Aren't you the lucky one(s)

[cityfarma]

"I am assuming that you are refering to my previous post."

I am responding to your post as well as the world in general. Don't think there's anything personal here at all, okay. Your shop or electronics or whatever are like no other customer/buyer relationship on Earth.


""Funny thing is now he goes down the street and gets an inferior product for more money....."

I also only do this when I have decided on the make and model so all are pricing the same thing....."


So, you willingly pay more for the same or less depending upon the negotiating accumen of the seller? I want you for a customer. I have wonderful deals for you.....yeah.

"You have also got it right in that it is a negotiation and neither side is happy unless they've been able to negotiate it with the other party to their satisfaction. The retailer must also be happy with the price or would not have sold the goods...."


Oh, I got it right here, eh? Thanks for letting me know since up until now I had no idea apart from what I read on the internet. You are a business Jesus......thanks for coming along.


Here's the funny part, as I so clearly stated earlier, I'm not a negotiator. I do as I say and expect to be paid upon those statements....if I lose I learn and if I bank I thank the Lord.

Joe, you appear to have taken offence at my reply. It certainly was not meant to be taken as offensive and I sincerely apologise if you have taken offence. The quotes where simply there as points of clarification of how I have purchased goods.


Cityfarma

 

[LoneCowboy]

Preach it FWJ!!!!!

I tell you what, nothing makes me madder than people who have literally no idea what I do in the background whine about price.
"but it only took you 2 hours"

Right, an hour to get here, two hours to mow, an hour to go home, an hour of service you don't see, 75,000 dollars worth of equipment, a chance at a busted tire/nail/broken tractor, insurance, registration, permits, fees, papers, inspections, etc, etc, etc and personally the more I think about it, the price just went up.

Drives me crazy.

I try very hard to keep my return customers at the same rate or close to last year's but the rate gas keeps going up, I simply can't justify it. More and more "government help" makes everything more and more expensive.

One of the things we do is manure removal. There's another local guy who does this who has a HUGE rig (20' long newer dump truck with great big skid steer on a tag trailer behind it). The guy can move a LOT of poop in one load. I figure it's about 25 yards in one load. It's all he does and he obviously has a lot of business. We just have a smaller trailer that holds about 12 yards. But some places you simply can't get a big rig into and our thing is service. We show up when we say we're going to show up, we put you on a regular schedule (usually about every 2 months) and we take care of it. Our prices are pretty similiar (but of course, he can take twice as much per load and I think he's too low, but what can I say, it's his business).

Some lady stopped me about 2 months ago on the road while I was going with the trailer (big signs all over it, etc) and says "how much?" I tell her, I get her number, etc. I call her the next day to set up an appointment and she says "oh, well so and so (the other guy) has a much bigger trailer so I'm going to go with him"
Ok, that happens no harm, no foul.
Yesterday (2 months later) the same lady calls back "umm, the guy has never shown up, he calls and says next week and never comes so can you come out"
Sure, price went up $10, place to dump it went up $10, nothing I can do about it. But I'll be there at 8:30am on tuesday like I promised.

Honestly I understand the other guy, he should work on big jobs (dairy's, horse farms, etc), it's much more efficent for him (only one load/unload for the skidsteer). But he shouldn't promise to show up and never come. Easily half our manure customers have come directly from his actions (non-actions)

BTW, all my quotes have a 30 day limit on them. If you come back to me later, I may honor the price, I may not, but I don't have to, but if you sign up early, I'll hold to that price. That's only honorable. I know some carpenters won't even quote out materials anymore with them going up so fast, they just say "materials plus X percentage".

 

[rox]

I like that reply!

I credit my father for a great deal of what I know in regards to what has led to any real success I've had in my life. He taught me that no matter what the "accepted way" is, no matter who says "this is the only way", in the end, it's all about what works best for YOU. In my case, it's been sticking to my guns. Some people call me hardheaded. (My wife at the top of that list) I say I'm persistant or dedicated to a cause. And like yourself, I have no immediate plans on changing.

To all the hard headed, or stated another way, subborn people on this thread I would like to share with you a wisdom from my grandmother. She always said, "Stubborn people get things done" Being stubborn in her world was a very good attribute. Perhaps a kinder word would be determined. Substitue the word you use to describe yourself, and put in deternimed instead, yes it has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

 

[Gravdigr]

"The customer that pays the least complains the most."

I think that pretty much covers it...

Oh man, while we are ranting....

Any of you with lawn care services ever tried to care for a cemetery? Absolutly without a doubt the worst people you could ever deal with...not the cemetery owners, the families of the folks buried in the cemetery....

One of the cemeteries I run is a couple acres, 3 small sections and a pretty big field which will eventually be sold as more gravespaces. Now not all cemeteries are this way but a lot of the small country ones are, basically when a gravespace is sold a portion of the $ goes into a perpetual care fund that a bank manages and send out a monthly check to whoever runs the cemetery. This particular cemetery has about $28k in the fund, we get $150/month for perpetual care. The cemetery gets mown every 2 weeks and we string trim around the headstones every other mowing. I have 2 employees that do this cemetery with me. The cemetery is out of town so we have to load up the trailer and haul the mowers out with our dumptruck which only holds 2 people so someone has to follow in a pickup which adds to the cost. It costs me (no profit) about $150 per mowing and $250 to mow and trim, so figure $400/month for mowing and trimming. We generally start in april and finish in october so figure $2,800/year. I get $1,800/year from the fund so every year that cemetery costs me $1,000 to mow. Keep in mind that does not count plowing snow in the winter nor cutting back the brush once a year, cutting up and disposing of any trees or branches that come down. And after all this I still get people complaining that there's mown grass blown on their headstone(s) and demanding that I bag/rake/or go over every stone with a blower when we finish. These are also the same people who squawk that their family paid perpetual care on the lot....I dug up records for these people. Gravespaces bought before 1940 paid an average of $5 into the care fund. So I ask them just what exactly they want for their $5.

There are other cemeteries in even worse shape. People don't realize that this work is generally donated and many companies such as myself have to write off the loss as a charitable donation, yet I can count on 1 hand the number of thank yous I have gotten in the last 14 years...but there is an average of 5 letters to the editor in the local paper every year complaining.

So IMHO yes the people that pay the least expect the most and it's infuriating. I generally can keep my temper in check but my workers have had to lead me away from some of these people before bad things happen.

 

[pitt_md]

From a customer point of view I hate dealing with contractors. Please note that I am not faulting you or saying that anything you did was out of line. While I always try to be professional about things I have to say I am demanding. If you tell me your going to be there doing what I have contracted you for and don't show up and don't call then I will want an answer.

I am just now finishing up being my own general contractor to build a new house for us and take down and deal with the old one. I don't ever want to go through this BS again! The no shows really create havoc. Then there is the issue of bills not ever being within a thousand dollars of the original bid even though no extra work has been done. Between the electrician, plumber, mason, excavator, general carpenter, only the electrician was good to deal with.

I am sure I am not at the top of a couple of these guy's christmas lists but then again I don't care. When you show up late and leave early and don't do what was contracted or do it badly I WILL be in your face. There seems to be a sense on the contractors part that you really don't matter. Your only providing them one time work and you will be put on the back burner if they get a request form someone that gives them work constantly even though they are half way through your job. In a selfish way I am very glad it has been a lean year for contractors around here. I would hate to think of the status of things had it been boom town for construction.

 

[RobJ]

For what ever it may be worth, I take being called hard headed as a compliment!

When I was a kid my Mom called me hardheaded, I don't think that one was a compliment!!

 

[schmism]

Ever hear of people in the service world getting "hacked off" because you are "shopping around"?

this never made sence to me.

if your looking at spending a non-insignificant sum of $$ on something, everyone i know shops around. Weather thats calls the various stores, phones up similar comapanies, checks the internet, asks friends....

but more than once ive heard of people being upset at giving out a price, the customer not takeing it (perhaps not even trying to bargain), then comming back some short time later and agreeing to have to the work done.

why is that so?

 

[LoneCowboy]

From a customer point of view I hate dealing with contractors. Please note that I am not faulting you or saying that anything you did was out of line. While I always try to be professional about things I have to say I am demanding. If you tell me your going to be there doing what I have contracted you for and don't show up and don't call then I will want an answer.

I am just now finishing up being my own general contractor to build a new house for us and take down and deal with the old one. I don't ever want to go through this BS again! The no shows really create havoc. Then there is the issue of bills not ever being within a thousand dollars of the original bid even though no extra work has been done. Between the electrician, plumber, mason, excavator, general carpenter, only the electrician was good to deal with.

I am sure I am not at the top of a couple of these guy's christmas lists but then again I don't care. When you show up late and leave early and don't do what was contracted or do it badly I WILL be in your face. There seems to be a sense on the contractors part that you really don't matter. Your only providing them one time work and you will be put on the back burner if they get a request form someone that gives them work constantly even though they are half way through your job. In a selfish way I am very glad it has been a lean year for contractors around here. I would hate to think of the status of things had it been boom town for construction.

I totally agree
It drives me crazy too.
Thus, we are there when we say we are going to be there (or earlier)
My word is my bond, as long as the work doesn't change, the quote stays. I've bid jobs, gone out to the job and it's like 10 feet tall. I still do it (that time anyway) for the price I said. next time it may not be so. Although I do reserve the right to not do the job if it's not what I was told. (critical details conveinently left out). But that's still fair to them, no money out for the customer.

 

[AlanB]

Ever hear of people in the service world getting "hacked off" because you are "shopping around"?

this never made sence to me.

if your looking at spending a non-insignificant sum of $$ on something, everyone i know shops around. Weather thats calls the various stores, phones up similar comapanies, checks the internet, asks friends....

but more than once ive heard of people being upset at giving out a price, the customer not takeing it (perhaps not even trying to bargain), then comming back some short time later and agreeing to have to the work done.

why is that so?

Not sure if this is the scenario that you are talking about but let me run this one by you.

Customer calls, she is lost as to what to do on her landscaping.

We go out, spend about an hour talking with her in the yard, we would do this, this, that and so on, need to look at this that and so on to make it nice.

The part that struck us (wife and I) was we are looking at these dead roses in these pots, she says, Oh, I am just going to take them back, I have had them a month or two and don't like them She has all these plants, high dollar stuff, oh, I will just return these She has plants she has put in the ground, oh, I will just return these, I don't like the way they go against my bricks................

So we get done speaking and suggesting, she offers to pay, we decline, we don't normally charge for discussing what they want to do... Think it was the end of it.

Couple weeks later she calls back, wants a price to install this stuff and do it. Go back out, go through the entire process again, about an hour,, she can't make up her mind again now, she is going to return all the plants she has bought and wants us to get her some plants.................

She is supposed to get with us on what she wants.

Not sure what we will do, but told SWMBO that we are not selling her any plants.

So, yes, I get "hacked off" when folks are just "shopping around" particularly when they KNOW they are not going to buy. Their "shopping around" costs me money, and if there is no chance of me getting the business, heck, I would rather they not waste our time.

Here is another one from Tues, the customer calls, wants landscaping in her front yard, hedges, bushes, mulch, etc. etc. Drive over to look, she then says, well, I do have a tight budget (she said this now when we are standing on the stoop, but before we even say anything so she knew it when she calls) SWMBO, says, well, what are you looking at working with? $200........... Crap, I probably just spent $10 driving over here..............

We may do something with her, but it would have been a nice and relevant tidbit for her to mention prior to us driving over there.

 

[ccsial]

Part of the reason my business has done so well is that we don't take customers that appear to be cheap or hard to deal with. You can often sort them out from the start. We just quote those kind of customers so high that they go elsewhere. You seldom earn a decent profit from those people or they are such a PITA wanting more that quoted I consider them a liability.