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By Geneva Cruz-La Santa, CP&M

It seems that many contractors, property managers, and their communities are being affected by the COVID-19 Pandemic, which has driven the health and safety of employees, customers, suppliers, contractors, and their families to a top priority. As safety measures are put into place to protect people's lives, a system needs to be put in place to help protect everyone's businesses as COVID downturns the global economy.

COVID seems to be ruling everyone's daily routine and holding the reigns on our daily decisions. What appears not to have changed is the demand for material and services; it is volatile right now, creating an array of pricing challenges and contract delays. Contractors that concentrate on long-term value rather than short-term gain are best situated to meet these pricing and contract challenges. 

COVID exerts sudden and unprecedented pressures, like price increases due to demand or material shortage, production delays, labor, delivery setbacks, COVID exposure concern, or quarantine measures. New and potential clients seek discounts and contract renegotiations, looking for cheap, temporary, and quick band-aid fixes rather than permanent, cost-effective solutions. Contractors need to sustain value to survive the pandemic and protect their employees' livelihoods and client communities. Contractors have the challenge of managing costs to safeguard competitive pricing against their competitors. They also need to be flexible and creative to support clients in this tough time and work with them to get through the pandemic together. However, planning for a long-term view or commitment during this pandemic may seem like a roller coaster of a ride nearly every day. As contractors, we should be taking the time to communicate and review our relationships with our potential and current clients and their communities.

Our prime focus should be to:  

1. Provide safe working conditions for both workers and community residents.
2. Offer multiple and flexible solutions.
3. Listen to client’s payment concerns.
4. Seek long-term value concepts rather than short-term benefits. 
5. Help clients focus on maintaining or using reserves. 
6. Help clients preserve/maintain communities in cost-effective ways.
7. Work with suppliers to prevent costs from rising too sharply.  
8. Address client’s urgent needs.
9. Work on a community plan and pricing summary to prioritize urgency of needs. 
10. Are your pricing measures ethical and legal? 
11. Does any significant price increase reflect increased costs? 
12. Are you keeping your clients' community needs in mind? 
13. Keep a long-term perspective. Reinforce trust by tracking key customers' evolving needs and standing by and defending them during their most challenging times.
14. Help the sales team tailor contracts to new situations and strengthen value proposition communication.
15. Alleviate customer concerns by providing customers with supply guarantees after consulting with suppliers. 
16. Provide incentives for loyal/repeat clients in order to strengthen relationships. 
17. Effective contractors show empathy and can explain how much value they provide compared to their competitors.
18. Train Sales skillsets with new, creative, and assuring negotiation tactics. Value selling, pricing, handling objections and communicating value propositions, and how effectively it can be delivered via multiple virtual platforms.
19. Create flexible pricing by addressing customers' short-term fixpoints without destroying long-term fix goals. 

 

As contractors, we should understand our company's position in the field, anticipate competitors' likely reactions to defaulting contracts and pricing increases, and plan how to best respond to clients looking for assistance in handling and overcoming these concerns. 

We should seek opportunities that preserve and sustain communities. We should look for a winning scenario to support clients and employees during the COVID pandemic while remaining flexible and focused on safeguarding lifelong relationships.

My name is Geneva Cruz-La Santa and I have been with CP&M (Community Preservation & Management, Inc.) and its many entities for over 17 years. I have enjoyed watching CP&M grow into a full-service General Contractor with an in-house roofing division R3NG. CP&M specializes in providing solutions for commercial property managers, HOA managed multi-family and single-family communities, REO rehabilitation, apartment industries, and government housing entities.