Clients that make you go hmmmmm.

[Hodge]

If you bothered to read my post, it is because although I don't win many British clients, the ones I do are generally larger jobs making it worthwhile pursuing.
My point, seemingly lost for my usual band of critics, is that the client is equating tree work rates from 15 years ago to todays, for pines which have grown significantly since.
  

Hang on, no need to be like that, I did take time to read your post! Seems like you put a post up but don't like the replies you are getting. My comment was based on how your post came across.

[josharb87]

It’s the way that they declined your quote/reacted to the price that hurts, like rubbing salt into the wound.

Atleast you had a nice ride out and about! 

 

[Ty Korrigan]

18 minutes ago, josharb87 said:

It’s the way that they declined your quote/reacted to the price that hurts, like rubbing salt into the wound.

Atleast you had a nice ride out and about! 

 

It was a rainy half term day and I would have otherwise been knocking out the old toilets in our new renovation.

I did enjoy the day out though.

 Time enough for lunch and a beer near the river.

[Joe Newton]

7 hours ago, Ty Korrigan said:

Jeepers, you people are making more if it than I.

I went there not expecting to win it as the client is British.

Throwing out your day rate without a solid indication of what can be achieved is both lazy and bizzare.

If that tactic actually worked then none of us would need to leave the house to quote at all.

       

 

There's no need to get upset. 

[Ty Korrigan]

4 hours ago, Joe Newton said:

There's no need to get upset. 

I'm not upset, far from it.

Puzzled about being misunderstood though.

Maybe my English isn't what it used to be.

[Mick Dempsey]

Holy thread resurrection Batman!

Today…

When you’re driving, a client rings and you answer, agree in principle to come over after work to give a price to ‘top’ their cedar (don’t bother to judge me, I don’t care)

 

So I ask if they can send me an sms with their address (as I’m driving) much huffing and puffing and ‘well which direction are you coming from?’ stuff.

 

(my imaginary voice says) “look mate I’m driving half an hour to look at this tree, the least you can do is tap a few buttons so I can get there”

 

So I go there and it’s the usual bollocks, a decent size tall deodar to cut in half but sod it, I won’t be able to see it from my house so we start talking.

 

He’s around 70 and starts giving me the old “I’d do it myself, but my daughter won’t let me” horseshit, then says leave it all on the ground as I have a tractor and will clear it all up (a way of maintaining his manhood after having to ask another man to do a job)

I tell him, my employee can sit in the van and read comics, and the chipper can sit at home in the workshop, but either way you’re paying for them (the daughter understands this and persuades him to allow us to clear it up)

 

So I write the quote out and get out of there, couldn’t care either ways.

 

Anyway over dinner I revealed to my missus, I’m hitting sixty later this year and after that I’m not going to give a fook about what I say to clients, I’ve had it with listening to the same old crap.

 

 

[monkeybusiness]

1 hour ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Holy thread resurrection Batman!

Today…

When you’re driving, a client rings and you answer, agree in principle to come over after work to give a price to ‘top’ their cedar (don’t bother to judge me, I don’t care)

 

So I ask if they can send me an sms with their address (as I’m driving) much huffing and puffing and ‘well which direction are you coming from?’ stuff.

 

(my imaginary voice says) “look mate I’m driving half an hour to look at this tree, the least you can do is tap a few buttons so I can get there”

 

So I go there and it’s the usual bollocks, a decent size tall deodar to cut in half but sod it, I won’t be able to see it from my house so we start talking.

 

He’s around 70 and starts giving me the old “I’d do it myself, but my daughter won’t let me” horseshit, then says leave it all on the ground as I have a tractor and will clear it all up (a way of maintaining his manhood after having to ask another man to do a job)

I tell him, my employee can sit in the van and read comics, and the chipper can sit at home in the workshop, but either way you’re paying for them (the daughter understands this and persuades him to allow us to clear it up)

 

So I write the quote out and get out of there, couldn’t care either ways.

 

Anyway over dinner I revealed to my missus, I’m hitting sixty later this year and after that I’m not going to give a fook about what I say to clients, I’ve had it with listening to the same old crap.

 

 

Cuntstomers, not clients. 

[pleasant]

1 hour ago, monkeybusiness said:

Cuntstomers, not clients. 

...everybody is somebodies customer

[Mick Dempsey]

The mix’n’match clients.

 

You turn up, they show you a handful of trees with assorted work to be done, then they start saying ‘what if we have that and that done, but not that, how much will that be?’ This goes on and on with various combinations of trees and prices looking for the magic combination.

You end up tying yourself in knots, head spinning, driving away just knowing you’ve done yourself out of money.

 

Edited September 29, 2023 by Mick Dempsey
I actually covered this earlier in the thread, but never mind.

[Stubby]

16 minutes ago, Mick Dempsey said:

The mix’n’match clients.

 

You turn up, they show you a handful of trees with assorted work to be done, then they start saying ‘what if we have that and that done, but not that, how much will that be?’ This goes on and on with various combinations of trees and prices looking for the magic combination.

You end up tying yourself in knots, head spinning, driving away just knowing you’ve done yourself out of money.

 

Thats when you tell them that whatever they want done it will £128.87p/hour .