FAQs
- What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
You know in this business there are so many variables it is difficult to price a project, job or even task without seeing the job in person. Even then you can't see everything you need to. For instance someone wants a couple of pieces of sheetrock replaced, taped, mudded, primed, painted and a wall of custom shelves built there and primed & paint the shelves as well. It is pretty easy to price the shelves, the paint, mud, tape etc. with a few simple measurements and maybe a simple sketch of what you are looking for. The big problem comes when you have to demo or tear out the old sheetrock only to find out there is unprotected electrical behind the wall, some rotten wood which has started to mold (well you get the picture). Now you have to be the bad guy that has to go to the homeowner who trusted, like & hired you and tell them "well the job has turned out to be a lot more than we planned on". Now your a crrok, a theif, troublemaker, you name it. But you finally get a handle on things and try to get to the bottom of the problem and as you dig a little deeper you find a leak in the slab that has started everything. So you get things straight and inline with the homeowner, you break up the concrete & find the broken line, call the plumber to fix, put in new concrete, take out the rotten wood (it happened to turn out to be 9 sheets of sheetrock wide instead of 2 sheets and well before its all said and done and just as an example your $2500 or so job has now turned into $7000 or so. So you get to the end where you are actually doing the work you were hired to do in the first place. You finsih everything up, clean up, everything looks great but that old bad taste is still around from the (suprise), you get a sign off on the job becasue it really does look good, sadly hand the bill over to the customer, they sadly hand you a check (sometimes) and instead of everyone being all happy and jolly about the job it's just a sad day all the way around. So my remedy when I go price any job is I agree to price what I can see, then I suggest to the customer that we agree on a small price for me to demo the site where we can both see the whole picture.....(and then I will give you a price for the whole job), if its not in your budget or for some other reason you wish not to move forward I can simply close up the site securely and thats that. The customer is thankful for the way I handled things even though it was not the greatest news, and 2 or 3 months later when they actually get all the funds to do the job you are the first one they call to see if you can come do the job now and everybodies happy, happy, happy now. Great ending to what could have really just as easily not been. Felipe
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
I am contunuosly reading, watching webinars etc. to stay up to date with markets, trends, techniques. I will be 50 years old in not so many years from now but I will never stop learning.
- What types of customers have you worked with?
I would say my most commom jobs I am hired to do is Interior and Exterior Painting, including pressure washing & other prep work.