Gino
Premium Subscriber
Didn't see this category, so I just invented it.
Okay, I've been one for a long time, telling people not to throw away customers and I usually come up with many reasons why not to, but I had one last week, actually almost 2 weeks ago that I just got a little tired of tiptoeing around.
We went into this vendor/customer deal about 10 or 11 years ago. We did some very nice jobs for them. Hand painted walls, some big signs and other things. In the last two years or so, the jobs have dwindled down to about zipp-O. The only ones we got were very low paying jobs. We'd bid on some nice jobs, kept our pricing where it had been to get the early ones, but things just never seemed to work out anymore. Abut a year ago, had a conversation with my 2 contacts and asked why we only got the little stuff and the big stuff was still being done, but not by us ?? Oh, the others are just bidding a little better than you. Yeah, right. On the $400 and $500 jobs, but not the jobs for $10,000 or $15,000. I asked about a very recent one and I was told, the other guy beat me by about $100....... on an $18,000 job. I told him point blank, I think someone is getting kickbacks. Man..... did he get all kindsa tongue-tied. He stammered out excuses and told me I'd get the next job. Well, the next one came and while it was for about $4,500, they gave me 2 PO's for it, but I bid one quote number. They didn't pay within the terms of our quote. Called their A/P department and got a song and dance of their payment methods. Whoa..... Nellie, we never agreed to these new terms. Got a partial payment, called and asked what was up and the A/P office said they only had a sign-off on 1 PO. Wha ?? Called Frank [my contact] and he said he'd have to check into it. It now seems if you don't have an invoice with an accompanying PO# in by the 5th of the month, it gets set aside til the end of that month and put in for payment after 30 more days. They can get as much as almost 60 days to make payment. Doesn't sound like a lot to some of you, but the terms were never such. We have no one with 60 day terms, let alone many at 30 days. Can we do it ?? Sure, but we discuss it first. They are doing business with us, so they either heed our terms or we give them a new quoting set up. Finally got paid and get a load of this........ they transposed some numbers and shortchanged us by like $383.00 or so. Had to wait almost another week for that mistake.
Had a request to quote again. Sent in the quote and didn't hear a thing. I raised the prices, changed my terms and in a most delightful way indicated we won't be doing business any longer, unless they meet our terms. fat chance of that.
So, I guess I am now guilty of 'FIRING A CUSTOMER'.
Okay, I've been one for a long time, telling people not to throw away customers and I usually come up with many reasons why not to, but I had one last week, actually almost 2 weeks ago that I just got a little tired of tiptoeing around.
We went into this vendor/customer deal about 10 or 11 years ago. We did some very nice jobs for them. Hand painted walls, some big signs and other things. In the last two years or so, the jobs have dwindled down to about zipp-O. The only ones we got were very low paying jobs. We'd bid on some nice jobs, kept our pricing where it had been to get the early ones, but things just never seemed to work out anymore. Abut a year ago, had a conversation with my 2 contacts and asked why we only got the little stuff and the big stuff was still being done, but not by us ?? Oh, the others are just bidding a little better than you. Yeah, right. On the $400 and $500 jobs, but not the jobs for $10,000 or $15,000. I asked about a very recent one and I was told, the other guy beat me by about $100....... on an $18,000 job. I told him point blank, I think someone is getting kickbacks. Man..... did he get all kindsa tongue-tied. He stammered out excuses and told me I'd get the next job. Well, the next one came and while it was for about $4,500, they gave me 2 PO's for it, but I bid one quote number. They didn't pay within the terms of our quote. Called their A/P department and got a song and dance of their payment methods. Whoa..... Nellie, we never agreed to these new terms. Got a partial payment, called and asked what was up and the A/P office said they only had a sign-off on 1 PO. Wha ?? Called Frank [my contact] and he said he'd have to check into it. It now seems if you don't have an invoice with an accompanying PO# in by the 5th of the month, it gets set aside til the end of that month and put in for payment after 30 more days. They can get as much as almost 60 days to make payment. Doesn't sound like a lot to some of you, but the terms were never such. We have no one with 60 day terms, let alone many at 30 days. Can we do it ?? Sure, but we discuss it first. They are doing business with us, so they either heed our terms or we give them a new quoting set up. Finally got paid and get a load of this........ they transposed some numbers and shortchanged us by like $383.00 or so. Had to wait almost another week for that mistake.
Had a request to quote again. Sent in the quote and didn't hear a thing. I raised the prices, changed my terms and in a most delightful way indicated we won't be doing business any longer, unless they meet our terms. fat chance of that.
So, I guess I am now guilty of 'FIRING A CUSTOMER'.