In this post, I am talking to general contractors about what makes a good painting subcontractor. It takes a lot of tools and skillsets to perform well in the commercial painting market. Our twenty years in business has been spent in the direct to owner and subcontractor world, so we know a thing or two about working for general contractors and how to be a good subcontractor for them. You won’t catch us talking down the gig as a subcontractor, we have a lot of respect for good general contractors! So, let’s talk about what makes a good general contractor first.
In the Bible, Jesus tells us you will know them by their fruit. This saying can be applied more broadly than just telling who is a Christian or not. Well, you will know a good general contractor by their fruit. Here are a few tests we use when determining who to work for and who to stay away from. First, do they care to make the customer happy. If you don’t care to make your primary customer happy, you are either very bad a vetting your clients or you have fostered a culture of love-hate with them. Any contracting firm that has grown hard and brittle with their clients is to be avoided. Second, we look for happy subcontractors and employees. If a contractor is operating with the grain, they treat those that work for them fairly and like they are on the same team. Contractors that are heavy handed should be avoided. That is not to say they can’t have high expectations. In fact, high expectations are one of the things we look for in a good general contractor relationship. High, but reasonable expectations is one of the best metrics in finding a contractor who will deliver good, consistent, and profitable results for everyone on the team – including the project owner! The final thing, believe it or not, is contract length. Whenever a 50+ page contract crosses my desk, I know there is a 50% chance the relationship is based on distrust and an expectation that everyone is trying to finger point in that relationship. So that is what we look for in a general contractor, but what makes a good subcontractor?
Over the years, we have tried to think of how we can best serve our general contractor clients. First, a subcontractor needs to be fiscally responsible and able to financially perform the projects on their boards. A hungry subcontractor is a problem subcontractor who will always be looking for an easy payday. I made this mistake early on and didn’t even know it until an older gentleman told me that one of my problems was that I didn’t realize that I was a bank. He was right. Since then, we done our best to make sure we could finance every project that we took on with cash in hand. This motivated us to save up and be able to cover every project on the board with cash in hand. What a game changer this was for our outlook of the world and for our relationships with each GC customer. Second, a good subcontractor will be self-disciplined in their work. Does your sub call you to get your schedule for their trade or do they just wait to be told what to do. Are they asking scope questions early so there are no surprises? If you can’t manage your own scope and schedule, you are nothing more than a slave – and a slave with many masters is a bad slave! As a subcontractor, you need to guard your schedule and scope with tenacity. This might irritate some superintendents with many phone calls and too many questions, but better this than to be chronically underperforming and unable to meet the demands of the schedule! Finally, a good subcontractor needs to be honest and transparent. If you cannot meet a demand, you need to fess up to it early and often so the GC can have the time to come up with their choses solution. A good subcontractor won’t play games and won’t hold their cards TOO closely to the chest. You are on THEIR team after all and you should be a grown up and act like it.
So, if you are a general contractor who does work in the Indy area and are looking for a reliable subcontractor, I would like to speak with you. Indiana Painting is usually competitive, but not the cheapest. If you are low bid specialist, we probably won’t be a great fit. But if you are looking for a good partner in getting your projects finished on time and with a quality you can be proud to show your customer on punch day, we’d love to be on YOUR team!
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