Qualified Contractor membership,

Qualified Contractor membership,

Is anyone interested in being a Qualified PWI contractor?


I would like to establish not and organization but a contractor listing promoted by the BBS. (Free)

Its would be simple and I would need some help. we issue a card saying that you’re a Qualified contractor.


Your next questions might be??? what are the Qualifications?


help me lets figure that out…..

1: We have proper insurance with a certificate of insurance on file.

2: Where required a business license with proof on file. As a mobil business I must carry a copy of both with me in my vehicle at all times.

3: Phone bill, ISP bill or whatever showing we log onto THIS BBS

Ok number 3 was a joke.

Numbers 1 & 2 are real.

My suggestions, I would say workers Comp' but only need that if you have employees, bond papers if required also.

might be a good idea !

QCM

Count Me In !!

Just a question.

Would issuing a card showing "qualified contractor" require that someone be positioned to answer questions from potential customers calling to check up on the contractor? (kind of like the BB Bureau?) Or would you automate that somhow on this site?

do you forsee anyone even trying to verify?

In my State they give tests to perspective contractors i.e. electricians, and other construction specialists, and once they pass that test I guess they're "qualified" to go make money from the public. All I did was go fillout a Business License form, told them what I was, and never looked back. After over 20 years in this biz whether I'm "qualified" or not is probably debatable, but I took care of my family. On cold mornings these days I wish I'd of written some other occupation on that form, but basically this business has been good to me and the companies I work for keep me around so I guess I'm "qualified"

At this stage in the game, for me it's not a matter of who's "qualified", but who's LEGAL?? Let's run the alphabet, IRS, INS, EPA, Board of Equalization, and Insurance. If you have a guy in your area who's washing 10 wheelers and 45' tractors for as much as 30 to 40% cheaper than you can do it but he's paying minimum wage cash to illegals, doesn't recover his water, has never made a quarterly employee payroll contribution in his life & doesn't even have a Business License to work in the city he's making money in then the playing field's not level is it?? On the other hand he's a pretty darn good truck washer, so he's "qualified" right? Drop a dime on him you say?? I haven't yet, but I'm starting to see and understand why someone would.

In baseball if a guy wants to go coach kids at the lower levels all he has to do is stand in front of the leagues board, answer some questions and say the right words. If he doesn't offend anyone they'll probably give him a team, and people will start calling him Coach, and I say God Bless him/her because they're out there putting their time in. Maybe not a good anology to this thread but all I'm saying is if you put your time in you're probably gonna be "qualified", and you'll probably be "qualified" sooner than later.

Before someone points it out I know that I probably took the word "qualified" out of context here, got a bit cynical, and rambled a little bit, but this thread just kinda hit a nerve, that's all.

So, who has the time to adminster something like this??

If you did verify insurance............would you then require it to be verified every year in order to keep their status??

Seems like a pain.

Dan
I don't see the purpose, what benefit would one have being a card carrying member? How would it be different from the PWNA certifications? It seems like it would require a lot of work to keep up with it.
Unless each member were checked out and could prove he/she could live up to some standards, and a potential customer knew to look for that certification, and had an avenue to lodge a complaint, I don't see how it would benefit anyone, only take up someone's time.
Sorta like the PWNA certifications, which I do agree with by the way. In a very unscientific survey conducted by a world class panel of experts, ok, ok it was only me, I was unable to find any potential customers who even know they exist.
Oh no I didn't just start another PWNA debate did I?

It seems like this would be to time consuming for a volunteer group to organize. How would anyone be able to verify that what people send in here to be legit. This is a volunteer site and to expect anyone to head this forum it will take alot of there time. I wouldn't want to do it.

As far as this site trying to be a player in the Industry by Making sure that people are certified Contractors etc. I can't see it happening. You might get people like myself and maybe 20 others who may go this certification route here only because I like this bb but by and large the rest of the memberships will not be bothered.

Who could care less nation wide that only 20 people are certified contractors here. I know none of my customers would.

This is a great site for free info and networking no doubt. But if we want to go the next step by somehow giving this site any kind of power it has to generate some kind of Revenue. If it was to generate Revenue it would have to be set up somehow as a non profit organization where no individual is making money of this site unless he/she is a paid member of this site where they would have to claim it as income.

We can kid ourselves all we want by pretending that we can have power here but without any money it aint going to happen.

The bottom line is like Mike Hughes points out "Seems like a pain"

Ron, your idea of contractor LISTING on the BBS is a good one. Won't take much to get that going right? (without promoting anything)

Certified contractor promoted by the BBS is also a good idea, however before we look at this, we might want to continue down the path of getting this site recognized in the industry by both contractors and suppliers/manufacturers first.

Before that happens, noone will know what the certification means.

Here's something else as far as certification goes. We just had our roof redone, and the contractor was certified with the shingle people and therefore offers a 25 year guarantee on BOTH materials and workmanship. This is a real benefit to hiring a certified contractor in my book. Without certification, the shingles alone are guarenteed against defects from the factory, but the installation is not.

Here's the point, becoming a PWI certified contractor without anyone knowing who or what PWI is would be like putting the cart before the horse. We need recognition first. Then, certification from this group needs to carry a justifiable Benefit to offer the customer.

Another issue to look at are liability issues. (If/when someone gets certified and then completely blows it !) Who is responsible?
May never happen, but we gotta think about it.

Uhhhhh yeah, what they said!







have a nice day all

Jon said:

My suggestions, I would say workers Comp' but only need that if you have employees, bond papers if required also.

Click to expand...

Jon, even if you don't have employees you should at minimum have a business owners exemption from the state saying you've exempted yourself from the workers comp system. Only the owner of the business or executive officers of a corporation with at least 5% of the stock can be exempted. Even if you are working on a customer's property, you can still sue them if you would fall and get hurt since you aren't covered by workers comp even though you own the business. This is where a lot of people get confused about advertising that they are "insured". In our area we provide every potential customer with a pamphlet explaining just what can happen if their contractor doesn't have at minimum an exemption in writing from the state workers comp bureau. We've actually won bids with that when customers told me they went back to our competition after getting our brochure and asked them if they either were covered or exempt from work comp and they smugly told the customer that they didn't need to have it because they were self employed. WRONG ANSWER...

First thing and i dont have alot of time, could make this one about three or four pages long.

Keep the first qualified contractors thing easy. remember i used the word qualified not certified.


Mike the insurance thing would be easy. the insurance company lets yo know whne the contract expires. they watch that.

The contractor would use his phone ad in his registrations as proof.

whoooops gotta run be back..

I have always had workers comp. as it is required in order to work for many contractors and builders here in tennessee,I am exempt as Lance pointed out.

So by these standards I've seen so far, a "qualified" contractor would be one with a telephone, an insurance policy that's current, and has a nice card that says "Qualified PWI Contractor" on it?

It's got to be better than that guys. Unfortunately, that's got about as much punch as being a PWNA "member".

As far a PWNA is concerned, What is it that everyone want's from them?
I get he impression that some of you would like them to snap their fingers and make things happen.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel, why not look to a certifying association for certification credibility !?!

I have had prospective clients get indignant when presented with my certfiication because of substandard cleaning by "certified cleaners" that preceded me.

What do you think about a certifying organization randomly and periodically checking the quality of service that a "certified cleaner" performs.

I don't know who would do that, PWNA already certifies contractors, but how much would it cost for someone or multiple people to travel over the country to check us out. Until such time as the certification program is recognized and no one can do business without one, there will always be someone doing business under the radar undetected, who's checking on that guy!
I met a guy who had his certification, and plans to take over the kitchen exhaust cleaning world, he wanted to have three truck on the road by the end of that year, he had a brand new full size chevy van loaded with equipment, most of which he will never use, and judging from his answers to my questions, he really had no clue what he was in for, and according to my Pressure
Washer repair guy who set up his van the guy has no mechanical ability at all. I have never heard from that guy again
Most of this business is the ability to adapt, and get around problems, if a guy has no mechanical ability, how good can he be.
I believe in a certification program, but it has to be recognized, do any of your customers know this program exists?
I also don't claim to have the answers, just stating my opinion

I would be willing to pay more for my certification to increase the value of that certfication and provide the funds necessary to compensate person(s) responsible for quality cleaning inspections.

Maybe certification fees should be based on losses like insurance rates. We have to respond to periodic insurance audits and policy premiums are adjusted based on loss runs, why not audit certified companies similarly and base certification fees on those same loss runs ?

Lance,

I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel...

I would ask how many contractors on this bbs dont meet this small criteria?????


simple,

city business license.
workers comp Along with public liability insurance.
local ad listing yellow pages.


I'd be willing to tak a bet that half the PWNA members dont meet these simple standards. WHY? because they dont require them.


i'm not trying to say this would make a contractor more legit or less legit just trying to tell the customer that if you hire a pwi qualified contractor here are the minimum standards.


Plus i was talking about something we migt be able to promote with this BBS and the round table meetings.

Just tossing ideas around. Its just a thought and alot of guys raise some good questions.