The wealthy customer

Have you ever heard of the 80/20 rule?  How about the 95/5 rule?  I have provided thousands of estimates for customers over the past 6 years.  There is that old saying that the richest are the cheapest.  What I am writing is based off my experiences.  This is based off actual statistics.  That is where I have applied my own 95/5 rule here.  Meaning that yes, I would have to say 95 percent of the wealthiest are definitely the cheapest.  Meaning that they don’t see value in the service that you are offering at the price point you are offering.  They don’t care if you are insured and have five-star reviews flying out of your butt like stars in the night sky.  They don’t care how many decades of experience you have or your employees have.  All they care about is how cheap they can get it.  

They can have multi-million-dollar houses and several hundred-thousand-dollar cars in the driveway and they will turn down a 300 dollar or 800-dollar job in a heartbeat.  I went to a customer’s home one time and it was over a million dollars.  He had a Maserati in the driveway with personalized plates.  When I entered the house the voice inside my head said holly shit batman, look at this place.  Then I mentioned that I am Veteran owned.  He quickly stated, hey I am a veteran too.  Do I get a veteran discount?  Again, the voice inside my head was saying as loud as it could, are you freaking kidding me?  How about you give the poor veteran owned business man a leg up?  Unbelievable! Man, I have a crapload of stories about how the wealthy look down their nose at the little contractor, and nickel and dime you to death!  I would include them all but then this narrative would be like about a thousand pages. 

I had another customer with monstrous house.  The house was stupid big. The main room when entering the house was over 1500 square feet with 20-foot ceilings. She didn’t like the entrance/foyer to her residence so she spending tens of thousands of dollars to re-design it.  I went there to provide her with an estimate for some of the work and I noticed that she had some construction debris in her driveway.  I mentioned to her that I use a young man that provides outstanding service at reasonable prices.  I told her that for very small amounts he usually starts his pricing at 150.  Long story short, it was a substantial amount of debris and she called him to come get it.  She didn’t want to pay him.  She finally paid him only 150.  Talk about cheap!  He spent hours loading up, hauling off, and the dump fee.  Super professional, super clean.  Hell, you could have eaten off her driveway after he cleaned it all up.  Needless to say, I stayed the hell away from that customer.  Pathetic!

There was another multi million-dollar house in a gate neighborhood that wanted a bid for a fence rebuild.  It was a large custom-built fence.  The house had a stunning pool and super expensive vehicles.  He didn’t want to pay a margin of 800 dollars.  Honestly, it’s best to just walk away from something like this.  You are in the business to make money.  Working for break even or cost will not allow you to pay your bills. 

There are the ones that want to negotiate the bid.  The live in a 6,000 square foot home and you give them an estimate for repairs for $5,500.00.  They offer you 4K.  Geeze, really?  The bid is what it is because we have to make margin to pay the bills and run the business.  Or they offer to pay cash.  But less than the amount of the bid.  Cash, check, credit, it’s all the same.  A dollar is a dollar no matter what form it comes in.  So, less dollars don’t pay the bills, salaries, or operating expenses.  If someone doesn’t value your service then move on. 

I have plenty of these stories from a guy with 7,000 square foot home to another guy who brags about selling his business for 500 million and is cheap as the dirt you walk on.

Now, the five percent is a horse of another color.  I have to give credit where credit is due.  I have a handful of very wealthy customers that are beyond wonderful.  They are kind, polite, understanding, friendly and treat you just like you are a normal human being.  They value you and they make you go home feeling like you are on top of the world. Now before you start judging, I am basing my comments off real time situations among the wealthiest customers I have met.  I will say this, you sure as hell will absolutely love and cherish those really wealthy customers that treat you with such respect.  In return you just have so much respect for them as well.