Part II

By Julie Adamen

(Note: This article was originally written by Julie Adamen for and published by
New England Condominium Magazine)

In a previous article, I wrote about how and the relations between Board members and their service providers can, and often will, become contentious. From the service provider point of view, be they management, legal counsel, landscape contractor or the myriad others called upon to service community associations, it all boiled down to a lack of trust and mutual respect between the service provider and the Board. That lack of trust and mutual respect is what I call “The Great Divide,” or Board members v. Service Providers.

This time, we are turning the tables and looking at The Great Divide from the Board member point of view: From where they sit, what causes a lack of trust and respect between them and their service providers? Let’s take a look at some of the most common breakdowns that occur on the part of the service providers that create the Great Divide.

Contract bidding without all pertinent information.  Service providers should request and receive all the information necessary for them to bid the job.  The bid scope and specifications should be in writing, and are normally called a Request for Proposal, or RFP, and the community requesting the service provides it.  Service providers who fail to ask for this document, or are not provided one and bid anyway, often find out the hard way that once they are awarded the contract, all kinds of not so obvious, hidden additional services or materials specifications are required that they hadn’t thought of when they bid the job. The service provider comes to the stunning realization that they bid the job too low.

If this has happened to you as a service provider, you know the sickening feeling in the pit of your stomach. The job you just got is actually going to cost you money. And now you either have to suck it up or go back to the Board of Directors and confess your mistake, get out of the contract, or raise the price and hope they bite. This one critical error of not obtaining the right information when you were asked to bid the job opens the Great Divide between you and the Board: No matter what the reason, you, the service provider have broken a trust before you started by pulling what appears to be a “bait and switch,” all because you failed to get all the pertinent information to bid the job right in the first place.

Low-balling the bid. Through ignorance or a deliberate act, many a job in the community association industry is bid too low, even with an RFP.

Those vendors provide service on fixed asset/infrastructure work are often more able to calculate with some measure of certainty what a job will cost. For example, an asphalt contractor measures the actual road surface and then knows it will take X number of workers X amount of time to spread X square feet of slurry seal. The seal itself will cost X. There will be 15% waste. Profit must be X, or said asphalt contractor will not make any money on the job. Obviously, I have simplified the process, but this type of service is one that the provider can get their arms around in terms of bidding through relatively easily acquired empirical data. If the job is bid too low, either the contractor was hung over, dumb, something happened which he couldn’t predict (i.e., an act of God, a sudden increase in material cost, etc.) or he just plain forgot to add something in.

Or, the bid was a true low-ball because the service provider was trying to get the job and figures they can skimp somewhere, or have sufficient “extras” to make the profit. This practice almost always comes back to bite the contractor, the Board, or both.

Service providers who provide a universal service to associations (example: management companies) one in which all types of services are provided for (virtually) one price don’t THINK they have the same type of empirical data that fixed asset/infrastructure contractors maintain, so these types of providers have a tendency – a big tendency – to underbid the job. To these universal service providers, I submit that you can and should be bidding your contracts with a base of contractually defined services with additional services provided on a time and material or fixed fee per item basis even if it must be in the guise of a full service, universal contract. It might take more time to put together this type of proposal, but if the provider is awarded the contract, it will have been worth their time and effort as they are sure their firm will be appropriately compensated for the services provided.  The bottom line here is simple. An accurately bid job keeps the relationship between the Board and the service provider on a far more even keel: The provider can fulfill the terms of the contract for the price of the bid. Most reasonable Boards don’t ask for more than that.

Lack of appropriate service infrastructure.  “Get the contract and then we’ll worry how to do it!” is the adage of many service providers. Service providers who make this statement while maintaining a viable, functioning company with a full staff are one thing. The nightmare for associations and their Boards is the contractor who bids the job, looks good, talks good – yet unbeknownst to all is a small company with a small staff insufficient to undertake the job.  The Board thought – and may have been told - one thing, yet the reality turns out to be far different.  Not only has this contractor broken his trust with the Board, he has inadvertently made the Board distrustful of the next several service providers with which the Board must work.

Having untrained or unqualified staff.  Another huge issue between Boards and service providers occurs when the provider staffs the project with inappropriate personnel – be it painting, roofing, management or what have you. The Board isn’t comprised of painters or experts in the services, and once they figure out there is incompetence, they feel they have no choice but to monitor every little thing going on, resulting in every service provider’s nightmare: a micromanaging Board. And having that untrained or unqualified staff often leads to….

Substandard or out of specification work-product. The job is done, or the job is ongoing, depending on what type of service has been or is being provided. It’s just that it’s not very good. Maybe the painting was sloppy. Maybe the collections weren’t followed up on time. Maybe the lawn didn’t get mowed this week. Maybe the Board has been waiting for a legal opinion that finally shows up – with the name of the association spelled wrong and omitted issues. Whatever it is, it’s substandard and not to contract or agreed upon specifications. And it makes Boards crazy, as they contracted in good faith. This loss of trust affects not only that particular service provider, but like it or not it affects every other service provider existing, and to come. It’s eroded trust, and a loss of respect.

Substandard or out of specification materials. Unfortunately, substandard material usage isn’t always immediately evident to a Board of Directors. It might take months, or years, for a Board to figure out that the roofer they contracted with in good faith five years ago (and is now out of business) used defective roofing products  (purchased at a discount!) which, five years later, have a failure rate of 80%. Ouch. This short-term profit to the service provider has caused long-term fear for the consumer and the Board now views the service provider as one of “them.” 

Poor communication. Many service providers are very, very good at what they do, yet aren’t so good when it comes to communicating with the Board and/or their representatives. Communication problems come most commonly in two forms: written and oral. Written failures start with poorly written proposals, poorly thought out and written e-mail, un-clear billing, and less-than-literate written responses to queries by the Board or homeowners. Poor oral communication can range from unanswered or continuously busy office phone lines, no voicemail, and no or untimely response to voicemails, pagers or email.  From the service provider’s point of view – they often feel that their work “speaks for itself,” and they don’t really need to be readily available to the Board once they start the job. Well, unfortunately, some times the work does speak (negatively) for itself and that’s why a member of the Board, or their staff, needs to find the service provider. Now. Poor communication creates a gap in trust.

As a service provider, if your communication skills are weak, know this is something you must improve. If for some reason you are unable, or unwilling, to work on this, make sure someone on your staff is at the ready to answer the phone, send emails or write those letters or bids. Good communication skills go a long way towards obtaining and retaining contracts with community associations and their Boards of Directors. Good communication creates a feeling of openness and honesty, and tells the Board that you respect and trust them enough to be there when they need you, and to be upfront about challenges you may be having. This in turn allows the Board to place more faith in the service provider.

As the old saying goes, “it takes two to tango.”  In the community management business, those two are Board members and those who provide services.  Each needs the other. Service providers need to sell their services or products, and Board members need those services or products to effectively manage and protect their investment within the communities.

How can service providers, if not avoid completely, at least mitigate the loss of trust and mutual respect that often occurs between you and Board members? In a nutshell, get the information needed to bid jobs accurately and to the best of your ability, have the appropriate infrastructure to handle the job, provide the service as defined by contract.  Last, and often most important the service provider must have open, accurate and timely communication with the Board and/or it’s staff. These simple affirmative actions go a long way in creating a relationship with that Board that will be built on trust and respect.

Bridging the Great Divide is that simple.