The joys of bidding work

[Farmwithjunk]

As a customer, I'm thinking, What? This guy says "Today, right now, no stuff price is $450". Is he gonna charge me more tomorrow? Sounds like he wants to deal, so I'm gonna deal, too. So I ask...

"Well, what about $400?"



How do I, the customer know any of that?

So, I tell you I'll have my wife write you a check right now for $400, no billing involved so you get your money and don't have to bill me etc... and you reply with....


As a customer, I think, "He gave me a price, I made a counter offer, and he raises the price. YIKES! What a jerk."

I ask if you'll come down a bit and instead of explaining why you won't you threaten to leave. As a customer, I'm glad you're leaving.

This takes us back to what I hold as the correct way to handle this sort of situation. No in depth explainations. No debating my reasons. No attemting to teach the potential customer a valuable lesson, just, "No sir, That's my best price I already quoted you". And then we either shake hands and part company, or we shake hands and we do business.

Anything beyond that gives an opening for an arguement. And anyone who knows me well, knows I don't like to argue with anyone, any time.

Anyone with a little business savvy wil understand my ways, anyone without doesn't really effect me in the grand scheme of things anyway.

 

[MossRoad]

"No sir, That's my best price I already quoted you". And then we either shake hands and part company, or we shake hands and we do business.

That would seem to be the best way to do it. Not telling someone I'm going to raise the price if they hesitate.

 

[AlanB]

That would seem to be the best way to do it. Not telling someone I'm going to raise the price if they hesitate.

I disagree, you have to make it explicity clear that the quoted price was contingent upon doing it RIGHT THEN, prior to going home, prior to loading the tractor.

Otherwise (BTDT)

You get a call two weeks later when he has figured out that you have given him a more then fair price from the start, telling you to come do it at that price. And the fact is, you cannot, your price was based on zero travel time.

 

[8226hamer]

$500K lot + $5,000,000 new house + Navigator + wife's in charge = the guy's probably in hock to his eyeballs and lying awake nights trying to figure out how he's going to keep it all going. Now he figures it's time to "put an end to the insane spending" and haggle the bush hog guy down $50.

Welcome to the world of the impoverished rich. I'd rather live free & clear in a dump.
Bob

I agree 100%. I do lawn installs and alot of the lawns I do has 3-4 hundred thousand dollar homes on them. I don't know how many I have seen that have very little furniture inside. They live in a nice subdivision and have a nice home, but can not afford to buy furniture for it. The owners are a slave to their house payment.

 

[AKfish]

This thread has been most interesting... Great observations regarding "business savvy" and "interpersonal relationship savvy".

Clearly, there are occasions where one party or the other just doesn't "get it". When haggling over price can quickly become annoying and move on towards harassment.

We all want to know "what the bottom line is" and when no really means no. The key is to have the good sense and empathy to recognize when you've reached the point when the "line" is right there in front of you!

AKfish

 

[Dougster]

That would seem to be the best way to do it. Not telling someone I'm going to raise the price if they hesitate.

And yet... specific/actual choice of words aside... hasn't that been done to you in one way or another dozens of times before in similar, unique circumstances of opportunity? This happens to me all the time... both as a service provider and service consumer. I believe it's called "sharing the savings" associated with mobilization and de-mob?

Dougster

 

[Dougster]

This thread has been most interesting... Great observations regarding "business savvy" and "interpersonal relationship savvy". Clearly, there are occasions where one party or the other just doesn't "get it". When haggling over price can quickly become annoying and move on towards harassment. We all want to know "what the bottom line is" and when no really means no. The key is to have the good sense and empathy to recognize when you've reached the point when the "line" is right there in front of you!
AKfish

Your post reminds me of my daughter's recent condo negotiations. She made offers on two condos wherein it quickly became clear that there could never be a meeting of the minds. Suddenly a third appeared and it was apparent from the start that an agreement was going to happen. Same exact condos in the same development with the same asking prices and initial offers... but two would never work and one did. It all boiled down to chemistry and attitude. Go figure.

Dougster

 

[LoneCowboy]

I disagree, you have to make it explicity clear that the quoted price was contingent upon doing it RIGHT THEN, prior to going home, prior to loading the tractor.

Otherwise (BTDT)

You get a call two weeks later when he has figured out that you have given him a more then fair price from the start, telling you to come do it at that price. And the fact is, you cannot, your price was based on zero travel time.

exactly
and I wanted to be clear and fair, that this was my best price today, tomorrow it was more. And if I loaded up and wasted 5 or 10 minutes, it was going to be more.
I'm sure that's what is going to happen.
He's going to call in a few weeks and want it for $450.

 

[MossRoad]

And yet... specific/actual choice of words aside... hasn't that been done to you in one way or another dozens of times before in similar, unique circumstances of opportunity? This happens to me all the time... both as a service provider and service consumer. I believe it's called "sharing the savings" associated with mobilization and de-mob?

Dougster

Sure. One case in particular was when I asked a company to come to our home to give an estimate on replacing the cabinet doors in our powder room. He gave us a price and said it was only good for a couple of days, 25% more next week and about 40% more a week after that. I told him to get the h*** out of our house. No sale. I also called his boss the next morning. He fired the salesman.

 

[keeney]

Contracting to build our own house, I went through the process of hiring a bunch of contractors. As a one-time or first-time customer for each type of work, I had no idea what the going price or reasonable price would be for each new trade coming in.

Having more than once experienced the price doubling or tripling once the contractor arrived and saw that its "lakeshore", I have become very wary of the premium you can find in the asking price based on your zip code, not the actual work.

I would interpret the haggling as the potential customer's only means of feeling out how firm that price is. The only way to determine it is to find the true deal-breaking point. The trick is to do it without causing hard feelings. Not everybody is expert at it.

My experience is that somebody tired of working on a Sunday is not going always going to be in a good mood to negotiate, so part of the trick is to not waste too much time on the negotiation itself. Obviously the "Price goes up once I load up..." comment was aimed at moving things along.

If I was planning to be a repeat customer, I would have indicated that was what I was looking for up front.

The "Wife already wrote the check" comment was insulting and probably killed his chances of getting it done for $400.

The key is not to come off superior, but to come off as honest. If you are obviously a wealthy customer, its not about what you can afford, its about wanting to avoid feeling like you got taken to the cleaners because you didn't know any better. I would honestly admit "I have no idea what the going rate is for bush-hogging, and it doesn't seem like it would take all that long to me. How many hours are we talking about?

If they guy says "easily over 4 hours and I normally charge 100 an hour including the time on my the equipment and load/unload", then I have some more info. If he gets funny about admitting that simple explanation, then I start to think maybe its only going to take 45 minutes and its his employer's machine and the deal won't even go on the books and I start to think he is full of BS.

- Rick

P.S. A real "successful" negotiator understands that he just wasted more than $50 of his own time and hassle to find somebody else to even come bid the job and still might not get a lower price. If he really wanted the grass cut, he would have sensed it was the point of deal-breaking and agreed at that point.