Discounts

Customers will ask for discounts for all types of reasons. This is a toss up. You don't go to the grocery store, load up your cart with groceries and then ask for a discount when you check out.

Veterans, law enforcement officers, senior citizens, are the most common requested discounts. Keep in mind that some senior citizens have a ton of money stashed away in the bank. Retired engineers, retired NASA employees, retired financial brokers, you name it. Even a veteran who is retired that is earning his full retirement and working as a CEO of a company will ask for a discount.

You will be asked for discounts even on the smallest jobs such as 300 dollar patch jobs.

In my experience, the best thing to do is to set your margin as reasonable as you can so that you can succeed, pay your bills, and grow the company. If someone doesn't value the service that you offer for the price point that you are charging, then so be it.

On the other hand if you can afford to provide a discount to your customers and still make enough money to survive then by all means go right ahead. Just a word of caution, this doesn't always lead to future business. Some people just want to get something done as cheap as they can. We call those the one and done.