How to Stop Working for Free

Lesson 2—Make Your Client Realize that You Have an Option

Welcome back. In Lesson 1, you sort of got left with a cliff-hanger ending: you just told your client, “It’s Not Ours!” Good for you. And you might not have had a clue as to what you should do next. Well, that’s what today’s lesson is all about. And, as the title of today’s lesson implies, you really do have an option. It’s just that your client might not be thrilled to hear this.

As a contractor, you realize that it’s often a dog-eat-dog world out there in our industry. Kill or be killed. Survival of the fastest. You get the idea. You know you need to do something. You’re just not sure what—yet. Give me a minute, and you will. Boy—will you ever!

How do you let your client know that your client has a problem? (By the way, don’t miss this shift in attitude, as well—the problems we contractors encounter are normally caused by others. We just need to be paid for them.)

But how? Simple. We write an RFI.

What’s an RFI? It’s a Request for Information. We let our client know that something unexpected is getting in the way of our scope of work. Your contract just might have a provision in it for writing an RFI when conditions change. It might even require that you send an RFI when this happens.

Funny thing about that contract verbiage, though, You don’t really have to send the RFI. As long as you are willing to fix the problem for free, you don’t have to say anything. Keep your head down. Keep the job going. Fix the problem. Absorb the costs. Yeah, you can keep quiet! Your choice. And if that’s the way you prefer to run your projects, you don’t even need to finish the rest of this mini-course. It’s not for you. It’s for people who are fed up with fixing for free everybody else’s problems. So read on if that’s you.

As for me, I don’t like quiet—I’m more likely to take steps to protect my company. In my humble opinion, I think you should, too.

Maybe you’re thinking, “How do I send an RFI? I’ve never done that before.” Let me assure you that you can do this. Once you understand the process, you can deal with these things in a matter of twenty minutes—easily—for most issues.

While we don’t have time in this mini-lesson to give complete details and examples, you will now get some very important guidance. This is critical, so don’t miss it. Here is what you need in your RFIs:

  1. State the problem.
  2. Ask the question, “How Shall We Proceed?”

Guess what happens next? It is up to your client to tell you what to do.

If you are a smart contractor, and fully understand the impact of change orders on your company profitability, you will actually WAIT on your client.

If you aren’t sure of yourself, you may just go back to work. Hope for the best. Rely upon your client to be fair with you. “Settle” for what your client decides to give you.

If that’s you, then don’t bother with the next couple of lessons, because they are designed for people who want to take some action. Simple, effective action. And it all has to do with complying with the client’s own contract. Very simple—you’ll see.

So, how do you send that RFI? What in the world does it look like? What does it have to say? Well, that’s what the next lesson is all about. And know this: there are exact answers to those questions of yours. Doing this correctly is critical. You want to only send out what I like to call “Winning RFIs”. And I don’t use that term casually: when I write an RFI, I expect to win!

But I’ll tell you this: if you think you really need to do something today, and can’t wait another two days until the next lesson, then go to www.FullContactTeam.com and get the book, “Get Paid for a Change!”, because the answers are in there. That book will make you thousands of dollars if you will let it. In fact, the book even comes with a $1,000.00 guarantee, and that actual guarantee is printed right in the book itself on page 23. This stuff works! That’s why the book is subtitled, “The Contractor’s Blueprint forTurning Extra Work into Extra Money—thru Change Orders”.

See you next time for Lesson 3

Copyright 2009 Gary Micheloni

www.FullContactTeam.com