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10. Decoding Contractor Proposals: The Power of the Exposeco Scorecard
52 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of Exposeco, Brian and Paul dive deep into the Exposeco Scorecard—your ultimate tool for cutting through the confusion of contractor proposals. They discuss how the scorecard helps homeowners make informed decisions, avoid hidden costs, and even negotiate better deals. Plus, they share real-world stories of how shady contractors operate and why you should never pay large sums upfront. Tune in to learn how to protect yourself, get the best value for your money, and ensure a stress-free contracting experience!
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Transcript
Introduction to Expose Co. and Exposed Code Scorecard
00:00:15
Speaker
All right, welcome to Expose Co. I'm Brian. I'm here with my co-host, Paul. Paul, how are you doing? Doing great. Excited to be here. Nice, nice. so Good to be back with you. Tonight, we are tackling an important topic about who we are as a company, Expose Co.
Understanding the Exposed Code Scorecard's Benefits
00:00:33
Speaker
that we offer, which isn't exactly clear to everyone. And when they first hear our name or kind of begin to learn about what we do, we're going to talk about a specific service we offer, which is our Exposed Code scorecard.
00:00:45
Speaker
And our scorecard, this isn't just a sales pitch. We're going to actually share some important information about how that actually benefits ah customers. The scorecard is actually part of every single plan that we sell at Exposed Co. That's how important it is to what we do and actually resourcing and helping customers.
00:01:04
Speaker
Paul, do you want to share some things with us about our Exposco scorecard? Yeah, I mean, the scorecard is designed to draw out all all the the good stuff in a proposal and all the bad stuff and and weed through all that. So take the information and organize it in a fashion that we can understand who's actually providing the most value for the money.
00:01:26
Speaker
And also it gets rid of all the smoke and mirrors. So and it basically gives us the information to have our trained eyes to be able to make a wise decision on referring you which contractor is probably gonna be the best for your project. We're not sitting with a salesperson and getting fed a bunch of lines like you guys are.
00:01:48
Speaker
What we're doing is we're taking facts and we're able to take those facts. We're able to actually understand the needs of what you, what you actually need, and then cut out the items that you
Empowering Consumers with the Scorecard
00:01:59
Speaker
don't actually need. So the scorecard is designed to really be able to organize and also weed out the stuff that's not needed and highlight the stuff that is, is really good that people are offering you in a ah replacement or a system installation. We have really developed this scorecard to be able to make it so at the end of the day, you're informed. you're You feel like you have confidence in your purchase and you're not necessarily just sitting there feeling like you're just throwing your hands up in the air and going, ugh.
00:02:33
Speaker
I think this guy that showed up at my house, he's a really nice guy. he seems really trustworthy. So i'm just going to I'm just going to go with what he says. you know That's going with somebody that's a good salesperson and going with the good salespeople. There's good salespeople everywhere that are good people, but there's also a lot of sharks out there that seem like good people and they are just really good at their jobs.
00:02:57
Speaker
What we're doing is we're taking the nonsense out of the whole entire equation and we're taking the emotions out of the equation and we're just going to put facts down. on our scorecard and we're going to let you know who's the right contractor for you.
00:03:11
Speaker
And if you end up choosing to go with the guy that seemed to be nicer at the end of the day, that, I mean, that's your choice, but at least you understand that you are paying more for that and that you may not be actually getting provided much better service or anything
Vetting Contractors Beyond Proposals
00:03:25
Speaker
like that. With the scorecard, not only looking at the proposals, we're also vetting the contractor's We know where to look to find if they have a lot of dirty laundry.
00:03:35
Speaker
A lot of these guys, these they have these big TV commercials or these large companies that they are a marketing machine and you know they do a good job of creating the message that they're an amazing company. But In reality, you can go and read certain reviews or you can look them up on on different bureaus or or license boards and stuff like that and get a good background of the company and how they actually treat their clients.
00:04:02
Speaker
And so we have an analysis that we do with our scorecards to be able to make sure that, you know what, there's no stone unturned when it comes to your project.
00:04:13
Speaker
And It's being vetted by somebody that has a trained eye. And we're able to do that because of our scorecard. We've developed the scorecard so we don't miss any details when it comes to your project. So it really is the most thorough and you know well thought out process I think i've I've experienced when it comes to this type of stuff with contracting.
00:04:34
Speaker
It's so cool when you actually see somebody lay eyes on the scorecard for the first time. And I can still remember this happening. And it was was a wonderful experience because what we had was several proposals ah where nothing matched.
00:04:50
Speaker
You know, nothing was apples to apples. And then we went through the proposals and then put everything together within the scorecard. And it became so glaring what was included and what wasn't included.
00:05:03
Speaker
And it became so obvious what the choice was, and especially for the value. It it became like the most obvious experience for the consumer was like, blown away.
00:05:14
Speaker
This woman was blown away by the opportunity to to see that, oh, in this case, they didn't even offer me a warranty. And on top of that, why didn't they actually give me not just a parts warranty, but a labor warranty, no guarantees, nothing. like Those things really stand out when you start to really align them side by side, and especially with a comprehensive list of things that could be included, and then you see what's not included.
00:05:38
Speaker
And you get to wondering why it actually gives the the consumer a lot of power to go back to the contractor and ask, let's say they did fall in love with Zed company, like some company they've done business with before.
00:05:51
Speaker
Then go back to them and say, i noticed that there you left out this important key for me, no filtration. You didn't specify what filtration it is. What filtration would it be? Because we have allergies in our house or yeah, my kid suffers from asthma.
00:06:08
Speaker
And that's really important to me. So it gives the consumer all the power to kind of self-advocate if they so choose to, or they can just go with what was the best choice for them.
Expose Co.'s Comprehensive Services
00:06:18
Speaker
but it makes a confusing decision so clear.
00:06:22
Speaker
That's a great point that you bring that up because, I mean, I remember and an analysis that we were doing and basically, and we see it all the time, that really what the scorecard is doing is showing a lot of what's not in there too.
00:06:36
Speaker
Sometimes they are not even specifying the warranty at all. They don't have it written in it at all. But this proposal was three pages long. And if you don't have a trained eye and you're not checking, you're not going through it line item and by line item them like we are, then you may just miss that.
00:06:52
Speaker
That's just, is it's an easy thing to miss when you're getting all this other stuff, but it's a big thing. And so we're able to catch that stuff because you know what? We have every single thing detailed out of what we're expecting to see in this proposal and making sure that it's all included. And if it's not included, we're going to let you know about it.
00:07:13
Speaker
So if you do end up going, hey, yeah, i I like this contractor and I think he's a great dude. Maybe he just missed something. And a lot of times it is that is the case. They did miss it.
00:07:24
Speaker
But that's why we're here is we're here to make sure that those misses are rectified before you move forward with it. So that way you're not like six months after the installation and finding out that there was no warranty on your system installation and whether it was a mistake or not you're not having enough to go back and have that you know anxiety that there was a big miss that's a ah great point though is understanding like a lot of it's what's not in there too absolutely it's not just what's included what's not and i i have a war story even just this last month regarding this that an individual a sweet soul
00:07:58
Speaker
was buying a new heating and air conditioning system for her house. And she went ahead and did that. And the actual system broke down the second day after it was installed.
00:08:11
Speaker
It was blowing. It's in the middle of winter. It was blowing cold air instead of hot. Now, can you imagine if she had gone back to the contractor and said, Hey, it's not working. And that contractor shows up and says, I'm sorry about that. It's going to be a $250 service ah for me to fix this thing that went out on it. You're going to And I believe that she would have been shocked, but luckily she did have a warranty and especially like an installation warranty. And this, this person was very reputable.
00:08:40
Speaker
They ended up fixing it just because this was a recent install. But could you imagine a scenario where it didn't go that way and it wasn't in writing and well, sorry, kind of out of luck?
00:08:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a pretty rare thing to have somebody that doesn't do any warranty, but you never know. i mean, there's a lot of crazy contractors out there that they're in it to make a buck and and then they disappear. I mean, I've experienced it even...
00:09:05
Speaker
um In my own project, my own house, I've dealt with people just basically up and leaving. So it's not just in contracting in general. I mean, that's kind of crazy. Yeah, so these proposals and and making sure that all your T's are crossed and your I's are dotted, that's so important.
00:09:22
Speaker
It's so important. And also it gives us an opportunity to know, like we can come at it and go, Hey, Susie, you're overpaying for this. Let us help negotiate this for you. Cause we can definitely save you some money and going on your behalf to, to make sure that you're getting a good deal too.
00:09:39
Speaker
Cause at the end of the day, I mean, it's, get what you want, but also pay a fair price. So that's an added bonus that we offer is is being able to make sure that we're not only looking over the proposals, but we're also making sure that the price is right for you.
00:09:53
Speaker
So if a customer buys even our base package, They'll get three proposals reviewed and all of its information digested and then put onto our scorecard. They'll receive that and they can make a decision if they want to move forward with the company.
00:10:06
Speaker
But after having already seen the clarity that the scorecard gives, they can say maybe Expose Co. can do a little better in terms of the price. And from there,
00:10:18
Speaker
We can take what we've already digested and we can go back to the contractor and say, let's see where we can save some money here and we'll negotiate the price to a win-win-win for the contractor, for the consumer, for us.
00:10:30
Speaker
That's incredible. That's incredible. us It seems like 360-degree service like that goes all the way around where somebody is going to feel really good about that experience. Because not only are we looking at the proposal itself,
00:10:43
Speaker
We're also looking at the contractor, the company and looking at their reputation. and then on top of it, then we're going the extra mile and making sure that the price is right, no matter what the price of the estimate said.
Expert Negotiation Advantages
00:10:55
Speaker
That's amazing. Yeah, for sure. Sometimes even being able to have the conversation, we can work through getting not only just money off, but also added services added in. We have the expertise to be able to to know what to ask and ah be able to talk professional to professional.
00:11:12
Speaker
It's a lot more simple to have that conversation than an untrained eye just asking for some random dollar amount. there's You can't just ask for a random dollar amount off of your project. That's not how the negotiation works. When you have a trained person that says, hey, I know that this unit costs about this much, and I know...
00:11:33
Speaker
how much labor it takes to actually do the project. And to us, it seems like you're a little bit high on your price. We know that you can still make money at X number.
00:11:44
Speaker
So can we be more reasonable about it? We can have that trained conversation with that professional. and do it professional to professional in a respectful way and make sure that they're still making money on the project, but they're just not overcharging.
00:11:58
Speaker
Because the last thing that you want to do as a consumer is you want to basically chisel these contractors down to the cheapest price possible. And then in turn, the contractor doesn't make any money at all.
00:12:11
Speaker
And then they're frustrated doing your project. They don't want to come back and warranty it after if they have an issue after the fact. or yet there's not enough money in the job to be able to do a good job.
00:12:22
Speaker
We wouldn't want that for you. We want to make sure that you are paying what you should be paying, but make sure that the job gets done right. you know Having our expertise is making sure that you're not overpaying, but you're also not getting to the point where it's going to be a situation where you could have somebody just basically bail on you in the middle of the project.
00:12:43
Speaker
And also, like we've said, and we've we've pushed this so hard on our social media is is we don't suggest you paying them a bunch of money up front because you know what?
00:12:54
Speaker
Contractors have a reputation of ah taking money and not showing back up. We know we know what that looks like in this industry, and and we're here to protect you guys from that. That's the key is we're not here for the contractor. We're here for for you.
00:13:07
Speaker
That's a big one. We'll get right to that in a
Risks of Upfront Payments
00:13:10
Speaker
second. I just was thinking to wrap up kind of our previous conversation on scorecard and then we got into negotiation a little bit. It's almost unfair to hire us to negotiate for people.
00:13:20
Speaker
and And here's why. um Usually when you negotiate for something, you don't know what the bottom line cost of that is. You don't know how much it costs that car dealer to purchase that vehicle. You don't know what their bottom line really is.
00:13:34
Speaker
And so usually you just throwing darts at a wall and seeing kind of what the best price is that they can give. I think when an uninformed consumer does this, they might be happy like getting, you know, knocked out $200 off of her or added like package here or there. Maybe we'll get a guarantee.
00:13:51
Speaker
And that would make them have that feel good moment, like a win-win. But the bottom line is, is that when we know, because what we know the bottom line of how much that actually costs,
00:14:02
Speaker
for them we have a basis to go off of and it may be in the thousands of dollars and your average person isn't going to know all these contractors over five grand on this bid all of them are over you're asking over and but we know so in that case i'm like i'm thinking oh my goodness this is this is actually a little unfair and the contractors are gonna hate us a little bit but that's it we're like leveling the playing field like that's the whole that's one of the big things we're doing That's exactly why we exist is to basically empower the consumer to have the knowledge to be able to be in the level playing field. It's kind of like if you were out buying a car, you would have the knowledge of if you owned a car dealership,
00:14:47
Speaker
but you're going to a different car dealership to purchase the car. So you'd have an insight saying, you know, hey, Jerry, I really like you as a car salesman, but you know what? I know that this car, you're you're making $10,000 on the sale of this car.
00:15:01
Speaker
i mean, we know that you can make $3,000 and you guys would still be okay and everybody would still win and I'm not overpaying for it. So let's be reasonable here. That's just leveling the playing field. That's like, think about if you were going to buy a car Wouldn't you just love to have somebody that has just such an inside knowledge of what those dealerships are making on those cars?
00:15:25
Speaker
And it's just another industry that we keep bringing up. People understand that industry a little bit more. They're aware more aware of it. And so it's a great analogy. And it can be confusing. You know what I mean? Like it's not, it's not confusing, but it can be, you know, you can go into a dealership and they say they don't negotiate whatsoever.
00:15:42
Speaker
And that's really not right their margins or their margins are paper thin. Like I'm not making money. Like we're not here to make, a We don't make money on cars. You know, it's, it's basically, we get kickbacks from the manufacturer. There's so much like this.
00:15:57
Speaker
Yeah. Lies. Exactly. And that's an everyday and industry. and That's why we exist. Right. Is we want to get rid of the lies. We want to give the consumer eyes to see. Right. Okay. So we alluded to this already today and it is related directly to value, I think. And one of the values that we offer as Exposco and this discuss our customers, nothing, you have to sign up for anything.
00:16:17
Speaker
but by educating you. And we have educational resources on our website. These videos are hopefully in these podcasts are educational as well. And one of the things we've been saying to people is that for work, you should not be paying money up front before the work starts.
00:16:34
Speaker
Now, are you steadfast on that? Or are there are there instances where you're like, no, no. Okay. In this situation, you're going to get 50% up front because it's a big ticket or big project or big renovation.
00:16:45
Speaker
Like what's your stance on that? Because like you said, you've been in this industry 20 years. Yeah. My stance is I would never do that. I would never do that. To this day, I do not give people money up front.
00:16:57
Speaker
If you have to give a 10% deposit, maybe, but even that, I mean, you can give somebody good faith even less than that of saying, Hey, look, I'm moving forward with your project. I'm not going to cancel on you.
00:17:11
Speaker
In good faith, I can give you 5% front, but I wouldn't give them a dime until basically they've done a significant amount of work and you definitely don't finish paying them the total amount until you get to where the project 100% done.
00:17:27
Speaker
I'm steadfast on that. There's no convincing me otherwise. I've personally had somebody walk away with 30... plus thousand dollar payment because paid them up front. So that was just one example of something that you'll never do again, right? And it's not just because that's happened to me. I mean, I've contracted for so long and I've contracted not just doing air conditioning for consumers. I've also been, worked with other contractors and I've seen just These people, they they'll just disappear on you once they have the money because there's nothing to incentivize them to provide good service other than if they don't want to have a bad reputation online.
00:18:07
Speaker
But there's a lot of contractors out there that don't give give a crap about that. They don't really care. Not all of them are that way, but the ones that are really good are not going to expect you to pay them up front. And if they do, I think that's unreasonable. You know, you're in business to make sure that you do a good service, provide a good service, and in the end you'll get paid.
00:18:24
Speaker
And the consumer, yes, they have protections, but it is it's a hard fought. You have to fight hard in order to get your money back if you paid a a contractor up front. They have bonds, right? But those bonds are not like something that is a super simple process and they'll just write you a check back. There's a lot of back and forth and a lot of times you have to hire an attorney and sometimes you have to sue them.
00:18:47
Speaker
There's a lot to it. And that's a nightmare for a consumer. You can eliminate all those problems by making sure that the contractor does right by you before you pay them.
00:18:59
Speaker
I don't advocate ever for stiffing a contractor or not paying them, but you should pay them for the work that they did. And if they did a quality job, they should get paid. The that I'm aware of or I'm becoming increasingly aware of is how ah standard it is to ask for money up front from contractors and how many contractors are even going so far as to deny work from people that they that that won't pay them up front. So I actually had an instance very recently. I hired somebody to do some renovating within our church building.
00:19:30
Speaker
And that person, you're going to laugh, okay? It was $700. $700. seven hundred I'm not saying thousand. I'm saying 700. And the person asked us for 300 up front.
00:19:44
Speaker
And I i objected. i said, listen, this is stupid for us to give you 300. Can we just pay you once? Like you have access to our building. you know, we trust you and you have a trust relationship. And he walked on the job after having officially been hired and estimating the job and everything over me or over our our organization not paying a deposit. And I was floored.
00:20:09
Speaker
I was floored by that that could even happen. And I was also floored that somebody would ask me for half of a $700 bill. That was beyond absurd. ah Most of the time, if they have to have the you know, the half up front, they're probably not really good their businesses they should be able to up front the cost of the project especially on a 700 project that's probably like a one-day project if that and and so i'm all about like if they've completed the job and you're happy with the job you should pay them right then and there like
00:20:46
Speaker
don't string them along. in In my eyes, I think that's unethical to string people along. Now, good contractors though, they have the money and the capital to be able to to do projects. That's pretty normal for contractors to have lines of credit or anything like that in order to start projects to a significant milestone in the project in order to, you know at that point,
00:21:08
Speaker
maybe ask for a progress payment. We're working with mainly homeowners. So these these projects are, if they are super drawn out long project, I can understand paying people as the project is is progressing, but you still don't pay the project off until the project is completed.
00:21:25
Speaker
And you surely don't give them a significant amount of money up front. Now, if they're special ordering things, it's a very rare thing that they're special ordering things. So if somebody tells you that as an excuse,
00:21:38
Speaker
I would kind of be a little weary. And that's why you hire us, right? We go, yeah, that's not special order. That guy is just straight up lying to you or he's just trying to get some money out of you. But that's why we're here, right? We have the trained eye.
00:21:54
Speaker
we're able to make sure that you're not going to get screwed as the consumer by giving the contractor money up front. And we vet the the contractor. I mean, we're looking at ton of different reviews.
00:22:06
Speaker
We're also going through government agencies to do background checks. And so we can get a good grasp of whether it's for real or somebody's just, you know, blown smoke. So extremely small contractors are the ones that usually are asking for a lot of money up front. And ah those contractors, I mean, I'm not saying don't go with small contracts. I actually think that's, they're better, but they really shouldn't be asking for a ton of money up front. They should be able to get a significant amount of work done and then ask for a progress payment if they really need the cashflow.
00:22:36
Speaker
So what I hear you saying is, yeah, protect yourself. There's sharks in the water. Unfortunately, that's a reality. So you want to protect yourself somewhat. And by doing these small things, you're going to protect yourself from like a big hit down line, potentially.
00:22:50
Speaker
Absolutely. it's saved It's saving you. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, but it's saving you a lot of headache in the future. Look, that guy walked from your job. That could have just been like $300 You know what i mean? He could have just taken the money and just been gone. And we don't know that, right? We're not saying that he's an untrustworthy guy or he's a thief or anything like that. But there's there's plenty of instances when people are asking for a bunch of money up front that they just disappear on you. I mean, I had one that was over $30,000.
00:23:21
Speaker
I mean, that's a lot of money. That's an insane amount of money. So to say that that doesn't happen is it would be ignorant. Save yourself the headache of having to have to deal with this down the road and just pay them as they have progress on the on the job. Don't pay them before they've made progress. I mean, that is putting yourself in a position that can be create a lot of
Engaging with Listeners
00:23:40
Speaker
problems.
00:23:40
Speaker
Okay, Exposed Code listeners. Have you ever experienced something like this? Have you ever had a contractor begin either begin the work and walk on your job or have you ever paid them money and had them not begin the job or work or ghost you?
00:23:55
Speaker
Tell us some of your stories. Either you can ah reach us on our Facebook page or Instagram. We're also on TikTok, on YouTube Shorts. You can reach out to us through our email, info at exposeco.com.
00:24:10
Speaker
and We'd love to hear your stories. And maybe if you have a juicy enough story, we might feature it on a podcast in the future. Okay, Paul, this has been awesome. Great time of learning and experiencing your expertise in this field. Any final words for our listeners?
00:24:26
Speaker
Don't pay half up front. You'll regret it. Don't pay half up front. You will regret it. There it is. You heard it here first. All right. Have a good night, everyone. Thank you so much for listening.