Lower your price please

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Rewire... been in the same boat several times.... in fact had to repair a job just last week by a competitor who beat my price on a service ... the customer has top replace the service again because he forgot to tighten the mast head cap and it blew off in a rain/sleet storm. I had an electric water fall when I got there... you get what you pay for... quality is far better than quantity..
 
Jim_BE said:
... quality is far better than quantity..
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But is it better business? :confused:

Certainly more satisfying for us doing the work but maybe not the way to make more money.

Wal-mart seems to be doing quite well with price being the only concern. :roll:
 
aline said:
Or his wife might have a good job to support his hobby.

I have a friend that does siding. He told me he makes a whopping 25k a year. His wife has a great job with benefits so they do ok with her income.

If they had to rely on his income they would have been bankrupt long ago.
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The guy that did my siding mostly did new construction. He worked me in around existing jobs. it was a little more inconvenient for me, but as the contractor that started it had gone bankrupt about 10% into the job, I was already inconvenienced.

This guy was not some slacker. My brother told me this guy was siding 3-5 new houses a week with just the 3 or 4 guys he had.

I think he and his crew were at my house twice, for maybe a half day each time. When they worked, they got a lot done real quick. I never actually saw them do any work because they did it while I was at work, came after I left and left before I got home.
 
Bob as a customer I certainly would consider any lower price for a job. But as a businessman this guy was an idiot. He left a lot of money on the table.

My brother told me this guy was siding 3-5 new houses a week with just the 3 or 4 guys he had
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That sounds like a lot of hard work for little profit.
 
There is always more than one right answer, and considering how man times I have asked a supply house to lower their price for me, it only seems natural for a client to ask the same of me.

The fact of it is in big commercial jobs its almost impossible not to negotiate some on your price to get the job, its just part how this business works.

Stand firm all you want, but my little girl needs college money and everything is negotiable as long is there is some money to be made.
 
iwire said:
Bob as a customer I certainly would consider any lower price for a job. But as a businessman this guy was an idiot. He left a lot of money on the table.



That sounds like a lot of hard work for little profit.
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The way I see it, that is for him to decide.
 
ITO said:
There is always more than one right answer, and considering how man times I have asked a supply house to lower their price for me, it only seems natural for a client to ask the same of me.

The fact of it is in big commercial jobs its almost impossible not to negotiate some on your price to get the job, its just part how this business works.

Stand firm all you want, but my little girl needs college money and everything is negotiable as long is there is some money to be made.
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I just don't want to be the winner of the race to the bottom.
 
Rewire said:
I just don't want to be the winner of the race to the bottom.
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You would not like the commercial hard bid side of this business then...bottom bid gets the job.

On big jobs you are low for 4 reasons.

  1. You left out something really expensive.
  2. The other guy really did not want it and made sure you were low.
  3. The GC gave you the opportunity to be low because he would rather you do it instead of the guy working out of the back of his truck.
  4. Nobody else bid it.

99% of the work I do it negotiated on some level.
 
iwire said:
Wal-mart seems to be doing quite well with price being the only concern. :roll:
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Yes, but their costs of operation don't go up as their customer count does, at least not like ours does. If I could do two jobs at the same time, I could charge less, too.
 
Wal-mart sells cheap junk, often the same cheap junk multiple times to the same customers and is making huge profits.

My point being that price is more important then quality to the majority of customers.

Sure we would all like to work for customers that place quality first but they are without a doubt the minority.
 
mdshunk said:
That's the theory that seldom ever works out. God's honest truth is that there's not much work in a person's house that's so appealing that it would cause me to lower my price on other work for them to get that more appealing job. That's akin to the old line from the GC's... "Give me a good price on this one, and I've got a few more for you at full price". Yeah, right. My goodwill begins and ends at maybe throwing a few gimmies into the scope that won't really cost me anything but have potential 'wow factor', but not the bottom line price.

Just to be clear, I'm not talking about maintenance contracts that have a pre-agreed on rate schedule.
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For the most part I agree. Im new so I really hate being home cause there is nothing going on
 
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