If you’ve ever sat in the audience at IBS, you know exactly what I’m about to say. If you haven’t, picture this.
Hundreds of speakers. Thousands of attendees. Big ideas about housing, affordability, disaster recovery, workforce shortages, and the future of construction. The slides are polished. The statistics are impressive. The words “innovation,” “disruption,” and “transformation” are used so often they should be printed on the back of the conference badges.
And yet, year after year, most of the same people go home and do exactly what they did before they arrived.
This year, something struck me harder than usual. I began noticing patterns—not in the presentations, but in the people.
I find it fascinating, and honestly a little frustrating, that once people have a pattern or philosophy stuck in their brain, they have very little tolerance for change. That’s something I’m learning all over again at IBS this year. Open-minded people are both rare and a real treasure.
The Moment Nobody Notices
One of the first sessions I attended Tuesday morning was a panel of four strong advocates for offsite construction. Each had a slightly different viewpoint. Each brought something useful to the table. I sat there with an open mind, which is how I try to approach everything in this industry. I listen. I observe. If I hear something new, I do the research before I form a judgment.
The audience should have been excited.
These speakers were explaining that the houses these builders and developers construct today—single-family, multi-family, and even large projects—are already part of the offsite construction ecosystem. Doors, windows, trusses, wall panels, cabinets, and mechanical systems are manufactured somewhere else and delivered to the jobsite. Controlled environments. Repetition. Quality control. Speed.
But here’s the problem.
Most builders and developers don’t think of these as “offsite.” They think of them the same way they think of sticks of lumber or five-gallon buckets of drywall mud. Just materials. Just stuff. Nothing revolutionary. Nothing that changes how they see themselves.
And that’s the mental wall the offsite industry keeps running into.
When Curiosity Shows Up
As the panel spoke, I did something most speakers don’t do. I watched the audience. Really watched them.
They were leaning forward.
That might sound like a small thing, but in a morning session at a major show, that’s a big deal. People were engaged. They were hearing something that challenged their long-held beliefs. They were connecting dots in their heads. Some were even nodding.
You could almost see the moment when a few of them realized, “Wait a minute. Maybe we’re already doing offsite.”
That’s the moment every innovator dreams about.
But here’s the part that frustrated me the most.
Nobody seemed to notice.
The speakers did their job. They lit the fire. They shifted the thinking. They planted the seed. But when the session ended, the crowd dispersed. People headed to the next talk, the coffee line, or the exhibit hall. And most likely, nobody will follow up with those builders and developers who were clearly curious.
That’s where our industry keeps dropping the ball.
We treat awareness as adoption.
We assume that because someone leaned forward in their seat, they are ready to change how they build. They aren’t. They are curious. Curious is not the same as committed.
The Real Barrier Isn’t Technology
Here’s a hard truth.
The offsite industry doesn’t have a technology problem. It doesn’t have a cost problem. It doesn’t even have a regulatory problem.
It has a psychology problem.
Builders are not resistant to innovation because they are closed-minded. They are resistant because they are protecting their livelihood. One bad decision, one failed system, one project that goes sideways, and years of reputation and profit can disappear.
Most builders are not anti-offsite. They are anti-risk.
The Industry Has Already Crossed the Line
The irony is that many of them have already crossed the offsite threshold. They just don’t realize how far they’ve gone. Over decades, they have slowly adopted manufactured components because each step felt safe. No big leap. No major disruption. Just gradual evolution.
Trusses replaced stick framing in many markets. Factory-built windows replaced site-built ones. Cabinets, HVAC assemblies, and pre-hung doors became standard. None of this required a mental identity shift.
But volumetric, advanced panelization, and systemized building do.
And that’s where the real resistance begins—not because the systems don’t work, but because they force builders to rethink who they are.
Are they craftsmen?
Or are they system managers?
Are they builders?
Or are they assemblers?
That identity question is far more powerful than any cost comparison or productivity chart.
Comfort vs. Change
Here’s another uncomfortable truth.
Most speakers at IBS are not selling change. They are selling comfort. They talk about how their product or service fits easily into existing workflows. That’s fine, but real transformation never feels comfortable at first.
What’s missing is trust.
Builders do not adopt systems. They adopt people they trust.
That’s why small conversations often matter more than big presentations. That’s why builder breakfasts, peer-to-peer groups, and informal discussions move the industry forward more than keynote speeches.
And it’s why the future of offsite adoption will be driven by relationships, not PowerPoint slides.
What the Leaning Builders Actually Need
The builders who leaned forward in their seats Tuesday morning don’t need another presentation. They need someone to walk alongside them. They need pilot projects. They need real case studies. They need to hear from other builders who survived the learning curve.
They need a safe first step.
Without that, the spark dies.
And that’s the shame of it.
Because offsite is not coming. It’s already here. It’s embedded in the industry. It’s growing quietly. And eventually, yes, it will dominate construction in ways most people still can’t imagine.
But it will not happen because of technology alone. It will happen because someone takes the time to help builders change their comfort level.
That takes patience. It takes trust. And it takes a willingness to admit that human nature moves slower than innovation.
Stop Trying to Change Minds
So here’s my message to the offsite community.
Stop trying to change minds.
Start helping people change patterns.
And the next time you see a builder leaning forward in their seat, don’t let that moment walk out of the room.
Follow them. Talk with them. Build trust.
Because that leaning forward moment may be the beginning of the biggest transformation this industry has ever seen.
Gary Fleisher—known throughout the industry as The Modcoach—has been immersed in offsite and modular construction for over three decades. Beyond writing, he advises companies across the offsite ecosystem, offering practical marketing insight and strategic guidance grounded in real-world factory, builder, and market experience.
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