Clients that make you go hmmmmm.

[PeteB]

On 17/05/2025 at 14:53, Mick Dempsey said:

Well call me next @#+¥ing year then!

Jesus H Christ, You have to leave your own house, drive to theirs, knock on the door, act all nicey nicey, talk to them for however long, all in the hope of securing a day or twos work.

 

Yesterday I drove 40 minutes to what sounded like a promising job.

They were nice enough (the couple) the job was two small medium ash over a septic tank, piece of piss.

I pointed out a 3/4 dead cedar right next to the house.

I said if you want to spend money on trees, that’d where I’d start.

She says no initially, then asks if I could just leave the trunk and cut every branch to a foot or so (still attached to the trunk) so it looked like a giant heated hair roller (she thought it would look like modern art)

I said no, that’s stupid, I won’t do that.

Anyway half an hour later, I secure a days work doing the ash.

 

Funnily enough it was a  water mill very near a chateau where I worked for an American couple years ago.

A few bits and bobs the main job was a single big Leylandii removal.

We parked the chipper and truck next to it first thing and whilst filling the saws the husband appears and without a hint of embarrassment asks if we can do the other stuff first as the wife wants some alone time with the tree to say her goodbyes!

I said no way.

 

Sometimes I think line clearance sounds nice, no public, just head down and go.

Then I remember I’m usually drinking tea on the sofa by 2.30.

Swings and roundabouts etc.

 

Alone time with the tree......makes me laugh! Charge an hourly rate and be courteous  and get a bit extra,

[oldwoodcutter]

Plus the further into the future they are thinking of having work done, in the meantime they then have plenty of time to call every tree firm in a 40 mile radius to offer a quote , regardless of whether they’ve given you the go ahead or not.

And when you’re eventually down that neck of the woods the following year, you do a drive by and  the whole property resembles the aftermath of Passchendaele .

[Mick Dempsey]

Had one today, been pushing stump grinding a bit lately as I have a new machine.

 

I get a call from 45 minutes away, long way for a price but hey ho.

As I’m rained off today I arranged to go over after lunch.

Nice bloke, row of Leylandii, 20 odd, decent size, nothing massive but a good mornings work with 1.5 hours travelling etc.

I quote €780 inclusive.

He says too much, he can hire a digger for 200 and pay a bloke 200 to dig them out.

Fine says I, shake hands and get in the truck.

Then I said to him.

’I have driven 45 minutes to be here, now if you’d have said over the phone, I can get it done by a mate for 400€ I’d have said get your mate to do it, I cannot bring the grinder over here and do it that cheap, and we’d all have saved time and money’

He looked a bit sheepish in fairness.

 

Don’t get me wrong, quotes are free, it’s a service industry and you have to take the rough with the smooth, but it can sting a bit sometimes. 

 

 

[monkeybusiness]

26 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Had one today, been pushing stump grinding a bit lately as I have a new machine.

 

I get a call from 45 minutes away, long way for a price but hey ho.

As I’m rained off today I arranged to go over after lunch.

Nice bloke, row of Leylandii, 20 odd, decent size, nothing massive but a good mornings work with 1.5 hours travelling etc.

I quote €780 inclusive.

He says too much, he can hire a digger for 200 and pay a bloke 200 to dig them out.

Fine says I, shake hands and get in the truck.

Then I said to him.

’I have driven 45 minutes to be here, now if you’d have said over the phone, I can get it done by a mate for 400€ I’d have said get your mate to do it, I cannot bring the grinder over here and do it that cheap, and we’d all have saved time and money’

He looked a bit sheepish in fairness.

 

Don’t get me wrong, quotes are free, it’s a service industry and you have to take the rough with the smooth, but it can sting a bit sometimes. 

 

 

Equally you could have pre-qualified him during the initial phone call stating the minimum price the job would need to be to be worth your time at that distance. 
(But this is why they are called cuntstomers to be fair…)

[Mick Dempsey]

11 minutes ago, monkeybusiness said:

Equally you could have pre-qualified him during the initial phone call stating the minimum price the job would need to be to be worth your time at that distance. 
(But this is why they are called cuntstomers to be fair…)

I know, I’m not without blame, could/should have done that.

[pleasant]

Had a guy ring us today asking whether we can sharpen blades on his mower......got a walk behind rotaty mower that uses the Hayterette system whereby you have 4 small swinging blades mounted on a rotating disc. Said he couldn't drive, so could we collect......OK, shouldn't be an issue. How much he says 'I've got it off the mower ready' OK, fine I say...if you're local just call it £20 as we can pick it up as part of another collection and arrange to drop back with another. Turns out he's in a different town 40 minutes away.......tried to explain for us to drive 40 mins to collect, then same to bring back, then same to drop back and return to base is 4 x 40 minutes...all for gross £20 it really didn't stack up, he thought we were being awkward! Turns out his daughter lives about 2 miles from our front door, so he got her to pick them up....but I mean, really??? Thought we would be happy doing all that in the first place for £20. Getting to the point now, that if you dropped a £20 note, you wouldn't bother trying to find it, it's worth so little.

[Ty Korrigan]

1 hour ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Had one today, been pushing stump grinding a bit lately as I have a new machine.

 

I get a call from 45 minutes away, long way for a price but hey ho.

As I’m rained off today I arranged to go over after lunch.

Nice bloke, row of Leylandii, 20 odd, decent size, nothing massive but a good mornings work with 1.5 hours travelling etc.

I quote €780 inclusive.

He says too much, he can hire a digger for 200 and pay a bloke 200 to dig them out.

Fine says I, shake hands and get in the truck.

Then I said to him.

’I have driven 45 minutes to be here, now if you’d have said over the phone, I can get it done by a mate for 400€ I’d have said get your mate to do it, I cannot bring the grinder over here and do it that cheap, and we’d all have saved time and money’

He looked a bit sheepish in fairness.

 

Don’t get me wrong, quotes are free, it’s a service industry and you have to take the rough with the smooth, but it can sting a bit sometimes. 

 

 

I recently had a call from a client whose building plot we cleared in September.

She was asking if I can come back to remove the stumps now her builder has dug them out.

We hashed this out on site at the quoting stage and I made it quite clear just what stump grinding involved but they insisted their builder had it all in hand and would be cheaper.

Bizarrely lean on the stump side of things too with only one cedar to my name since September.

                     Stuart

 

    

 

[Mick Dempsey]

Upgraded to a half page ad for a couple of months in the local mag for a couple of months to generate work.

 

We'll see what it brings.

[John Shutler]

1 hour ago, Mick Dempsey said:

I know, I’m not without blame, could/should have done that.

I very rarely go and look at grinding jobs, more often than not I just ask about access over the phone and get a couple of pictures sent with something for scale against the stump

[Mick Dempsey]

12 minutes ago, John Shutler said:

I very rarely go and look at grinding jobs, more often than not I just ask about access over the phone and get a couple of pictures sent with something for scale against the stump

I know, to an extent I do as well.

 

But French clients are often in the dark about what grinding involves so a bit of face to face is better, plus I’m trying to build a bit of momentum on the grinding side of things for various reasons, it all added up to a perfect storm of time wasted.

 

Them’s the breaks.