Contract and Vendor Evaluation Tips

Read these clauses first

Most people read a contract front to back and run out of attention before reaching the terms that matter most in a dispute. Reading these first is a better use of the same effort.

• Term length, auto renewal, and the notice period required to prevent renewal
• Termination for cause, including whether a cure period applies
• Price escalation, including how increases are calculated and whether they are capped
• Extra work approval threshold and who is authorized to approve
• What remedy applies when a performance standard is missed

The specificity test

Read the scope and ask whether a reasonable person could dispute what it means. Phrases like general maintenance, as needed, and industry standard fail this test, because they mean whatever each party needs them to mean at the moment it matters.

The same test applies to standards. A commitment to maintain the property in good condition is not enforceable. A commitment to maintain fescue turf at between 2.5 and 3.5 inches with no visible scalping is.

Signals worth weighting

Some things a vendor does during the evaluation process predict performance better than anything in the proposal document.

• Did they walk the property before pricing it, or price it from an aerial view
• Did they identify problems you had not mentioned
• Did they tell you anything they could not do well, or was everything fine
• Did they ask about your reporting requirements and who you report to
• Were the references they offered commercial and comparable to your property type

The specificity test, applied

There is one test that separates a proposal written for your property from a template with your name at the top.

Count the facts about your site. Not adjectives, facts. The number of parking islands. The species of the frontage trees. The fact that the east slope has no irrigation. The gate on the north side that has to be opened by security.

A proposal from somebody who walked the property contains several of these without trying. A template contains none, no matter how professional it looks, because the person writing it did not know them.

This test costs nothing and is more predictive than price, references, or company size.

Count the facts about your property in the proposal. Not adjectives, facts.

You are buying a company, not a proposal

The document is written by a salesperson. The service is delivered by a crew you have probably not met, managed by somebody whose name may not appear anywhere.

That gap is where most disappointment lives. A polished proposal from a company with high crew turnover produces a property that looks good in month two and tired by month ten.

The useful questions are therefore about the company rather than the document. Who will be on my property. How long have they been there. Who do I call. What happens when that person is away.

A contractor who answers those quickly and specifically has thought about the delivery. One who redirects to the proposal has thought about the sale.

The question about the last contractor

Ask every bidder what they think went wrong with the current arrangement. The answers are unusually revealing.

Some will say the previous contractor was cheap and cutting corners, which may be true and is also the easiest thing to say. Some will point at the scope and note that it never specified enough to enforce anything, which is more often the real answer.

The best answer is a question back. What changed, when did you first notice, and what has been tried. A contractor asking that is trying to avoid inheriting the same problem, and that instinct is worth more than a polished pitch.

Scoring without pretending it is science

A scorecard is useful for one reason: it forces you to weigh the things you actually care about rather than the number at the bottom of the page.

It is not a calculation. Assigning numbers to judgement does not make it objective, and a scorecard that produces a surprising winner should be treated as a prompt to think, not a verdict.

What it does well is make a decision defensible. When somebody asks in six months why you chose the second cheapest bid, a page showing scope completeness, crew stability, documentation, and site knowledge answers it in a way that memory cannot.