Watching Subs Slit Their Own Throats

Mike Finley

Well, I'm starting to see a pattern now that we've been in this for a few seasons. Anybody else recognizing this?

We are steady all year long so it's steady freddy all the time, we've got work in the height of the busy construction season and we've had work in the traditional slow times of the season. We don't do anything different with how we work or our demands. In the winter some subs are ready to slit each others throats just to get work, but we keep on keeping on with our plans and ignore the tempting that others throw at you. Traditional slow times we get calls all the time for subs beating the bushes for work but we stick with our same subs and no pressures added on them.

Busy time and now I start to see the same situations I've seen before. Subs get busy and now it's exspansion time. Time to grow, time to take on new guys, time to stop doing the work themselves and have their new guy show up on the job out of the blue. Promises, promises, he's great, he's fantastic, he's fast, you'll love him.... reality sets in... he's incompetent, he's slow as old people *****ing... get the bill, hmmm? Your super man takes twice as long to do what you took to do so now using your company basically costs double for what it cost us 3 months ago?

Blah, blah, blah from the sub... some of them figure it out some are seeing dollar signs, it's busy, I've got 6 GCs calling me begging me to do estimates...I'll work it out with you, I'll talk to my guy, he's new...blah blah blah...

Well come about October, those 6 GCs aren't going to be calling anymore, you will have laid off your "super man" by then and be getting a bit nervous as the bills start to add up and work is slow now. We will still be steady freddy doing what we do but come along November it might dawn on you how you haven't gotten any calls in a while from us. Hmmm, they must be slow too, better give them a call and see...What? You're not using us anymore? WHy???????????!!!!

I'm starting to see this pattern of guys shooting themselves in the foot for the sake of 4 months of the year and forgetting they will still have to pay the bills in the other 8.

Magnettica

That's interesting and seems tobe the same trend going on here in New Jersey. Sub contractor gets busy, wants to take care of his good GC's but charges them more during the busy times. To me, that makes no sense. Why screw the good GC just because you're busy with other things like possibly working with other GC's. Why not charge the 'new' GC's more and let them get accustomed to your adjusted prices?

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go do it

having been a sub for years i been through busy and slow times like everybody

but i have noticed that when it is busy my labor would be higher

because guys knew that jobs were easy to get

so they would ask more on the hour

i would adjust my price to compensate

higher or lower

KentWhitten

It's a little tough to figure that one. If others are charging more, then there's no reason for you to get more. It's business, it's not friendship. If a builder had to get someone else and had to pay extra, then where's the problem?

I would always give the people the reason why they hired me. I have added value to their job because I know what needs to be done and how I can help if there's a problem. Also I would add that extra bit of quality into the repeat customers jobs than I would if it was a homeowner and a one shot deal.

This is what I give for free and if I charge the same as everyone else, then they don't have a problem paying for it.

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mtp

I love it when the subs are suprised that you check thier price and they dont get the work

all vinyl

I was talking to a buddy that owns an H.V.A.C. shop he says in the peak season he works for his men and in the slow season his men work for him . I can understand the concept . I have taught so many people over the years that now they are my competition . THE thing is you have people that like the security of working on their own as a sub No ing they have work . the other side is getting your own and making a better dollar and more headaches .the other people enjoy working under someone so they have the security different people different out looks . I personally enjoy both sides .

troubleseeker

It has always been like that, when things are busy, everyone tends to get greedy and forget who has kept them busy over the long term. But it is a double edged sword because when things slow down, the contractors are in the cat bird seat, and begin to undercut the prices of the subs that have also been loyal to them. Having been in both seats, as both a contractor and a sub over the years, I honestly believe that most subs have the attitude they have from getting taken advantage of so much by the GC's.

williefb

Same here. It's just business when they quote a higher price to me but personal when they don't get the job.

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wackman

I'm been sending out emails to all my subs for the last few new homes and bigger remodels.

I make it out to no one in particular. I just say "hey, here is a set of plans, could you get me a price on this." but I send it to 4 competing subs at once.

Four electricians or plumbers, roofers etc...get the exact same email and can see that it's gone out to their competition as well and suddenly all my prices came way down.

Business is business and my loyalty is only to the last job you did for me and what you can do now, unless their is some special circumstance.

I know a GC who still uses the same subs even though he's paying almost double what I pay because years ago they bent over backwards to help him with something, since then they have gotten to where they do a *****ty job and he thinks his "loyalty" is somehow getting him a better deal.

Vinny

Holy Cow what a bunch of FU^%$#$ whyners G.C.s can be.

I recall being at a gathering where some GC,s I work for were. I remember thier discussion getting around to " all the subs are bunch of pains, the electrician wants to charge for an extra outlet, and the plumber for an extra faucet and the paver for an extra 100 sq ft and the excavator for an extra trip or 2 with the dump truck.

I explained to their girly a$$e$ to stop sniveling and pick up thier skirts before they got dirty, Heaven for bid , and consider hiring an in hpouse plumber, an in house paver, an in house electrician, an in house excavator. Buy the equipment, buy the land and building to support such an operation. Staff it with a sales force to make sure all those people will be working constantly, and maybe, just maybe, we will review this conversation agin in the future.

How is it, or where does the atitude come from that just because as a GC, when you have awarded a sub a job, you have a right to expect a sub to give you the same price for ever and never raise it.
Do you think its possible that it sucks working for you and now as a sub we may have to find a way to compinsate for the bull sh!t of trying to get paid?
Do you think its possible our labor force and materials and cost of fuel has gone up?
Why is it that most GC,s expect little extras for free as a term of awarding the job? Or worse yet after getting an un expecting weak sub to actualy give you those extras for free, which makes me want to f^%%$##^& vomit, you charge the client for them and pocket the money.
Why is it you dony want to see a sub grow his buisness? Can it be you fear they wil have a need to raise thier price as they expand? This is quite possible, but dont frown on the sub, just get someone else if you think you can to fill the need taht easy.

Why do you think the term sub is associated with the word "specialty" as in "specialty sub"? Its because we are craftsmen in our own right within the industry we are affiliated with. We to are buisness people with financial plans, buisness goals, employees, thier familys goals and needs umong a multitude of other issues that as contractors your selves I should'nt have to explain.

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Vinny

Do you like playing those games? Makes you feel like a big man? I guess your making up for some other short coming. I'll bet you almost see yourself as some sort of half a$$ leader to your unfortunate subs. I bet you enjoy keeping them down and I pray to God they see this site and find out what type of a$$ hole you have been to them.

Small subs, as I have found since my buisness awakening, are for the most part not very buisness savvy. They dont understand why they arent making money and one of the major reasons is because they have tried to make a buisness out of working exclusvly for GC,s that dont want the sub to get smart and actualy charge the right price for what value they bring to the job.

It is in some way its almost like the North Korean regime. God forbid the real people become educated and find out that thier government has been shielding them from the real world so they cant grow as a people and can just go on serving blindly. If the truth be told they would hang that SOB by his balls for getting filthy rich on the effort of thier labors, as some GC,s in this thread need to be.

How is it you can be that against another hard working man wanting to get ahead a little and raise his standing a little. Maybe if you helped your subs understand thier buisness, and how they might be able to grow and still provide thier service at a reasonable price to you, maybe you wouldnt have to go out to get other prices and say"Gotch ya, I found out your price is to high". Oh I forgot, the last thing you want is to educate a sub and help him out, or, it may be because you dont know squat about buisness to start with and are an expert in grinding unknowing subs into the ground.

In closing I would just like to say:censor ed:

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POOLMANinCT

thats an old story. the key is tostay insulated from that. i only use familiar faces, dont "buy" the early spring work, and just keep my small part of the universe moving.

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POOLMANinCT

well said.....
these gcs sound like homeowners too.
reminds me of that catchy old tune," cant get something for nothing, gotta have something... if u wanna be w/ me"

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......Less with the jaw & More with the paw.....

KillerToiletSpider

We are exclusively subcontractors, and have been doing work for about seven GC's exclusively for a long time, mostly because of trust, but a couple of those GC's always shop our price, and find few other plumbing contractors willing to bid it. In some of the buildings we work in, they won't allow any other plumbing contractors to do the work, as we have been there for so long we are considered the house plumbers, and any GC working in the building has to deal with us.

Subs that play games with numbers depending on how busy they are have no real clue on how to build a customer base or keep a working relationship with a GC. Our company is in a niche market, and it is not unusual for the seven GC's we work for to all be bidding on the same job, and they know that the price we quoted for the job is the same for all of them, to do otherwise is just bad business.

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Mike Finley

Whew, Vinny. Sounds like you've been riden hard and put away wet a few too many times by some jerks.

I hope none of that was directed at me, cause it if was you need to read what I wrote, nowhere did I say anything about fees, quite the opposite, I don't lord over our subs when it is their slow times either as I said, we just keep doing what we do, steady with no changes either way, and if you read carefully what I wrote it's a description of a bad road for any business person to go down, a GC or a sub, it's trying to expand your business in a poor manner. Trying to expand and having your product suffer isn't good for anybody.

Tscarborough

What he was saying, Finley, in a nutshell, is that subs don't know their business, only thier craft, and that it is wrong for Generals not to TEACH them their business or otherwise hold them accountable for their lack of business acumen.

In other words, Waaah! Waaah!

JustaFramer

Actually the waaahh part is a little harsh.

While GC are driving down the price along with cut throat subs hiring illegals. As it is already happening legal aliens are getting LBI and hiring illegals. Driving the price down even further.
In WA the average wage for a journeyman residential carpenter is 15 dollars a hour. That wage actually dropped from a few years ago. About 4 dollars a hour. I made 15-20 ten years ago which was 3-4 times minium wage. Now it is about 2-2.5 x state minium wage.

And some guys wonder why they can't keep help.

Sure right now I am not pulling down 100gs a year. But I don't have to putt up with this **** and I make more money that college edgumacated residential GC stuperintendant.

Actually with my benie package I do alright.

MarkNoV

Au contraire, people that do not apply the basic rules of supply and demand are the ones without a clue.

Take a look at the hotel or cottage rental industry. Hotels raise their rates whenever they can. Cottage owners have no difficulty shutting down altogether during the low season.

Personally, I don't mind working only five months a year in the trades. My rates are high enough to sustain me for the other seven. It would not be the case if I followed the industry standard and believed the "I will keep you busy, and I want a long term relationship" routine.

It is a basic fact of business that employees are cheaper than subs, therefore GC's that are busy or growing would be more profitable with a fixed cost structure. GC's that make those claims and are looking for subs instead of employees are either liars or worse businessmen than I am.



Mark

Mike Finley

That's all well and good, but take your hotel example and apply it to the topic it would be the following:

The hotel has many floors, but since it opened the owners have only had the capacity to use the first 3 floors. The owners have done a great job of keeping the rooms on those floors neat and clean, they are kept freshly painted, the staff has the resources to keep the sheets clean and the rooms tidy.

Guests have been coming to this hotel for years and have always stayed at this same hotel because they have a comfortable relationship and know what to expect.

As time goes by the town grows and the hotel finds it keeps filling up so it decides to take advantage of the extra business to open up 2 of the other floors. On those floors the rooms have beds with old dirty mattresses, some of the toilets are clogged, the tvs are all missing the remotes, the place smells musty, the paint is peeling, there are occasional sightings of rats, the showers leak into the adjacent rooms... the staff also finds it can't keep up with the additional tasks of cleaning all these extra rooms so even the nicer rooms on the lower floors start to feel the effect and begin to be neglected.

Repeat customers now find themselves booked into these upper floors and are shocked at the condition that the hotel has deteriorated into. What happened to the nice clean rooms they grew to expect? Repeat customers who are booked into the old rooms now find the level of service has dropped too due to the staff being stretched to handle the new capacity.

As things slowed down going into the slow season the hotel closes the upper floors and returns to just using the nicer original floors. However it notices that it has an unusually high loss of repeat customers and has to do more advertising in the slow times to even fill the capacity of the normal floors.

With hind site being 20/20 would the hotel have been better off turning away some of the extra business while it renovated the rooms slowly on the upper floors, added new staff slowly and trained them, and only then took on new business as it could handle it and keep it's quality and service at the levels it had previously that it used to build it's business in the first place?

Vinny

Mike, your right and I appolgize if I offened you with my rant. I zipped through your blog with out comprehending it and went on reading some of the responses, that were the ones to twist me, and I fired at you incorrectly.

I agree that its an unfair practice of a sub to do things that way and thats why I implied, some where in here, that few specialty subs are good buisness people but are good craftsmen. They do dumb things like raising and lowering price mid season or hire and fire with the eb and tide of a buisness they havent put any planning into. So with out the planned increase and decrease of work they knee jerk react.

I guess thats why the best thing I ever did was to join an organization that taught me how to manage my buisness better and because of that I cant stand to see good specialty subs do what your talking about and allowing themselves to be put in positions that deminish thier true potential.

Your right also about some of the GCs I have worked for. When its all said and done I felt like a power tool, used for the sole pupose of making them money and wasnt even thought of until mabe they need you again and at that time they demand the highest quality, the best service, and the best price or your out in the trash. I know now there is no way to provide all 3 aspects unless you do it all your self, and dont charge for the real value of what you provide.

As for the other participants in this thread, What I said still goes. Stop taking advantage of hard working people that dont know any better and maybe you'll get the same respect back. If you want to work with that sub long term then sit down with then and let them know about you and your buisness and where they stand in the sceem of things. Maybe then they will see how raising thier price mid season or trying an unplanned expansion, unless absolutly warrented and with notice, is hard for you to deal with in the middle of a job.
Dont treat your subs, that are probably making you look good and become wealthy, as an implement who's sole purpose is to move at your desire. Start thinking of your subs, if they are deserving, as part of your company and family rather than someone you only deal with when you absolutly have to.

You may even one day do what I recently had to do with a sub. Our mason sub grew fast working for us as well as other pavers and made me and these other guys alot of money. He unfortunatly didnt make alot of money himself and had nothing to show for his hard work. I helped him and showed him why he didnt make any money and how to deal with it. Now this meant a couple of things were going to happen. First he needed to raise his price. This also meant I needed to raise mine. I believed then and i still do now that his quality was worth it and i can sell that level of quality and service at a higher price and I was right. But If I thought it couldnt be sold that high I would talk about it with him and he understood because I told him, at a higher price he may not always be the guy, that I may need to go somewhere else for it and he understood. He understood because he knew in the long run it was better for him and me and that on the jobs i did sell at a higher price we wanted and needed him. But with out preplanning this event we would have ended up mad at each other and I would be here wyning right along wth you sorry a$$e$.

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The Right Way Driveway Company
If you say you cant, your a loser. If you say you wont, your a quiter. Which one do you want to be?