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Tough question – but I like your approach. “Free Estimates” is not the same as “Free Proposal”. Free estimate would be looking the job over, talking about what they want, giving them the estimate range (for what you want, plan on spending between Nut1 and Nut1*1.33) Is this about what you had in mind? OR – ask about a budget going in – if they will not give you a figure because they “don’t know” what it should cost – walk away! Everyone has a limit, and they won’t tell you or if they aren’t smart enough to know their own financial status, they’re going to be price shoppers at their worst.
If they have given you a budget, you can determine a cost for a formal, detailed proposal, which has a price tag – that applies to the cost of the job should they decide to use you. Explain that proposals take time to develop – work flow, subs available, material lists IN DETAIL, and a host of other factors that you cannot provide for free. Compare that to going to a doctor for a physical – do they get that for free if nothing requires surgery? Of course not. Your fee could be based on an hourly rate that sounds reasonable – like 25-25 bucks, with about a 6-8 hour range.
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Tough question - but I like your approach. "Free Estimates" is not the same as "Free Proposal". Free estimate would be looking the job over, talking about what they want, giving them the estimate range (for what you want, plan on spending between Nut1 and Nut1*1.33) Is this about what you had in mind? OR - ask about a budget going in - if they will not give you a figure because they "don't know" what it should cost - walk away! Everyone has a limit, and they won't tell you or if they aren't smart enough to know their own financial status, they're going to be price shoppers at their worst.
If they have given you a budget, you can determine a cost for a formal, detailed proposal, which has a price tag - that applies to the cost of the job should they decide to use you. Explain that proposals take time to develop - work flow, subs available, material lists IN DETAIL, and a host of other factors that you cannot provide for free. Compare that to going to a doctor for a physical - do they get that for free if nothing requires surgery? Of course not. Your fee could be based on an hourly rate that sounds reasonable - like 25-25 bucks, with about a 6-8 hour range.
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Ross,
Improve your pre-qulaification phone interview -- ask what the project is and what the budget is. If they hesitate, thank them for their time and hang up. If they tell you, roughly determine if it's realistic, schedule an appointment to meet.
At your meeting, listen to what they want, then tell them that you'd love to put together a building plan. Since you prefer to sell your ability as a competent builder (and not that of an estimator) you'll need a $100 fee which is refundable if you are chosen.
Explain to them that in this way you can keep overhead low by not spending time on projects that don't suit your company. Thus allowing more attention to the clients that pay you.
And after all, $100 doesn't come close to covering your time to put together a meaningful construction plan, nor is it a significant percentage of the final cost of a building project. If they'll in good faith post a deposit, then you'll in good faith spend some time on their project.
If they give you a hundred bucks and don't end up hiring you, at least you got a hundred bucks out of the deal...
One more thing. When you schedule that meeting make sure both husband and wife are there. Make sure they both understand and agree before you get your estimating pencil out.
Trust your instinct,
Dan Morrison
*Just a couple of points. Before I shut down the yellow pages add in favour of a more realistic avenue, I had the same problem. I cured it by having names and numbers of lowest priced contractors handy. I ask immedietly, "Is price your prime concern?". When the tire kicker says yes, ask them to get a pen. Give them the correct number since you obviously have contacted the wrong company. Those who can afford it will normally pipe up, "don't you wan't my business", to which you reply. "We do good work, the number I gave you does cheap work", the whole apples and oranges thing. You'll be amazed at how many doctors and lawyers you will prequalify with this method. Secondly throw out a budget during your first meeting, to see the reaction, prior to doing any work on the estimate. Give or take 5 or 10 thousand. If they balk, walk. Third, if they haggle with you over price before you even start the job, walk immedietly and be thankful you weren't burned for more...you will not get paid.Lar
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Ross:
Here is another suggestion...along with the others...
Begin..to establish relationships with designers...Architects / Interior Designers / Landscape architects...[depending on what you like doing]
Take gooooooood care of them..and their designs...
You will then...become part of their referral base...and...a lot of your work...will be pre sold...You can also get in..early on a project..and do value engineering / costing for a fee...
Find designers..you want to work with....whom you might qualify...just as you do your subs..
Eventually...a handful of designers..will be feeding you your work...and you will be pre referred...and you wont be accepting calls..from Tom, Dick....or Harry...because you wont have the time....
Just a thought...works for me...
DN
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Is anyone using a Web site for their marketing (besides Freddy and Joe)? I know that as a customer I'd feel better if I could look over their past work first, and you'd like it because there would be no incremental cost for each additional visitor. Callers could be directed to the page for info on similar projects, see your designs, and get a sense of your prices. So they'd know if you were out of their league right away. A site is a lot of work, but maybe cost-effective if used often enough by the looky-loos. People with sites, is this at all true?
Just curious.
*Yup, our web site is one of the most important tools we have for marketing, the web page goes on all advertising, etc., even in the Yellow Pages. Every potential customer with money has a computer somewhere, and they all check out our web site when they check us out. Now, it hasn't been updated in years, I'm a carpenter, not a web-head, so it's due for some major tweaking very soon. Feel free to send your suggestions to me! http://www.elliott.on.ca if you want to take a look, but it's almost an embarrasment right now, it needs work! As for the rest of the responses to this thread, 1) We're currently on our 2nd job with an architect we started with around Christmas, and it's working out great, and 2) Our pre-qualification is getting better, we now charge a 1% design / consultation fee based on the Quick Quote to provide a formal proposal, and 3) Some day I'll read that information on HTML so I can make paragraphs here, and 4) Some of my best customers are the one's who seemed the least qualified.... life is a mystery :)
*Nothing wrong with the site Mr Elliot, (notice the spelling). I have seen Eliott spelled more ways than you could possibly imagine. Something a little more simple and easy to remember should be used for your site address. Sites should be kept fresh...give them some recent projects etc. Nice site overall. Are you developing leads off of it? We've sold 5 jobs in the year our site has been up. I'm in the middle of updating of our site, so advice would be much appreciated.L
*Thanks for the vote of approval of the site, Lawrence. If you like it now, take a look in a couple of weeks, it's going to be in for a major overhaul. If you're looking for a web page designer, click on my web page guy's name, and you'll meet a very interesting character. I know some redneck-type contractors might not feel comfortable with a guy who calls himself Anne, but he knows his stuff when it comes to web pages. In the near future I'd like to do a lot of travelling work, so the web page is one way for people anywhere in the world to check you out. Yes, I've gotten a few jobs directly from the web site, I'm a great believer in it. Good luck with your page, let us know when it's up!
*Seconded. I think a lot of people like me get queasy when about to spend serious money, no matter how fair the quid pro quo is. I have to take some time, and it doesn't mean bad faith.I'm sure you all have good instincts by now and don't respond to callers with too many ironclad rules. The poster just wants a little ... tact.I think asking for a "deposit" before making a detailed pricing is very fair -- provided the final pricing is within +/- 10-20% of the ballpark.
*I like your approach Fred. You make a lot of sense, and all retailers should take a lesson.Blue
*Agreed! I've caught myself stammering sometimes, especially when the topic is a little confusing to me.Blue
*Lawrence, I was liking your approach till you sais "if they balk...you won't get paid". I've found that it can sometimes be the other way around, If they don't intend on paying, why should they squalk?Blue
*That sounds like a good niche market!Blue
*You may not have come across it working primarily with builders. I'll bet if you think back to the builders or even home owners you had trouble collecting from, usually the final payment, it was merely a question of a haggler. If they haggle in the beginning they haggle at the end too. I personally don't have time or patience to chase money... however I haven't had any such problems since weeding out this client about 3 years ago.
*It's a tough nich market, and you also have to be careful. Good designers are a delight to work with. There are some who only see their small dim picture of the world. Last summer I pre sold in february, 3 jobs for one of the top designers in this part of the country only to discover that any details in the plans can pretty much be ignored. This lady expected to be able to alter plans verbally even after installation at MY EXPENSE! You've all heard stories from me about this one. I can still remember the last day of the last job, moving my trompe l'oeil panels up and down, back and forth, up and down....for 8 HOURS! A good contractors not only employ's solid marketting on a consistant basis but is choosy about which jobs they do and for who.
*My worst clients were surprisingly quiet to the point of being sneaky...played the salesman's game of always smiling and never showing his cards...then they make sure you can't find them for a "face to face, bill needs to be paid," talk...The best customer I ever had, put me through hell to get his job, with, "why should I hire you!" yelled in my face, and "get me a contract to see by ten tomorrow and even then i don't think you'll get the job!"....But once he signed, he was the client that called on Friday night and said, "your work and progress look great" and "I want you to come right up as soon as you can so I can give you a check...How's volleyball..."Listening to my gut...Near the stream,J
*AJ, Did your best client haggle up front, I've found abuse is a sign of character when it comes to clients. It didn't sound like he was worried about money.
*to get paragraphs, press return TWICEElliott. your site looks totally competent, it's just too light on the content (for me anyway). A couple of pages are throwaway generalities. I'd like to pictures organized by project with some narrative ("customer wanted vaulted ceilings but we had nowhere to place the beam ... we settled on a scissors truss and the client was thrilled...) The thumbnail pictures should be clickable to get to bigger images and maybe the story. The block plane at the top makes me thinjnk you make furniture -- or maybe you're REALLY exacting about your framing?Now, "if you can imagine it we can build it" I want a vaulted ceiling without a beam, without ties or joists, maybe without rafters too. How will you do it? No flying butresses.But heck if you're getting business it works. Do you keep a hit count to get a sense of how many visitors you get?
*to get paragraphs, press return TWICEElliott. your site looks totally competent, it's just too light on the content (for me anyway). A couple of pages are throwaway generalities. I'd like to pictures organized by project with some narrative ("customer wanted vaulted ceilings but we had nowhere to place the beam ... we settled on a scissors truss and the client was thrilled...) The thumbnail pictures should be clickable to get to bigger images and maybe the story. The block plane at the top makes me thinjnk you make furniture -- or maybe you're REALLY exacting about your framing?Now, "if you can imagine it we can build it" I want a vaulted ceiling without a beam, without ties or joists, maybe without rafters too. How will you do it? No flying butresses.But heck if you're getting business it works. Do you keep a hit count to get a sense of how many visitors you get?Consider buying your own domain (e.g., http://www.elliottcarpentry.com) -- no on secondm thought leave out the elliott -- no one can spell it, right?
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I don't get it. You go and buy a used car and you haggle for the best price and the best quality of car. You don't tell the salesman what your budget is...if I tell him I have $20,000 to spend he is going to sell me a car for $20,000.
You all know most home owners don't have a clue as to how much something costs. As a consumer they would be a fool to tell you what their budget is. A lot of contractor would take the money and make a huge profit off a guy who has $20,000+ to spend.
If contractor didn't have such a sleazy reputation for doing a job correct, showing up on time, using the materials specified, and completing the job you would probably be getting better informed clients.
Like it or not the homebuilding industry is at fault for keeping figures secretive and competitive. It is a hard job finding compentent folks to do any job. Just because you say you will do something for XXXamount of dollars means you will do that.
I don't really feel too sorry for some of you that go out to bid on a job and don't get it. You obviously didn't market yourself very well, you didn't prove that you could do the job, you didn't sell youself to the client.
I know that low bid doesn't mean quality work, but as a consumer I deserve the right to shop around to a contractor that is going to give me the job I want.
Spending time marketing yourself is part of your overhead. If you are loosing too many jobs after estimating them, you are obviously doing something wrong.
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Andrew, thanks for your comments on the web page. As I mentioned, it's up for a major overhaul very soon, and your suggestions will definitely find their way into it! I have a pile of pictures here, but I'm not really consistent, I have to get more disciplined with taking photos of jobs. One thing I found is that people don't like to have their names on the internet, so I deleted a references section that used to be there.
Condor, I wish I had more time to reply to your well-thought-out response, but I have to run and get a contract signed from someone who wasn't a tire-kicker. It's not that I don't have enough work, it's that I don't have enough time! The better my marketing, the more calls I get, and I want to be selective about who I work for without insulting anyone. I can sell a job to almost any serious buyer, and we are never the lowest bid. It's just that I can do without those people who think that they can pick our brains for a job that A) They have no intention of ever doing, they were just curious what it would cost, since they have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon except call up contractors, or B) They have already decided their unemployed brother-in-law will do it, but he's not real good at pricing, or C) They want it done for less than the price of buying the materials.
This is a great forum, I'm really impressed with the amount of well-thought-out opinions everyone has! Thanks.
*Ross,Type <p> to make a new paragraph (or press return twice) and <br> to start a new line.Dan Morrison
*Condor,If you go to a used car lot and tell the salesman that you have $20,000 and he tries to sell you a used Volkswagon, turn around and walk out. If he tries to sell you a certified pre-owned Lexus, talk. How much time do you think a salesman would spend with you if you said "I don't know how much I want to spend, and I'm not sure what I want. How much would that be?". This is what a lot of "potential clients" say to contractors every day.If I want to buy a new cd player, I read Consumer Reports, and a few stereo review magazines then make a choice based on quality, price, availability and warranty. A cd player only costs around $150. Why wouldn't a consumer research the product of house renovations prior to shopping? Granted, researching a house renovation is a wee bit more complicated than researching a cd player.What's a consumer to do?Decide what you'd like.Decide what you can afford.Buy a book and read it some weekend.Decide what you'd like but can live without.Decide if you really want to purchase a renovation.Hire an architect, designer or a design/build contractor based on good references, reputation and workmanship -- not price. Work together during planning to make sure that when work begins it will move swiftly thru completion according to budget and time frame. This way, there's a much greater chance that everyone involved will have a better construction experience -- (You know, the Volkswagon overheats in the traffic on the way home and the head cracks... "Doh!").Learning takes time, time is money, and you get what you pay for.For the record though, I think that there's a greater percentage of honest builders than there is of honest used car salesmen. Though sometimes it seems not by much.Honest,Dan Morrison
*Dan,I don't know about the percentage of honest builders compared to the percentage of used car salesman (but if I had to guess I would agree with you), but I have to think that the percentage of honest builders is a lot higher than one might think if one reads this board.Back in my pizza delivery days, we gave the pizza free if the delivery was late. It was almost daily that one felt all one did was deal with "customers" trying to scam free pizzas. But once I set the policy that the pizza was ALWAYS free if the customer said it was (REGARDLESS of the delivery time) we only gave away two or three percent.The point being that the bad apples really stand out, and the good ones go unnoticed.Rich Beckman
*Condor,It sounds like you've had a bad experience.I would like to point out one difference when buying a car - you know what you're getting regardless of the haggled price (unless you fall for undercoating, alarm, etc). The car salesman has no effect or control of the finished product unlike a contractor. If you want to haggle, you'll end up getting cheaper materials, lower priority, lower quality - not the same great renovation at 20% discount. Everyone want s a great value these days, but if the budget is your highest priority, please find an unlicensed, unbonded, and uninsured handyman (no disrespect intended). Then you can call me to fix it.
*Hmmm...I suppose I was being a little harsh, (and in fact I'm pretty sure there's a tattoo on my forehead that everyone except me can see that says "SCHMUCK"). I meant to avoid people that would try to chisel you down for sport. As opposed to people that honestly don't know how to go about a building project, but do know they want one.As far as sport goes, I like Hockey!Dan
*Your statement about finding the budget is a little off base. You need to know whether they want a cadilacc, or a pinto. You still must be competiitve with all the other inevitable bids.If they won't set a budget, then you have to set it. Blue
*All this talk about free estimates, cutomer haggling, nonpayers, etc. reminds me of why I strictly sub contract to builders!I sell myself once to a builder, deliver a nice product (without unecessary blocking), and I get welcomed back with open arms to do another job!Oh yeah, and I get paid!Blue
*Wouldn't you like to make more than the builder decides to share with you? There's a downside to being the boss, but an upside too.You're the perfect gung-ho framer, Blue. Will you do trim carp. when you get old and slow? Bet the thought horrifies you.
*No trim for me, unless they let me in with my 12# sledge and paslode framer!I've already did enough trim to satisfy me for a life time!I've framed houses, and pulled more out of it than some builders do! I will be building them in the future, but I'll only be speccing them: no custom builds!It'll be a take it or leave it deal. Two, maybe three per year.Blue
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Here is a view from the other side. I had to have some electrical work done at my office (it was a very small job, less than 600 dollars). I called one contractor. He came out, looked at it, and gave me a verbal bid. I said fine, when can you start. He never showed on the start date he gave, and I never heard from him again. I went through three other contractors/workers to find some one who would do the work at their price. A friend of mine had to have a large retaining wall replaced. Most of the bids were in the 80,000 to 90,000 range, but one contractor bid more than 300,000. the person who got the job was the one who could start the job within two months. It appears that 20 percent of the contractors are great, 20 percent should be shot, and the remaining 60 percent are OK. the problem is how to avoid the bottom 20 percent.
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I bet we're going to hear a similar theory about homeowners!
*O.K.,I will bite on this one. How about the times a customer calls me for a roof estimate,I tell him I will come and look at the job tomorrow at about 3:00, And when I get there at 2:50 there is already a crew up on the roof nailing away.Or the times I schedule a repair for later in the week and when I show up bright and early in the morning,truck loaded with the materials,I find the freaking job already done.We deal with many more customers than you deal with contractors and run into many more bad apples.Although they are in the minority,they do tend to color our attitude towards the rest of you.When a contractor fails to show up at the promised time it is a inconvenience to you.But when I show up to work, on time,and find you have yanked the job and given it to someone else because they could get there faster,You have wasted my time and taken money out of my pocket.What is it with customers and phones?Do the phones only work sporatically?Good Luck,Stephen
*See! I told ya! (And i was being facetious. I used to work by appointments, where I only made money if people showed up on time. VERY aggravating, especially the lack of comprehension on the customer's part. I get it.)A lot of your customers don't understand business very well. It the situations you describe, I'm sure a polite but firm conversation with the homeowner explaining your predicament -- and assessing an appropriate fee for your time (which the customer deprived you of my fraud -- no contract was ever intended -- you'll collect occasionally, and it makes a point) -- should make a permanent impression ... and maybe blow off some steam? I think a fee is within your legal rights -- think of what would happen if a home seller pulled the same stunts.P.S. We're in the minority who are very nice to hired workers. Not so far as to bake every day... I'd be annoyed if my wife were nicer to the help than to me!
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I know this is an old topic (ad nauseum, Latin for same old thing over and over until it makes you wanna puke...). Still wondering what else I can do to weed out the time-wasters, short of giving them a psychological examination before spending hours pricing jobs that just never happen. It wouldn't be so bad if we just lost out to a competitor, but this tire-kicking has to stop! I try pre-qualifying callers on the first phone contact, but almost always end up making an appointment to look over the job, which ropes me into probably 8 hours meeting with them, putting a quote together and delivering it. Just instituted a Quick Quote policy, which means they get a set of written specs based on what we discussed and a ballpark price. This would only save me an hour or so. Then if the specs are right and the ballpark is in the budget, I can go ahead with the detailed estimating. This might be a good time to ask for some money? How much would sound professional but not greedy? Does asking for $100 sound like a money grab? $50? $20? All I know is, my time and my knowledge is my stock in trade, if I spend too much time in the office and not enough time producing a product I'll go broke. Can't please all of the people all of the time, so how do you guys make sure you're pleasing just the people who put food on your table?