Time Wasters

[Lonsdale73]

I'm sure there are worse examples of human life however time wasters are the bane of my life!

 

[Fitzroy]

Tell me more, I'm interested.....

 

[Lonsdale73]

Take your pick! From people who book me for commissioned work then either cancel at the last minute leaving me unable to fill the now vacant slot (and that's the ones who have the relative decency to cancel rather than let me turn up to find they're nowhere to be seen) to those who visit my website then ring to ask prices that are all listed on the website. Then there's the ebay; the derisory offers on items hat aren't even listed as 'or best offer' to the 'can you make the 100 mile round trip to deliver the item you have as a buy it now for £10 at no extra cost?', the "can I collect?" that never turns up, the 'is this still available' who, on learning that it is indeed still available seems to adopt an 'if it's not good enough for them...' attitude (something I'm seeing more of on here too!)

And since you're from Aberdeen, I'll add Ryan "I'm definitely not signing for newco" Jack.

 

[MrDavidRoberts]

I'm fairly sure these forums are even bigger time-wasters...hence I have installed a software to limit my forum/junk site visiting to max 15minutes/day in total.
Why did I posted this... I'm not even sure.

 

[katellwood]

Why not take a deposit upon booking at least you will get some recompense should they cancel

 

[marcros]

I have installed a software to limit my forum/junk site visiting to max 15minutes/day in total.

I for one certainly appreciate that.

 

[Lonsdale73]

Why not take a deposit upon booking at least you will get some recompense should they cancel

Blood from stone springs to mind. As an example, I was approached by a young lady about a commission for her and four friends. Two dropped out as soon as they realised they'd have to pay anything upfront but three were 'defiantly' (should have rejected the commission on that basis alone!) up for it, right up till the point when deposit was required when they too backed out. I'd like to say that was the exception but more and more it's the norm. Another is "What's your day rate?" and when I ask "Do you pay one?" the answer is always - and I mean ALWAYS - 'No!' so I wonder why they bother asking? Other than to waste my time.

 

[sunnybob]

I worked for myself for several years. I understand your pain.
Sadly there will never be a cure for the disease known as "people"

 

[powertools]

It would seem to me that you have just entered the world of business.

 

[Lonsdale73]

It would seem to me that you have just entered the world of business.

If only.....

Sadly, been doing it a long, long time and it never gets any better. People are people wherever you go and whatever you do.

 

[dynax]

Reminds me of a time when i was doing a job for someone, it got to a point where i really couldn't be bothered about doing it as wasted so much time trying to get them to make up their minds with what they wanted, anyway i started talking to their parrot, and in the end the parrot made all their decisions, even got a bonus as it was just what they wanted :?

 

[RobinBHM]

I get people that deliberately using me as a design service to provide them a drawing of an orangery which they then give to their builder to copy.

Or I get people who want a design, which they put into planning so they can sel, their house with planning permission for an orangery. These sometimes have an estate agents board out when you go round......

Or, I do a site visit, a design drawing, a quote email it off and never get even a reply. Slightly annoying when its probably cost the best part of £200

The worst thing is customers thst choose a small company with the knowledge that their contracts, terms and conditions and credit control are likely to be less robust than a large national company. That way they can aim to get away without paying for part of the job.

I now research potential customers as much as I can. For intance a local enquiry was for a huge orangery 12m x 6m. On searching the web I discovered he ran a big development company that had left a string of unpaid contractors. Subsequently I heard from a tiler that had worked on his house, yup he did loads of extras, didnt get paid. In fact the customers tore up the extras invoice in front of the tiler.

 

[Lonsdale73]

I get people that deliberately using me as a design service to provide them a drawing of an orangery which they then give to their builder to copy.

Or I get people who want a design, which they put into planning so they can sel, their house with planning permission for an orangery. These sometimes have an estate agents board out when you go round......

Or, I do a site visit, a design drawing, a quote email it off and never get even a reply. Slightly annoying when its probably cost the best part of £200

The worst thing is customers thst choose a small company with the knowledge that their contracts, terms and conditions and credit control are likely to be less robust than a large national company. That way they can aim to get away without paying for part of the job.

I now research potential customers as much as I can. For intance a local enquiry was for a huge orangery 12m x 6m. On searching the web I discovered he ran a big development company that had left a string of unpaid contractors. Subsequently I heard from a tiler that had worked on his house, yup he did loads of extras, didnt get paid. In fact the customers tore up the extras invoice in front of the tiler.

I spent many years working in print and we had one customer who would regularly request 'a proof for approval'. It was a horrendous job to set up with loads of waste to produce just the one copy. Oddly enough, it would never ever get approval and a month or two later it would come back in 'with amendment' for another proof. It was never an amendment, it was always a completely redesigned job. This went on for three years or so till someone finally listened to me and investigation revealed our 'client' was offering these as limited edition print runs so the proof was actually the order which he was getting for free and then selling on for a ridiculous amount! Not sure if that qualifies as entrepreneurial acumen or plain sneaky barsteward - I know which way I'd vote on that.

 

[tomatwark]

My policy is no deposit no job.

Also with kitchens no interim payment after manufacture no install.

However thing I hate like Robin is drawing and pricing for a job and then finding that the customer has gone elsewhere but used your plans.

I now give a rendered image with the estimate and don't give any dimensioned drawings for builders and electricians etc until I have the deposit.

This means if someone else nicks my ideas they then have to do the drawings to make it.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

An acquaintance I met a few days ago was driving a Tesco delivery van. I asked how long he'd done it, and said five years - he'd had two heart attacks from the stress of chasing bad debts, so had given it up. He was a bl00dy good builder.
A friend of swmbo who fitted our last bathroom (a flawless job) told me he had had only two bad debts in twenty years - one a solicitor, and one an accountant.

 

[murdoch]

My experience has been that payment problems are usually the business owners fault and not the customers. You can be highly skilled and do a flawless job whilst also being a rubbish business man who's always whinging about bad customers. As soon as you realise that your the problem, you can do something about it.

 

[Lonsdale73]

My experience has been that payment problems are usually the business owners fault and not the customers. You can be highly skilled and do a flawless job whilst also being a rubbish business man who's always whinging about bad customers. As soon as you realise that your the problem, you can do something about it.

I freely acknowledge that I'm a very poor salesman and don't do anywhere near enough self promotion, blowing one's own trumpet was most definitely not encouraged as part of my upbringing! I see some of my peers doing much better than me - or at least appearing to be - and it's not because they're any better at what we do than I am (in many cases they're most definitely nowhere near as good!) but they are much better at selling themselves and networking. As one of them told me "It's not what you know, it's who."

An ex-girlfriend and a good friend have a record of being offered every job they've ever been interviewed for. Neither of them would claim to be more intelligent nor better qualified - not that either of them are stupid - but both ooze self confidence and have a "Of course I can do that" attitude, whether or not they can actually do it.

However, time wasters and problem customers are the problem of the poor mug subjected to them, not the fault of said poor mug.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

My experience has been that payment problems are usually the business owners fault and not the customers. You can be highly skilled and do a flawless job whilst also being a rubbish business man who's always whinging about bad customers. As soon as you realise that your the problem, you can do something about it.

I'd like to tell my friend that, but I value my teeth too much. I find that statement seriously ludicrous. :roll:

 

[murdoch]

All I can say is that I used to have the same problems until I sorted myself out and learnt to qualify customers and be firm with our t&c's. we know no longer have bad debts or problem customers as we can spot them and gently guide them somewhere else. It has nothing to do with blowing my own trumpet or promoting myself, just learning to not let people waste my time. I highly recommend entrleadership by Dave Ramsey for anyone in business, talks about these issues and how to deal with them.

 

[Lonsdale73]

All I can say is that I used to have the same problems until I sorted myself out and learnt to qualify customers and be firm with our t&c's. we know no longer have bad debts or problem customers as we can spot them and gently guide them somewhere else. It has nothing to do with blowing my own trumpet or promoting myself, just learning to not let people waste my time. I highly recommend entrleadership by Dave Ramsey for anyone in business, talks about these issues and how to deal with them.

I guess you're talking about getting paid for work already done? One of the problems I have is with people cancelling the commission before I've had chance to do the work and this is happening more now since I've 'sorted' myself out and stipulated payment up front. Previously I'd complete the booking then they wouldn't buy anything. In joinery, do you often find yourself losing out to amateurs, side-liners and wannabes offering their service for free, to get experience? Do you have hobbyists picking your brains to 'get more out of' their hobby, when getting more actually means eroding your sales by flooding the market with poor quality but free product? How would Mr Ramsey advise dealing with such scenarios?