what do you do when a customer tries beating you down ?

[a68cudas 14]

what do you do when a customer keeps trying to beat you down in price? started a job but not stripping gave her a price for stripping + staining? ends up being acrylic latex so agreed on washing sanding to level areas failing out prime and reaply acrylic? since not sealing giving her the wash + restain price. she keeps on trying to beat me down in price after the fact of quoting her on both. and also done a cpl add ons that she griped about in price saying " well the guy i had last time washed everything for $300.00" but if the last guy was so detailed in his work and good and such a great price then why didnt she have him do it this time? i feel that my prices are resonable for the area in which i do work at. .50 sq ft to wash .75 sq ft to stain and .85 sq ft to strip have roughly 1000 sq ft of deck work no spindles ( thank god) and 10 steps. my price for strip, brighten and stain was $1577.00 and the quote for just wash and reaply solid was $1250.00 then i done a huge arbor on one side of house 40 ft long for $150.00 she complained about price $200.00 to wash brighten and stain about 200 ft of landscaping timbers and a huge triangular planter i threw in doing the brick walk ways becuase of all the other work. and screwed my self on doing 40 ft of 2 inch tubular metal railing for $75.00 that has multi layers of paint etc on and took a good 2 days of scraping sanding and applying stripper that is suppose to strip 7-9 layers of paint off ( yea right) now she is trying to beat me down in price because of differnece in not stripping and since applying solid acrylic latex again over the preped decks and not going to use as much since its a solid etc etc etc .. have any of you come across a customer who is always trying to beat you down in price who thinks pressure washing is like aiming a squirt gun and pissin on something real quick then done or who doesnt understand the labor and craftsmanship that goes into every inch of effort when someone takes pride in what they do and do the job right. just would like some feedback from any of you who have ran into people like this and what you did to handle the situation or what i should do. people like this really aggrivate me .

[a68cudas 14]

i know its the wrong place to post but have no clue where to post this.

[jgoral76 14]

Read just plain poed in club house i had a simialar incounter, if your done just call it quits or tell her thats the price take it or leave it and go to another job where you can make a buck.

[Mathew Johnson 123]

When a customer ask me if I can do better on the price, I smile and say "sure, I can add $100.00 to it".

I explain to them that I gave them the best price possible the first time.

I don't dicker with price, I thank them for calling and ask them to call if they decide to have the work done.

[PowerWashofVa 14]

I had one the other day.... The deck was aprrox 550 Sq FT. He wanted me to wash it. It was in really bad shape & had a acyrlic stain put on it years ago.

I told him $558 to strip & neturalize it. He said "I give you $65". I told him I was in business to make money & since he wasn't my father I don't work for free. He told me he could get it done for $65. I asked him for my estimate sheet back, told him to have a nice day and walked away.

OH! he ownes the small town of Lively Virginia & is worth millions. I guess that why he rich & I'm not.

[aloha pc 14]

"if anything in your budget opens up that would allow us to work together, please keep me in mind"

[PLD 14]

Stand firm. If you give, they generally feel you first price was screwing them and a bad relationship starts.

[Chappy 138]

Had a guy with a 2nd story deck, connected by bridge to another second story deck, solid acrylic stain, numerous rotted horizontals, spindels,rails and posts. quote to clean, replace rotted wood, prime and reseal with solid-$4300. Calls me and says he was figuring $3500. Gave him 10% off (standard from that referral source) Sends me an email saying that he cant see the wood, and stain costing more than $500, coudnt take more than 1 day or $412/hour or $212/hour if it took two. More than he paid his attorneys. Most hell pay is $2000. I thanked him and said see ya!

My wife said I should have told him that I used to be an attorney until I found this work much more lucrative.

[PressurePros 248]

Good stuff.

[James 624]

Matt I have seen or hurd the word "dicker" in a long time. My aunt who was a tag sale nut used the word all the time.

[PLD 14]

James,

"Dicker" is used quite commonly down here...

[Rfitz 14]

I tell these freaking morons my hourly rate starts at $175 an hour and goes way up from there and that doesnt include chems , stain etc... and that usually convinces them to sign up there if not Im tell them to go to you know where, because this work is hard as hell, not mention all our cost are very high.and most people are very lazy and cheap thank GOD, because next year my prices are going up 50% per hour and my prices are going up 40% for material. and dont ever believe people cant afford us even at $350 an hour they cant afford not to have us

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Stand by your price. When we run into this, we explain we are a real business, with real business expenses. It's funny how many times they want us to do it at 'someone else's' price. And the funny thing is, they typically can't give you a name or company name of this fictitious other person.

Beth