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Have you ever gotten stiffed for a job? What about change orders, have you ever done the work only to see you didn’t have the process defined so the customer did not pay you? Why is that? Did you protect yourself? Did you make sure that all the details were in writing? Well, why not? Protect yourself by getting the SOW right the first time! Define what you will do and what you won’t do! Check out this video to show you how this training can help.
Below is a quick preview!
You will learn what you can do to prevent payment problems in the future! You will learn how each member of your team will be part of the solution to getting paid and not doing extra work without seeing the change order prior to doing the work.
To see a PDF overview, download it here.
What is a SOW?
A SOW is a document outlining the work that will be agreed upon by both parties for a specific job or project. This may or may not include the expected result for the job. If it is larger it may include the milestones. It should outline the work to be done, have any associated work documents attached to it, and it should explain the work to be performed. One of the most important parts of the SOW is defining the work completion that will allow your billing and compensation. These training files will walk you through the SOW structure. Your SOW document may be tied the actual legal agreement between the two parties, customer, and contractor, defining payment terms. It will define the completion information will be to get paid or to pay to depend on which side you are sitting on.
Get the Tutorial Today on Gumroad!
Get the SOW Tutorial on Sellfy using PayPal!
Why do you need this training?
If you are planning to work in wireless deployments then you should have an understanding of your SOW! When you understand what is in it, and what you should put in it then you will protect yourself from doing too much work outside of the SOW. You will have a document that clearly states how you should be paid and what is considered a change order. A clear SOW will help your business define each job. Separating the work you are being paid for from the change orders that you can request from the customer. You will be asked to do extra work, and you may do it but there comes a point where you should get paid for it.
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- If you are reading the SOW then you need to know how to interpret the SOW for the job you are doing.
- If you are bidding on a SOW then you should understand what you’re being asked to do.
- If you are writing the SOW you should understand what to put in it to protect yourself and your company from an overage or missing items. You will need to set expectations.
- Customers need to know what the expectations are from the contractors.
- Contractors need to know what to expect from the customer.
- Both parties need to know the handoff points, the pay points, and define the work in a way that both parties will understand.
- If you need to make sure both parties understand when the payments will happen.
Get the Tutorial Today on Gumroad!
Get the SOW Tutorial on Sellfy using PayPal!
What does the Scope of Work course cover?
- The SOW beginning, what you should know about the opening statement of the SOW. Not everyone will need these items, but they help you outline the expectations. You may not need this if it’s smaller task.
- An overview of what the SOW is about and the customers and the representatives with details like dates and regions.
- A general definition of the work to be done.
- Definitions and Acronyms which could be at the beginning or the end, your call, but if they are at the beginning then both parties know where they are and what you’re talking about prior to reading the SOW.
- Term and terminations from a very high level.
- A scope of Services and/or Deliverables – this section goes over details of what the customer is to expect, step by step. It will cover the general outline of work with some detail, like the tasks and work and maybe the final deliverables to be given to the customer for sign off and payment.
- Milestones are the points where you complete a specific task which could be for payment or to track progress. This is covered in this section.
- Service location – this section is to define where the work is to be done and if any travel expenses need to be covered.
- Supplier responsibilities set the expectation of the services your company, the supplier, is to do. There could be some question about what the customer should do and what your company should do. This section covers this.
- Assumptions are put in here since you expect the customer to have some equipment ready, or to pay when a milestone is completed. Or to allow you access to the site. While you may think these are a given, it’s better to have them in writing.
- Deliverables – what is your deliverable and how do you get paid for it?
- Exclusions are also in here to help you define what you won’t do. Very important to spell it out so that you can get change orders if needed and not spend time on tasks that are outside of the scope.
- Customer responsibilities need to be defined so that they know what to do, like pay you!
- Acceptance and Compensation section explains how to lay out the acceptance plan and when you should be compensated.
- Changes in scope, like a change order or modifications. This is a section that will help you define the change order process so that both parties understand the requirements.
- I added a section about personnel, other documents, and sign off in case there is no contract between you and the customer.
- What are you Doing? This section is to help you review what exactly it is that you’re doing and if you can do it and what the customer should do. Review the deliverables and make sure they are realistic.
Who will work with a SOW?
This training was created for the deployment people and companies in the wireless industry. You may be the customer or the contractor or the subcontractor, you need to understand how the SOW affects your business. If you are in one of these groups then this should really help you out.
- Project Managers who lead and manage wireless deployments.
- Wireless Installers doing work out at tower sites or roof tops.
- Wireless Field Engineers working on deployments.
- Installers who will be on site.
- Tower climbers, tower technicians, and tower hands who will be working wireless deployments.
- Technicians and engineers who will be doing the on-site wireless work.
- Logistics and supply chain that will be responsible for the wireless equipment. This includes anyone who may be responsible for the warehouse, suppliers, and distributors. Who will be supporting the wireless deployment? Remember that without the hardware and equipment, where would you be?
- Vendor managers issuing the Request for Pricing (RFP). You will need to understand how to write and issue the SOW.
- Deployment estimators will need to know what is expected of their teams if the customer writes the SOW and how to revise the SOW to match and align the work with the customer’s expectations.
Get the Tutorial Today on Gumroad!
Get the SOW Tutorial on Sellfy using PayPal!
Get the wireless deployment SOW training today!
What you get: The training video and the PDF to help you develop and understand your Scope of Work and to define your assumptions.
Smarter Tech Solutions 
[…] the inspection for weeks, maybe months. Yes, I have seen this in the industry, be clear in your scope of work or contract so you know when the timer starts. The most important thing you can do is define the […]
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[…] the inspection for weeks, maybe months. Yes, I have seen this in the industry, be clear in your scope of work or contract so you know when the timer starts. The most important thing you can do is define the […]
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[…] Do you know what to put in your SOW, the details needed to get paid for milestones or job completion… […]
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Wade; I have been contracting for forty years and seldom, if ever do I ever get an accurate scope of work. Most owners don’t even know what they have at the top of a tower. They don’t have a clue if there are mounts or lines that will interfere with their intended installation, or if the tower accessibility includes a truck pulling a trailer with a hoist. Sometimes they know but don’t tell us because they know it will drive up the price. They know that if we fund the transportation cost that we are unlikely to walk off and absorb this loss. I know there are detailed methods of precisely identifying every part of a scope of work and contracts that can be written by skilled contract attorneys, and I know that the majority of extra charges would be collectible if a contractor filed a lien. But we cannot afford to get involved in a lawsuit with an owner that holds the final payment to fund their defense. They know that we cannot afford to take the time to travel back and forth and hire a local attorney to sue an owner.
We make our living by contracting the work, doing the work and getting paid. We pay travel, per-diem and hourly wages to do the work and when we run into a problem where a sector mount interferes with our installation, we could stop work, call the owners representative and tell them about the problem and wait for two days to get an answer, or we can just go ahead and do the extra work in order to get the job done. Otherwise, we sit there with our overall cost rising while the owner is requesting a written quote for the extra work. We often inform the owner and go ahead with the work hoping that they will be fair, but seldom are they willing to compensate us.
It’s a real chicken-shit way of doing business, but we have an overabundance of chicken-shit project managers, general contractors and owners that are only looking at maintaining schedule within budget.
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Richard,
As always, I appreciate your feedback.
That is why I put this together, I know so many people that don’t have anything in writing or they just have the highlights then they go out to the site and get burned or they don get paid. Without the SOW and the exit criteria defined it is very hard to go after the customer for money. I often try to help people what to do. Unfortunately most of the people that need help refuse to get help or even ask for it, they spend more time bad mouthing the customer when they should be improving or looking for legal recourse. I was thinking that this may help those people.
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