over the quotes, the roadmaps, the QS estimates and access to HubSpot. Going through all of it changed my mind about several things, so this version corrects them rather than quietly building something different from what I described.
Four things I got wrong or did not know:
| What I said | What is actually true |
|---|---|
| You would type a total and the system would split it across the trades | You do not price that way. Your quotes are eight items and seven of them are the same figures every time. Only the build cost moves. That makes the quote tool simpler than I planned, not harder. |
| The board would show one pipeline | You run two products side by side. Architectural packages at around £2,000 to £3,700, and builds at £43,000 to £187,000. They are mixed together in HubSpot, which is a large part of why 68 jobs are sitting in one column. |
| Pocket's output was the starting point | Pocket mishears building words. In four minutes it turned steels into "spills" and Crittall doors into "crater doors". Anything built on top of it needs a correction step first, or priced items quietly disappear. |
These came out of looking at HubSpot and none of them need software.
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, and what the CRM confirmed afterwards:
| 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. |
| Two products in one column | 68 jobs sit in Qualification. Some are £3,499 fee proposals and some are £187,000 builds, in the same column with the same treatment. |
| Knowing who to chase | No single view of how old a job 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. There is no field for that date anywhere in HubSpot. |
| 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, with the quote tool inside it, writing back to HubSpot so you only keep one thing up to date.
| What you get | What it does |
|---|---|
| Voice to quote | You talk into your phone after a meeting. It writes the job up, you check it, and out comes your quote in your own format, branded, ready to send. |
| Your building words, corrected | A step that knows Crittall, steels, first fix, skim, dormer, tanked, PC sum. It fixes what the recording mishears before anything else happens. |
| The board | One screen showing every job and what stage it is at, with builds and architectural packages kept apart. |
| The job record | Click any job to see everything about it in one place. Notes, files, history, documents sent. |
| Writes back to HubSpot | Move a job on the board and HubSpot updates. Send a quote and the job moves itself. You stop keeping two systems in step by hand. |
Two minutes in the car. The same way you already talk to Claude.
YouBuilding words corrected first, then the customer, address, work, and planning position pulled out.
AutomaticFix anything misheard. Set the one figure that changes job to job.
YouYour standard items and allowances, your wording, your terms, your letterhead.
AutomaticBranded PDF ready to go. The job moves to the right stage on the board and in HubSpot on its own.
AutomaticNothing sends without you. Every quote waits for you to look at it. Ten minutes of checking instead of an evening of typing.
Sending it is the status. You never update a stage by hand again, because sending the quote is what moves the job.
This is the part I have corrected. Looking at your Mayford Road quotes side by side, your quote is eight items, A to H, and seven of them carry the same figures in both. Prelims £5,000. Kitchen £4,000. Flooring £4,000. Bathroom £8,000. Glazing £4,000 to £6,000. Heating £3,000 to £5,000. Decorating £5,000 to £10,000.
The only line that moves between the two options is the build itself, £60,000 to £70,000 on one and £110,000 to £120,000 on the other. The total is simply those figures added up.
So the system does not need to work out your pricing. It holds your standard allowances, you set the build figure, and it assembles the document with your scope wording, your exclusions and your terms. If an allowance changes, you change it once and every quote after that uses the new one.
You set the price. Always. The system does the assembling and the typing, which is the bit that takes you the evening.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| A · Prelims | £5,000 |
| B · Extension build | £110,000 – £120,000 |
| C · Glazing | £4,000 – £6,000 |
| D · Kitchen installation | £4,000 |
| E · Flooring | £4,000 |
| F · Heating & plumbing | £3,000 – £5,000 |
| G · Decorating | £5,000 – £10,000 |
| H · Bathroom renovation | £8,000 |
| Total, indicative | £143,000 – £162,000 |
Seven of eight are your standards. Only line B changes job to job. Everything else is a figure you already reuse, held in one place.
It flags what needs confirming. You already write these notes by hand. When you say "need to check" in a meeting, it comes out as a list.
Crittall, not crater. Building words get corrected before anything is priced, so nothing quietly falls off the quote.
Your terms travel with it. Exclusions, client responsibilities and the 25, 50, 75, 100 payment structure come out on every document.
One screen with every live job on it, in your stages: Qualification, Appointment Booked, Architectural Drawings, High Level Quote, Formal Quote, Verbal Approval, Closed Won, Closed Lost. Those are the names already in your HubSpot, so nothing new to learn.
The change in this revision is that builds and architectural packages are separated. At the moment a £3,499 fee proposal and a £187,000 build sit in the same column and get treated the same, which is part of why that column has 68 jobs in it. On the board you can look at one, the other, or both.
Each job shows the customer, the address, the value and how long it has been sitting there. Drag it across as it moves and HubSpot updates behind it. Anything that appears in both pipelines gets flagged so you can see how much of that is going on.
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. A proper app would be a separate piece of work.
Builds and packages, kept apart. Switch between them or see both. A £3,499 fee proposal and a £187,000 build stop competing for the same attention.
Blue means it needs you. One colour, one meaning. Uncontacted, going cold, or waiting on your review.
Duplicates are flagged, not hidden. Where the same job sits in both pipelines, you can see it and decide what to do.
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 and the board working and in your hands quickly.
| Phase | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Phase 2 | The roadmap document generated from the same voice note, using your standard timings. WhatsApp conversations pulled into the job record. Emails and drawings filed automatically, with the newest drawing always marked. Statement of accounts generated for the weekly valuation, in the format you already use. |
| 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. The new system reads from it and writes stage changes back to it, but it does not replace it.
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.
The detailed QS estimates stay with TakeOff Technology. Those are hundreds of measured lines and they do that work well. What we build produces your own quote, which is the part you do yourself in the car.
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. The price has not changed from revision A. Taking the pricing calculation out saved about a week, and the HubSpot write-back and the word correction put about a week back in.
| 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.
Worth being clear about this because it is a step up from what revision A described. For the board to be the one place you keep up to date, it has to write to HubSpot, not just read from it. When you move a job, or send a quote, HubSpot changes.
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.
Everything I asked for has come in, so nothing is waiting on you before we can start. Here is what happens from here.
| What happens | Who | When |
|---|---|---|
| Read this and mark up anything that is wrong | You | This week |
| Short written agreement: what is being built, the fixed price, how we settle it against the building work, and whether the software ends up owned by me or by you | Either of us can draft it | Before anything starts |
| Build starts. You get a live link on day one and watch it fill up rather than waiting until the end | Me | Week 1 |
| Twenty minutes on the phone each week so you can see where it has got to and change your mind while it is still cheap to | Both of us | Weekly |
| You record a real voice note from a real meeting and we watch it come out as a quote. That is the test of whether it works | You | Around week 3 |
| Live. You use it on your next job instead of the old way | You | Week 5 |
| Anything broken gets fixed at no charge. After that we talk about whether phase 2 is worth doing | Me | First 30 days |
The only thing I need from you during the build is availability. Not much of it, but I will have questions, and a quick answer on WhatsApp beats a week of me guessing.