[Keith N]

I'm building 2 retaining walls for a customer with basic Anchor diamond block. The lower wall is 70x3 (11 pallets) with a slight 20ft curve. Not a whole lot of cuts and all the same height. The upper wall is 70x3 with 2 curves on each side. A lot of cutting for the caps and each row will step down on the ends. I bid the first wall (lower) for $6700. Than the upper wall was needed for the pool deck to be poored. I bid this wall for $6500 which will be a lot more work. The customer asked if I could do them both for $8500 since his son can do the stacking. Thats the easiest part of the build. I have to do the base, base row, backfill correctly, break the ends of the caps and block, and finally cut in all the caps.

What do you all think about this situation? That's my price but I'm curiuos to hear what other do in these situations.

[scl]

So he's asking you to leave $5k on the table cause his kid will do less than $1k of the work or so? Your prices sound fair so you should know what you need to do this, and I thnk you know your answer. Lets all say it together now: RED FLAG!

[Keith N]

I have a contract for the lower wall and the upper wall was an add on, but they need the upper wall done first. I think I'm being more than fair since I have to deal with the pool company that has one bad scheduling system.

[Squizzy Taylor]

Just my experience, and I really always try and be flexible, help the client out wherever I can.....but jobs that start out like this sounds...generally end up with me struggling to put food on the table.

[Keith N]

Originally posted by Squizzy Taylor
Just my experience, and I really always try and be flexible, help the client out wherever I can.....but jobs that start out like this sounds...generally end up with me struggling to put food on the table.

Amen!

[HRLand]

What does he expect you to do while his son is stacking block? I wouldn't drop a dime.

[Cochran]

Unless you're a non profit, you can't afford to drop your price to his asking price! If his son needs to work so badly, hire him as temporary part-time help to stack the walls and pay him fairly so his Dad can get some money back.

What does this guy do for a living? Probably not anything he drops 5K off price for!!

I absolutely HATE when potential clients say "This is your proposal, but what's your lowest price?" Some are blown away when I tell 'em they're looking at it. But at least they know I don't negotiate without taking away from the overall design.

We not only need to put groceries on the table, but we need to pay our overhead and fuel and employees and everything else we're accountable for and if this client can't see that, then I would move on to those who will help us provide for work and home.

[Pelican]

I don't negotiate with customers period. I don't inflate my prices so they can be bargained down. The only deals I make are the ones I offer. If a customer asks for more work while we are already there, I make an allowance for set up and transportation, but that's it.

I don't allow customers to do a portion of the job either. If I take a job, it's from start to finish, my reputation is at stake.

[Lanelle]

I can't imagine any motivation for building the more difficult wall for $1800! What does the pool company propose to do if you aren't willing to build this wall that they need?

Also, does it make practical sense to build the upper wall first? Does the accessibility for the lower wall change if you do the upper one first? I can see this making the lower wall more time-consuming to build, thus the price might go up on it as well.
(Softly chanting in the background.....red flag, red flag......)

[Rich678]

I think that situation only has the potential for more work, and headache for you. I agree with everyone else on this one. I made the mistake of getting into a situation like that, and guess what, the client couldn't come up on their end and we ended up hustling through the project to meet their ridiculous deadline. Forget about it

[Forge]

Landscaping isn't IKEA, there will NOT be assembly required. That is a ridiculous discount to request.

Flags across the country have been raised and they are all red.

[Stonehenge]

I'm on board with everyone else, that allowing the customer's son to do some of the work (liability?) is a bad idea, but let's take this from another angle.

We'll assume that the son won't be placing the fabric and clear stone behind the wall and compacting things. He's just stacking the block. Meaning, you're standing there waiting for him to stack each course before you backfill and compact. Even if you're time waiting has no value, how much is his time worth? I don't know how many pieces come on a pallet by you, but let's say it's 40.

40 pcs x 22 skids = 880 pcs. While there is no way it should take him 1 minute per block, let's say that it does. That's 880 minutes, or 14.67 hours.

How much would you pay someone who'd never laid block before (and who you've never worked with before), to stack block for 14 hours? Even 20 hours? $10 per hour? Add administrative and tax costs onto that employee, and at the outside we have $300 that you would pay out for the benefit of having this employee.

With that I might accept the client's offer, with some tightly written terms, that the client's son will be on site the entire time that it may be required for him to stack block, and he'll do so at our discretion, for as long as we wish. If at any time he's incapable of fulfilling his task, or cannot perform the job as instructed there will be penalty fees added for the additional work you'll have to do to repair the retaining walls due to his poor workmanship.

And if he does it all as instructed in the time required, the customer shall receive $300 off their contract, less a supervision fee (your overseeing his work has value, right?).

Because that's about the only reasonable solution from your side, and it's about 100% certain your client would never agree to that, I think a simple "no" is in order in this case.

[johnkeegan]

If this customer has that little respect for the work you do (hence the discount he wants), do you think his son has had any real work ethic instilled in him over the years by this same person?
He has no respect for what you do. His son will also have no respect for what his job would be. Hence, he'll work like a snail (when he shows up), stack block in a sloppy manner and totally screw up your schedule. But, he won't care because, to him, his idle time has more value than your professionalism.
.....RUNAWAY AND DON'T LOOK BACK!!!!

[Pelican]

Originally posted by Stonehenge
With that I might accept the client's offer, with some tightly written terms, that the client's son will be on site the entire time that it may be required for him to stack block, and he'll do so at our discretion, for as long as we wish. If at any time he's incapable of fulfilling his task, or cannot perform the job as instructed there will be penalty fees added for the additional work you'll have to do to repair the retaining walls due to his poor workmanship.

While this might sound fair to all involved, (it sounds fair to me) and be legally binding, I think if you needed to collect against a penalty you would have a tough time doing it. There's a very high probability that the client would at the least be unhappy about it which would not fare well for what he might tell friends and acquaintances about his experiences with your company. I work very hard with unhappy clients (they are rare) to find a solution to their concerns to avoid any chance of hard feelings. I remember reading an expression one time that I can't recall about how much one bad comment about your business can effect your reputation vs. the number of good comments and it hit home.

If I couldn't do this job on my terms I wouldn't do it at all.

[Keith N]

With all do respect I hate when customers try to put you in this position. I have been working with this customer for 2 months now and I have not laid one block. The pool company he is using has cost me a week of down time since they have thier head in a scheduling black hole.

As others have stated I try to bend over backwards to work with customers, and do what is fair for all. We are builders and customer service companies rolled into one, NOT charities for the wealthy! My buddy is a lawyer and he strongly advises against homeowners helping.

I guess I should ask if he could give my kids braces but let my Aunt do all the Hygental cleaning for the price of one set of braces.