Painting Prices – Hiring on Price vs. Hiring on Intelligence

I have met hundreds of homeowners in my business and of course have not worked for them all, primarily due to painting prices. Though my pricing has always been fair, a large portion of the home improvement market now has a “lets make a deal” mentality when it comes to looking for new service providers. The Internet has made it virtually instant-quotes-at-your-fingertips simply by sending out 4-5 form emails to contractors online.

With this power and speed in the consumers’ favor, painting prices in the home improvement industry have been slowly decreasing over the last decade. And as more and more homeowners become Internet shopping savvy – and more and more low-budget contractors build websites and advertise online, the prices for certain services keep going down.

Now there is a lot of information in the prior paragraphs. However, the main point I am focusing on is that there are more low-budget contractors out there than ever before. Build a web page, get a few friends and family (with different last names than the contractor’s last name) to offer “testimonials,” and waa-lah… you’re in business.

Hiring on price is and always will be a savvy consumer habit. But hiring on price alone is foolish, especially in the home improvement market.

Hiring intelligently is the key. Aside of performing due diligence before even bringing the contractor into your home, ask a ton of questions during the interview process, and demand a detailed proposal that is written in a manner covering every specification of the job.

That’s right by the way, it is an “interview” – not an estimate. When you bring contractors in your home and are offering your money to pay to have your project done the way you would like it to be done, you are “interviewing.” So ask them anything and everything you want that is necessary for you to be completely confident and comfortable with whom you are hiring. Aside of hiring intelligently, I also advise people to hire on intelligence – in other words, hire intelligent service providers. You know, there are a few of us intelligent contractors out there… Treat yourself and your home reverently, and hire one of the smart guys.

In my next blog, I will layout guidelines for hiring intelligently or how to perform due diligence.