How would you respond?

A customer says; If I paid you cash....would you do this room or chair for a discount?...you don't have to put it on the invoice! wink! wink! obviously saying your boss wont know and you could pocket the money....not realizing you are the boss/owner.


I had a guy do just that....he thought I was a worker and hinted he wanted an under the table deal....I did it! the price wasn't discounted as he thought AND before leaving I said I am the owner. He wanted a sofa cleaned on top of the carpet I did...He asked me and I said I could do the sofa for a hundred and smiled....he said its a deal! The sofa was a micro fiber and was 8 footer. He assumed it was cheaper, had he added it honestly and maybe said, since I did the carpet would you discount the sofa....I would have. He paid more and had that BUSTED look on his face.

I've run into that many, many, times. For some reason they never believe I am the owner since I also have the day job. The naturally assume that it was a part-time job to pay off some debts....which I guess it really is.

I normally play along too, but I have never told them I was the owner at the end. We kind of differ on that part as a lot of them actually think they are helping you as much as they wanted a special deal.

The same goes for tips, I get those a lot because they think I am just the poor guy trying to make ends meet. If I was to tell them that I was the owner and that 40 cents a foot was going to me, they would never tip.

Lol, it seems like the other way around with me, they always think I'm the owner, I usually dodged the question by saying "oh I'm the manager" which I'm not lying, I am the manager, I'm aiming for the tips too for my guys mainly, lol.

You WILL get better tips when you are thought of as a worker. I think of it as he tried to cheat me....when you try to encourage an employee to take it off the books it creates a problem....what if it was damaged? bet he tries to get YOU the owner to pay...and you will! just because its not on paper doesnt mean you avoid the trouble....the employee wont pay.

I get offers of cash instead of check or CC. I DO give them a small discount (5%) as it doesn't always "make it" on my books....

Folks know it most likely won't go "on the books" and you may avoid uncle scam and his tax racket. They save, you save. That's why they ask for a cash discount.

I just tell them that I don't mess around with the IRS

Freemind...this was asked to avoid a record to get me to pocket cash and not tell my boss...had nothing to do with uncle sam....I do get request a little for that but this guy wanted a discount to pay ME and not tell my boss who is ME. lol

Ive gotten calls from restricted numbers asking if we offer cash discounts lol

be careful.      My always go to line is "I can give a very small discount as it saves me a trip to the bank but either way we have to pay tax"  


truth is in WA state carpet cleaning is not even a taxable service, so we have to pay our business taxes but not sales tax.

only if we were selling them a product on top of the service

I wish it was that way here, I run into commercial jobs where they get upset at being charged sales tax.....not my fault, I didn't vote for them dude.