[Raj Venugopal]

Ever do non-bidding quote where you meet the client's needs, cost everything out with real diligence and take fair wages on a job where the client is very fair and decent?

But...has that quote ever been so high that you're almost scared to lay it on them? I realize at some point "it is what it is," but does anyone else ever get that feeling?

What do you do?

[jwholden]

Call some contractors to do work at your house and realize what the market rates are for the type of work we do.

[Dale Wiley]

I had one guy ask me how I slept at night with a quote like that..

I told him I would sleep real well if he took the quote, since that was our best price, the first time and I needed to make a profit to stay in business.

If I sold it for less than that, I would lay awake thinking how I was going to make ends meet and stay in business, and I did not think that was the type of contractor he wanted working on his property.

He signed the contract.

[stoneridge]

Your the man Dale, I love reading your posts.

[trees]

I think it's only natural for all of us (except Dale, maybe) to get a little sticker shock a time or two from our own prices. That in and of itself is nothing to be ashamed of.

You just need to check yourself... check the impulse to project your own limitations upon something that obviously has value to your customer. If you've been as diligent as it seems you have been your pricing, then you should rest easy that you have been fair.

When this happens to me, I usually go through the quote (again) with a fine tooth comb... just to make sure what I'm presenting is right. Then you can feel very comfortable taking an approach like Dale's (which I think is a perfect way to deflect opposition to price, incidentally).

On a side note, I am training a new designer / sales person this season and see a lot of this kind of hesitancy coming from her. I tell her that... look, you're the professional. People need to know that the solution you're proposing is the best one for their needs and that we price things fairly. Make them excited about the project, make them comfortable with you and be fair to them and to us in pricing. The sale will take care of itself if those things can be done.

[Dale Wiley]

Originally posted by stoneridge
Your the man Dale, I love reading your posts.

Well.. you weren't on the other side of that kitchen table getting ready to write me a deposit for $ 8,000..

Grand Rapids.. Backhausens still around in that town ??

I believe they had a landscape business and a Weedman franchise ?? Been about 4 or 5 years...

[Stonehenge]

Raj, I can sympathize. I used to push some bids over to clients like they were grenades with the pin pulled.

In time, you learn what the others have said here; you need to make money to survive, so you should be unapologetic about turning a profit.


Getting good at ballparking projects in an initial meeting can be helpful, so that they know going in what the project might cost. And even without that, there should not be any guilt about putting food on your table.

[EpicInterlock]

Oh yes, a few times. I've also been shocked when they told me I was bang on with the price. Each time, I've been in the middle, neither high or low.....more often than not, they hired me, thank god!

[GLAN]

Yeah.....that happens to me


It is so competitive where I am I try to run out with an agreement to work without giving a price.......LOL

Case in point........Take a house that has been neglected for years. Bushes covering windows, lawn........what lawn?.......you get the picture.

Do I tell them up front it's a $850 cleanup with seeding and topdressing with peat moss.........or do the job and slam them with the bill?..........................I slammed them with the bill. I happen to know these people all my life and I showed a friendly discount.........Showing the cost was $850 but only charging them $750.

Last week I quoted a new home owner across the street of one of our accounts.......No fall cleanup last year......shrubs a mess, place was nice 2 years ago, last year nothing was done. Corner property. This to would be time spent and a decent amount of garbage hauled away.......Quoted with the full service seasonal package that the cleanup would be $650..........I didn't get it.

It's amazing how a tree guy friend of mine used to go around spewing crap like......I have to make $2,000 a day or it don't pay to go out...........Well, what about me?.........that $650 cleanup would have been for me a half day....by the time we got our stuff together for a cleanup, get there and then return to move onto other work......that would have been very close to half a day.

But yet.......quoting $4,000 - $10,000 landscape jobs seems so much easier and less stressfull.......not saying I get every job I quote but at least with this.......I know how the numbers play out and I have a fudge factor built in.

There is no fudge factor for cleanup and maintenance work........and how am I to know exactly that the cost for dumping a cleanup is going to be $50 or $150?........OK, I can guesstimate better than that.........but you get the idea.

Thanks to this site a year ago. I have become more focussed on running my business. I have the self confidence back that I had. The we can do anything attitude that I had before......and I am pricing work to cover job costs, overhead and profit, pricing higher than I did just a couple years ago and I am getting the work

[HRLand]

I've had that feeling at least once a year for the last 6 years. Since I split off from doing maintenance and few plantings and paver jobs per year, to having seperate crews, each year I've had a job that would be the biggest one yet and every time I present that proposal I get that feeling.

[mrusk]

I just sold a big job a few weeks ago. Couple hundred K.

When i finally added everything up after i spend weeks pricing everything out my eyes budged out of my head!!!

I have nothing off the wall in the plan, its just alot of stuff we are doing.

[bigvictu]

Jobs that are in the thousands are easier to sell than the 500-600 ones since half the problem is getting your men and equipment to the site. I always mark up materials and lower my labor on small jobs if I can, people So question labor costs more than materials. Its ridiculous, but true.

[Raj Venugopal]

Thanks everyone. The next two weeks will be interesting because we're pitching a few big project budgets and I'm excited but nervous.

[johnkeegan]

If I suspect someone will gasp at the cost of a project I try to suggest a few ways in which the customer could save money...cut down on bed sizes, smaller patio, reuse existing plants if plausible, do projects in stages etc., just to let them know ahead of time that I'm really not out to rob them. Even if it only saves them a few hundred on $20,000 project. It may make them more apt to say, "Well, it's alot but I guess that's what it costs."
And I make sure none of this effects my bottom line because I price things to make sure I make what I make no matter where I am that day.

[EpicInterlock]

These posts are very interesting. You know what I say when I get the feeling (or I see my customer's eyes open WIDE) when they see my quotes?
I tell them that my prices are very competitive (which is true), and to go get other quotes. I've had a very good success rate with that line, it makes me sound much more trustworthy and confident that my prices are good, especially when the customer just met me not even 15-30 mins earlier.