Building Contracts

[Steve Fitzpatrick]

Hi Guys,

I'm looking for a bit of feedback. I'm about to place my 20 years of building expertise into an online manual about building contracts. If you've not entered into a building contract before there are many things that you may not know.

The manual online will be a combination of written and video presentations explaining the builders obligations and your rights as an owner in an easy to understand format - void of the legal jargon used in the contract.

My question is this, how much would you be prepared to pay for such a manual? Given that your home purchase is normally in excess of $175,000 and my target demographic is 35yrs+ and spending $400,000-$1M on the new build (not including land) I'm wondering what price I should charge.

I'm thinking of selling the manual for $95.00 - if you were going to build and could get unbiased and independant advice on the building contracts, would that be something you'd be willing to pay? Would you purchase the manual only if it cost less or would you be prepared to pay more if I included additional support?

[melbstrip]

Kudos on a great idea Steve. Coming from a construction background (domestic to heavy industrial) and dealing with contracts for many years, this is something that when done right would be invaluable to owner-builders.

Contract variations can run into thousands of dollars, and to the unsuspecting are a major trap.

If it were me, knowing how much value such information holds, I would offer it at $95 as an introductory promotional price until your reputation was established, then I would look at doubling that price. $200 is cheap compared to what a loophole ridden contract will cost in the end.

[Chris Bates]

Hey Steve, great idea!

I agree the $95 price is probably a good entry point. As you gain feedback, you can start getting testimonials as to what the manual is actually worth (i.e. "it saved me $20,000 on unnecessary costs") you could then charge a lot more appropriately.

[Steve Fitzpatrick]

Thanks for being a good sounding board melbstrip and Chris. I think i'll run with the $95 for a few months and see how I go.

[YVB]

Steve, as others have stated a good idea. At $95 it's a small percentage to pay of what you are about to undertake in building a home and with decent marketing I expect you'd get a fair few purchases. If you raise the price, even though the value is there you may have a drop off in purchases and you'd have to a balancing exercise to see which one would deliver the most revenue, I say revenue not profit in this case because I assume once all the work is done in producing the manual there are unlikely to be any real costs and the higher the revenue the higher the profit (again in this case). With ongoing support you certainly would be able to charge accordingly however I'm not sure of the legal risks in offering advice in your industry (in mine I have PI insurance because there is a risk) and that may be something to consider as well.

[littlecreatures10]

Hi guys,

Thought this was worth mentioning!

Some friends of ours downloaded a free eBook from an Australia wide building broker company called better building prices. They thought the book was absolutely amazing and was over 70 pages long. It covered all the same information your suggesting here Steve. It's called the Total
New Home Consumer Building Guide. They ended up contacting these guys, and as a result saved 65k on building their house.

We are building a new home in a few months once we decide on our land, so my wife has downloaded this eBook and has sat reading it on her laptop for the last few nights. It's extremely thorough! They have also got alot of video content and stuff on their website as well like testimonials from clients, and also one video on the homepage that talks about how they operate.

Just a bit of useful market research for you, that maybe there is no price point with your product because it's already being offered for free.

Check it out if you want at betterbuildingprices.com.au .... think you have to put your name, email addy to get your hands on it for free.

Yours might have a point of difference, but just thought considering they are everywhere in google you might struggle to sell it if your re-inventing the wheel!

Take care all!

[Burgo]

Stick with it Steve, some people may not like something for nothing, as there is always a catch somewhere.
Betterbuildingprices might be OK but getting a better position on search engines is what it comes down to.
Something for free there is no comeback for inaccurate information paying a small fee there is.

[Steve Fitzpatrick]

Hi guys,

Thought this was worth mentioning!

Some friends of ours downloaded a free eBook from an Australia wide building broker company called better building prices. They thought the book was absolutely amazing and was over 70 pages long. It covered all the same information your suggesting here Steve. It's called the Total
New Home Consumer Building Guide. They ended up contacting these guys, and as a result saved 65k on building their house.

We are building a new home in a few months once we decide on our land, so my wife has downloaded this eBook and has sat reading it on her laptop for the last few nights. It's extremely thorough! They have also got alot of video content and stuff on their website as well like testimonials from clients, and also one video on the homepage that talks about how they operate.

Just a bit of useful market research for you, that maybe there is no price point with your product because it's already being offered for free.

Check it out if you want at betterbuildingprices.com.au .... think you have to put your name, email addy to get your hands on it for free.

Yours might have a point of difference, but just thought considering they are everywhere in google you might struggle to sell it if your re-inventing the wheel!

Take care all!

Nice fishing and plug for your business - I assume you have me on your Google Alerts? Are you going to start sending me more nonsensical emails again? My manual isn't like the piece of junk you were flogging for $45.00 but now offer free as you had to refund everyone that bought it.

[leisadent]

It can be very frustrating, trying to offer a quality product when someone is giving away "the same thing" for free (yes, I'm talking about you, vistaprint). Your point of difference is the key, make it clear how buying your book will give consumers more than the free version. It may be more up to date information, more in-depth, more user friendly, for example.