I went to see a new client near Bedford recently who enquired about our services earlier in the year but apparently engaged in the competition. However, the scheme she settled on has now revealed itself to be too expensive. Okay, that can sometimes happen to our projects too, but in this case, this lady's architect has become unresponsive and does not seem happy to help any further. So she has got back in touch with us. Obviously, I don’t know all of the circumstances yet, and it may be that her expectations are too high. Managing clients' expectations is something I have had to learn and it’s not always easy to tell a client that they can’t have what they have set their heart on. To try to stop this from happening to our projects, we agree on a scheme with a client and we will keep generating schemes until we find one that achieves what the client wants (or very occasionally the client accepts that what they want is impossible – often because it is unacceptable to the Planning Department – usually these clients re-engage us with a new building). We will usually try to get an approximate build figure from a builder at this point to avoid the pitfall this lady finds herself in. If this figure is too high, as long as we are still within our Feasibility Scheme stage, we will go back to the “drawing board” so to speak.
Why am I telling you this? There are clients out there who will not commence a project until they can see how to do it, and I am sure that in some cases such projects never get off the ground. Idea generation is, I reckon, our number one strength. If you cannot see how to achieve what you want from your building, give us a try. Contact us and let us see if we can help.
Tony Keller Building Tectonics Ltd.
Comments