Nehmo Sergheyev wrote:
Many Home repair/renovation-advice TV segments, government pamphlets,
web pages, newsgroup postings, and so on, advocate that the homeowner
get three (I've even seen recommendations for more) estimates before
selecting a contractor. These advisers then have a variety of methods
to proceed: average the estimates and keep looking, pick the middle,
pick the guy you like, or sometimes they provide no further advice. The
homeowner, lacking any better criteria, may very well take the lowest
bid or estimate. Consequently, often the homeowner then gets the lowest
quality job.

Most of these advisers don't encourage the homeowner to spend time
actually educating themselves on the type of work they want.

For residential jobs, everything associated with houses, the standard
is for the estimates to be free to the homeowner. Thus, contractors are
wasting time, gas, and aggravation unless the estimate yields a job.
Occasionally, a homeowner will recognize this and thank the contractor
for his time, but usually the homeowner is oblivious.

Let's look at this form the perspective of the *average* contractor,
that is, average in his ability to land jobs. Assuming all customers
get three estimates, the contractor must then do three estimates in
order to get one job - a day's work, perhaps. When we factor-in the
many customers who will never buy the job from anybody, the
contractor's ratio gets worse. When we figure-in that the contractor
must refuse some jobs, the ratio gets worse yet. So how does the
contractor compensate for this loss? The same way stores compensate for
employee-theft and shoplifting, they charge the paying customers for
it. That's where all the money comes from.

What else does the contractor do to limit his losses? He qualifies his
customers. In other words, if while on the call with a potential
customer, the contractor perceives the customer to be shopping, or
worse, *just* shopping, the contractor will then find some way to end
the call. The then rejected potential customer may try the next
contractor on his or her list, but he of she has lost the opportunity
to use the rejecting contractor, and often these people are the best
contractors.

Sometimes when you can get something for free, it's not ethical nor
beneficial to take it.

How then should a customer select a contractor? First he or she should
educate themselves on the work that needs to be done. Then, calling a
few contractors is fine, and even getting three estimates is correct in
some situations. But indiscriminately wasting people's time is abusing
the system and it will put off the contractor who is perhaps the
homeowner's best bet.

--
(||) Nehmo (||)



With regards to your first question, from a contractors point of view, I
think you best answered the question yourself when when you say the
contractor "qualifies" his or her customers. Thats all one can do.

We have always chosen to flip your scenario on its head making "us" the
ones who "choose" to work for the customer not the other way around.
Qualifying the customer is exactly what we do. That said, we have always
been fortunate to have work booked out a for months or even years, which
has allowed us to basically say "hey, you want on the list, fine, but
dont waste my time if your not serious". Of course we say it nicer than
that, hehe.

In our business we have always been up front and honest with the
customer telling them point blank that the detailed quoting process is a
very time consuming and costly investment and that we will give them
some very clear/firm numbers based on the general scope of their project
but then it is up to them to decide, based on our work/references, and
their "feel" for us, whether we take it to the next level. Once a more
firm commitment is made we will begin to invest the real time but we are
not doing itemized quotes on speculation.

As far as the customer goes, I personally think very little of the
decision to commit to a given contractor is based on the quote. Perhaps
in commodity type work (replacement windows, simple decks, etc.) its
different but I am talking more in the line of homes, additions, design
work, and so on. Our experience is that it is more so based on their
impression of you, your work, your ideas, and so on. From our customers
we know that we are more often the higher contractor rather than the
lower. Our customers have always said the decision is all about a
combination of reputation, references, ideas/creativity, personality,
and the like. Price is almost never in the list.

Commodity work would be a whole different ball game in which I wouldnt
want to play, but none the less much of the same applies. It definitely
applies to landing more work down the road and building a better
reputation making one more sought after allowing one to get out of the
commodity business.

Thats just our take on it,
Mark