“You’re too expensive!” was the cry from a potential customer whom we’d been stalking for a while. As it wasn’t the first time we’d heard this claim we did have some experience of how to try to talk him around.
“As a matter of interest, how much is the property going for?” “Oh, about one and a quarter” (million that is), came the reply. “And what do you pay to park a skip outside the door?” “Outside the door? You must be kidding! We can get one around the corner on a bay and pay full parking charges 24/7.” (That’s well over £2,000 per year and the new landfill tax has bumped up the price of a skip!)
“How about labour, is it getting any easier?” “Easier? Leave it out! You take what you get and pay top whack, but if they can find a reason to stop then they will.”
“So getting the right quality, on time with a quick crane offload isn’t worth having then?” “It’s vital! I can’t afford to have that mob standing around for a spare minute and I’m on penalty clauses here!”
The rest is pretty obvious (we lost the sale!), but seriously, it happens all the time. The whole set-up is so price oriented and yet the bigger picture proves that timber prices have hardly moved for years, while property values, rent, rates, haulage and labour costs have climbed beyond belief.
It’s worth asking customers what the timber content represents as a percentage of the total property or contract value and then work from there. It’ll probably be a small percentage of the package, so you find you’re arguing over a few pence per metre, when delivery time, quality, waste and all the other pieces are far more important.
Still, there we are, must get on with a bit of work as there’s a supplier coming in to see us later. He’s probably looking to try and raise his prices, but I can tell you now, he’s too expensive!
