Taking the HIT for Deadbeat Contractors

It's not bad enough that I get hit as soon as I step in the front door. I spend the first 30 minutes assuring a new client we are not the nightmares that all their friends had on their remodels. I have to explain that it's just standard everyday policy that we show up on time, on the day we say we'll be there. I have to assure them that we stay on the job until it's complete. We don't abandon their job for days at a time to go work elsewhere while their place is torn apart. And when the surf is up and the swell is from the northeast, we will NOT be surfing, we'll still be working.

I get so tired of trying to convince new clients that we are not there to rip them off, destroy their home, do a crappy job and run off with the money.

So today I expect a progress payment to pay for the completed tile portion of the project, which has gone beautifully. My client insists on holding back money because - and I quote - "her designer was on a job where the tile guys screwed up the marble with the wrong sealer". Apparently she expects us to do the same bonehead maneuver and she wants to make sure she witholds enough of my well-deserved payment to recover the cost - just in case we as as incompetent as her designers worst case.

I'm so damn sick of taking the hits for all the deadbeat contractors in this town!