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We bid a job for a property manager back in September, but they decided to go with another company because they were cheaper. so I get a call last week that the other sign company "didn't work out" so is our price still good or...HAS IT COME DOWN!!!
They just finished telling me that the cheaper price "didn't work out" (whatever that means)!
Fortunately I had added quite a bit of margin because I didn't really want to do the job - so I told them that I'll hold my price...just for them.
Haven't yet heard back. They're probably out looking for another cheapo sign company to "not work out".
-------------------- Tom Henningson De Jager Signs 11474-156 Street Edmonton, AB, T5M 3N2 CANADA Phone: (780) 453-3636 Posts: 41 | From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada | Registered: Mar 2007
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Good for you Tom... people really ARE silly. I guess they thought this was you big chance to do a job for less money. Who would pass up such an offer.
-------------------- Jean Shimp Shimp Sign & Design Co. Jacksonville Beach, Fl Posts: 1268 | From: Jacksonville Beach, Fl. USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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I'm not sure I'd call it silly. I've seen sign shops cut their price to get the job when given a second chance.
Property Managers and Real Estate agents are no different than anyone else when it comes to spending money. We all want as much as we can for as little as possible. Just ask any sign supply company and the clients they deal with.
What Tom's post tells me isn't that the client is "cheap". Either the client has to buy something and really doesn't have the money to spend or Tom hasn't done a good enough job selling himself (credibility/reputation) and his service.
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Glenn, it's true that I actually don't want to do the job! It's out of my comfort-zone and I have to sub out most of it. That increases my risk and I add more money to cover this.
I've done this work before for this same company with no issues in quality, and I know for a fact that I'm in-line with other companies for price (albeit on the higher-end) - so I'm not fleecing them.
The problem is that, despite my good work and reasonable price, they go out for 3 quotes on every job - so they have to go with the lowest price!
That's normally good business practice, however in their case they end up having a huge variety in quality and sometimes the company they use "doesn't work out".
That's their internal policy. Other Management companies I work with keep coming back as long as the quality is still there and my price hasn't jumped unreasonably.
-------------------- Tom Henningson De Jager Signs 11474-156 Street Edmonton, AB, T5M 3N2 CANADA Phone: (780) 453-3636 Posts: 41 | From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada | Registered: Mar 2007
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We had a state government represenative call to open a branch office and wanted us to letter his window "As cheap as possible" because he didn't want to spend state money "recklessly". !?!? When did THAT start in Illinois!?! They spend recklessly on everything else BUT their window lettering I guess.
-------------------- Jane Diaz Diaz Sign Art 628 W. Lincoln Ave. Pontiac, Il. 61764 815-844-7024 www.diazsignart.com Posts: 4102 | From: Pontiac, IL USA | Registered: Feb 1999
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Twice lately, we've had property management companies come to us to give them prices for rebuilding signs that had fallen apart prematurely because of the poor workmanship by the original contractors. The sign companies that did them had been around for quite some time and knew better than to build the signs the way they did--they just didn't care to do the job right.
In both cases, we lost the renovation to the company that built the sign in the first place because... they were cheaper! You'd think the management companies, having full knowledge the reason they were spending money again was that the job was botched in the first place, wouldn't entertain having the company that did such lousy work do it over, but all that mattered was "we saved some money". The low quality contractors got rewarded by being paid twice for their poor work and the obsolescence cycle just started again.
-------------------- David Harding A Sign of Excellence Carrollton, TX Posts: 5092 | From: Carrollton, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Jane, Having grown up in Illinois, I always appreciated that Illinois did not recklessly spend money on roads.
-------------------- Brad Ferguson See More Signs 7931 Wornall Rd Kansas City, MO 64111 signbrad@yahoo.com 816-739-7316 Posts: 1230 | From: Kansas City, MO, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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