Choosing “cheap” consultants: Saving Money or Increasing your Construction Costs?!

Raise your hand if you recently selected a consultant, purely on price?

When we ask, “Other than price, were there other factors that guided your decision?”, we often hear “No, the other company gave a competitive price for the same thing”. Though the client may not realise what “the same thing” means, this is a classic example of how the feeling of “saving money” powers a decision.
The final decision is ruled by how one “feels” about the information one receives. That decision is then justified by logic.

So, if we told you that we can estimate a clear dollar figure (at our fee proposal stage), of how much we can potentially help you save on construction costs, how would you feel? Would that figure (of how much you can potentially save) be of interest to you and your client?

A few days back, one of our clients told us that the dollar estimate would help convince their economic buyer about our competent services. He said that on their recent project, our Consulting helped them save “approximately $100,000 dollars” in construction costs. He further mentioned that this saving was achieved with our Verification Method JV3 Assessment, and it is a “no-brainer” to spend slightly more on JV3 in order to save hundreds and thousands during construction (compared to ‘inexpensive ‘ Deemed to Satisfy method, which can induce higher construction costs due to its various insulation and glazing stringencies). Now, which consultant will they choose, every time they think of “saving money”?

Will they feel pinched spending $2000 upfront for a JV3 assessment to save $100,000 in construction? Or will they save on DtS (half of JV3 costs) upfront, and end up spending $100,000 extra on construction?

If you would like to know more about how to choose the right consultant, contact us and we’ll send you a free PDF copy of “How to Select an Energy Efficiency Assessor”.