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Showing posts with label contractors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label contractors. Show all posts

Saturday, December 20, 2014

Tile Contractors Installers Manufacturers and Flooring Experts | Join Ask Tile Excellence

Tile Contractors and Installers, Tile Manufacturers, Suppliers  Resellers and Wholesalers | Flooring Professionals

ever consider blogging for a good cause? Helping consumers and DIY er's?? 


Even if you don't need the business,or any new customers, or publicity or want/need to answer consumer questions, or your are pretty famous or you just keep your high tile status on the LD, OUT yourself here and now!

Committing to anything is tough especially when you are trying to run your own business or supervise others. There's barely time in the day. But you might have a little time here and there to put together a great tile related blog to share on this site for our readers and especially consumers looking for answers and people in the business. We want the best of the best tile experts in the world, but I'm told those opportunities do not exist. Expert tile guys are not that common, and with their levels of expertise, experience, education, job titles and some-paychecks- they won't be interested in this blog especially for no pay. That's right, free. Which is actually for you since I charge everyone else. [only kidding] But how's about in the spirit of giving back, of appreciating the gift God has given you, or perhaps just feeling like you want to be part of something that's been built on dreams and a vision, with one behind the scenes yet all over the place person who's never seen a paycheck? Mayve it would be nice if you showed us rookies how it's done. I'm kidding, but I am hoping someone, somewhere in the expert realm of tile will humble themselves and support this blog and add some very needed expert blood to help our consumers have good information to make good choices. 

We need tile experts and all kinds sales and marketing to get this wonderful and helpful blog on track. Don't let the amazing potential be wasted.  Out yourself here. Help this great blog out by sharing your valuable resources and experience. You'll get a lot more exposure and credibility than making comments unrelated to Chris's post, then posting your company website. We want good, ethical , skilled laborers, contractors, designers, flooring experts and stores that sells related tile, flooring, home improvement products to have a chance to share their expertise, their "niches", their systems, their experiences, etc., but I am deleting more "comments" than posting them because they are not helpful, or actual comments or shared experience, but rather attempts to advertise their product/service. BUT...as we've been posting for quite some time, FREE of cost, we do offer guest blogging opportunities where YOU and YOUR COMPANY/PRODUCT is featured. If interested, write to tileexcellence@gmail.com with your thoughts or finished posts. Just remember...honest and ethical, non competitive and no advertising-----and most importantly articles/posts that exposure our readers-your potential customers GOOD, HELPFUL information. 


Thanks.


Wednesday, January 1, 2014

OLD SCHOOL TILE INSTALLERS AND CONSTRUCTION CRAFTSTMEN AND NEW MILLINIUM CUSTOMERS AND WHY I LOOK FORWARD TO RETIREMENT

OLD SCHOOL TILE INSTALLERS AND CONSTRUCTION CRAFTSMEN VS. NEW MILLENNIUM  CUSTOMERS AND WHY I LOOK FORWARD TO RETIREMENT

My grandfather was a stone mason and his son after him,  now me as a tile mason. It is so hard now to find young folks who want to learn this trade and many others because of the labor intensity of the crafstman trade. Many young people comming into the service trade industry choose to do computer related services and real HANDS ON service is fading fast. Furthermore  finding a  fair priced honest ethical HANDS ON service professional is becoming harder and harder to find. There are several prominent reasons for this, one being all the immigrant service providers who do such work at prices American one family providers cannot match. Most of the immigrant workers live in groups together and have very low living expenses coupled with the value of thier money sent home(out of the country) they can make a profit on much less then any american craftsman.

Another huge factor that many old school craftsmen will attest to, is the noticable change in the new millinium customer. I can personally tell you after 37 years installing tile the customers have really changed in attitude and appreciation in the last few years, they want more and more for less and less, part of this is certainly due to the amount of immigrants within the work force and the costs of the services they provide.

I will start this analysis by explaining my specialty and talent and how this new milliniam customer effects me. My career started as a stone mason laborer mixing concrete and breaking and providing rock for the masons to install. This is very labor intensive pushing 200lb wheelbarrows of wet concrete through knee deep mud out on the job to provide for the mason to lay rock. Between wheelbarrows of concrete  you hade to break rock into installable pieces with a 25 lb steel sledge hammer, load the rock into the same wheel barrel and then get them to the masons. All
this happened within a time frame so the masons never ran out of  any material or your ass was grass.

So to make a long story short I learned at a early age what real hard work was. I've carried this work ethic until today pushing myself to my limit every day laying tile and getting the work done  in a fast paced production manner. I have at times in my  life laid as much as 500 sq ft of floor tile in one 8 hour working day. I am a production tile guy ,during the Olympics building boom  in Atlanta(94-96) I laid 300 sq ft of tile every day in new hotel construction  for over 2 years straight while running a 10 man tile crew.

My specialty is getting it done within the bounds of the American tile association standards which specifies the boundaries of quality given to what standards fall into a quality tile installation.  I've learned how to get it done with quality , price and ethical practice in mind. I specialize in quality installations for a really good price because i know how to get it done fast and right with the highest quality materials at the most economical price.
  
Today i do about 100 jobs per year by myself with no helper or assistance, I take great pride in my work and do no less in a customers house than i would have in my own .But over the last few years ive encountered more and more a type of customer  who couldnt be satisfied even if you laid their tile in gold inlay. I try to weed out these customers but they can be very tricky to identify. The mistake of taking one of these customers jobs can be devastating to the reputation  finances and heart of any craftsman who has great pride in their job.  These customers are controlling, arrogant and most of all vindictive and selfish, If you dont kiss their ass, jump through their hoops and bow down to their wishes they will lie cheat and steal  to destroy you and your reputation, and the internet is their most potent weapon.

Now out of the 100 jobs i do each year only 2 or 3 of these customers have bullshited  their way into my daily routine in the last 12 years or so .But  when they do slither their way in  it truly is a "worm in the apple" "hole in the boat""nail in your tire" kind of a moment. Ive came to be very tired and discouraged  over the last couple of years because more and more of these customers seem to be emerging in numbers. These customers will tell you how great you are and what a wonderful job ur doing til about 3/4 of the way through the job then comes the 180 degree turn around then suddenly they are picking every single aspect of you job apart under a microscope. Very seldom do you get paid your money and they trash you on line as if you were pond scum. If you talk to any contractor around you will hear story after story with the same story line about these kind of customers. The policies of the online review sites allow anyone with a computer to say anything they want with no proof or substance regarding the service you provided them more than often just outright lies.
  
Soon I will retire from personal installations  and probably  transition over to tile art  and make tile art products  from home and sell them here on the web site. We will sometime soon transition over from installations to sales. I will continue to write the blogs and share my experience with others
so they can learn how to find a honest tile contractor or do their jobs themselves.  I love to help people and each day i do tile work for others  I give themquality installations at a price that they normally might not be able to afford. I get great satisfaction from what I do and will continue to make sure I help others learn to install  quality tile or hire a honest ethical tile man in their house. But tile artwork with my hand will keep and maintain my work ethic and skill honed and stone and mortar is in my blood... Thanks for reading  and please make comments about this blog if you've experienced the same things about NEW MILLINIUM customers as I  have. THANKS  

 CHRIS
















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