before I was really confident in my numbers was apologizing or prefacing a conversation with,

I know this is really expensive. If that's how you're going to lead into a conversation,

that's all that your clients are going to hold on to.

Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome back to Midweek Modern Craftsman,

where today's podcast recording is going to be a spinoff of our main podcast recording,

which was on Ballpark Pricing.

So it'll be my take on that, Sands Nick, how I integrate it into my systems, and how it works for me, how I use it as a tool for me.

So one of the most common questions that we get as builders often way too early in the process is what's this going to cost? What's your ballpark price? And that question can save you

hours or it can lock you into a number that you never should have agreed to. So today I'm going

to talk to you about how to answer that question without guessing, without apologizing, without putting

yourself in a corner before you even understand the full capacity of that project.

So the idea is to discuss ballpark pricing as a qualification tool.

Early on in the process, not a commitment.

So I hope that everyone had a good holiday break.

You took some time off.

Had a nice new year.

You are ready to dive into 2026 with tons of energy. I turned 40 on January 2nd, which leading up to it,

relatively apprehensive about turning 40. And I turned 40 and nothing really changed. I still the same I feel good mentally I feel well equipped to handle the next decade we didn't do too much I told my way I'm

I'm not a huge birthday person we're not huge party people so I just told my wife I wanted to

go out to dinner with her and our two daughters.

So we were sitting at dinner and we're talking about birthdays in the next decade and I was like,

next birthday, I'll be 50, which is insane. Like to think about that I'm 40 now that I'll be 50

...