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Sep 3 •
Welcome to The Table — a few house rules so everybody wins.
This is a room full of contractors from every trade and every corner of the map. We're all chasing the same goal — getting awarded — and the fastest way there is helping each other get sharp. A few things keep it that way: 1. Keep live solicitation specifics out of open threads. This is a competitive world. Ask all the how-to you want — how to structure a section, how to answer a question type, how the process works. But don't post the details of a live solicitation you're actively chasing where a competitor could see it. For that, message me direct — that's what I'm here for. 2. Be genuine and be generous. Share your wins, your lessons, your questions. The people who give the most get the most out of this room. 3. No pitching, no poaching. This isn't a place to sell to each other or recruit each other's people. 4. What's shared here stays here. Respect each other's information. That's it. Dig in, introduce yourself, and let's go win some work. — Justin
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Aug 28 •
👋 Welcome to The Table.
You're here because you want a bigger, steadier piece of public and government construction work — and you're tired of watching it go to the same handful of firms. Start here: 1. Read "Start Here: How Public Work Actually Works" in the Classroom. 2. Introduce yourself in 👋 Introductions — what you build, where, and the one public job you'd most like to win. 3. Watch 📡 for this week's Solicitation Radar and your first contract teardown. The goal is simple: get you shortlisted, get you awarded, and build your backlog. Glad you're in. — Justin Shawler
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26d •
Every contract you want already has an end date.
The work you want already belongs to somebody else, and that's good news. Public contracts have terms. One year, three years, five, usually with options on the end. So the job you want has a date when it comes back out, and that date is sitting there right now, a year before anybody advertises anything. Most of us find out a job is open the day it drops, which leaves thirty days to build a relationship you don't have and write a response from nothing. The firm that used to win it knew about it last year. The bid tab tells you who has it now, and the contract tells you how long they have it for. Put those two together and you've got a calendar. A year is enough time to do everything the thirty-day version of you can't. Pick one you want and go find out when it ends. When does it come back out?
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27d •
Get prequalified, if it matters where you are located
Prequalification is handing an agency your financials, your bonding capacity and your work history, and getting approved to bid before anything even goes out. It costs you paperwork and that's about it. The honest part is that it isn't always necessary. Most agencies don't require it, so don't treat it like a gate you have to clear before you're allowed to start. But when it is required, it's required, and finding that out two days before a deadline is how you watch a job you could have done go by without you. And when it's optional it still helps you. It's public record, and anybody can say they do public work, but a prequalification means somebody actually checked. So go find out what the three or four agencies you really want to work for require. Not all of them, just the ones you want. Do you know which of yours ask for it?
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