Leveraging Contractors Efficiently aka How Not to Lose Your Shirt

You wouldn’t believe how many people operate verbally with their contractors without ever signing a contract or receiving a completion picture. Sure it’s easier to say “hey go demo or trash out, it’s a thousand bucks, I need it all clear, this that and the other,” but then comes the infamous phone call from your contractor (or child as we so lovingly refer to them), “hey when do I get paid,” you feel they haven’t finished the job the way you wanted them to but you explained it in so much detail, now where’s your leg to stand on? Your “child” now has amnesia and says you never told me to take the trash with me!!! What I’m asking you to do for your sake and theirs is eliminate the noise at the following stages!!

INITIATING WORK

1. - Write a contract, it doesn’t take as long to do as the 45 phone calls you’ll have later trying to discuss payment or trying to get them back to the jobsite
2. - Be as detailed as possible and always have a summary line to include miscellaneous clean up, nail removal, touch ups, etc.
3. - Include a start date, this eliminates confusion and again more phone calls about when you told them to be on site
4. - Always give a completion date, if you’re still learning how long jobs take, $1,000 per working day is fair but don’t forget about simultaneous components
5. - Upfront, give contractors written consequence for not finishing on time
6. - Have contractors initial every page and fully sign the contract

WORK IN PROGRESS & LEVERAGING YOUR CONTRACTORS

1. - Have your contractor send daily photos of job progress, just a few text photos, or uploads to a networking site, this does wonders with keeping them on task, keeping you informed and making sure your managers are communicating with their workers if not on site themselves
2. - Have your contractors send you weekly updates in writing, just a sentence or two should explain where their heads at and is a good reference for progress week over week
3. - Have a phone or face to face conversation with your contractors once a week and reference your notes from their update, you can catch jobs that they are holding, or critical path issues easily
4. - Have contractors submit every change in writing, with smaller companies an official change order process may create form over substance but at least require an email with a price and tell them to never start without a response from you

COMPLETING WORK

1. - No matter how easily accessible your job site is you should require completion pictures, this is so that anyone on your team can see progress of the job and you have before and after pictures for your portfolio
2. - You should create an inspection list for a final walkthrough, once that list can be fully checked off as complete and signed off on by your contractor you can do a punch out, they can be held accountable for anything not completed
3. - Hold a significant amount of money for punch out, a contractor is more apt to go back to a job for $1,500 than $250, that isn’t even worth his time and closing out the job to your standards is worth a lot more
4. - If you cannot get on site yourself, a 3rd party inspector is recommended because a fresh set of eyes will catch the majority of what is missed by people who have been starting at the same walls and flaws for weeks
5. - When getting close to the completion date, send reminders, you are in the warning zone of completion, you have 3 days left, have them communicate a lot on the last few days leading to completion you should be talking at least once a day
6. - Payment is easy because you have verification from pictures, verification in writing, and verification by a 3rd party (or yourself), now just pay up to the amount originally agreed on and get on to your next project!

GOOD LUCK OUT THERE!!!