Five Rules Every Home Remodeling Contractor Should Follow
There is plenty of information out there for homeowners
about contractors, but there is very little information about homeowners
that home remodeling contractors should be aware of. Here are five
simple rules that every home remodeling contractor should follow.
1. Try to avoid working with the disgruntled homeowners. The moment that
you enter a prospective client's home and start talking to them, you
need to keep one thing in mind. If these people are rude or mean to you
in any way, inform them that you will not be working for them ever and
they should seriously consider changing their attitude, before calling
another contractor.
2. Don't waste a lot of time designing a job that you don't have. I just
got through spending about five hours with a woman designing her
bathroom, only to find out that a local home improvement center
convinced her not to use my services and that she should use one of
their contractors, even though she had no idea that their contractors
are going to charge her more money.
3. Always ask the prospective client, when they're planning on starting
the project. If they are not planning on starting to do any work for a
few months, it wouldn't be a bad idea to have them contact you a little
bit later. If they are planning on doing the work immediately and you're
booked solid for the next two months, it wouldn't make any sense to go
look at their project.
4. Try to get as much information about the project over the phone or
through e-mail. If someone wants to build a deck on their home and you
don't have enough information about the project, you could find yourself
wasting a lot of time, especially if they don't have any idea how much
the deck is going to cost. You could always give them a general idea
over the phone or through e-mail.
5. It wouldn't be a bad idea to ask your prospective client to find out
how many contractors they have contacted, before you. This one can be
extremely important, because it will tell you that the homeowner is
shopping the job and looking for the cheapest price.
Most homeowners are interviewing you for the job and you should take
this opportunity to interview them. Make sure that these are people that
you get along with and can actually work for. If you don't feel
comfortable with these people, there's a good chance that you'll have
problems with them in the future.