Just wanted to share some of my thoughts from this week. I have been working on a shower for the past two weeks. This project is with a GC that I had done work for in the distant past and had priced myself out of their budget long ago. As some of you know, I had worked out a reduced daily rate because I was sitting home with no work. I reconnected with this GC because I was slow knowing that they were cheap. To my surprise they hired me for this project. Come to find out, they didn't have a budget for the project and subsequent rejected estimates showed that they hadn't changed much. Working on this project at my reduced rate has been frustrating because this GC was not prepared for me to be on the project. I have been helping iron out the design on the fly as I install and this has dragged the install out into a 3rd week for me. Super frustrating. My takeaway is that I won't be doing another project at a reduced rate for this GC. The project manager has been suffering along with me, sharing my frustration that nothing was decided before the project was started (he just started working for the GC). The reduced rate stresses me out because there is a lot less margin for this kind of unorganized work. My bad. Lesson learned.

I wanted to tell you guys about the success we've been having with the tile inspection side of our business. For years, people would call us and ask us to check out crappy tile. You guys know how it is. You run out there acting like the hero, spend a lot of time giving out valuable info, you make up a bid and CRICKETS. Especially when you're wanting real money for your work. So, now, when the multitudes call me about bad tile work, "my contractor just got done and it's horrible" type of stuff, I mention our "inspection service"... I tell the homeowner that most of the contractors see them as "dumb homeowners" and when we get involved it's a different story. I explain the value of the service.... Here's what it looks like: A written report where we break down the national standard violations. There are always at least 3 from a VISUAL inspection. I produce a video with Jason talking about the standards and proper installation practices and what our findings are, while he's standing in the failed shower. We've done 10+ of these and we've had success with helping 2 homeowners get the contractor to the table to make things right...our most recent one, she had a contractor that is going to pay to have us re-do the entire shower to the tune of 20k! We had another where the contractor replaced all of the showers in her house. We have one right now, in the court system. Now, if this one is a winner for the homeowner...I feel confident saying we are on to something. This is a $100k+ job that the homeowner got ripped off on. It's in court now and our report was requested by the other side during the discovery process, so it's a real thing! Here's examples of the videos we make and these are the two winners:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo7pW5nHrgo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKJs-i7aanE There's a PDF of the report we make at the bottom. So, essentially, we are not giving away our expertise anymore. I've made a product to sell to people. We started selling these at $400 now we are up to $600 and eventually I hope to get these up to $2000, I feel like that would be a fair price for what we do.

It's interesting to see the sharp contrast between my ideal client type and the not so ideal ones. I recently went back to a GC I had down a lot of work with years ago. Over a year of working with them in the past, I basically priced myself out of getting any work from them. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. Work has been slow through the beginning of the year, so I decided to give them a try again. I knew that my pricing would be way above their heads, so I came up with a reduced price that is still profitable for me. I priced the first project for them and they didn't hesitate to hire me. The project manager tells me he has a bunch of projects in that area and wants me to price them. I price the next two jobs for him, and he comes back with "your price is pretty high, I will have to keep these in house". A little digging gets me the answer for them accepting my first estimate. The project I was hired for doesn't have a budget. The rest of them are priced the same way they were years ago. Too low. These projects are all lake houses with property values over 1 million. As a side note, the tile subcontractor they use a lot has a tendency to screw up installs, causing them to have to be torn out and redone..... My solution? "Let me know when the next project with a realistic tile budget comes up and I will be happy to give an estimate."

What are your mark ups?

Looking to possibly expand to utilize subs for smaller projects as me and my guys stay on one job start-final payment. What Forms/Documents do I need to make the process as seamless as possible? TIA