Case Studies
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Real contractors · Real numbers · Western Washington

Before Vernier.
After Vernier.

Three contractors, three different problems, three documented outcomes. The numbers are real. The companies are anonymized at their request.

Company names, project names, and identifying details have been anonymized to protect client confidentiality. Financial metrics are actual reported figures from client engagements. Results are not guaranteed — individual outcomes vary based on implementation, market conditions, and factors outside Vernier's control.
01
Case Study · Vernier Platform
Commercial Electrical · Western Washington · Vernier Professional
Vernier Mode A Mode D Plan Review Calibration

Winning at the Right Margin.
Losing the Right Bids.

A mid-size commercial electrical contractor with a solid reputation and a margin problem they didn't fully understand. They were working harder than their numbers showed. Here's what changed.

Before Vernier
Annual revenue won $4.2M
Gross margin 14%
Bid win rate 19%
Hours to prepare one bid 11hrs
Annual gross profit $588K
After Vernier (12 months)
Annual revenue won $6.8M
Gross margin 18%
Bid win rate 28%
Hours to prepare one bid 2.5hrs
Annual gross profit $1.22M

What Was Actually Happening

This contractor had been bidding commercial electrical work for nine years. Their instinct on pricing was good — they knew their costs, they knew their market. But they were bidding every project the same way: a single number, submitted as a PDF, with a two-page scope summary that listed what was included and what wasn't.

The problem wasn't their price. It was their posture and their presentation. On the projects they won, they were frequently the second or third lowest bidder — which means they were leaving money on the table every time. On the projects they lost, owners couldn't distinguish their proposal from anyone else's. A technically stronger contractor was losing on perception.

The other problem was time. At 11 hours per bid, submitting 7 bids per month meant their estimator was spending 77 hours a month just preparing bids — before project management, site supervision, or anything else. The bidding process was consuming the business.

The Vernier Intervention
Onboarding calibration — Vernier configured to their trade mix (commercial electrical, WA prevailing wage), market area (Puget Sound region), and established margin targets for three bid postures.
Mode A on all bids over $200K — full Platinum/Gold/Silver tiered proposals replaced the single-number format. Owners now had options; the contractor had a defensible Gold number with a formal scope narrative.
Mode D plan review before bidding — running plan review on full sets before estimating caught three code issues and two major scope gaps per project on average, which were factored into pricing before submission rather than discovered during execution.
Self-perform advantage quantified — every Vernier output included a dollar calculation of what the owner saved by hiring a self-performing contractor vs. a GC who would sub everything. This was added to every proposal cover letter.
The real finding
The margin problem wasn't a cost problem. It was a positioning problem. When owners saw three tiers instead of one number, they stopped negotiating down and started choosing up. The Gold tier — their actual target margin — became the baseline instead of the ceiling.
+$632K
Annual GP improvement
+9pts
Win rate increase
−77%
Time per bid
+$2.6M
Additional revenue won
"We always thought we were competitive on price. Turns out we were under-positioned on value. When Vernier started producing tiered proposals with our self-perform advantage spelled out in dollars, owners stopped asking us to sharpen our pencil and started asking when we could start. That was the shift."
DK
D. Krentz
Owner · Commercial Electrical Contractor · Puget Sound Region
02
Case Study · Contractor Consulting
Low-Voltage / Data / AV Specialty · 12 Employees · Focused 90 — Tier 2
Financial Bubble Quoting Bubble Focused 90

Revenue Going Up.
Profits Going Nowhere.

A low-voltage contractor with a growing business, two working owners, and a gross profit number that didn't match the effort they were putting in. The revenue was real. The margin was a lie they didn't know they were telling themselves.

Before Consulting
Annual revenue $2.1M
Reported gross margin 17%
True gross margin (job-costed) 11%
Jobs priced below 10% GM 40%
Owner hours per week (each) 60+hrs
After Focused 90 (6 months)
Annual revenue (run rate) $2.4M
Reported gross margin 19%
True gross margin (job-costed) 19%
Jobs priced below floor margin 4%
Owner hours per week (each) 44hrs

What Was Actually Happening

Both owners were working 60-hour weeks and paying themselves reasonable salaries. The business looked successful on paper — revenue had grown from $1.3M to $2.1M over three years. But at the end of every year, there was nothing left. The accounts receivable was always stretched, the line of credit was always drawn, and neither owner could explain where the money went.

The first thing Randy did in Session 1 was build a true job cost baseline. The reported gross margin was 17%. The real number, after correctly allocating direct labor, supervision time, and equipment costs that were being expensed through overhead, was 11%.

It got worse. When Randy ran the job cost analysis by job type, roughly 40% of their work — primarily their repeat residential commercial clients that felt like "easy" jobs — was coming in at 6–8% true gross margin. These were the jobs they'd built relationships on. They were the busiest source of revenue in the business and the most unprofitable work they were doing.

The 4 Bubbles Intervention — Financial + Quoting
True job costing system built — a custom job cost template calibrated to their crew structure, equipment allocation, and overhead recovery model. Every job now has a real number, not an estimated one.
Margin floor established by job type — residential commercial at 18% minimum (up from effective 7%), data center and commercial AV at 22% minimum. Jobs that don't meet the floor don't get bid, or get bid at full price.
10-point bid qualify criteria — a formal checklist that every prospective job goes through before estimating starts. Filters out the "easy" recurring clients whose jobs were actually subsidized by the profitable work.
Formal quoting process with walk-away conditions — no more informal quotes over the phone, no more verbal scope agreements. Every job gets a written proposal with exclusions, and three scenarios where the quote is withdrawn.
The real finding
The 6-point gap between reported and true gross margin is one of the most common findings in construction business diagnostics. Overhead misallocation hides the true cost of labor-intensive jobs. This contractor wasn't losing money — they were just counting the wrong costs in the wrong buckets, which made their worst work look like their best.
+8pts
True GM improvement
90%
Reduction in sub-floor jobs
−16hrs
Owner hours/week (each)
+$192K
Annual GP recovery
"We didn't have a revenue problem. We had a costing problem disguised as a revenue problem. We kept thinking if we just grew faster the numbers would work themselves out. They never did. Randy showed us that we were essentially subsidizing 40% of our client base out of the profits from the other 60%. We've since let some of those relationships go. Our bank account is healthier than it's ever been and we're working 16 fewer hours a week between us."
TR
T. Reeves & M. Reeves
Co-Owners · Low-Voltage Specialty Contractor · Central Washington
03
Case Study · Vernier + Contractor Consulting
General Contractor · Commercial TI + Design-Build · Full Partner Tier 3
Vernier Modes A · D · F Full Partner — All 4 Bubbles

Great at Building.
Bleeding in the Office.

A commercial GC with a strong field reputation, solid subcontractor relationships, and a back-office that couldn't keep up with the volume. Sub leveling was ad hoc, VE was reactive, and the margin they were building in the field was being lost before the job ever started.

Before Vernier
Annual gross profit margin 16%
Win rate on VE-heavy bids 21%
Sub scope gap exposure (annual) $1.1M
Avg. change order disputes / job 3.4
Formal VE analysis submitted 0%
After Vernier (18 months)
Annual gross profit margin 22%
Win rate on VE-heavy bids 62%
Sub scope gap exposure (annual) $297K
Avg. change order disputes / job 0.8
VE exhibit submitted with bids 100%

What Was Actually Happening

This GC had grown from a two-person operation to a 28-person firm over eight years. The growth was real — revenue had gone from $3M to $14M. But the back-office had never been built to match. Sub leveling was done by eyeballing bid totals and calling the low bidder. VE analysis was whatever the PM could think of on the drive to the pre-bid meeting. Scope gaps from subs were being absorbed as change order disputes rather than caught at award.

$1.1M in annual sub scope gap exposure means that in a given year, their subcontractors' bids were missing — on average — $1.1M worth of scope that the GC was contractually obligated to deliver. Some of that got recovered through change orders. A lot of it got absorbed as margin erosion on jobs that started at 19% and finished at 11%.

The consulting engagement, which ran concurrently with Vernier deployment, found the deeper issue: the firm had grown fast enough that the owners were no longer running the estimating process — they were just approving it. Two of the four Bubbles — Financial and Leadership — were addressed in the consulting engagement to build the systems that let the firm operate at its new scale without the owners in every decision.

The Combined Intervention — Vernier + All 4 Bubbles
Vernier Mode F on every sub package over $50K — formal sub leveling with scope gap analysis and award recommendation. Changed how the GC awarded sub work from intuition-based to document-based.
Mode D plan review pre-bid — catching code issues and trade coordination conflicts before pricing eliminated reactive scope additions during execution.
Mode E VE analysis with every proposal — a formal VE exhibit became part of the standard bid package. Win rate on design-build and VE-heavy public bids tripled within six months.
Consulting — Financial Bubble: job cost system rebuilt. True GM by project type established. Three project types discontinued (negative margin after true overhead allocation).
Consulting — Leadership Bubble: role clarity document, estimating authority structure, PM accountability system. Owners removed from day-to-day estimating approval and redeployed to business development.
The real finding
Vernier fixes the front end of the business — the bid, the sub packages, the competitive intelligence going in. Consulting fixes the systems that run the business after the bid is won. Used together, they close the entire loop. The win rate improvement from Vernier means nothing if the jobs you win still hemorrhage margin during execution. The consulting ensures the wins are real wins all the way to invoice.
+6pts
GM improvement
+41pts
VE bid win rate
−73%
Sub gap exposure
0.8
Disputes per job
+$1.1M
Annual GP improvement
"We were good at construction and bad at running a construction business. That's a pretty common combination. Vernier fixed how we bid — the proposals are better, the sub leveling is documented, the VE is formal. The consulting fixed how we run — the job costing is real, the org chart makes sense, I stopped being the bottleneck on every estimating decision. We're building the same volume with less chaos and capturing more of what we build."
MC
M. Calloway
Principal · Commercial GC · Western Washington

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