Highest bidder wins

I’ve been cleaning windows for 20+ years now and ran into something very interesting today. I bid a job early this morning (50 panes @$425), guy countered me at $400 (only second time it has ever happened but I said yes) but he seemed a bit scared on the price, said he’d call me back when his wife got home. We went to the next job and were finished by noon and I was perfectly happy to be finished for the day. I decided to call the guy back and say I could come over after lunch and he said yes. At the end of the job he says will you give me a 10% discount for cash (I’ve never been offered this scenario but I took it anyway)? The two of us got the job done in less than 2 hours for $360 so I can’t complain. After he paid me, he said another guy had offered to do his house for $250 and then he dropped it to $125 (I know the guy he’s an idiot). Turns out the customer owned his own masonry business in the 70’s with over 50 employees and was evidently able to retire in his 50’s which is what the decor in his house looked like. Anyhow he was super nice, we traded a few business stories, and he said I could come back.

1 Like

Seems that by the other guy willing to go that low on a 50 pane job gave this a big red flag to the customer. I am assuming the customer looked at this scenario from a business perspective view, knowing the work wasn’t going to end up very well if the other guy was willing to work for pennies. He would rather pay more feeling comfortable, and confident that you knew what you were doing because your pricing was higher.