Why We Decline Business Part One
The idea of a company declining business is a touchy subject for most consumers. Continuing our analogy from the last blog where we discussed why we don’t give free kitchen, bathroom and closet renovation estimates; imagine going to a farmer’s market and walking up to a vendor to buy an orange. You ask her the price, get ready to hand her the money and she says “sorry, I can’t sell this to you.” When you ask why, it’s not because you couldn’t pay or because she’s sold out or because her cash register is down; it’s because she simply doesn’t like you and would rather sell to someone else.
This is how I feel many clients perceive us declining a potential kitchen, bathroom, or other home remodel request. No matter what they ask for, what their budget is, and what type of company they want to hire; they expect us to give them an estimate. I’ve had people become downright irate when I tell them we might not be a good fit before I’ve gone out for an in-home consultation. So, in part one of this two-part blog, we’re going to discuss the reasoning behind our choice to turn down kitchen and bathroom renovation requests we don’t feel are a good fit. Using our farmer as an example, we’ll explore the four ways we can tell a client might not be a good fit.
I Want to Buy Something You Don’t Sell
“I’m sorry I can’t sell you an apple as we only sell oranges; but there are plenty of stands in this line that do sell apples. Maybe you can try one of them?”
In this case, the farmer has built her business model around oranges and shouldn’t be required to suddenly figure out how to grow and sell apples because someone wants to buy an apple from them. This person should, instead, go find someone who sells apples. Likewise, we’ve built our business model around doing complete kitchen, bathroom, and closet renovations where we demo the entire room and start over.
We don’t offer partial renovation services and we don’t offer services like wall removal, flooring replacement, or painting unless it’s part of a kitchen, bathroom, or closet remodel. It’s not that we think we’re too good for it, we just decided we wanted to focus on custom renovations and hired and trained our field team accordingly. We could have decided to focus on partial renovations and small jobs, but we enjoy full renovations more and have figured out how to market, sell, and deliver this product successfully.
I Want to Buy Your Product for Less than You Charge or I Want You to Price Match
“I’m sorry, but I charge $1.50 per orange and I’m not running a sale today. I won’t be able to sell you the orange for $.75 even if the farmer down the street is selling them for $.75.”
In this case, the farmer has every right to set a price she feels is fair to compensate her for her effort and the quality of her orange. If a customer doesn’t like her price, no one is forcing them to buy from her and she certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on selling oranges. She worked hard to grow the best oranges and people love them enough to pay double the farmer down the street just to buy them from her. Companies offer to do price matching because they know are selling the exact same product and there’s no reason for you to choose to buy it from them and pay more when you could buy it down the street for less. If they have a better quality product, better customer service, better warranties, better packaging, etc. they SHOULD charge more. There’s a reason their potential customer is asking them to price match vs. just buying the cheaper orange down the street.
We feel the same way about our kitchen, bathroom, and closet renovations. We’ve worked hard to develop our reputation and feel we build well designed, good quality spaces for our clients to enjoy for decades. When clients ask us to lower or match pricing with another contractor, I normally recommend they use the contractor that meets their budget needs. I understand our pricing is not going to be a perfect fit for every client and ultimately want the best for every person who considers using our services.
Look out for part two of this insider’s peek into the behind the scenes of our industry in the next blog. In the meantime, if you’re interested in renovating your kitchen, bathroom or closet; we love to speak with you!!
