WILFMC: #3 Be hands on, then establish an equilibrium

What I Learned From My Contractor: A Series About the Client-Provider Relationship
Third in a series of 10 on the provider-client relationship. For background see the introduction.

Our project, while not a total gut and rehab, was still rather extensive. It didn’t start with the centerpiece project (the bathroom), rather it started in one room downstairs and moved methodically from there. Even though the project started with smaller jobs (building a coat closet, finishing off a partial wall and doing some electrical work), Carlos dropped in every day and did a walk through with me. He reviewed what the crew had done, what they were planning for the next day, we discussed any unexpected things that had come up, he answered all my questions and, on occasion, gave me a to do list.

There are very obvious benefits here: I’m included in the process, empowered to ask questions and we’re fine-tuning our communication. Let’s take this one step further in the chain, though. If you’re working with a client, it is immeasurably important to keep that client happy. But also don’t forget that client has a boss and that person is likely not involved in the day-to-day and knows much less about what’s going on, so taking this approach helps your client look good to the boss too. Though I don’t think my husband would consider himself my boss, he was the other principle in this transaction, but was much less involved in the daily decisions. When he’d come home at the end of the day, I’d give him the same walk through Carlos gave me, tell him any conclusions we’d come to regarding questions on the fly and gave him a chance to provide input on any outstanding questions. The result: he felt knowledgeable and included in the process, he understood why we were making certain decisions and didn’t ever feel caught off guard. Surprises are great for birthdays. They aren’t good when you’re spending a not-insignificant portion of your income on your home.

By the time we got to the centerpiece — the bathroom — we had a well-established working relationship. The project was rolling and we had a shared vision. We still had regular conversations, but daily discussions were no longer necessary. Now walkthroughs were every few days and we talked more about what would be happening over the course of the next week instead of the next day.

Alternatively, if you start hands-off, you may find yourself experiencing this process in reverse. Something goes wrong, communication isn’t strong, the working relationship isn’t good … then you’re forced to be more hands on, and now you’re digging out of a hole. Similar to the first post in this series, it is much easier to spend the time up front than to try and backtrack later.

Up next: Pay attention to the small things.

WILFMC: #2 Have a Higher Standard

What I Learned From My Contractor: A Series About the Client-Provider Relationship
Second in a series of 10 on the provider-client relationship. For background see the introduction.

I like to make lists. Not because I’m organized but because I like the feeling of checking things off and moving on.

We had a partial wall, about waist high, in the entryway and planned to finish it off by building on top of the existing wall and going all the way to the ceiling. One morning I left the house after admiring my newly-finished and freshly painted wall. When I came home later, Carlos had ripped a HUGE hole in the drywall near the bottom. What?! It was finished and we were moving on to other projects! Then he showed me: there was already a crack in the paint at the height of the old wall. He opened up the bottom – the original wall – and found that when it was initially built, the carpenter had put the studs too far apart. Now the old wall was unable to support the weight of the new wall. He fixed the previous, sub-par, work then patched the cracks, repainted and everything is as good as new. Which is nice since it is … brand new.

This scenario repeated itself over and over. When you are pulling down walls in a 100+ year old house, you find all kinds of surprises. We’d caucus as things came up and where a cosmetic fix would work, that’s what we went with. But when Carlos saw something that needed more attention, he made sure I knew. His mantra was that his reputation was on the line and he didn’t want to come back to fix something in two months that should have been done right the first time.

Up next: Be hands on, then establish an equilibrium

WILFMC: #1 Listen Closely and Be Clear

What I Learned From My Contractor: A Series About the Client-Provider Relationship
First in a series of 10 on the provider-client relationship. For background see the introduction.

This cannot be said enough. It is human nature: people don’t notice when things go right but they always notice when things go wrong. When working with clients, spend the time – however painstaking or tedious – to listen, ask the tough questions and clearly define the scope of work. Misunderstandings are so very easy to come by.

Language is a common place where clarity can be a challenge. When I said: “Paint all the baseboards white”, to me, the decision had been made. To my contractor, I’d done nothing to help him because he knows (and I learned) there are about 100 shades of white and 50 of them are virtually indistinguishable. Add a dash of patience to those listening skills, though, and things can improve even more. This was especially important when I was trying to decide between two contractors at the end of the bidding process. It was important that I got as much of an apples to apples comparison between the two options as possible, but everybody has their own way of presenting things. I spent a lot of time thinking about what questions would get to the heart of what I wanted to know and then make sure I was getting it during follow up discussions. An extra bonus? If either of the contractors I interviewed showed frustration or wasn’t responsive, then the decision was made all the more easy. Fortunately neither did, but it was clear as we continued talking that H3 was not only answering my questions but listening to what I was saying. He understood what I was trying to achieve and offered lots of suggestions for how to meet my goals within budget.

I felt good about the outcome (even though, ultimately, I had to increase my budget a bit) and Carlos got major credibility points. It was a great way to start a big project. This skill isn’t wasted on smaller projects either. Getting off on the right foot like this helps build loyalty for repeat business and referrals.

Up next: Have a Higher Standard

What I Learned From My Contractor: In the beginning ….

Know anybody who has renovated their house? If you do, I’m sure you have heard an earful. Over budget, missed deadlines, incomplete work … the list goes on. If you have been the one renovating, you have probably come home from work wondering what possibly unwelcome surprise awaits you and spent sleepless nights wondering when it would finally be finished. Perhaps this is an exaggeration, but I would wager that 99% of the renovation stories I hear are negative.

So, I asked myself, why have I been so pleased with my experience?

I have spent the last 5 months renovating my house (aka, World Headquarters of Black Lab Advisory, LLC ) and started way before that planning and getting bids. We started later than expected, we spent more than planned … yet I would be hard pressed to say anything negative about the experience. Being who I am, this made me terribly curious. For weeks I observed every aspect of what was going on in my house until I figured it out. It was culture. My contractor, whom you will meet momentarily, established a culture via his operational and management philosophy, that made for a great experience. How he did that will be the subject of the next 10 posts. But before we get started, I’ll set the stage with a little background information.

The House: 1904 Victorian row in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, DC. Two levels, 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths, English basement, street parking, no central A/C, sidewalk garden and small backyard with a deck (and lovely landscaping courtesy of Mr. Black Lab). Bought in 2001, completely renovated the kitchen in 2004 but, aside from smaller projects like the deck, new carpet, paint and refinishing the floors, the house hadn’t undergone a major overhaul since 1988.

The Project: Completely renovate the full bath – new walls and heated floor, tub/shower, add double sink vanity. Upgrade the electrical, install central A/C, upgrade the circa 1950′s Sears oil furnace to natural gas. Move washer and dryer from basement to top floor by building a new closet in the hallway upstairs. Replace drywall in wall and ceiling in two rooms because of a leaky roof; add a coat closet downstairs; replace front, back and interior doors. Plus a million other little things – you never know what you’ll find when you start taking down the plaster walls in a house that is more than 100 years old. Oh, and top it all off with a fresh coat of paint.

The Contractor: H3 Renovations, LLC is owned and operated by Carlos Herrera. Since 2000, H3 has been a residential and commercial general contractor of choice for everything from minor renovations to new construction in DC, Virginia and Maryland. Carlos is a genial entrepreneur who has lead more than one small business. He employs several professionals split into different crews for H3′s various client locations, but he always has the last say on any project.

The Client: Me, a business owner with a home office and someone used to HAVING clients, not being one. I started getting estimates in October 2008; I compared estimates ruthlessly and narrowed my options down to two by December. I then proceeded to pour over the estimates, ask a million questions and negotiate the final project so that we got most of what we wanted and were mostly within our budget. Once I settled on H3 it was early January 2009, so we waited for the Obama inauguration hubbub to subside and then turned our home over to Carlos.

Each of the next 10 posts will highlight what I learned from Carlos and his team at H3 about successfully managing a client relationship. There are no huge revelations here but, though these are simple ideas, I find they are still challenging to execute and, particularly, to execute consistently and in combination with each other. So, I hope this series is enlightening or at minimum entertaining. Even if it isn’t, take solace in the fact that it will be much, much shorter than the renovation itself.

On Incentives

Are you motivating your staff to do the things you want them to do? It isn’t cynical to say that without the proper incentives, people will do what they perceive as giving them the biggest reward, and that may not be aligned with your business goals.

Retail commissions are a good example of how incentives can go awry, and one I have had experience with recently. When on the hunt for the ideal pair of jeans a few months ago I went to one of the stores that specializes in denim. The sales person brought me zillions of pairs of jeans to try on until I was convinced, against my better judgment, that a certain size and style was right for me. Call it shopping hypnosis if you like but really, the salesperson is the professional and, as part of the social contract, I put my trust in her to give me good advice in the absence of my own expertise. Of course when I got home and tried on my investment in denim in the harsh light of reality, I saw that they were horrid. A few days later I went to return them and learned of the store’s “No Returns” policy. Since I’d already tried on every product in the store, I was (and still am) stuck with a store credit. Oh, and quite a bitter taste in my mouth.

What has gone wrong here? The store’s policy of not accepting returns is great for the salesperson because once my AmEx was swiped, the commission was locked in. So the objective is to sell as much as possible. But it is in direct opposition to the customer’s interests because the salesperson’s “expert” advice cannot be relied upon which, in turn, reflects poorly on this retailer’s brand. Additionally, by not giving the customer a chance to void the transaction (ie, return the jeans) the risk associated with making a mistake has just significantly increased, making the customer less inclined to not only make the purchase to begin with, but also to try something new or buy two pairs of jeans instead of one.

This particular store’s policy was also that exchanges would not be permitted after 7 days. So now I’ve learned that not only does the salesperson not have my best interests I mind, but the store also does not stand behind its product. “Big deal” one might say. The store has its money and there are fewer accounting issues because you don’t have to worry about refunds. That may be fine if the store doesn’t need repeat business, but ultimately cultivating a happy, repeat clientele is much less expensive than continually drawing in new customers. And the reputational damage is a high price to pay as well.

The moral of this take? Take a close look at policies and incentives because they can make all the difference.

So Long, US Air

Thursday night I flew US Airways from Washington National to London Heathrow. When I found my seat for the long haul from Philly to London and there wasn’t a friendly television screen in the seat back facing me, I knew I was in trouble. US Air has given up, and it shows.

A little background: I used to travel quite a bit, often on US Air so, 1) I’m intimately familiar with the slow, painful decline in airline service, as well as; 2) the woes of this specific airline. But I’ve also made enough long trips to South America and Asia that the jump across the pond isn’t terribly uncomfortable. Twelve hours from Tokyo is like the line at the DMV. Five hours to London is the line at Cosi during the noon rush. In summary, I was prepared for what I was walking into.

Fostering Innovation in the Obama White House

I was listening to a recent Diane Rehm show. It was a Friday news round-up discussing the upcoming Obama administration with Washington-based guests from The Washington Times, Newsweek and the Wall Street Journal. The topic of recently announced candidates for key positions was discussed and Jerry Seib from WSJ brought up the popularity of “czars” in the Obama organizational structure. Eleanor Clift from Newsweek bemoaned the fuzzy lines of authority, called them niche positions and worried that it would result in Obama being out of touch. Deborah Clift from The Washington Times was even more distressed, concerned that the media wouldn’t know who to call, afraid they’d get different answers from various people and called it a big mistake.

If it makes the insiders uncomfortable, then you know you are on the right track.

What the panelists failed to recognize is that this is a classic management technique for placing innovators in positions where they will have the most impact.

Workplace Flexibility

I recently left a job I had enjoyed for many years in order to start my own consulting practice. I’d spent more than 10 years working your average 9-5 hours, plus all the evening receptions and such that go on in Washington. I was always amazed at how sometimes I could go an entire day spinning my wheels or catching up on paperwork, then spend a couple of hours at a reception and make more headway with my “actual” job than I had in days. Often this was how things worked. Some of my most productive work happened in the three hours between 6 and 9pm, but I still had a full 9 to 5 day waiting for me the next morning.

Now I work from a home office. I set my schedule, choosing how, when and where to get things done. Despite how pleasant it sounds, this has been an unusually difficult transition. Old habits die hard, especially ones that are such an ingrained part of professional expectations. It has taken a while, but I’ve allowed myself to figure out how and when I am the most productive. Guess what? I can accomplish more in a fraction of the time by working this way.