What’s your budget?
I ask this question of almost every customer and it’s the most unanswered question I ask. I can understand why. If I were on the receiving side of that question without any information, I would be a bit apprehensive in answering it myself. The past year I’ve reframed this question for potential clients. It goes like this “do you have a budget in mind for your project”. You might be asking yourself, why would I ask that. You might guess it is because I am trying to gauge how much the client is willing to spend. I can’t lie, that certainly motivates me. But there is a bigger and more underlying reason. If someone tells me they have a budget in mind it tells me that they have done some research, and they may be more committed to certain types of installations cluing me in on how I can best help them. I don’t care if they tell me what their budget is or not if they share with me the research they did. Now, here is a more important question. If a client has a budget in mind how did they come to understand their budget. Maybe they spoke to friends or neighbors, maybe they have done renovations in the past and they have a good idea of what they are doing. But maybe they researched it on the internet. That’s where I make my long pause. The internet, which is full of misinformation and the constant spewing of bloggers who think they know better (like me). I would have to say that 80% of the people I talk to do just that. If that is their only source for budgeting information, I would guess that there is an 80% likelihood that their budget is off.
So be careful, good contractors should be able to give you a budget range after speaking to them for a short time. After all we do this every day, we should know. In my opinion, the guys that don’t or who are unwilling to say just don’t have the experience or may be trying to mislead you.
Don't get misled, call our experienced deck project specialist and ask his opinion on the budget for your project at (866)278-2841
Find out more about budgeting in our blog "Budgeting part 1" https://www.go-ondeck.com/ondeck-blog/how-to-budget-deck-project