Discovery Extraction

Discovery arrives in whatever form the owner could capture between jobs. Every one of these is a normal input, not a degraded one.

The output of this step is always the same structure, regardless of what came in:

Customer:      <who, and who signs>
Wants:         <the job, in their words>
Scope, clear:  <what is definitely in>
Scope, fuzzy:  <what is implied but not stated>
Constraints:   <access, timing, code, site conditions>
Out of scope:  <anything explicitly excluded>
Dates:         <deadlines, start windows>
Budget signal: <anything said about money>
Gaps:          <what is missing and would change the price>

The Gaps line is the one that protects the owner. Everything else describes the job; that line describes what could go wrong.

Call and meeting transcripts

The richest input. Read the whole thing — the useful details are usually in the middle, not the summary.

Zoom's limits, so a missing transcript is not mistaken for an empty call. It is read-only. It only reaches meetings the owner hosted or attended. And a recordings list covers a one-month range per call, so history older than that needs a second, earlier request. When a meeting is not reachable, say which one and ask the owner for the recording or their notes — never build a proposal on a call you could not read.

Look for:

• Direct quotes about what they want. Use their words in the proposal. Customers recognize their own phrasing and it signals they were heard.
• Constraints mentioned in passing. "We can only get in after 6" is a cost driver that never appears in a scope list.
• Who actually decides. "I'll need to run it by the board" changes the timeline and the follow-up.
• Budget signals. "Last time we paid around 8" is the most valuable sentence in the transcript.
• What they complained about with their last vendor. That is what the proposal should quietly address.

Voice memos

Recorded in a truck, often mid-thought, often with detail nobody would write down.

Treat interruptions and self-corrections as real. If the owner says "call it four units — no, five, there's one on the back roof," the answer is five, and the fact they nearly missed it means the back roof deserves a note.

If audio is unclear on a number, do not guess it. Flag it: "couldn't make out the tonnage at 0:47 — confirm before this goes out."

Photos

Photos are excellent for some things and worthless for others. Being honest about which is what keeps the owner out of trouble.

Photos can establish: equipment make and model from a nameplate, visible condition and age, access constraints, obvious obstructions, approximate layout, what is already installed.

Photos cannot establish: dimensions without a reference object, what is behind or above anything, condition of concealed components, code compliance, or capacity.

Never derive a quantity from a photo unless something of known size is in frame. Estimated square footage from a photo is the single most common way a job goes underwater.

State what each photo contributed and what it left open:

Photo 3 shows a Carrier 48TC rooftop unit, nameplate legible, visible rust at
the base pan. Age not determinable from the plate. Roof access appears to be
ladder-only — confirm, because a crane changes the number materially.

Drawings and plan sheets

Read the title block first: revision, date, scale, and whether it is issued for construction or preliminary. A quote against a superseded revision is a quote against the wrong job.

Take quantities from schedules and legends, not by measuring the drawing. If a schedule is absent and quantities must be counted, say so and state the count as an assumption.

Note anything marked "by others" or "NIC" — that is scope boundary and it belongs in the not-included section verbatim.

RFPs, RFQs, and solicitations

These are compliance documents before they are pricing documents. A perfect price on a non-compliant response loses.

Extract in this order:

1. Submission mechanics — deadline, format, page limits, delivery method. Miss any of these and nothing else matters.
2. Mandatory qualifications — licenses, bonding, insurance limits, certifications, past-performance minimums
3. The actual scope of work
4. Evaluation criteria and their weights — this tells you what the response should emphasize
5. Terms that carry cost — liquidated damages, retainage, payment timing, warranty length, prevailing wage

Run a go/no-go before writing anything. If the owner cannot meet a mandatory qualification, say so immediately. Writing a full response to an RFP they are disqualified from is a wasted evening, and this segment does not have spare evenings.

Go/no-go: This requires a USD 2M umbrella policy and you carry USD 1M. That's
disqualifying unless you can bind additional coverage before the 8th.
Worth checking before I write the rest?

Scrappy notes

Sometimes it is four lines typed on a phone. That is enough to start, and it is better than the owner writing the proposal from scratch.

Extract what is there, then list what is missing as direct questions — the smallest set that would let the price be real:

Enough here to draft the shape of it. Three things I need before the number
means anything:
  - Square footage of the space
  - Is the existing ductwork staying?
  - Any deadline you know about?

Three questions, not a form. The owner is answering this on a phone.

Handling the gaps

Every gap resolves one of two ways, and never a third:

Ask, when the answer materially changes the price and the owner can get it quickly.

Assume, in writing, when the job needs to move. The assumption goes in the proposal itself, in the customer-visible text:

This quote assumes roof access by existing ladder. If a crane or lift is
required, add USD 1,800.

That sentence has saved more margin than any pricing refinement. It converts a dispute into a pre-agreed line item.

Never guess silently. A number with an invisible assumption behind it is the mechanism by which a profitable job becomes a loss.