When the Customer is Wrong....

now we know that the customer isn't always right in today's project I'm going to actually take you with me when we walk through a job where the customer is clearly wrong so this is day one we're gonna be removing this swimming pool and building a paver patio in this courtyard area in fact I'm gonna challenge you to start to understand that the majority of the time the customer they don't know what's going on in their project but you are the expert they're relying and depending on your expertise to guide them and direct them to the point where you've also got to protect them from themselves on today's jobsite we're going to show you exactly where this happened in this specific case the customer wanted us to remove a swimming pool then he wanted a remote patio installed see this permit it's orange should be gold took two weeks to get this permit to remove this swimming pool you should have taken me two hours nothing I want to show you guys you look at this swimming pool you see that water in the bottom that's actually not contained by the swimming pool it's coming up from underneath the swimming pool there's going to be a paver patio built exactly on the deep end of this swimming pool because the groundwater is so high in this area we've got to do a soil correction the way we're going to do that we're going to bring three to six inch riprap in we're going to bring that up just above the water elevation then we're going to lay filter fabric to separate the riprap and then we're going to use structural fill to bring the rest of the elevation up to the bottom of the paver patio that way we know we can safely build a paver patio we proceeded to remove the swimming pool and prep the area to install a high-end patio the problem occurred when we removed the swimming pool and found a swamp so yesterday I shot a video explaining to you that we're doing a soil correction on this job and I want to actually show you the material we're using and why we chose it come on this way you can see down in the fire you can see I'm standing where there was water yesterday and the reason I chose this material this is 3 to 6 inch rock there's no binder in this material the reason I don't want any binder in that materials because this is going to be under water I could never get that binding agent to compact that clean material doesn't need compaction as soon as it's placed you run over it once it gets above the water table and it reaches its compaction because it locks in place that's the best way you can do a soil correction like this if you're exposed to high water elevation we begin a soil correction and this is all additional work because it's unforeseen circumstances and we started to analyze what was going on we found that the soil correction was so expansive that it would be cost prohibitive for the benefits that the customer would receive this is where you as a contractor need to protect the customer from themselves in this case my customer gave us the green light he's like I don't care I really want this done out there just let's get her done a lot of times a customer's emotions will take over and they'll get high on that rush that they really want this thing but they'll pay for it years down the road I sat down with them I said look before we go full-fledged into a soil correction so we can build a remote patio for you let's do something a little different let's actually install a yard and let the area settle if you don't mind waiting what we can do is we can watch and see how much ground movement we have before we put up a patio that way we know exactly where we can install the patio where we have to do the soil correction and what areas we can leave untouched so in reality what we did is we shoved the whole concept of installing a remote patio and we opted to install a yard if the ground moves under the grass it's not a big deal if the ground moves under a solid surface it's gonna crack shift and break and the customer is not going to be happy even though we had already started doing a small soil correction we didn't want to tear up the in customers entire yard to establish the infrastructure needed to hold up the patio we established a yard for this customer at a fraction of the cost the end result was the customer so loved just having the yard space in the extra useable flat area that he could throw a ball around with his kids and he left it in this instance the customer gave us the green light to go ahead and perform a soil correction which we cautioned him against doing we convinced him to give a chance at just establishing yard space green space and allowing the soil to settle naturally and then going back after the fact and establishing a hard surface if in the future they wanted to do it he was absolutely as much satisfied with the final results as his initial dream was to have a patio installed customer is not always right you are the professional you need to use your experience to direct the customer down the right path because that is why you're there champagne taste in a beer budget is what most customers will have after they find you they will literally put all of their trust and confidence into you and jeopardize their own financial future while they're caught up in the heat of the moment do not take advantage of that that's work a lot of contractors get a bad name but your reputation when you actually start hold a customer back from pulling the trigger and going all in you may lose them one job but your reputation will carry you along and keep you so absolutely busy and swamped in work you'll never have to go looking for another project again I hope this has helped you guys out you guys understand the customer isn't always right it's up to you guys to use your knowledge to guide them on the right god bless go get them what are you waiting for