The Huddle - Episode 10 - Getting Paid; How to Avoid Common Problems
This week on The Huddle Paul, Daniel and Jose discuss common mistakes installers make when receiving money, and some resources and solutions to ensure an installer is protected from any monetary mishaps.
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The HUDDLE is where the flooring industry can get together and talk about everything! Lead by Paul Stuart from Go Carerra who is joined by Daniel and Jose Gonzalez from Preferred Flooring.
so what's up everybody and welcome to
the huddle where we discuss how to
maintain ford progress in your flooring
installation career i'm paul stewart and
i'm joined today by daniel and jose of
preferred flooring as usual
uh today we're going to con
conduct a a little different type of
huddle and
it's meant to kind of hit where the
rubber meets the road and that is
um
money
oh looks like we got to join hey we got
video
you can see your pretty face
i'm doing anything else yeah let me turn
this a little bit
that way so you can see the pretty my
handy dandy ear scratcher out too
okay good thing we didn't catch on that
so
um
what we're talking about today
is
how to how to avoid
payment mistakes so
mistakes in receiving payments and what
i'm talking about and what this has
come from is talking to several
different subs across the nation and
also reading through some facebook uh
forum complaints about getting paid
um i wanted to discuss some of the
common
mistakes from an installer standpoint
what you can do to protect yourself
a and b
what to do when you don't get paid
so
first off is
is
quality has to be there guys
i'm sorry but you cannot expect people
to pay you top dollar for work if you're
not giving them top dollar
uh quality
what's that it's an over a dollar period
you know yeah
you got it done and you you didn't have
top dollar and it doesn't mean you're
gonna get paid anything if the
customer's not happy if the client's not
happy
yeah so first off
do quality work i don't know how else to
say it
if you if you are deficient in skill you
need to get the training necessary to up
your skill level
don't jump into things this is another
common problem i found in kind of
researching for this episode is
guys are jumping into systems or
new processes of flooring new new things
that they have not received training on
if you've only ever done 12 by 24 being
the largest format ceramic tile you've
ever done don't jump in and accept
projects
where it's a two foot by
five foot tile or three you know three
foot by five foot panel engaged
porcelain panels
get the ding training first make sure
you know what you're doing now
one thing
look you might accept it in the jobs
several months down the road and you can
get the training in between accepting a
job that has that and and actually doing
it that's fine but you have to have the
training
uh for
systems that you've not
done before or been properly trained on
so i have found
guys you know they'll even admit it if
you read through some of the the
results of the
of of what what what the guys say saying
a facebook forum post of well
yeah it wasn't perfect but
okay well you already told me why you
didn't get paid
right
when you say
yeah you're saying but we already know
just by that comment that there's
there's some deficiencies on the
installation quality right and there's a
lot of guys that post on there too not
just guys but there's a lot of people
that post on there too about you know
taking pictures of other people's work
and then you know putting them down and
stuff like that and i just i always
chime in and they probably got what they
paid for
and yeah i mean
when you don't know how to how to price
your stuff it's because you probably
don't really know what you're doing with
it anyways oh what goes into it yeah
yeah that's another good that's a good
time and later that goes into it good
point daniel because
if you're asking how much it should cost
to install a flooring you probably
shouldn't be installing that flooring
if you if you if you don't have enough
experience to know what your costs are
going to be and then and then mark that
up or you know make sure you're making a
profit you probably shouldn't be
installing that flooring
right and then you said you know you
mentioned training when you don't know
how to to work with a certain material
and you know sometimes you're not going
to make that training right but
we've
spent many many hours
in the warehouse with the new material
playing with it out there trying to see
what can go wrong with it before we
actually go on a job site and install it
i mean we got a whole shower system
in our bathroom over here at the office
that
i'm not gonna go
and put this in someone's house when i
don't know how it's gonna react with
stuff yeah this is this is the first
well if you're already highly trained
you're already
very proficient at most flooring
that's a good method right there is at
least get the the experience with it put
your hands on it mess around with it do
it you know
experiment with it when money's not on
the line uh that's that's a form of
training yourself
once you've got your foundation of
knowledge built and your your foundation
of installation
uh
training
you know done then you can use that
method of messing with the flooring
um
messing with different adhesives
whatever the situation is so a
number one on this subject is make sure
you know what you're doing and you do
good quality work
that is
then you have a lot of tools at your
disposal if someone's just not paying
you
uh
so quality first guys second
try to do work with good people like
vet the people you're doing business
with
uh if you're working for a shop make
sure it's a good job
in the go career network we only
onboard
companies that have great reputations
for taking care of their their
installation
professionals so
um
if you're working outside that's fine my
point is do some do some research make
sure the company you're working for
has a good history of payment a good
history of paying their subs on time and
a good history of taking care of their
install professionals so
um that that's the next point i would
make
and um
you know another thing is make sure it's
in writing
a work order um you know obviously go
career is a digital uh platform that the
work orders are all
mutually agreed upon
they're all signed off and and digital
contracts so to speak but if you're not
using that at least make sure you have
some form of a contract or a written
proposal that's signed off and accepted
so that you have
documentation of what
you have agreed upon
from what you're going to provide
and that matches what they're paying
yet you have to have that
once
do you guys have any i mean do you
handshake deals are tough to do right
like what's your guys's input on that
shouldn't we have
if you don't have a contract if you're
if you're working with a gc and that gc
sends you a contract that's that's
that's one thing but say you're working
with a flooring company
and uh like a store or something is
there a work order or something that
they're giving you that lays out what
you're supposed to do and then the the
price for that
that's 101 right
yeah we have
we have people that we've worked with
for 20 years right like i've known for
20 years um we have we still have email
trails and agreements between
that as a relationship as
as
the handshake is almost a thing of the
past i'm not even going to lie like
if it's between
you putting yourself in a bad spot or
your friend or someone else putting
themselves in a position to lose their
their
their job their career or that that
other company put themselves in a bad
position
they're gonna
throw you under the bus no matter who it
is um we've been fortunate to work with
some people who are still not like that
right but we we meet in the middle
something goes wrong we meet in the
middle and we're okay with that
um
a lot of the beginning of the contracts
for those guys are
verbal or with a handshake but then the
process is still started
where we have email training
documentation and signatures and
approvals
we still have all that that's very and
all that was it kind of learned in the
beginning
getting burned right because
you don't you go into it not knowing
exactly how to do things and then
it's like
it becomes a he said she said type of
thing where it's like well i never gave
you approval for that i was literally on
the phone with you and you said i do
this and then when you don't have things
written down set in stone
uh you know email me back and let me
know that this is approved
you know you you have to have that paper
trail even if you don't have a contract
signed or a work order or something is
missing from the work order you got to
have that that kind of
communication
written down so that way you can refer
to it later
yeah you got to have something you got
to have something that that
in my opinion
like best practice is making sure that
you have
this is the scope this is what i'm doing
and then this is the cost for that
anything in excess of this
is and and we know
some of those
variables so for example
if you put a quote together and you send
it to a customer or
the someone sends you a work order
and you're you're evaluating that work
order from a store
you know the variables you know that
like make sure that say if you're doing
a resilient floor
skim coating is not on your work order
make sure that it's clear
i
skim coding will be additional you know
or something of that nature it's really
just protecting yourself
make the scope of work match the price
before you move forward whether it's an
email some some way of of having
reference back i read a lot of posts i
went through a lot of old stuff
in facebook to look through and a lot of
it's like oh i did this extra work and
they don't want to pay me for it
well i mean
make sure you have written documentation
proving that it's an added cost that is
not
part of the original work order and you
you have at least that first piece of
protection on yourself almost
everybody's got a camera now
so i mean
we play games so we learned the hard way
right we learned the hard way
a couple of times working with the same
company thinking that things weren't
going to happen the same way
and you know after the the second time
we took a very big hit to us at that
time was a very big hit and that was it
that
would
we have some clients same way in the in
the flooring company where
um we'd done work with them for many
years and it was it was typically on
change order work
if we didn't document it right it was it
was hell getting paid and sometimes we
didn't we had we went through the same
thing and that's why i'm here is to try
to and you guys are here we're just
trying to um uh
bring up
our experiences and hopefully
prevent some new guys from
really taking hits like that because
some of those can take you out of
business
yeah i mean some of them can put you in
the in the old bankruptcy
column and it's important to
to document
have some some paper trail of some sort
um you know i i try not to plug go
carrera every time i'm on a
one of the huddles but the fact is is
having an equitable system to where
here's the offer you accept the offer as
is
and then it gets awarded that's an
equitable system
also if i have a change order that i i
want you guys to do i have to send it
through the system and you have to
approve you have to accept it or
vice versa the the installer has
additional work they have to
submit a change order to the company and
then the company has to accept it just
don't do the work until it's accepted
that if you're doing paper that's fine
as well but
if you do more work than what's on the
original agreed upon uh amount
get something in writing
i don't even if you
write it on
notebook paper and get the customer to
sign it anything is better than nothing
the key is to really have an equitable
agreement and if it's if it's agreed
upon
and you did a good quality job
and then they don't want to pay
now we can talk about some tools that
the
you know legal ways of uh
you know putting yourself in a good
position
to be able to
uh collect that money
now whether that's a homeowner or a
a business and some of these things that
we'll talk about
you gotta you have to make a business
decision
uh one of them obviously is mechanics
liens
they're very easy to file
the problem is is if you do a ton of
work for that particular client
do you really want to lean their
property
right
what does that do for your long-term
relationship so i would say first step
is have a a calm
professional conversation with the
person and ask what your deficiencies
are and what it will take for you to for
them to release payment to you
another good method
just to digress a minute or
just a second here is you know getting
money down on work is also if it's a new
client even in commercial a lot of times
if it's a new client that's a smaller
client we'll ask for 50 down
and we get that probably good 60 70
percent of the time they'll agree to
that and we just explained to him that
you're a brand new client we've never
worked with you before we need to have
some security in this position so
exactly
what we've been doing there's there's
there's nothing
there's no shame especially in the in
the commercial world you get a bunch of
companies that are bidding all over the
us and then they reach out to you from
you know new yorkers or something and
they're like hey we want you to do this
job all right well here's my numbers and
i'm gonna need 50 up front and if they
say no right off the bat it's like
sounds like uh you should probably go
elsewhere
yeah i'll usually have a conversation
with them and explain to them why and
then if they
have the same stance like we don't do
that yeah i say well we don't do that
either
you know
we don't do business with new clients
out of state
uh on a on a buffalo wild wings to
we're not gonna just jump in and expend
resources and and money
with no guarantee and um
a lot of times they'll agree they'll
understand uh if you're working with a
good company they get it um
so
that that goes into you know you guys
have
experience with uh placing liens have
you guys done that in the past
we have not pretty close recently but we
have not exercised that because you only
have a certain window yeah
yeah so the rules to that
is not if
and if this varies per state so i just
got back from utah to get our
contractors license in utah because we
got some work up there
uh in utah for example you have to
uh
file for your
like at the very beginning of a job
within
uh i believe it's 30 days of starting
the job you have to
file
uh that you have lien rights basically
so you're filing that you have an
equitable position in that project
that's not a lien it's not an intent to
lean or anything it's just putting it on
a directory that you are one of the
people working on that project that and
you expect to be paid for the work that
you're doing
that um
in most states and please look at your
local lien
rights engage an attorney
this i'm not giving uh you know
attorney advice i'm not an attorney i
can just speak from my experience
uh and we work all over the nation so i
know uh one thing for sure it varies per
state lean rights are a state uh
a a state mandate or a state ordinance
it's not a federal thing
so
but most of them one of the most common
things is you must file a lien within 90
days of the last work performed
so the last time you are on the job
performing work
you have to file a lien within 90 days
that's pretty
that's pretty um
pretty sticky isn't it when you're doing
commercial work
right and then i we went through um
i think it was our local chamber had
someone do a presentation on uh liens
and we were on there and they said that
you know here you actually have to file
an intense lien before you can actually
file a lien
yeah and that's the same way in oregon
in fact we're
we have our license up in oregon in
oregon you have to
file a notice of intent to lean
yes that's what it's called
right and that you have to follow that
within a certain time frame and then
if it doesn't get
taken care of within a certain time
frame you have to actually file the lien
now what is filing a lien and tell is
it's typically in most states pretty
easy to do the the idea is that they
want to protect the workers to not get
shafted on payments but
it does have time frame so you have to
do you have to be cognizant
of the time frames to do that
and mechanics liens actually can force a
property into foreclosure so most times
it's going to get taken care of at the
notice of intent to lean
level but you just have to know what
these time frames are for your state and
make sure that you're abiding by those
rules
now if you have open punch list item or
you did poor workmanship and they can
prove that they're going to win i mean
the bottom line is you gotta you gotta
make sure you get step one and two done
first you gotta be be
a professional in that particular
flooring product uh or discipline say
ceramic carpet hardwood or resilient
and then
then you have
something to stand on you got to build a
good foundation which is doing good
quality work after that
you do good work
turn in your billings and you're not
getting paid
uh these are just some some methods to
to help you get paid
now
from a general standpoint i'm always
going to call the customer first and try
to figure out what the deficiency is of
why they're not be why they're not
paying me
and
i even if they tell me well they have
not been paid
um
from in commercial there's a lot of this
which is i haven't been paid from the
owner yet right
and and
most commercial contracts in most states
allow pay when paid or pay if paid
clauses in the contract
you are then when you execute that
contract you're agreeing that
i i
understand that
the contracts abil contractors ability
to pay me is dependent upon their
ability to get paid from the owner right
that's a that's okay
uh we do it all the time and usually
it's like within five to seven days of
them receiving money from the owner
the the key here is that a lot of gc's
will tell you
oh i haven't been paid yet
just ask them the one question if they
have been paid and if they say they have
not asked them if you can call the
architect or
owner and i typically do it in a very
friendly way by saying hey
if some subcontractor pressure would
help you uh get paid i'm happy to make a
phone call to the
to the owner and and let them know that
i want paid as well
and
it shows them that i'm willing to take
the next step i'm willing to make that
phone call to the architect or to the
owner and ask
yeah
i want to know like
where the money's at why it hasn't been
released so i'm willing to make that
phone call to the account sorry
what's that
sorry
daniel's trying to technology right now
so you know making the phone call to
um
or or offering to make that phone call
let them know that you're willing to
continue on the collection process
and when that happens
that usually releases the money pretty
fast
now if they really haven't been paid i
have had
contractors say yeah absolutely go ahead
and then i
send an email or make a phone call to
the owner and i say hey this is paul
stewart i'm with stuart associates
i'm working on xyz project and and uh i
just want you to know we we're owed
money on this job and we don't want to
elevate this to the next level but we
need to be uh we need our position
covered the money that we've expended we
need to be paid for our
our work
i don't even care if it's a progress
payment you know at some point you can't
wait forever to get paid it costs money
to borrow money
right and that cost is going up every
month i mean the fed just raised the the
interest rates another uh 75 basis
points so
you know
if you're borrowing money when you to to
cover your your receivables
like you you have to do a lot of times
when you're in commercial um
you know realize that cost is there and
uh you can't wait forever for it so
any other dirty tricks of the trade that
you guys have used to kind of release
payment when an owner or or someone is
kind of being tough
i don't say it really dirty i mean we're
just very upfront very transparent um
you know
a lot of the conversations that we have
are up front to avoid that we we do have
that uh documentation we do have those
conversations up front because it's a
lot more uncomfortable to have them
when that time of need is there
so we we make sure that that is part of
the front end instead of worrying about
on the back end now and a lot of that is
because of
what went through what we've been
through it's just
it doesn't take me
any
any time to just i don't honestly speak
my mind because i'm really
laid back about it right it's just a
casual conference conversation you bring
it up you say hey these are my concerns
do we have to
um document this do we have any concerns
with these finances and you know it
it's really an upfront conversation to
avoid it at the end well then um
lately what has worked is
um
i just contact them and say hey
this is
you know this late
i'm getting ready to send it to
collections i'm giving you a you know
one last chance before i do
and
i mean when once i i just a few weeks
ago i sent you know
something out that said that and we were
paid within like two hours
yeah
it's funny i mean so it depends on who
you're working with but there are
there's plenty of instances out there
where
they want people want you to collect
um
i had a really old
receivable one time it just kind of
slipped through the
cracks and it wasn't for a huge amount
but
i collected and they were like you're
calling to collect on this
five months later and i'm like
well you knew you owed it
right i did the work
yeah i mean i don't i just there's no
limitation there i mean i did i provided
you a service just because i didn't call
and collect all heavy on you doesn't
mean that you don't pay me you could
have just paid me and this call would
have never happened oh well slipped
through the cracks or whatever so i
think that upfront it's impressive you
guys haven't ever
uh really leaned now i'd say over 20
some years we've leaned probably a
handful of times as all and um
some of those were just letters of
intent
um
even though kansas doesn't require you
to do a letter of intent to lean um we
we can send that anyway right that's
still a good practice like hey
we're owed this amount
and this is just
putting you on notice that we intend to
lean this project if we don't get paid
within and we'll put a time frame to it
that works and we do
you know 300 to 400 projects a year
to only have leaned you know a handful
or less of times as um
i think
lessons get learned fast just like you
guys said
i learned from early days of not getting
paid
you learn quick when your pocketbook
gets hit hard
so doing the first few steps
correctly being
providing good service good quality and
then
following up making sure your contract
whatever that means work order
handwritten
whatever that that's in place email
however you go about that it's got some
written documentation to back you up and
then
you know
you won't get there very often but i i'm
i am surprised on the facebook forums
and different forms you look at how
often this comes up now i will say this
is more of a homeowner thing that i've
noticed on the
from the social media post stuff
i don't
deal with homeowners that often and when
i do there's usually a professional
that's involved meaning an architect or
a designer i'm working with on the job
but direct with homeowner retail type
stuff i don't do so i don't have the
experience there but i can tell you
there's all it's always in your best
interest to make sure you have clear
work directions as far as what the
project entails and that you have a
price associated with that scope yeah
i don't care whether you're doing a
homeowner's house or a commercial
project
you know
a four million dollar commercial
flooring project
either way
clear scope
what's the cost what's the clear
exclusions
and then a good practice of making sure
that any changes that come about are
documented and
equitable or or agreed upon yeah and
it's just like the 50 um
down for the the the residential for the
homeowners like i don't think we touched
a residential project without having
that
ever yeah i think i think i would i
would that would be my
everyday practice now homeowners have
gotten burned too
uh there's plenty of of examples um
of because going on your local facebook
group stuff and search for for
contractor a bunch of them probably come
up about how people just take the money
and run
yeah
yeah so
they have reason to be skittish over the
50
thing
um look building your rape reputation
and your business uh is the best uh part
to that you got
i don't blame a homeowner for not
wanting to give 50 down if you've been
in business for six months and you have
no
references you have no reputation
you got to kind of understand their side
that's the struggle of being a new
business though
i don't know that there's a great way
around that
i know that i have heard some guys will
say
upon delivery of materials i need
they break it down
to where there's a schedule of values
that's what we call in commercial but if
you do that for your homeowner like this
is the cost of your materials with my
markup
cost of your labor with my markup for
each line item like maybe it's your your
bathroom tile this amount your
labors this amount and then in your
kitchen it's
your materials are this amount and your
labor's this amount and then when you
get your materials you can bill them
uh for those materials and recognize
your profit at that point for
uh the material
and then as you finish
your labor you build on a percentage
basis to that homeowner right um danny
sherman on facebook just said that he's
learned it's harder to get a deposit on
labor only but when supplying material
they always make sure that at least the
material is paid for up front so that
way you're not hit you know floating
that material cost and that's a valid
that's a valid point right there because
you i mean technically you haven't done
any labor on that project anyway so i
built for the labor but
i mean i guess it all depends on how
much flavor is actually going to be
involved too and how much
you know that ratio of
material to labor is
yeah if you're doing materials in labor
which i i mean if you're working direct
with a homeowner
hopefully you're able to supply some
materials for the job if not all
i would recommend that you put your
profit puts profit on that material
that profit will help pay for some of
the labor as you perform the job so
don't just cover your raw cost of
of the materials so if it costs you five
hundred dollars in in material don't
bill them 500 you know billing 580 or
whatever it is
so that you can have some profit to then
cover some of your your labor costs
whether it's yourself and and having a
little bit of money to pay yourself
while you're doing the work or if you
have helpers you're able to or other
installer
professionals then you have some some
profit that can help pay them while
you're doing the labor
right and uh rollins says that he gets
50 on all of his jobs like across the
board
so
i mean it's all on
know who you're dealing with right now
doing your research and stuff like we
mentioned you know in the beginning it's
know who you're dealing with that way
you know
what they're comfortable with as well
and then i mean especially when you
don't know them
that's when you really gotta be like all
right this is
this is what the way things need to be
don't let them talk you out of that
because usually that's when the times
you do get burned is when you're like
all right i'll do it this time and then
it's like
i did it this time
hindsight on that's 20 20 for sure
yeah the
the other thing i'd point out is that a
couple of the people who have commented
are known for quality
right so if you know who you are
you you can have some real confidence
and that you execute well you can have
real confidence in asking for the 50
um if a homeowner's a little bit on a
homeowner's side of things if they're a
little reluctant and you have a great
reputation and you can provide with some
references and things like that they're
going to be more apt to
you know come off that 50 down
or paying for the materials upon
delivery some way
you don't want to get so deep into a
project where you've got material labor
all this expenditure and and no money
coming in
been there done that and that's all like
uh you know back
when
the beginning stages when it was a
handshake yeah of course you know and
then you start investing your own money
a lot more time than you need to and
you're not getting compensated yet you
you do start getting nervous right but
it's
trial and error once you start getting
there you keep going and maybe
maybe we didn't reach out and ask enough
people information maybe you know we
didn't know enough people
that were in that position of trying to
grow a business to ask them how did they
operate uh yeah we learned a lot of
things on our own
well anytime you want to know something
i mean reach out like um
these guys
been doing
floor covering projects for a long time
i'm happy to uh
talk to any anybody new in the business
uh that that's trying to figure some
things out and
ways to to
you know protect yourself
i would also say that
non-payment is one thing i mean it even
kind of blows to have to uh forgive my
uh english there but it does it it sucks
to have to wait for a homeowner to get
the draw from their bank and then
process it and then cut you a check i
mean
even waiting on money costs money and
that's why i say make sure you got some
profit in your materials i do know
there's plenty of guys that just come
like the homeowner wants their receipt
and then they want to just pay their
receipt well make sure you're not
dealing with those homeowners i mean let
the no offense to
anyone but let the
scrubs do that work i guess i don't know
how else to say it the bottom line is
you have to be profitable if a homeowner
doesn't understand that you're going to
have profit you had to drive your truck
or your van your
your
your vehicle to go
materials
yeah there's
there's time and effort in getting those
materials picked up and taken to the
homeowner's house there has to be some
money coming in to do that and then
you know
like
i don't know why construction in general
is that way i think it's because the
uh the consumer has been burned so they
they have a
bit of a
reluctancy probably is part of it um
but there again i think that's building
your reputation up to where they feel
comfortable with you because they know
you're going to execute and they know
you're a good solid company
they'll be more apt to pay you if you're
if you're in that position
we're pretty fortunate to deal with a
lot of people like that um i know we've
been around for a little bit
uh but
you you when you start attracting that
certain demographic you it makes it
easier because the word of mouth travels
so
so fast and
you know we appreciate all the
the word about that that we've received
from the amount of work that we have now
have you guys in the past we're getting
close to the the end of this but i i
thought i'd ask have you in the past
like had somebody that is reluctant to
give you the down or
you know process the payment and then
you give them references and they find
out that
you're a good company and and
come off of that
um yeah we actually just had that with a
very large job actually um
and they well we never do that and our
contract just says this
and i'm like well in mine it says this
so like i understand you want me to
follow what your guidelines say but i
also have to protect myself and my
company right and if
if we can't
meet eye to eye on this then i'm sorry
i'm just going to move on and you're
going to move on um
and i think the job went away for a
while and a month later we got a phone
call back like
we're ready
yeah
i'm like i gotta i gotta redo my
proposal guys things have changed
and then i think there's been you know
more than just that sometimes they they
call us and then
you give them a price and then they keep
on looking around and they're we don't
even give them references they just call
other companies and then every single
other company they talk to oh this is
what's going on you should call these
guys
and it you know
your reputation is good when you're
calling other companies around here and
they send you back to us so it's like i
guess well that's a great position my
only point is
yeah that's a really good position to be
in uh it was an odd phone call to say
the least but i got a little bit of a
forwarding because the other installers
one of them actually called me said hey
they called me i said no way call jose
and
he he prepped me for it and when they
called i didn't use it to my advantage
right i just
normal conversation normal project
normal opportunity
we
made the best of it
so it looks like a question came through
how do i go about making a contract
to make sure
i start getting deals in writing what
are the most important things to put in
my contract
i
i'm not an attorney i've read millions
of contracts maybe not millions but
thousands for sure
i would say
get with an attorney and get a standard
form contract if you did want to write
your own you can get with the aia which
is the american institute of architects
and and kind of
go through their contract and pick and
choose the stuff you like because the
legality of their language in that
contract is going to be accurate and you
can kind of copy and paste some of the
things that you like leave the things
out that you don't
but as far as what's the most important
to put in my contract
listen
it can go as deep as detailed as you
want but the two most important things
in my opinion is scope and price
so what is the scope what are you
providing and then what is the cost to
provide that scope and making it clear
in the contract that this price is for
this scope
so that that would be the probably the
most important things to make sure if
you get an attorney to write it up it's
worth the investment probably cost five
or six hundred bucks couple hours of an
attorney's time for them to write a
custom contract for you to give to your
homeowner to your gcs to whatever if
you're a flooring company
um you a lot of times
we we provide a contract to our gcs uh
we have for when we work with our
subcontractors we have a master
subcontract agreement that they sign and
that master subcontract agreement covers
all the particulars that come across in
a commercial project so it's really
that's going to be really detailed to
your uh specific business and how you
like to operate but the two points that
obviously i
you can't do without is the scope and
the money
right and then make sure you you start
listing your exclusions too because
well i think we we list exclusions and
then in there too it also says that if
it's not listed on this proposal it's
not included yeah
good point there's a lot of times where
people are like well i thought this was
included well
no
it's not
we tried to make it so that way
everybody can read it right like um
there's a lot of
uh legal uh verbiage that gets tossed
around but when we have the the template
and then we customize it by what's
excluded because of a walkthrough
because of what we talked about on the
phone
so we try to put those smaller details
in there so it isn't so broad in the
terms but
yeah that's a good point jose like if
you are going to create a contract you i
i would say don't make it so doggone
complicated that they need a law degree
to read it
tell your
you know so it does depend on your
business i mean i get contracts for
especially on like our government work
you know i'll read through it and it'll
be that thick
yeah
but i a lot of times we'll just send it
to the attorney to to want over the
thing as well
so
but if you're providing contracts to
homeowners or you're providing contracts
to
you know general contractors
um
scope money and very good point guys
exclusions so you're telling them what's
in it and you're telling them what it
specifically is not in it
um
and another thing is you know
just kind of going over the basics right
make sure there's an expiration date on
there danny just said that his uh
estimates are
were good for 30 days
it's hard to even hold that right now
i know right make sure there's an
expiration date on it and make sure that
you have your payment terms in there
because when they don't know when
they're supposed to pay you
then that's kind of when
people will say well it slipped my mind
it fell through the cracks well you knew
as soon as i turned it in that you know
payments due on receipt or there's a net
50
you know stuff like that yeah well
that's a good point when i say money i
mean all things money payment terms so
that's good good point i'm glad danny
brought that up is like
is it net
10 net due upon receipt whatever that is
uh just make it clear what you're
expecting uh from money
uh from your from your client
um and then obviously
again the scope and the exclusions um
it's hard it it's hard to get out of it
at that point you know what i mean
you did you did a good job uh most most
people if you have a contract structured
in that way again get with an attorney
if you need a contract that's what i
would recommend
um
none of us here claiming to be attorneys
we just recontracts quite a bit so we
kind of understand them um i would say
you know those two things uh those few
things we just discussed are our most
important and then you know it's a good
place to start and and you're you're
always gonna be tweaking it right you're
gonna go through something
just like anything else you're gonna be
like ooh
if that was in there i probably wouldn't
had to go through this so let me include
that in everything and you know some of
what's in there isn't gonna apply to
every customer but you still keep it in
there that way
you're not
tailoring every single time even though
you are tweaking you don't want to have
things tailored you want to be
streamlined with what you're putting in
there too
ours has evolved so much and it's
simpler it's not long it's simple
well there we go
i know that um this has been a problem
for a lot of installers a lot of uh
flooring companies so i hope you guys
found value
in the conversation today with the guys
um we've been through it we've lost
money both of us i know
we've made some adjustments hopefully
this helps you to understand one thing i
would say
don't think that oh i'm too small to to
start doing this this is one of those
deals that
number one it'll make you um
you're setting yourself up to be bigger
by doing it early
operate like you're bigger than you are
so don't think you're too small to have
contracts like you could be a one-man
show if you're doing homeowner work i'd
be having a contract it's a good
investment
so
with that uh thanks for joining us here
on huddle number 10. uh jose and daniel
thank you guys again i appreciate you
and um for all those on go career
network uh we have some really exciting
stuff coming down the pipe so
stay tuned and uh and if you guys
make sure you get your free installer
profile set up because
yes
yeah there's a lot of opportunity
so it's
no risk
cancel any time type deal get on get
your free profile uh one feature that
came out uh that we've just not done a
very good job of promoting
uh is
the merchant account if you're on the go
career network you can invoice uh you
can accept credit cards from anybody
from your side jobs from your aunt from
your
gcs if if you got a gc that's like hey i
ain't got the money say well i'll accept
credit cards you cover the convenience
fee of four percent boom
so it's a it's a financial tool that
you're able to use just by being having
a free profile on go query you can now
accept credit cards i mean that's that's
a a huge value i think
that is huge i mean there's so many guys
out there that are always asking
questions you know
who do you use how do you implement that
and when you have it you know in your
pocket and all you got to do is
you know punch in some numbers it's just
streamlines the whole process
yeah and it's super easy i mean we've
processed i had a guy one of our
installers um
who does work on the go career network
uh
but i hired him to paint the outside of
our building i didn't
it's a
it's not a job so i didn't send him a go
career work order obviously but he
billed me right through the merchant
account i paid him with credit card for
it
so
it comes in real handy um
we we're going to do better at promoting
the features and new features coming out
so
um be on the lookout and i appreciate
everybody we'll catch you on next week's
huddle and thanks for the questions
comments and uh gentlemen thank you
again
yeah no problem we'll see you guys uh
next week
awesome oh everybody get down to cfi
convention
august 2nd that's where we're going to
be next week yeah i think we might even
all be on the trying to be on the same
screen next week huh yeah we'll all be
together so yeah come down and see us
it's a it's a great event um you'll
learn a lot you'll make a lot of good
connections so get down to the cfi
convention it's in orlando
and uh hell it's beautiful down there if
nothing else so hopefully uh we'll get
to meet some of you guys and looking
forward to that too so
with that all right we'll
chat with you guys later all right see
you all right bye guys
you