Hate working for the rich !

This guy called a couple of days ago and asked for in home estimate, told me that his house is 8000 sq ft home and he can't figure out how much sq ft is the carpeted / cleanable areas, I told him I'll make an exception and do a free in home estimate, got there and his house has 2 car entrances, both with automatic gates, no bells, I called him, went to his voice mail, left him a voice mail, waited 5 minutes, decided to text him, told him I'd wait a few more minutes, I was going to leave and he came, he said sorry I had to drop my kids off ( it was 9:30 am ), I call BS on that, I'm already in a bad mood cause he didn't call or text me back as a courtesy.
Went inside, the home looks like a castle, measured everything, came up to 1600+ sq ft plus 2 flights of stairs, price comes out to almost $ 800, he said wow, that's expensive ! Are you kidding me ?? That home is worth easily 5 million bucks, could be more, I told him right away, you can think about it, have a nice day !
It reminds me not to make any exception next time !

There are a lot houses like that around here. The funny part is that I learned who was really rich and who was over-extended by jogging through town at night.

The really rich ones had every light on inside the home, nice drapes, and rooms full of furniture. The others had the same house, but only one room lit up and rooms with very little furniture seen.

When I walk into a mansion like that, I check for the amount of furniture and then I normally get a good idea if I am going to run into the broke rich guy.

That person doesn't value your time or service DP

If I am to be honest, I LOVE working for the wealthy. It's the "middle class" people I HATE interacting with on a work level.

Those are the ones that tend to be cheap asses and time wasters. Working class here seem to have no money (unless it's play stuff like drinking or hobbies) and they think nothing of wasting your time for a "free" estimate. Then whine that it is too much for them to afford, even when you offer to break the price for cutting some work.

Sure, even with the wealthy people, you'll have some of that. But with the "working class" it seems to be a 9to1 ratio.

Tell him- you get what you pay for. Ask him how many people came to look at he job. I never give a price while I am on the estimate because:
1 I make mistakes when rushed
2 Id rather them receive a professional printed copy via email
3 They are not put on the spot and can make a decision unpressured
4. I like to have this printed on the bottom of the email- feel free to use it if you like.

PLease consider the following when evaluating this price quote
1. We came to your location and viewed the work to be done in person. We know what it will take to complete the job to your satisfaction.
2. We are an owner-operated firm. The owner, with over 30 years experience, will be there to process your work.  We will not be practicing on you job.
3. An over-the-phone quote will often turn into a bait and switch sales situation.  A low price is initially given and then "up-sold" when the firm is on location. The consumer usually ends up paying significantly more for a rushed, incomplete job.  We do not practice such techniques.
4. Our price quotes are not estimates - that is the price you will pay for the work quoted.
5. We are confident you will love our work - so much so that we offer a 100% money-back guarantee if you are not completely satisfied.

I actually use that line a lot ("We will not be practicing on your job"). It is one of my favorites and it is also very accurate these days as many are learning on the job in this industry.

having great success with over the phone soft quotes here.      Unless your job average is well over $500-700 I dont think in person makes sense..     unless you up sell very hard for other services,   or you live in a small town/ have a small tight service radius like 5 miles or so


Our job average is currently around $350 which is great,   thats about 2 hrs in the customers home max...  easily doing 3 per day.    Still doing many high ticket jobs like $700 or more.     

Rooms do vary in size so the key is to have good communication with the customers and make sure they understand the larger rooms are counted as 1.5 or 2..   or even 3 if really large.    


We have set prices for areas,   stairs,   pet stains,   etc and have gotten very good at what questions to ask.

Our market and coverage area is wayyy too large and traffic is wayyy too much of a factor to be driving around doing estimates.       If I drive somewhere were making money 100% of the time.    

Feel like were getting it down to a science and have not run into any kind of hiccup with over the phone quotes in a very long time.    

Its all communication,    90% of the time our over the phone quote lands within 15% of final bill.    

Prep email covers many situations that could turn into disagreements.

Also use Zillow.com, that site is invaluable for our industry. Most of the time I can see the house without having to go there.

That's what I usually do, over the phone quotes because LA is huge ! And traffic is so bad here !
This guy was bragging on the phone before I set an appointment for estimate up, he said "this is not an average house, this is a 8000sq ft home, that's why I need the estimate" and I got suckered into it. Never again ! I will tell the next rich bastard that brag about the size of their home to suck it up their asses and buy a friggin tape measure and measure the damn carpets themselves.

Can't the butler measure while he drives the golf cart between the master bedroom and the guest quarters?

I guess you can't find good help these days.

dp1 wrote:That's what I usually do, over the phone quotes because LA is huge ! And traffic is so bad here !
This guy was bragging on the phone before I set an appointment for estimate up, he said "this is not an average house, this is a 8000sq ft home, that's why I need the estimate" and I got suckered into it. Never again ! I will tell the next rich bastard that brag about the size of their home to suck it up their asses and buy a friggin tape measure and measure the damn carpets themselves.

Funny how some people are huh..........most wouldn't think twice for paying the mobile car washer/detailer $400 a month ($4800 a year) to come out and keep their $100k car looking good, but for them to pay $800 a year to maintain their 30 Thousand dollars of carpet they think is outrageous!.....but then again, not everyone sees their carpet daily like they do that car, gotta keep that LA image up, screw the carpet, let it go to hell! LMAO

dp1 wrote: Never again ! I will tell the next rich bastard that brag about the size of their home to suck it up their asses and buy a friggin tape measure and measure the damn carpets themselves.

That one is still ticking you DP

This would have been a perfect time to add in some selling language. Agree with him that the price was high but so was you level of quality in your work. Would have sold him right there.

Trust me on this one, smart business person would run away from him, he has no respect of other people's time ( he was late for his appointment ), these types of people will always complain no matter how good of a job you do for them and then they are going to ask for refund / partial refund.
I decided not to spend another 15 minutes to convince him about quality work because of that reason alone.