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How do you stop the tyre kickers?
Hey everyone!! In the last two years we have gotten busier and busier. We do mostly quite large shop signs, LED letters, exhibition and display etc and we recently moved from a small 800 sqft workshop to a 2500 sqft workshop. My question is how do you all stop the tyre kickers? You know the people who come in with an old sign they had lying at the bottom of their garden that they want redone or someone wanting a sticker for the side of their boat that they want you to drive 10 miles to stick it on and they need it done today as its a birthday present for wee jimmy and his birthday is tomorrow? We get countless people at our front door every day requiring these kinds of jobs and we really dont have the time to be stopping what we are doing for maybe an hour so we can make a small 300mm sticker. The problem with us is we are in a small town and when we started out we used to do all this kind of work all the time but as we got busier and busier with jobs further afield its extremely hard to try and explain to people that we just dont have the time anymore. We have tried implementing a minimum order, or a 10 day turnaround time but none of it ever seems to stick for very long as alot of these customers where maybe in 4 years ago and use the argument that they got it for such and such a price back then and they want it for that price now. Do any of you have any kind of notice up stating a minimum order or that you are trade only suppliers? Its very hard to be firm sometimes without coming across as rude.
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8 Replies
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It’s simple – you just tell them you don’t take on that type of work anymore. Explain that you mainly do commercial work or price the job so it’s worth doing.
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You’ve just explained why to us, so a diplomatic statement board in your reception area outlining company policy helps reinforce that message when they do ask.
Overheads have increased and the work you take on has had to take that into account & mirror that…
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Hi David, it’s very hard to turn "work" away, it goes against the very reason we are in business. As has been suggested a minimum order value & perhaps a minimum value when you have to install, also a further surcharge for same day service. Next time I am in my local petrol station I’m going to try the same approach as one of your customers. " I bought fuel here 4 years ago can I have it at the same price". I think I know the answer I’ll get lol.
Perhaps you could set a bit of time aside one day a week for these small tedious jobs but emphasise that they are collection only & that is the only time you are able to do them, that way your not turning folk away & not coming over as rude, again as stated above you set out your reasons pretty logically above in your original post & if you explain it that way you’ll find the majority of people will be understanding.
Good luck -
David Its still a body through the door, and the same bloke that wants a single sticker for Jimmy might be the guy that sways the decision to order the signage for a fleet.
Thats how things work in small towns. -
now as well as in the past when spraypainting, if it was something i didnt want to be doing for any reason i just put price way up. most often gets rid of them.
Although once a local takeaway man wanted small parts of his vauxhall astra tocuhed up here and there, PITA job, horrible colour to match etc. so i over priced it 3 x times what i normally would have been.
Guy comes back and says , bit expensive mate but ive heard your good! at that stage i couldnt nock it back and had to endure the nightmare job lol
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id love to be able to pick and choose but i cant, it takes all sorts of customers to make a living so if they want a one off we just try to price it to make money and fit it in around what ever else is goin on.
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I always think to myself, what will be worse, the awkwardness of saying i don’t do this kind of thing anymore, or the pain of actually doing the job?
Usually with this type of thing, the pain of doing the job (usually on a saturday or sunday) is far worse than just saying ‘no thanks’.
I hear what some people are saying about not turning work away, but it can get to a point when these little jobs are actually costing you money, because you could be doing something far more profitable.
Liam
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It’s quite a difficult question to answer especially if these people have been customers of yours in the past when you were starting out & glad of pretty much any job.
Sure there must be quite a lot of people in any industry that don’t take on the sort of job that doesn’t pay much & can take up quite a bit of your valuable time. As has been said you explained it to us so just do the same with the customers, expecting to pay the same price you paid 4 years ago is just silly though.
Personally I do far to many of those sorts of job, just have trouble saying no unfortunately,
Simon is right in saying that the next small job might be for someone who has major involvement at their work but it doesn’t happen very often in my experience. Think it has only happened once or twice over the years although one of them gave me a lot of work. The guy just wanted some vinyl numbers & had already been to 3 or 4 sign places & got no where, I wasn’t really busy & told him to pop back in the morning.
One happy customer & a few months latter he asked me for all the signs for his latest fish & chip shop. I ended up doing 5 shops for him in total & he never even bothered getting a quote from anyone else.
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