Two questions came up in a meeting this week that I haven’t been able to shake.
Are relationships becoming less important?
Is it increasingly just about price?
We spend a lot of time, energy, and money building relationships. Many times, we spend months, or even years, working through multiple rounds of drawings and budgets. Then we get to bid day, and it often comes down to the lowest number, sometimes by the slimmest of margins.
And even when you win, the relationships you built with the preconstruction team start over with the project team. In our scope of work, it may be another three, four, five years or more before we’re able to work with the same project team again.
But I think the question might be slightly off. Maybe relationships aren’t becoming less important. Maybe they’ve just moved.
Price may win the bid, but relationships still decide almost everything after the number is accepted. Whether a field conflict becomes a conversation or a claim. Whether a schedule problem gets solved or gets documented. Whether anyone calls you on the next one.
I don’t think relationships are dead. But I do think that their role is changing.
What are you seeing? Where do relationships still make the biggest difference, and what are you doing differently?