Dustin Cook said:
You don't deal with people who question your rate?
That's correct. If I detect hesitation I tell them thanks anyway, but I'm not
interested. I charge good money for good service. I give a 60 day guarantee
on my work. I give free phone support (within reason) after the job. I
refuse to bargain with people.
It's not ego at play here, either. It's experience. People who hesitate
about the price will never be happy. They'll watch the clock. They'll ask if
what I'm doing is really necessary. They'll hover, they'll question
everything. And their checks bounce.
Or ask any restauranteur who's done the 2-for-1 coupons. They bring in the
bottom feeders. People who shop for price give you 90% of the headaches.
I've had my current "take a hike" policy for about 7 of the past 9 years.
Since then I've had only one check bounce out of a couple thousand, and the
guy apologized and paid me back within a couple days. On those rare occasions
when I bill out (net 30) I usally get paid within 15 days.
I learned this when I was in the telephone call center (answering service)
business years ago. I hired only the best telephone operators and charged
nearly double what our competitors charged. My company was called Pacific
Answering and it was legendary in San Francisco. It served as the basis for
Proxy Message Centers, a national call center company that was backed by
Federal Express.
Anyhow, we violated every rule in the books about answering services. First,
we wouldn't sign up doctors. Doctors are the bread and butter of answering
services. But I found them difficult to work with, they didn't pay their
bills on time, they dicked me about prices, and they bitched about everything.
I hired only the best employees and didn't want to subject them to bad
customers.
Besides being legendary for our high prices and our refusal to put doctors on
the service, we were legendary for our service. We would do anything within
our power to get the message to the client. If we'd gotten wong info from a
caller, such as a wrong callback number, we'd go to extreme lengths to make it
right, and it was policy that if we mangled the message badly we'd give an
entire month of service free. And anybody in the company was authorized to do
this.
And, no, I wouldn't fire someone if they messed up. I realized they were
trying to do their best. Yeah, once in awhile we ate it with our guarantee,
but people loved us so much that they'd often refuse to accept the free month!
Thus, Pacific Answering had customers such as CBS, Wells Fargo, Bank of
America, Eller Outdoor Advertising, TV Guide, etc.
Well, that same standard of excellence I used in building Pacific is what I
apply to my current business. And the first order of business is that I send
the bottom feeders elsewhere.
