4 Contracting Lessons from My Home Addition

There’s a lot that AV contracting can learn from home contracting, especially from a home owner’s first account of a project.

Tom LeBlanc

On August 10 my son was 43 days old and construction began on an addition to our house. Perfect timing, right? Nothing goes with a sleeping and nursing infant quite like demolition work, the soothing sound of nail guns and a team of contractors parading through the house.

The two events are connected in a way. We knew for some time that, since we didn’t intend to move, once the baby was born we’d need some additional space in our suburban Boston home. The problem, however, is that we made that decision to expand at the beginning of Boston’s snowiest winter on record at 110.6 inches.

We quickly learned that building contractors were far too busy repairing collapsed roofs to come to our house, assess our needs and deliver a quote. By spring when we had an adequate array of proposals it was too late to start a project that we would have wanted to be completed prior to the birth. Instead, we opted to live uncomfortably in our small house with a four-year-old and a baby for a short period of time, followed by a period of extreme discomfort during the renovation and leading to it being completed before the next potentially brutal winter.

So we did it. We got through it. And besides bedrooms for my two sons, I walked away with some first-hand insight into the world of contracting that can be applied to AV contracting.

The project manager is everything. Forget about the obvious fact that a disorganized project manager will create inefficiencies and bleed profits. A project manager that lacks communication skills will inevitably lead to a negative experience for the customer.

It’s truer for a homeowner but very relevant for B2B clients. We need to know what is happening next. We need to plan for the chaos. We need to know about risks of delays or change orders so we can mentally prepare. In our case, we were fortunate to have an outstanding project manager.

Subcontractors care less. They just do. Our GC had an excellence sense of branding — from consistency in their vehicles and shirts, cleanliness, politeness and consideration. Each subcontractor to a varying degree lowered the bar. Cleanup was always more grueling after a subcontractor day.

Read: Opportunities, Challenges of Third-Party Labor

The radio tended to be louder, cursing more prolific and cigarette butts more prevalent in our driveway. (Incidentally, the rest of the United States collectively stopped littering in 1980. Why do cigarette smokers get a pass?)

Integrators need to strongly consider what subcontractors they use on projects and then oversee the damage being done to their brands.

Payment schedules should be ambitious. Integrators ought to be extremely focused on project cash flow. Customers should be flipping the bill for materials and payments should be collected frequently. Being organized (and ambitious) when it comes to payment collection is a sign of good project management. The client should appreciate it. If it doesn’t, it may be a sign that collections will be difficult.

Bid honestly. Snagging a project with an optimistically low bid is a short-lived victory. Beyond project profitability an integration firm’s next top priority should be generating referral and repeat business. Those chances are greatly reduced after a series of heated change order discussions.

That’s all I have. I’m off to pick up nails and cigarette butts.

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About the Author

Tom LeBlanc
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Tom LeBlanc is the executive director of NSCA. Learn more about NSCA and how to become an NSCA member at NSCA.org.

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