'Trust marketing' is the way to go with people like me.
Although I've spent 27 years writing about the construction industry, my most indelible impressions about it have been formed by eight expensive renovation projects done to the homes my wife and I have owned over the years. Contractor performance on seven of those jobs ranged from satisfactory to superb. The other one was a nightmare.
That was the first job, a combined kitchen remake and bathroom addition in our first home back in the early-1980s. Not enough room here for all the gory details, but suffice to say that a job begun in September that was supposed to have been finished in time for us to host our family's Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations did not get completed until the following spring. My family spent half a year washing dishes in the bathtub and spitting out plaster dust - although we did get long respites from the latter when the work crew failed to show up for weeks at a time.