"· Qualify the project, the owner(s), and the subcontractor(s). If the players aren't credit worthy, then the project is probably a dud. This means updating the credit of even a 20-year customer.
· Don't allow project owners to not have skin in the game - get personal guarantees. Can anyone go to a bank today and get a credit line of $50,000 without a personal guarantee? Then why can they come to a builder and expect to not have to do the same?
· Don't bid projects with desperate pricing hoping everything will go perfectly. A winning bid in this economy usually means somebody made a mistake in bidding by missing something or they are not covering costs. If you have a project owner who's cherry-picking your price or rebidding to rebid the price down, let some other sucker have it. If they immediately start playing games with you during the pricing stage of the project, then how do you think they will be when it comes time to pay?
· Know the facts of the projects, such as who the owners are, where the financing is coming from, and the legal status of the property. Follow all pre-lien and bond requirements in the state to ensure you are in the best legal position if the project goes bad.
· This is a hard one - don't do anything for free or beyond your scope of work. If you start caving in on items and specifications in which you are not getting paid, you will become an easy mark for the project owner.
· The phrase "the customer is always right" doesn't apply to many project owners in this current environment. Be careful with change orders.  If you take the notion that the customer is always right on projects in this environment you'll be blamed for everything that goes wrong on the project. As conflicts arise, you need to stand firm, document, document, and document because desperate project owners may search for ways to not pay you.
· Don't give project owners the opportunity to take advantage of you - double check, double check, and then double check again. Know your facts, don't bid projects or order merchandise from non-finalized prints, and get their authorizations to purchase. You need to make sure your customers are signing the dotted line or issuing a purchase order.
· You'd better read or have someone competent to read all of the legal mumbo-jumbo in contracts. Lawyers write terms for the benefit of the person writing the contract. A pen is a nice thing to use when reviewing terms to cross out over-the-top stipulations, which will impede your efforts in collecting.
· Times have changed for everyone. The customer who's been buying from you for 20 years maybe eating pork and beans at the house and could be literally one step away from bankruptcy. Everyone and everything must be verified in regards to projects, and a spit handshake in this economy is worth nothing. As President Reagan said, "Trust but verify."
· Some project owners can charm a Texas rattlesnake, and many times builders are so eager to get the business that they will be sweet-talked into building bad projects. These builders will usually see some negative signs and hear the little voice in the back of their head telling them something is wrong. Despite this, they listen to the snake charmer telling them about all of the money they are going to make.  Builders, when a project "smells bad" you need to do one thing - run like @#$% from that project!
· My final piece of advice is when a project goes bad, pull out the hardball. In these negotiations, the goal of the project owner is to take advantage of you as much as they can. The allure of "make-believe" projects later down the road is a ploy to get you to cave in. You have a limited time to collect your money, so chunk hardballs without flinching!"