| My Design/Build Coach Articles for Remodleing and Design/Build Professionals | |||
| Are You An Unpaid Consultant? | |||
| It's Friday night at 9:00 and you are hammering away at a bid proposal that is due tomorrow. You really should be doing something else, such as, spending time with your family and friends! How did you get into this position anyway? Like most dutiful contractors, you were probably raised on the bid/build principle of remodeling. That is, you meet a prospect, look at their plans, provide a bid and hope that you are awarded the contract. The problem is: if you are one of three contractors submitting a bid, you have only a 33% chance of actually getting the job. And this is after you have spent up to twenty hours (or more!) preparing a bid. Who paid for your valuable time? What if the contractor that is awarded the project uses your ideas which were exposed in your bid? Worse yet, what happens if you rushed the bid process, were awarded the project and then found you made miscalculations that affect profit margins? Do not despair, it does not have to be this way. There is a way to guard your intellectual property and eliminate the bid entirely. That process is called design/build. But it requires a shift in your attitude about what you are selling and how you sell it. The client is less concerned about lumber and labor than they are about the level of comfort you provide. Let's face it, it is a leap of faith that the homeowner is making when they hire a remodeling contractor. You can turn that leap into a small skip by offering the assurances that come with design/build. In short, design/build controls the two major variables for the homeowner and the contractor in any remodeling project: What it will look like; and What it will cost. Once those issues have been established, everyone can relax a bit and let the project unfold. The major problem with bid/build for the contractor is the amount of time, energy and effort that is required before any commitment is forthcoming from the client. The major problem with bid/build for the homeowner is that the bid, the money, becomes the deciding factor in choosing a contractor, even when there is no rapport or comfort with that contractor. One way to establish that rapport with the homeowner is to understand their pain and their vision. Pain consists of the daily inconveniences and down right problems they have with their existing space. Their vision about how to improve the space may be blurry, but don't feel obligated to draw them a picture without a commitment to work together. You not only can solve their problem, but also accentuate the potential positives that lie hidden within. For example, by picking out one of the client's design ideas and responding by saying something obtuse such as, "that could be interesting", you are forcing the client to visualize and refine their ideas. In the process, you are not giving away any of your design solutions that can in turn be used by the next contractor that comes in to meet with the homeowner. Once you have established rapport with the homeowners, you are far more likely to end up working with them. In effect what you are doing is creating the basis for future work. That is you will spend less time prospecting and preparing bids and more time reaping the benefits of your existing relationships. And as we all know, one of the richest grounds for prospects comes not from mass mailings, but from referrals from satisfied customers. If you want to be the unpaid consultant, providing detailed bids for potential work, by all means, continue to work those bids. However, you will probably have a more rewarding business and personal life if you make some adjustments in how you perceive and project your business. Your craftsmanship and intellectual property are valuable. But time is even more important than those. Time is the one commodity we can never retrieve. |
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ARE YOU AN UNPAID CONSULTANT? By Joseph Dellanno Remodeling News |
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