How to select the tradesperson with whom you should work

"Just as Orwell pointed out, not every man is equal."

We must recognise that not every man or woman is equal in his or her abilities and that is doubly important when hiring one to work for you. Hiring someone directly is fraught with difficulty because there is no transparency of prices and no reliable signalling of quality.

Relying on Checkatrade and Trustpilot reviews means that you have to rely on ratings provided by people that sometimes have incentives to give good ratings or are from a group of people who are very enthusiastic about providing a very good or very poor rating. The general inertia when the majority are asked to provide a rating means that most do not bother to, unless especially compelled. This makes relying on ratings alone circumspect, especially if you see perfect scores of 5 stars.

Getting price quotes using Checkatrade or myBuilder are also fraught with difficulty. If a tradesperson quotes you an expensive price, does that mean he or she will be better and hence deliver the quality you expect or does that mean he or she is over priced?

Understanding value pricing from the tradesperon's standpoint

The nature of the negotiation between you and the tradesperson is so intimate that you will be discussing things that you want done and that he/she can deliver. In any trade that has a price, there is value being exchanged for a monetary sum. At certain prices, it is not worth the other side to engage. When you are both in the acceptable price ranges for each other, then a trade can be done. It is only human nature that the buyer (you) wants to get the maximum value at the lowest price, and the tradesperson (supplier) wants to get the maximum price for the least work. What determines that price is the relative bargaining power of each side and the skill in negotiation that each has.

The "BATNA" is the Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement

The BATNA for you will be the price at which you walk away and say, no thanks, that is too expensive. The BATNA for the tradesperson will be the price at which it is too low and the tradesperson will say, "no thanks, good luck" and hang up the phone.

Now that you understand the BATNA you can begin to elicit the quotes you need by using Cleartrade or another website where you can get a range of responses for the work that you need done. Now, you have an idea of who will do it for less. Use that as a bargaining chip. Secondly, ask to speak to previous clients of the tradersperson by checking his completed works page on his website or by asking him directly if he would be willing to give you testimonials. Send him an email template that he can forward to his former clients who can then fill it out and that he can send back to you. This requires some effort on the tradesperson's side, so it is better to gauge his willingness to do this. Many will deflect this request by asking you to check their Checkatrade or Trustpilot ratings. However, this is no substitute.

Filter down your original list of tradespeople based on the responses

You now have a list of tradespeople and how they have behaved to your requests. This should give you an indication of what it may be like to work with these people, but do not be fooled by first impressions, you should never let your guard down. Human nature involves trying to find shortcuts and doing less while receiving more. One only has to look at the hordes of administrators working with minimum effort in administrative government jobs or at large multinationals.

Make a Spec Doc

A Spec Doc is a detailed document in which you state the work you want done, the timeline for doing that work, the amount you will pay per hour and the penalties off the hourly wage which you will expect if the work is not done on time. Good tradespeople will negotiate the correct timeline to complete a job, a poor salesperson will not reply because his or her game plan is to make the relatively low hourly wage last many more hours than it should be. What you must realise is that you are paying for a job to be done, and a high productivity person will complete the job in a shorter period of time. The low productive worker will charge less per hour but potentially take so long and require re-work that it will cost you more money than having hired the more expensive person to start with. Spec Docs are a great way to set the standard, set expectations upfront, and ensure no one can take you for a ride.

Example Spec Docs

At Cleartrade, Spec Docs are created during the quote request process, which means that because our quoting process takes into consideration the time, complexity and skill level required to complete a job, your job should be priced well. If you want to create your own Spec Doc, you can use a simple word processing package such as Microsoft Word for Google Docs with three headings: Work to be Completed, Expected Time to Complete, Hourly Wage. Penalties for exceeding agreed time to complete. By ensuring you have the final section, you will ensure that the tradesperson pushes back against the original Time to Complete or simply rejects your work request because he knows he or she cannot milk you for additional money by dragging out a job.