Every platform you buy comes with an onboarding team. They're not bad — they're just paid to make their product look good. Here's when that's fine, and when it isn't.
| Conrad Prism | The vendor's team | |
|---|---|---|
| Incentive | Paid by you to get the most out of your whole stack | Paid by the vendor to drive adoption of their product |
| Scope | Your entire toolset — Buildertrend, Bluebeam, Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and the spreadsheets in between | Their platform only; the seams between tools are someone else's problem |
| Honest advice | Will tell you to drop a tool, downgrade a tier, or skip the add-on | Rarely recommends using less of the product |
| Construction context | Built workflows on real jobsites for 30 years | Knows the software deeply; construction operations, less so |
| Field training | Trains crews who didn't want to be trained; workflows survive a 12-hour day in the rain | Standardized curriculum; may or may not stick with your crews |
| Cost | $2,500 assessment, then scoped work | Often bundled with the contract or sold as a fixed package per platform |
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and I'll tell you straight — even if the answer is “you don't need me.”