To all lowballers

[rfitz]

I simply introduce myself, give my estimate, along with references, that poem, and other material, brochure, etc.. and tell them here is the deal, My company does this full time, this is all we do, we are licensed and insured, so if one of my guys gets hurt at their house we wont sue them for everything they own, we will be a tad more than the competetion, but when you need maintenance done, or whatever, we will be around in 1-2-4 years, we dont fight fires full time, we will put at least 2-3 times more stain / sealer on your wood than anyone else, and we will show up when we say we will, and we guarantee our work, and that usually does it, actually our references and maintenance work is starting to explode so I cant see needing to many new customers in the future, my goal is to service between 300-600 decks, homes, fences, etc.. a year and we are almost there now, the money is actually in the maint. work not the brand new work...

Hope This Helps

[APlus]

Rob,
Your biz seems to be exploding. How do you advertise? Would you be willing to show us some copies of your advertisements?

Thanks!

[rfitz]

Hey Tony,
Yes, I will show you my yellow page ads, I also advertise in 2 local weekly neighborhood free papers, and then I get 4 ads placed in the church bulletins in my local area for free, because I do alot of work for them and only charge them for materials, basically fuel and chems, those ads are in 4 different parish's and those really work well for me, mainly I think because people in the catholic church's parish's talk alot and refer one another people who do work for them, anyway not to brag, but I guess we average over 100 calls a week, not sure if thats good or bad, because I dont know what type of call volume others get, as soon as I can find my yelo page ad, I will post it..
One thing in the yellow pages that might help, is I am first in all 3 sections I advertise in, but the biggest thing I see that seperates us from the rest is we answere our phones, and we show up for bids within 48 hours of the call, that is key, I dont know about your area, but here, most contractors dont return calls or dont show up for bids, or worse yet, they try and give the bid over the phone, How can you do that...?

Hope This Helps

[APlus]

Originally posted by rfitz
and we show up for bids within 48 hours of the call, that is key, I dont know about your area, but here, most contractors dont return calls or dont show up for bids, or worse yet, they try and give the bid over the phone, How can you do that...?

Hope This Helps

I hear over and over about how many contractors don't reply or show up as they said.

I can't imagine that, and I know for sure that they are not so busy, and have so much work that they don't care. I think it is just that they are not good business people.

Thanks for sharing your ad, I could place pics of mine as well.

[sammy]

Originally posted by seymore
....Also on the rare occasions i go up against a low bid,I will surely not lose any sleep over it.If Joe blow wants to go use some watered down stain let him do it.I'm not gonna lower my prices just to get 1 job because you know what there is another job around the corner.

Anybody can apply stain but the key is to use a quality product. ....

Most of them won't be around after a few months anyway.

[Alpha Craft]

There's always price differences. I bid a job on Sunday at $1388.00 they had another one $450. It doesn't matter much if people go for the lower price. Those people end up being the assholes who nitpick every little thing and give you a hard time when you ask for the check.

[sealerguy]

I'm somewhat glad they are out there, usually their work looks like their price, they are terrible at customer service and callbacks, in turn, the customer now knows that you get what you pay for, so next time they call for quality, they usually say I wish I would of went with you guys, and remain loyal customers for life.