The reality about contract negotiation

Yeah, a lot of subcontractors feel powerless in contract negotiations because they feel like the client can decide not to give the project to them just for whatever reason. And they go, ah, that's it, we're going to give it to someone else, you're too difficult. But the reality is that's not how it works. You've got to remember that they've got the pricing tender and then they've got the unpriced tender. So they open up the unpriced tender first, which will have your contract negotiations in it if you do it properly. They will do all of that and they'll make all the decisions before they even open the price. And they are happy to negotiate contract stuff with you. They know that giving a contract to you is like their worst possible contract, and they're expecting contracts to be negotiated. So when you don't negotiate, you actually look like you don't really know what you're doing, or you're not as skilled as these other guys because it's come back and it's completely empty and you're just trying to be a nice guy. Meanwhile, you're risking your whole company a lot of times.