5 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Commercial Contractor
When you find yourself amused by the design of a new restaurant in town, you are often admiring the choices made by a commercial contractor. Many features of a buildings interior and exterior were choices made by a construction company or general contractor. Not only is your construction contractor responsible for the engineering of the establishment, they are also responsible for creating a unique and exciting environment. This is super important to businesses which is why hiring a commercial contractor to work on a building project is an important process. In order to find the right company for your project, it’s important to ask the right questions. That’s why we’ve come up with 5 important questions to ask before hiring a commercial contractor.
How long have you been doing commercial construction?
It’s important that you work with a trustworthy general contractor that has the experience to professionally handle your build out. General contracting can be a “wild west” type of industry and going with a startup could leave you exposed to poor construction or an undelivered build out.
2. Have you worked on similar projects?
You don’t want to hire a residential contractor to perform commercial construction. For instance, if you are remodeling the sales floor of your office, you want to find a construction company that specializes in building out office spaces or commercial renovations for tenants.
3. What sets you a part from your competitors?
This is the contractors chance to give you their value proposition and gives you the ability to learn something unique about your potential construction contractor. For instance, at Matick Construction, we use a software called BuilderTrend to allow our clients the ability to watch their project unfold right from the palm of their hand. Our client login gives our clients the unique ability to view schedule of trades, check out daily logs, review picture updates and communicate directly with their project manager. This solves the industries number one pain point….lack of communication.
4. What is your payment schedule?
You need to know how the contractor is going to bill for this project. Never pay for the entire project up front - that is a recipe for disaster. Instead, inquire how your general contractor takes payments before you hire them so that expectations are set and everyone is comfortable with the terms.
5. Do you have a project manager and strong subcontractors?
General contractors are often only as good as their weakest subs. If they’re unable to get the subcontractors out on site to perform the work necessary to deliver you a high-quality project on time, you should explore other options. Having a project manager overseeing the work is crucial to making sure the subs are meeting expectations.