Dee Davis (00:19)
Good morning and welcome to the Management Under Construction podcast. I'm your host, Dee Davis. This week, we are going to talk about everyone's favorite part of the project, the end.
We've said this before, we'll say it again. At the beginning, we're all excited about the new adventure. It's like going to Disneyland. In the middle, we're getting tired, a little bit cranky. There might be some temper tantrums, some timeouts, but we get through it. By the end, we're over-sugared, exhausted, and just want to move on to the next project. We aren't at our best selves at the very end, as individuals or as companies.
As contractors, this is the most important part of the job because this is the lasting impression that you're going to leave for your customer. Whether you're a trade contractor or a general contractor, your customer is multiple people. It's facilities personnel, it's the owner's project manager, maybe it's the GC or the CM. You've got lots of customers at the end of a job.
You need to make sure that they all walk away happy so that you get invited back. I recently had a project that finished and there was a follow-on project where we used a lot of the same subcontractors. That's always really awesome if you can manage it. The initial job had a fair amount of warranty issues, that we are still dealing with nearly two years later.
Last week, I had to have a meeting about some of the issues. Contractor A chose to send some snarky emails reminding us that the warranty was up and that they did their job. So anything that was going on now wasn't their responsibility, even though I sent pictures showing that it appeared there was incomplete work. Contractor B met me on the job site. We had a calm, rational, and friendly discussion about the ongoing issues.
how they'd be handled, and who would pay for what. Guess who walked away with a better result? It's not that hard to figure out. We've really got to do a much better job at the end of projects when things come up. Owners are people too. And you know that old saying, treat others like you would want to be treated. It's good advice in the business world too. If you like what you're hearing, don't forget to boop the like button.
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Service doesn't end with the end of the project. It continues long after the job is done. Even as a consultant, this is true. Some years back, I finished a big hospital job. And about two or three years later, I start getting phone calls and emails from the owner because they were having problems with some of the flooring finishes. Well, they had had some big turnover and they didn't have the people at their fingertips on their team that had the history on the job.
So they asked if I would help. Now they weren't dangling a PO in front of me. I said I would be happy to help. I sent some historical emails, information, submittal data, answered a bunch of questions via email and some phone calls. I even went to the site and walked it with their new team to help them solve the problem. That client,
continues to give me work year over year. The 10 or so hours that I might've spent helping their new people understand the history and solving their problems was nothing compared to the years of projects that I've received from them since then. This matters on an individual level as well as a company level.
I'm the owner of the company, so I certainly represent my company, but it doesn't matter what your position is. You represent yourself and your reputation as well as your company's reputation. So you have a reputation. What is it? Are you difficult to deal with? Are you snarky and you don't respond unless someone dangles a PO in front of you? Or are you helpful, responsive, and show up with an attitude towards customer service and problem solving? I get it.
Whether you're a designer, a contractor, or a consultant in this industry, we all operate on budgets and billable hours. But we still have to operate on repeat business and reputation as well.
Soon we will air an episode with a guest named Jeff Klubeck where we're going to talk about his leadership model called the integrity game and how it can be used in many aspects of your personal and professional life, including, you guessed it, working on your own integrity. Doing what you say and being honest, reputable partner in the industry and create more success for yourself and your business. Integrity is really what we're talking about here.
finishing a project and serving our clients with integrity, not attitude.
I went on a site visit recently, a client shared with me a story about an electrician who was not responsive. They had been using this electrician on tons of projects for years and years, but all of a sudden they stopped being responsive. They stopped calling back after having left voicemails. They stopped responding to requests for quote. They just stopped responding.
And so the client was starting to move away from them and go to another contractor. This didn't make a lot of sense because we use that contractor in a lot of facilities. They get tons of business from this client overall. When pressed about what was really going on, it really boiled down to a single person who was not being responsive. Used to be responsive, they're no longer responsive. Who knows why? Maybe that person's overburdened, maybe they've got some personal stuff going on.
But without communication, the client just assumes that you no longer value their business and you're moving on. So they're going to move on. We decided to escalate that to the supervisor because we don't think that's really what's happening in that company since they have a very strong foothold in a number of facilities in the area. So this is an opportunity for this client's PM to meet with the customer.
Find out what the problem is and fix it, maintaining that relationship so they don't lose that business to another contractor. The last 10 % of a job is the hardest. We all know that. It's something that's been said in this industry forever. We all know the story. The owner's running out of money, the contractors are running out of patience everything's rushed, and the site crew is getting smaller every day.
The office is calling wanting you to hurry up and finish so that you can move on to the next project. The faster you close this, the less risk you're going to have overall, right? That's what we're often told. There's two strategies to closing out projects. And the one I see utilized far more than the other. Strategy one is called the finish strong strategy. Keeping your crew sizes up longer.
that bell curve that we have in the construction industry, it tends to fall steeply on the end of the project, keeping that crew size up a little longer and using lag times for pre-punching your work, tying up all those loose ends that just happened during a job, and getting ahead on punch items.
Strategy two is called the ditch and run. Crew down as soon as possible to minimize your labor risk. Leave loose ends all over the place. The last guys will get it. Don't worry about pre-punching your work. They'll catch anything that needs to be done during the regular punch list walks. Get started on the punch. Nah, let the last guys do that. I think we all know which one is most often used. Of course, it's the ditch and run.
Which one do you think really minimizes your risk though? Risk is more than just job cost. It's your reputation. As we've talked about in the branding episodes, you have a brand, you just might not know what it is or be in control of it. Are you the ditch and run contractor or the finish strong contractor? Ask your clients. They're going to answer that question without a moment's thought. That's your reputation. The thing I find interesting,
from the owner's point of view, is that the ditch and run contractors do it every single time. And then they come back when they hear about potential for a new project, and they act like they didn't just do that to you. They assume you don't remember or you don't perceive it that way. If you bring it up, they get very defensive and deny doing it. Owners know if you're a ditch and run contractor, and they know you're going to do it again. Hey, Dee.
What if I work for a company that has a history of being a ditch and run contractor, but that's not how I'm gonna run my work. One of the fabulous things about being a project manager and running your own work is you're kind of in your own little tiny universe for a period of time. For the most part, in my experience, the office sort of loses track of you for a while.
they check out your monthly financial reports, maybe check in with you once in a while, but for the most part, you're on your own. I got to decide how I was going to run my work. And if it didn't necessarily agree with how the office always wanted things done, most of the time, nobody noticed. So what you can do is take charge of your own project. Make sure
that you develop a strong relationship with all of your clients, the facilities people, the general contractor, the owners rep, the inspectors, whoever those people are that you're dealing with on a regular basis on the job. And make sure you maintain those connections, check back with those people. And if they start coming up with problems, respond to them in a timely fashion. Don't just automatically say, hey, that's not my problem. Listen to what they're saying. Sometimes,
They may not understand that it wasn't your scope. They may not understand that that's just not how contracting works. Sometimes we just can't do the things that you're asking us to do. But having that conversation will absolutely help your reputation and maintain that positive attitude with your client.
Hey D, what if I've done the ditch and run before, but I want to change my reputation? Talk about it. Admit that you've done the ditch and run. It's hard because nobody wants to be perceived that way, but we all know that even the best contractors have done this. Talk about it with your client. as you're going out and you're marketing yourself, lobbying for a new project, I would say the words, hey,
I know we haven't always done the best at the finishing of the job, the last 10%, the callbacks, the warranty, but we are committed to doing better. Acknowledge that you've done it before, acknowledge that you're aware of it and that you have every intention of doing better. A client's going to be more likely to give you another shot if you fully admit what you've done in the past and commit to doing better. The trick is now you have to do better.
Hey Dee, what if we're a finished strong contractor and we want to leverage that as a differentiator? You should talk about that too. Absolutely advertise, scream it to the hills that you're a finished strong contractor. You better be right. If you're saying that and you're not a finished strong contractor, people will know. So talk to your clients, make sure that is actually your perception out there in the universe, and then scream it from the rooftops.
Mark that as a differentiator, but never ever badmouth your competition. That makes you look really, really bad. Nobody in any situation should ever badmouth their competition. make yourself sound good without putting everybody else down.
Thanks so much for joining us. Please like and share this episode with a friend. Leave us a comment or a question and make sure that you are not a ditch and run contractor.
