Work, work, work, work and wait... story of our lives. We have our part done and are waiting for tile, wood and plumbing to be done. It is great to have crews that know what to do and how to do it; the other trades do not understand the speed and skill that we have built our teamwork around. I wish that we could do it all but the "jack of all trades, master of nothing" kicks in and we do not want to be known for anything other than good honest work.
Work, work, work, work and wait... story of our lives. We have our part done and are waiting for tile, wood and plumbing to be done. It is great to have crews that know what to do and how to do it; the other trades do not understand the speed and skill that we have built our teamwork around. I wish that we could do it all but the "jack of all trades, master of nothing" kicks in and we do not want to be known for anything other than good honest work.
Took a bunch of phone calls to today from friends and contractors across the board, a good friend in New York, one in Alabama and spoke with a dear friend in Wisconsin about the blog. Got calls for two more jobs; we have one for sure, and I think that we are only bidding against one other company for the other.
I do estimates unlike others around here-we do not flop down a fat photo book of "Look how great we are!" and we do not try to explain the wood world to folks. We take in a pad of paper, tape, moisture meter and card; that is it. Our plan is to read the homeowner and see what gives them pain. Once we find it we do our best to stop the pain or show them that we know how to stop the pain. What is the "pain"? Could be dust control, oil vs. water or trust (that is a big one). Or it could be just overall knowledge of the job. Our job is to find the pain and show the homeowner we know how to fix it.
Right now we are getting 8 of 10 jobs we estimate and no, we do NOT drop our price, even though our estimates are higher than the competition. Value in the work is how we present the estimate. We look in the crawlspace, we review trouble areas with the homeowner and we sell our knowledge, not a price. I bet we spend more time with the homeowner during the estimate than most, making sure they understand what is about to happen to the home and what they can expect from us, and most of all, what we ask of them during the time we are in the home. It is nice to know that they feel better about the job and they can hold my feet to the fire if the job does not go like we said up front.
