A lot of builders compete on price and operate on narrow margins. This leaves little revenue to perform warranty repairs or to correct errors made during construction.

These builders oftentimes rely on the profit from the next job to fix mistakes from the last project. As the economy slips into a recession, these revenues shrink even more and the pool of funds available to remediate mistakes dries up.

Delays in performing repairs increases and customer frustration grows. As customer complaints intensify, the quantity of lawsuits rise.

The solution is simple, but multi-fold:

1. Fix your errors and warranty call backs promptly.
2. Maintain open lines of communication – don’t ghost clients or feed them BS.
3. Increase the contingencies built into a project. Set them aside into a separate account, and don’t spend them upon each project completion.
4. Improve quality control and reduce errors & mistakes.

Now, more than ever, as the economy constricts, clients will become more frugal and conscience of what is occurring in their yard. They will be less tolerant of delays and excuses.

Avoid the vortex.

This was a post originally published on Facebook that received an enormous response from peers within the industry.

Thoughts from some of my followers:

I don’t play the race to the bottom game to get the job. I have my margins and if someone goes cheap, they can have the job. If I don’t make what I need to, I walk away.

Michael Koenig

Another way to remediate this is to ensure that your profit margins are adequate enough that you don’t have to rob Peter to pay Paul. If you’re actually performing quality work, the customer should be charged accordingly. Quality work costs money; most reasonable customers understand that.

Michael Calore

Great advice. As a a 40+ year pool builder I wish just one of ex employees that decided to go into business for themselves would take the time to learn the business. I wouldn’t have made a career of repairing (and being paid well) for repairing others mistakes.

JA GROW

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