Archive of E-Zine Articles

General Contractor - Checking your bill and getting it corrected

Volume 2, Article 4, March 1, 2006

We are fresh in from two large shows in Las Vegas, and with our recent experience in mind we will continue to make observations from the field. This week we will address the General Contractor bill and the basics of how to get it corrected.

Why even double check the bill from the General Contractor?

On average, we find that at least 10% of the charges on this bill are in error. This means that you are paying for a lot of services that you did not really receive or are actually included in other items that are charged for on the bill. Since this bill is either your 2nd or 3rd largest running cost, just behind the cost of renting your trade show floor space and paying for the labor to set-up your exhibit, it is a good idea to build the skills to verify the charges and know that you are getting what you pay for. To do this you will need to:

A) Be able to identify and understand all of the charges on the bill.
B) Identify charges that should not be on the bill.
C) Develop the negotiating skills to have incorrectly billed items removed.

Observations from the field number 1: Hardly anyone has their bill corrected. For some reason few exhibit managers develop the skills to identify and have their general contractor bill corrected. However, this leaves an average of 10% of this bill to be paid, when it should never have been put on this bill at all. With 6-12 shows of effort and experience, you will have the skills to find at least some percentage of these mistakes, and have them corrected.

Observations from the field number 2: With the proper knowledge and skills and somewhere between 10 and 60 minutes you will be able to identify and have an average of 10% knocked off this bill. The general contractor, while reluctant to give back money for items already billed, is at the same time very eager to make you a satisfied customer.

Here are few things to keep in mind while negotiating with the general contractor:

Be patient.

Develop a rapport with the person that you are speaking with. These are people just like you and have the right to expect courteous treatment.

Keep in mind that many of the faces at the General Contractor's service desk care about you, but do not necessarily have the project specific knowledge to understand your situation.

Keep in mind that many of the faces at the General Contractor's service desk do not have the authority to fix your bill without consent of a manager such as an electrical foreman or a freight services desk manager.

Be persistent.

As you will explain your situation several times to a number of different people, make sure that your story is consistent. Go into the negotiation prepared to present your issue in a consistent manner that shows clearly why the GC is at fault.

Observations from the field number 3: There are situations where the general contractor will adjust your bill that will surprise even you.

It is our experience that the general contractor will do everything within their power to correct your bill if you can state your issue clearly, you are correct and you make sense. Here are a couple of examples from February.

A) We have a large project that we have been managing for about 10 shows. Either by contract re-negotiation or union steward observation, exhibit structure that we used to put up with teamster labor is now deemed only installable by electricians. This has made exhibit installation more expensive for our client. More recently the electricians have decided that this same structure can only be installed safely by use of a lift.

However, we have installed these light fixtures at least 6 times with the use of ladders and no lift. Both teamster labor and electrical labor have completed the task safely without the lift. An analysis of the requirements to complete this job shows that the use of a lift does not speed up the job and the additional cost of the lift makes the job considerably more expensive.

Result. Each time we are billed for the lift we go to the General Contractor and explain the situation. Each time the Electrical Service Manager adjusts the cost of the lift completely off the bill. After a brief discussion with us, they understand that to keep their customer happy and their crew happy and safe requires that the lift be supplied at no cost to our client, the exhibitor.

B) We have a project that was delayed during set-up by a forklift that was mistakenly left in our client's exhibit space. It turned out that this forklift was abandoned there after a mechanical failure rendered it unable to move under its own power, but this failure was never reported. I arrived at the space with a team of laborers to install the exhibit and was shocked to find the fork in place. The freight desk manager was also not aware of the "downed" lift.

Result. I requested that the General Contractor pay the client for the time that the laborers waited in the exhibit for the forklift to be removed from the space. It was a number of hours and still the general contractor agreed to pay for the time that we waited for access to the exhibit space by adjusting the exhibitor's bill by the requested amount./p>

Coming Attractions: In our next article we will discuss the costs of labor and machinery at straight time vs overtime and how the differences in rates will greatly affect your costs. We will then give simple advice on how planning and scheduling can minimize overtime costs.

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