Contractor Cuts
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Contractor Cuts
Who's Wrong Is It Anyway? The Shower Pan That Cost $6,800
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A contractor's regular tile guy gets buried on another job. He finds a replacement, they show up clean, finish in four days, and ask to get paid early. He walks it, it looks fine, he pays them.
Two weeks later the client's brother-in-law puts a level on the shower pan. It holds water. The tile crew's phone goes straight to voicemail and never comes back on.
Now the contractor's out $6,800 minimum, the clients have stopped paying at 80% complete, and they want the whole thing torn out plus a third-party inspector for every other trade — because if the tile guy was that bad, how do they know anyone else was any good?
In this episode of Contractor Cuts, Clark and James break down where the line is and how you draw it.
They cover:
- Why you don't send a crew back out before you have a game plan and a payment agreement
- Separating the work conversation, the money conversation, and the relationship conversation
- Owning what's genuinely yours — and holding firm on what isn't
- Why a client doesn't get to rewrite the scope because something went wrong
- Handling the third-party inspector demand without losing control of who inspects
- The "confusion over conflict" approach to pushing back without a fight
- The trust reset conversation that saves a job — or ends it cleanly
- How to vet a new tile crew before they're on your job site
- Why the real mistake happened weeks earlier: no bench, no benchmark walk, and paying early
If you've ever been one bad sub away from eating five figures, this one's going to sting.
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Welcome And The Rules
SPEAKER_00Welcome to Contractor Cuts, where we cover the good, the bad, and the ugly of growing a successful contracting company.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to Contractor Cuts. My name is Clark Turner. And I'm James McConnell. Thanks for joining us again this week. So thank you, James. Thanks for showing up. Yeah, you're welcome. Uh we're doing another Who's Wrong Is It Anyways. We did this uh a couple months ago. Um, and I liked it. And I think we're gonna do some of these every once in a while.
SPEAKER_00Heck yeah.
SPEAKER_02This is uh a different story, totally different uh, you know, who's wrong in the situation. And this one's gonna be a little more of how do you react. This is uh uh we'll just read through it, but it's there's some decisions and a little more fault on the contractor in this one than the last story. Last part why are you don't don't tell me okay, don't give away anything. There's no pregnant brides in this one. Nobody dies in this one either that we know of.
SPEAKER_00Thank God.
SPEAKER_02All right, so let me let me just read it.
The Remodel Timeline Pressure
SPEAKER_00Hold on. I'm on eBay, I'm buying a beanie baby bundle. Perfect. And we are good. Perfect.
SPEAKER_02All right, so the title of what we pulled, the title guy he'd never use. That was what the story was. So master bath and laundry remodel, mid-sized job for us, nothing crazy. Good clients, easy to talk to. I gave them a start date. I gave them a start date and estimated completion date, great. This that they planned around. Her parents are coming in for a few weeks, and they'd they figured they'd just use the hall bath while we worked. The start date mattered to them, and I knew it. Okay. Some foreshadowing. Yeah. Uh, I haven't read this yet.
SPEAKER_00Either I just got it's really I can see it already. You already read ahead. No, I'm just you feel it. I'm feeling it.
SPEAKER_02About two weeks before we start, my tile guy calls. I've used him six years. He's never once left me hanging, and he's buried on a commercial job that's running long. Uh, he can't get to me for another three weeks. So now I'm looking at either pushing my clients who I just told the plan around this date, or I gotta find someone else.
SPEAKER_00Uh one of my other subs told me about you've not you've not read this. No, I haven't. Okay, I had a question, so I'll just I'll hold it. I'll hold it. Okay. I'll just hold the question. You can ask. If we wait three weeks, is it are their parents gonna be gone? I don't know. I'm just reading this. That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_02Uh I don't know. I think gaslight me. I'm not quite sure. Okay. Um about two weeks before we start, my towel guy calls me. Oh, I already read that. Sorry. Uh, one of my other subs told me about a towel crew he'd been on jobs
Hiring A New Tile Crew
SPEAKER_02with, said they were sharp and did clean work. I met with them. They showed me a bunch of photos of stuff they've done. They seemed like they knew what they were talking about. That's another foreshadowing word. Seemed. They seemed, and their number actually came in a little under what I had uh budgeted for them. When so when I booked them, I didn't say anything to my clients about it because honestly, they never knew who my tile guy was in the first place. And I didn't think it was a conver uh conversation that needed to happen, which I agree with. Understood. Not the client's uh business. Business. Um, all right. So they showed up on time, worked clean, didn't leave a mess, finished in four days, in and out. On Friday, one of them asked if I could pay them that day instead of following Tuesday, like we talked about, because he had a truck payment coming out. Oh, here it comes, baby. Yeah, yeah. I walked in, looked at the job, looked good, so I paid him out. Yeah, you did. I had two other jobs going that that week, and I'll be honest, I didn't go back and walk it again before trim and paint started because it just looked fine. Fast forward two weeks, the client's brother-in-law comes over and good news. Fast forward two weeks, the client's brother-in-law comes over, and here's my favorite. He's quote unquote in construction.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, of course he is. This is his dad or his brother, one or the other.
SPEAKER_02Whatever that means. Uh, and he puts a level on the shower pan. Yeah, there it is. He put a level on the shower pan, and it's holding water in one corner. Yeah, he's not wrong. He also finds a lip at the hallway transition big enough that you're toe. There's a lip. Oh my gosh. Uh, it's it's big enough that we'll catch a toe on it. And then he
The Pan Fails And They Vanish
SPEAKER_02starts in on the grout being darker than the sample, and how the layout puts a little two-inch uh sliver of tile on the wall right where you walk in the door. You know how it goes. Got lips to catch a toe. Uh-huh. Uh I went out there and looked at it myself. The pan is wrong a hundred percent. I'm not going to argue with that one. That's a real problem and it needs to be fixed. So I called the tile crew. It rang once and went to voicemail. Uh.
SPEAKER_00And the voicemail was this user does not have an inbox that's been set up yet.
SPEAKER_02This number is out of service. At this time, I've called nine times. Um, I've not heard from those guys again, and I don't expect to.
SPEAKER_00And every time you call, they're like, this guy keeps calling.
SPEAKER_02This guy he wants me to do his redo the shower pan because it was awful. It was bad. Uh, my regular tile guy came out as a favor and told me there's nothing uh I can do to fix the pan without pulling the whole floor. And to do it right, it's $6,800. Uh gasp. I bid that tile tight because I wanted the job. There's nothing left in it. The number came straight out of my pocket. So I went back to the client and told them I'd redo the entire shower on my dime, leave the floor, and grind the transition piece down so nobody's tripping. I thought that was more than fair. They said no. They want all of it torn out and redone. And now they also want me to pay for a third-party inspector to come, check the plumbing and electrical, because, in their words, if the tile guy was that bad, how do they know anybody else I hired was any good? They've stopped paying. We're sitting at about 80% complete. They have no master bathroom. Her parents got in nine days, her parents get in nine days from now, and I'm out 6,800 minimum before we even talk about what else they want. I know I've got some of this coming. I just don't think I've got all of it coming. Where is the line and how do I draw it? Dude. If this doesn't bring painful thoughts to your heart, you're not a general contractor because we've all been here in the beginning.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're like it's you start getting into this situation and it's almost like you want to go in there open-minded, but then it starts turning into this situation where it's like they want a pound of flesh. It doesn't, it's not about making the job right, it's about you hurting. And it's hard to still like do the right thing in this moment because they're not gonna give anywhere. And you're trying to point out things that are like, this is not these are two separate issues. You're conflating, you're conflating two things, and you want me to pay for all of it, and that's not appropriate.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. In a vacuum, any one of these I can talk about easily. Let's talk about how we're gonna solve the the tripping hazard. This is actually a certain type of stone I can grind down, it'll be perfect. We can, you know, take me a couple hours, we'll get it great and won't be there. In a vacuum, that's a great answer. In this situation, when the client is already like, I don't trust these guys, they're gonna be like, oh, you're gonna grind it down because you're not gonna replace it like it should be. You're gonna leave me with a half done job. Right. And so it's like we've we've lit the fuse with they're they're a hundred percent right. The the shower pan needs to be ripped out. But how do we, how do we have this conversation? So let's let's take it to the beginning. Um I
Draw The Line With Scope
SPEAKER_02think for me, and you tell me how you do it. And I think that these are fun because we we kind of handle things differently. I don't I don't think there's a right and wrong because it's it's kind of the art of doing it. And I think it's more let's talk through the ways that that the two of us would handle it. I I think for me. Wait, how much money have they paid? Do we know that? It didn't say the amount that they paid. They said we're 80% done.
SPEAKER_0080% done. They've stopped paying.
SPEAKER_02But they've stopped paying, so we don't know how much money they owe. All right. Let's let's for sake of argument, let's say that there's 10 grand owed.
SPEAKER_00Owed of work that's been completed.
SPEAKER_02That I think I've invoiced you, I think you owe it, but they're not paying it because there's stuff that needs to be fixed now.
SPEAKER_00Is $6,800 part of that? Have they already paid, they've already paid us for the tile? I don't know. Let's let's let's make it let's set that up. Well, 68 is the replacement cost. Yeah, but demo it and do it. But they've already let's say they've already paid for the tile. So like that is owed to them. Okay. We agree about that.
SPEAKER_01Cool. Okay. Um, so you go.
SPEAKER_02I was trying to see in that story if I'm if I missed something about because I know that I said we're 80% done. Um but we're out sixty eight hundred dollars already. So uh I I would say if number one thing I'm doing is is I'm not going to start anything. I'm not gonna spend another dime at the house until I have a clear game plan of the fix, what I'm gonna do, what I'm not gonna do, how the money's flowing. You owe me 10 grand, and there well again, that that might be 10 grand worth of work I need to fix. I don't know. I mean, there's 6,800 and plus some other stuff. But if it was like you owe me 20 grand and I know that there's 6,800 I gotta fix, I'm gonna have a plan for I need them to give something of, okay, go ahead and pay me five. You're gonna hold that 15 till these things are done. But when we're gonna phase it, when the shower's done, I'm gonna get paid. So I'm gonna have a game plan for that. So I'm not starting with the game plan, but I'm I am knowing when they where I see guys make a mistake is I'm just gonna send my dudes out there and start demoing so they know work's getting done, and then we're gonna figure out how we're gonna do it. Because that's dollars you're spending that you might never see again. Yeah. So that's number one. I'm on a game plan as to hey, this is a big issue. I'm not okay with this. Let's make a game plan before we start. Well, just get your guys out there and get going. Yeah, I I want to. I got to have a game plan before I can do that. I I can't just kind of shoot from the hip. Uh, it doesn't work that way. So let's get a game plan when or like what we are doing, what we're not doing, what we agreed to. Let's sign off on all that. I am gonna need about five grand of a payment from you for that other work that we did that isn't paid for. I'm gonna let you hold the other five or eight or whatever it is till we get this done. Um, but I'm gonna have that part of the game plan as to what I'm owed and what I'm not owed. Like what you just said of like how much let's make up 10 and let's say 68. We don't know that, but I'm gonna find all that stuff out and say, yeah, that that's justified for you to hold because it's not finished, versus you can't hold the demo line. We've already done all the tile. Demo's done. You can't hold that line item. That's part of why we love invoicing by line item, because then it's not just this generic pot. But how do I even know you did the demo right? Yeah, legit. Yeah, that's what they would say. So I I would knowing that, I'm gonna start at the game plan. I want to build a game plan for what I think is fair. And I'm gonna talk about the work first, then I'm gonna talk about the money, then I'm gonna let's talk about the relationship. So with the work being done, I assess it, say, okay, that I agree 100%, and I'm gonna own that 100%. Let's talk about these other things. The the grout color is a different color. That's gonna be an easy conversation because look at uh at this bag of grout and look at the color and look at my estimate where I specified the color and we did the color you wanted. I'm sorry it looks darker than you thought, but we used the color that you you selected. So that's that's kind of a moot point. Now, how do I know that they didn't swap the bags? Well, I honestly the the question the most likely though is did you write down the actual color in your scope? Was that a selection that we had scoped out and I can prove it? If we got our selections workbook, yes, it's all there. If you didn't, this is a different conversation.
SPEAKER_00You better hope you got a bag. You better hope you got an empty bag in the trash.
SPEAKER_02So I wouldn't give on the color outside of I made a mistake there. They told me this color and I did that color, then I gotta own it. But what about the third party?
SPEAKER_00Inspector? Yeah, they want you to tear open walls and get inspections.
SPEAKER_02That I'm not doing that. They can they can hire that themselves. Um, I don't think that that's my my cost to eat. Um, I would say on the other side of that though, if I control the third party, they're not gonna pick it apart. They'll give a legit look. If the client controls that third party and just calls a GC that wants to bid it, he's gonna come and say that everything I did was terrible because he wants to do the work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And a lot of times those those are the guys, those are the only guys that will come out and look at it outside of like, I'm gonna go to a home inspector.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, in the CEA it says mutually agreed upon third party. So that you're not you're not having, I'm not agreeing to have a somebody that is willing to put a bid on it be the one determining whether it was done correct or not.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, client. What what would you do about the about the inspector side of it? The way I see this rolling out is this job is dead in the water. You're either going to you're either going to be eating a lot to get out of this project. So you're 60 you're out 6,800, then you're probably another three or four grand demoing what needs to be demoed to see what would need to be inspected and then having that put back. And that's I mean, depending on what all needs to be taken out, you might be just taking all the tile off the walls as well, if that wasn't already the plan. I mean, you're taking off the shower pan, you're gonna have to at least do the couple rows. I don't see this I with drawing a line in the sand of we want you to inspect all of the things now that we didn't inspect before, you're you're not resolving this. Yeah. And so I I see this as more of a I will honor the shower pan and I will fix that, but you have to pay me, you know, whatever the invoice that's going out. Like if you want me to honor that, then you need to pay me like we've been doing. You pay me the invoice ahead of time, yeah, and then I execute the work and I'm owning the $6,800, but I'm not owning the repair work and the demo work for the stuff that was never on our scope that you want now because of what has happened. Yeah. I get it, but that's not you don't get to recreate the scope because something happened that you didn't like. Yeah. I think one one If they're not willing to go with me there, then it's over because I'm not gonna do the tile work if you're not going to pay me the money that you owe me. Yeah. And you're not gonna let me do it because you don't trust me anymore. We're at an impasse.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I I would I would start with talking about the work that should and shouldn't be done. I'm not talking about money. I'm not talking about you owe me this, and if you pay me this, then I'll do this work. I start talking about the work. And I think if we section this off, the shower pan, hey, listen, I agree. I don't like this. I'm gonna pay out of my pocket, I'm gonna tear this out. I'm gonna have another crew come out. If I can't get a hold of old crew, I'm gonna make myself look like the hero. I'm gonna pay double so the old crew doesn't come back out. I'm gonna have a different crew come out and fix it for you. They don't know that I can't get a hold of old crew, but that doesn't matter. I'm I'm looking a little bit better than I'm paying out of pocket instead of holding someone to a warranty. Um, then the next couple items. There is a sliver of a tile cut because whoever did the layout of the floors didn't start the right spot and hide the sliver of tile underneath the cabinet. Like that one, that's I think the toughest one because it's like a good tile guy would see that and do it the right way, but you didn't install anything wrong. Like I don't owe you anything. There was no specs on, well, make sure that if there's a sliver of tile that it's uh behind the toilet instead of right out front. Like I'm not going to uh uh own that part of it. I'm gonna say, listen, there's no defect in installing this tile. Yeah, but I don't like that. I understand that. I understand that there's no defect. I didn't do anything wrong. It's just the size of your bathroom, and this is how it laid out. We could start over here, sure. I I you're right. I could have done like we started on the ceiling. We could have started any, like I understand that. That's somewhere that I can't give on. Um, I will do this for like let me explain how we can shave this down. It's the transition piece, and it's a piece of stone that can be cut. Um and so I'm gonna talk about the work individually. And so I'm gonna own the first thing and then talk about the other things and kind of the more I own up front, I can then trickle into the stuff I'm not gonna own because at least I'm giving first and they feel that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and so I'm gonna get to the stuff that I'm not gonna do or that I'm not owning at the end. And if they can't get over that, I'm not doing anything until we get at this point. I I'll just put a lien on the house and we'll we'll we'll figure out this. Like, I'm willing to do all this stuff, but I got to get paid for the other work that I've done. Like, that's not okay. So that's the second conversation is the payment. So it's understanding the scope that we're agreeing to do and not do. And that leads into the payment conversation because some of that's like, well, I'm not paying you for that, and I'm not gonna do that. And I'm the we've had clients like, well, I'll pay extra to get this done while you're doing it. Okay, well, time out. Are you getting us to redo something so you can get something else upgraded that should have been caught earlier? Yeah. So I'm gonna have those conversations. And I'm gonna have those conversations where uh it's my I say this a thousand times in the past 200 podcasts, confusion over conflict. So on that one, hey, I uh I really help me understand why we need to redo that because it sounds like you just want to upgrade it. Help me understand that, right? As opposed to you're just trying to get one over like that, never goes well. So I'm just gonna be confused instead of having conflict with them. Help me understand why do we need to replace that? I mean, does it's not broken, right? Like you're asking us to replace that. I'm not gonna, I can't upgrade something else while we're already in there. Well, I'll pay extra. Because I don't yike it. Yeah. Well, and and when they say, well, I'll pay extra, do that. I say, so you know that wasn't part of our scope. Like, yeah, but if you're already in there, I understand that, but like, I'm I gotta get this done. And if you want to pay extra, great, that $200 fix that you want me to do, I'm gonna charge you two grand. Like, okay, two grand to switch the faucet out while we're doing it. No, I don't want to do that. Okay, cool. We're gonna leave it the way it is. Like, uh I'm not gonna try and cover that stuff for you.
SPEAKER_00You know, before I leave their house, though, after this whole interaction, I'm gonna steal all the spoons out of the silverware drawer. Because have I mean, you've had this experience where you go into the drawer and there's like no spoons, and thank God they're in the sink or the dishwasher. But for a second, you're like, where are the spoons? You gotta leave them like two. So there's no somewhere. No, no spoons, zero spoons because they're like, if then once they find the spoon, and they're like, okay, it kicks a can down the road for a couple days because they just got the need met.
SPEAKER_02And and you said what we talk about on the podcast can't be held against us in court. Yes. Cool. Good. Then yeah, no, take all the spoons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Um I think starting with the conversation as to we got to figure out the work that is and isn't. We got to get on the same page as to what is our fault and what is not part of the scope. Um, and that's the hardest conversation to start with because from there, that's kind of the basis for the dollar conversation. But I'm not even talking about what they're holding back. Um we have a client in one of the companies I'm I participate in that literally did it like got spooked about something on the job. It was she would needed a handrail that was scraped, and so she didn't know the rest of the deck was built right because the handrail didn't look good. And she called her bank and stopped paid on a $20,000 check. Right. And so it was like, you can't do that. You can't do that. It's a it's a $30 railing top, you know. Did the bank honor it? Yeah. That's it. So it came right, it came right out of our bank account. You there's a deposit in and money right out.
SPEAKER_00Dude, that's that's messed up on their end. That's that's executed work. And they didn't do any sort of due diligence on their end. Correct. Wow. Wow. So again, that just happened last week. But uh it's like Dude, I am not okay with that.
SPEAKER_02Well, the conversation, but again, when we talked with that, that that woman, like, hey, let's talk about your deck, let's talk about this, let's get a game plan. So all we need to do, we're good. Like, we're replacing this top rail. Look at this, look at that. And there's some other small odds and ends that I was I wasn't impressed with with the installer, you know, like there's some issues with it. But that being said, we talked about the scope and what is good and settled. And then the conversation was, hey, also, your check bounced. Do you know what happened with that? Like why the check bounced? Um, oh, actually, like I didn't think y'all might not come back out to fix it. So we went ahead and called and canceled this did a stop pay on it. Uh, and at that point, it was like, oh, okay. Well, you think this is $20,000 worth of work we got? Well, I just didn't know what it was gonna cost, and I don't know how deep the damage went. I know handrails can get expensive. So again, it was like, I'm gonna talk about the like I I showed up, uh like I was helping out um with the client with with this company. I usually not talk with the clients, but I talked with her and like I was on the on the line just understanding the client because I'm doing some coaching with with the guy. But that being said, like I wanted to go out and be like, you can't just cancel a $20,000 check for a couple, you know, for one railing. Like that, you can't do that. But the truth of it is like that doesn't matter at this point. It's been done. Let's figure out the work. And then I'm gonna say, hey, I need you to cut us a check for for $18,000. You can hold back two and we'll get this replaced in the next week, but we need that before we send guys back out here. Well, I'm not, I don't feel comfortable paying you. What do you feel comfortable? How much do you think it costs to fix this? Because I want you to be comfortable. You $2,500 instead of two grand. So hold back $25, give me $17.5. Well, I'm not gonna pay you anything. Well, that's that's not an agreement that I'm okay with. That's not a decision. Yeah. And to be honest, and that's when I would bring up, and I we didn't get into all this with her, but that's when I would bring up, hey, I hear what you're saying, but when you get me a check and then bounced it on us and canceled it, I had paid people out and paid my accounts. So you're harming our company by what you did. If you would have reached out and let me know that you're not, I would have not deposited the check and I would have given it back to you. You could have put a stop pay on it, but it wouldn't have harmed us. Like that, that was not cool. Like that's not okay. And I have people who I bounce checks on because you bounced your check to us potentially. Maybe that's not true. Maybe we were fine financially, but you've caused damage to us. Like it, you need to give us the money, at least 15,000 that you owe us. Right. And I'm gonna have that conversation after the scope of work conversation. We're not gonna run them all together to where there's all these, like I like view it to where you're in a mansion and I'm gonna walk into each bedroom and have a different conversation in each room. I'm gonna have a conversation about the tile, uh, the the pan. I'm gonna back out and walk into the next room and have a conversation about the doorway transition. I'm not gonna bring the motion in from the first room. I'm gonna back out and talk in the next room about the tile, and we're gonna isolate each of these conversations so we can make decisions on a non-emotional level.
SPEAKER_00So you're like a bell hop. And you're go and you're going to each room and you're leaving the baggage for that room in the room. Yes. So by the time you get to the last room, there's no baggage, and they give you a tip. Probably not a tip, but yes, that's yes, for sure. With this, with this lady in the deck situation, did you angle for uh like a Chick-fil-A gift card for your guy's trouble? No.
SPEAKER_02No, I mean it it looked bad. It looked bad the way it was left, and there's trash in the yard. Like, I I don't think she was wrong in being upset. Yeah, I don't I think she just bouncing a 20K check is not right. She had one lever to pull and she pulled. Yeah, and and you know what? She probably had a contractor that screwed her over in the past, and she was like, not again, not this time. Yeah, there you go. So empathetically advocating. There you go. So I I think it all's out all's well that ends well. It was fine. I think they'll still give us a positive review. It either way, like in the going back to the story, like I want to have an isolated conversation about everything and including the dollars after we figure out in the first set of rooms what we're doing. Great, let's have a money conversation. On this thing, I need payment for that because it's done. On this, hold that money. We uh don't pay us for the shower pan yet because we got to rip all that out. On this, we need payment for that. Um, and I'm gonna get all of that set
Rebuilding Trust Without Folding
SPEAKER_02up. Final conversation um after that is gonna be kind of timeline, who's doing what, how are we getting in here? And I also one thing we've had before, I remember this when me and you were running jobs together, is we've had with with certain clients um the com the reset conversation of the relationship, especially if we're gonna be in there for more than three days of punch out, where it's hey, listen, I one of the worst situations for the homeowner as well as the contractor is when there's zero trust between us working in your property. And I don't want that to be the case. So if we can rebuild a spot where we can trust each other, that that that will really be good for this. If you feel like you can't get there, I'm gonna pay $600, $800 to get this stuff fixed. I will cut that off your price and we can walk away. Like I want to be able to do this well, and if we can't finish well together, then I don't want to us to keep butting heads for the next month.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and I I have no problem. I'll discount it down and and just lick my wounds, and I'm gonna spend that money anyways. And the next three weeks coming and walking it and buying the new tile and doing all that stuff. Like, I'll just what if we do this? You pay me X and you can hire somebody else with the rest of the money. Now, usually they're like, Well, I had someone guy quoted and he charged, he quoted me 30 grand. Well, it's not 30 grand worth of work. I'm not doing that. Um, but that's part of the conversation too of like, we need trust. There has to be some some level of trust to continue, not 100%, but like you need to you need to believe that I can get this done. And if you I can't get you to the spot where you trust that I can get this done well, it's not gonna end well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, don't don't keep inviting me into your home if I'm not welcome.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. And that's that's honestly the hardest and best conversation we've ever had with clients because it's like you feel a little sheepish to call it all out, but it's like, hey, I want to end well with you. And I know we have some disagreements on a couple things that are not happening. Do you trust that we can get this done? I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. Well, if you can't trust, I I don't think we should continue. Well, I'm gonna need some I'm gonna need some assurances. Great. What are those assurances? I want to know that everything that you say is gonna happen from now on.
SPEAKER_02No, one assurance that's real that I I I've heard a lot. I I need you to be here every minute that any crew's in that house. Great. And I say, I can't do that. Um, I've got the tile crew that's gonna be here for three days. I'll be here to start them. I'll be here every day checking in on them, but I'm not gonna sit here with a folding chair in your front yard. Like that's no good for either party.
SPEAKER_00And you're not gonna like that because when I sit, I take my shirt off. I take real short shorts. I'll be in the lawn chair in the front with a six-pack of buds and I'll just be getting sun.
SPEAKER_02But again, you can push back on that. You don't have to comply just because they're pissed. Like, hey, I can't be, I can't be here every day, but what I can do is this. What I will be is I'm gonna call you every day at five when we're when the guys are leaving. I'm gonna be here every morning at eight when they're getting here. Now you got to follow through with that. That's the problem with a lot. A lot of contractors is I'm gonna call you at five, and then 6:30 rolls around, you're getting the text. I knew you wouldn't call me about like now. You're doing more damage than good in the relationship. Yeah. But I think having that final conversation of the relationship, right? Scope, dollars, relationship. Hey, I need that trust. I want to make sure we're good. I know that you're not happy, but I know that I can get this perfect by the end of this. I know that one tile thing that we disagree on that should be done, where you see a sliver of tile. If you're if we can both move past that and be good with this being perfect of everything we've talked about and agreed to, I'd love to get this finished for you. Yeah, no, I'm good. I'm good, Clark. I really appreciate it. I'm good. Let's let's get going. I think you can do it. Cool, we're good. I can move forward with that person.
SPEAKER_00I I like the approach of not even talking at all about anything on the project and just ask them what's going on in their personal life. Why are you so upset? I mean, I've met your wife, I get it. You haven't been happy for a while. For a while, Ted.
SPEAKER_02Uh, one thing we've we have talked about in the past, and I think it's part of this conversation, is trying to sort the difference of heightened emotion because your primary bathroom has been out of order for a month and you've been walking down the hall. And like that that heightened emotion of living in a construction zone and having that conversation at the front of this with them, like, hey, I really want to sort through this and end well with you. I know that you're extremely pissed off. And probably when you see my name on your phone, you roll your eyes and say, okay, here we go. Like, I don't want that feeling for you. And like, I want to separate out the the feelings you got with us being in your house for a month and us executing to get this done. Like, I want to make a really good game plan. And I'm sorry, I 100% I let the timeline slip here. It rained for a week, and we were doing that exterior work, and the blah, blah, blah happened. Like, there's some issues that happened that I could have I could have solved, and I'm sorry about that. I'm here to focus on your job. Right. And so I want to separate out and defuse the emotions before we start. Now let's talk about the work. Now let's get into the different things. Let's talk about the shower pan first. 100%. I'm not happy with that. I'm uh I would have tested it. I never I didn't get to it at our final walk. You know, all of those type of conversations that's a bit to own it, but also this is what we're doing to move forward. Anything else on that story on what you would do differently or how you would end it?
SPEAKER_01No. No. Another It's crazy. Like how many times I've been here.
Vet Subs And Add Checkpoints
SPEAKER_02I think one thing that I would do differently looking back at the story, too. I'm just running through it. We we did this on the retreat this past January of how to onboard and manage a new crew when you're when you're starting with a new crew. I might trust my tile guy who's done 17 other bathrooms for me and he knows what I expect. And I can over the last 17, I can eyeball it and say we're good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But when I'm starting a new crew for the first time, especially tile, it's like the most it's like if you have something that's gonna cost you a lot of money, it's if you screw up tile. Yep.
SPEAKER_02I I I would also say, like, how we vet the tile installer is different than how we vet a handyman. And so I always say to my tile, like, if I'm talking to you and you do tiles, like, cool, take me through how you do a shower pan. Like, give me your process. If you don't know how to do a shower pan and can't tell me about it, I'm not hiring you. Like, you gotta, well, first I do this. Usually I like to use Red Guard and I do like going through and explain to me how you do your job, I can hear. I'm not a I'm not the most proficient tile installer, but I know what to hear and what to listen for and what they're missing, right? And so that's the jack of all trade contractor side that we're in charge of is like I know when you're BS and me and you actually know what you're talking about, but then I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna I'm gonna inspect it like a home inspector on everything. Um benchmark walk would have helped.
SPEAKER_00You wouldn't have paid him. That's the other thing. That always is like the real kicker is when you've already paid the guy, even though you set your processes up to protect you so that you don't run into this situation. For some reason, you always end up in the situation where you've already paid the guy, you have no leverage, they won't answer. If you'd have got the uh the benchmark walk, you'd at least been able to catch him there and not paid him. You would have still had to pay the 6,800, but you'd have had at least something to work with.
SPEAKER_02What would you would you tell the customer that it was a first-time crew that you were trying out?
SPEAKER_00No. Would you unless they asked me directly. I mean, I wouldn't lie to them, but I'm not gonna try and put myself in a worse position.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Cause I I think uh uh some guys would naturally be like, oh, let me blame it on the crew. Oh, it's a terrible to the customer. It's like that crew is you. Yeah. That is you. That's a product. That's like you go into a grocery store and being like, hey, your milk is bad. Or like, I don't like this milk. Yeah, we bought from a terrible farm.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, well, then I don't trust anything else you do here. Or like you were in the grocery store and your kid opened a bunch of boxes of cereal and spilled them all over the floor, and you're like, sorry. My not my problem.
SPEAKER_02What about chasing that sub for payback for um like how how long do how long do you chase that sub to either obviously you're not getting money back from them, but even bringing them back out to do stuff. I mean, nine calls is about it.
SPEAKER_00There's so many there's so many variables with this, but like when you when you get into that spot with a crew, it's like there's there's nothing to do. Were you you're gonna go after them in small claims, really? Yep. Yep. Don't use them again. Yeah. Not gonna work here anymore.
SPEAKER_02I think one thing to close this out, problem problematic with the contractor in this is that he didn't have a bench of subs that he's talking to. He had to struggle and find someone for tomorrow or for Monday. And because he has one tile guy, he has not talked to other guys, does not test other guys out. If he would have two months prior on an investor flip fix and flip, said, Hey, you know what, I'm gonna find a new tile guy for this job so I can have a deeper bench and tile. And he used it on a smaller job, a fix and flip, or that like, and I can see his quality and his work and test him out there, then I know the guy that I want to call out here as my backup. Um, and to I think that's something that contractors do reactively finding crews as opposed to proactively building the big bench that I can call in the seventh inning to come in and hey, I need help. Come come come in and help us. The John Rocker. The John Rockers of the world, the Mark Wallers of the world. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um Nolan Ryan, but he wasn't a you know, that's not Nolan Ryan. That's not Nolan. No, no, Nolan starts.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Uh I think if you guys, if this story hits hard, uh and you want some processes to put in place to avoid a lot of this stuff, I think one thing that I'm proud of us for not saying is we didn't mention the client engagement agreement at all. Oh wow. This call.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But I guarantee you this would run smoother if we did that because we would have had check-ins, we would have had invoicing weekly, we would have a bunch of other stuff that the client engagement lays out.
SPEAKER_00And also uh like the we get to right our wrongs. You don't get to decide what people we're using. Because that's probably something that would have come up in this conversation, too, is I don't want those people back in this house. Maybe they did say that. No, but that's one of the ones that always comes up. It's like, well, you're asking me to pay somebody to come and redo it instead of having somebody warranty their work, which is what we agreed on in the CEO.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, just like you agreed to warranty my work, I've agreed to myself.
SPEAKER_00You're not gonna just pay another GC to come in here and repair stuff because you've already paid your warranty it, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So I think that's that's part of it too, is the CEA, everything and our processes that we try and that we build inside of the companies that work with us all go to alleviate this. This is still gonna happen, but we want it to happen one every 40 jobs, not one every three jobs.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, then you can be like, not a problem. Yeah, eat it, keep the reputation, bing bang bong.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if if it's what was always a saying, like we want to eliminate mistakes permanently. So when we do make a mistake, we can just throw money at it and replace all of this stuff to make the client happy because all these other jobs, the other 39 jobs we did perfectly, this 40th job, you know what? Replace the whole bathroom. I don't care. Like, let's let's make it really impress this client or whatever. Obviously, you're not gonna waste money like that, but you've got the the 6,800 to cover the the replacement of that. And we're not replacing every shower pan
Processes, CEA, And Closing
SPEAKER_02once a week and putting us out of business. So and there's a lot of stuff. If you want any of these processes, client engagement agreement, conversations through your company. We love to chat with you. Go to contractorcuts.com. Uh, James and I both do free meetings. Um uh if you want to hear about what we do and what the program is and how you kind of get involved and how we work as your as a consultant and partner with you uh to help grow your company. Love to chat with you guys about that. Go to contractorcuts.com, shoot us an email if you want to talk with anything. We'll talk to you guys soon. Bye. Yep.
