Why Do Clients Distrust Contractors?

If we start out with this question, what comes to mind? Where does this come from? Kind of like, which came first the chicken or the egg? I really believe that the person that holds the purse strings is one of controls the situation. So where do bad contractors fit in?

A possible scenario of events that cause a client to distrust contractors or say that contractors are no good, starts with the client wanting a job done, and through whatever means calls several contractors in order to obtain estimates for their job. The customer then asks for a price for painting their house. Let's say there are three contractors, these three contractors individually meet the client. The client then asks each contractor as much information as they think they can get. As soon as these contractors leave the client forgets which contractor said what. The contractors then estimate the job. The client then asks the contractors to e-mail, fax, mail or drop off their pricing estimate. The client then takes the estimates and lays them out on the table. The majority of painting contractors estimates are not very detailed, so the client focuses on one thing - .Price.

Whatever little bit of benefits and features each individual contractor was able to give the client was lost in the jumble of the three measure calls. The client completely forgot, who said what. And they don't care, because all their friends tell them they have to get the lowest bid. So they take the lowest bid. Most successful contractors know, this technique of choosing, is really not the best way to choose.

The method of choosing the lowest price does not guarantee a good job. For the most part, the low bidder will not be qualified to do the best job. There's a good chance that the low bidder either doesn't know how to estimate, or is so desperate for work that they will give it away. Being desperate for work, only tells me one thing, they are very new, or very bad contractors. The other two contractors may or may not have provided a good job. However this method of choice guarantees a bad job. Why? If the job was bid so low, then the contractor may find halfway through the job that if he were to finish the job, he would be working for minimum wage or less. And so he leaves the job in the middle, unfinished.

Now of course the client is in a bind, embarrassed, angry and puts the blame entirely on the contractor. Hopefully, the client doesn't generalize. The problem is when the client talks to his or her friend; they need to justify their position in this mess. So it becomes all contractors are bad. The first mistake was blindly taking the low bidder.

Their second mistake was not admitting their role in the screw-up. I have heard this story so many times, and wondered so much about how the contractor gets a bad name. And I thought about this, and know that this is the way that it happens, a lot of the time. But what it boils down to be that the client was in complete control of the money creates their own mess. And the most stupid part of the whole thing is that nothing seems to change. Oh yes I know, some people really do know how to choose the right contractor for the job. And I do know that there really are bad contractors. I believe these bad contractors are new and inexperienced, because bad contractors do not last. But I think smart customers and bad contractors are the minority. The majority of customers, unless educated to what makes a good job will always pick the lowest price and guarantee that they will get the worst contractor.