Closing A Job To An Out Of Town Customer?

csv

I got a call from someone out of town to bid on a remodel project. He had someone in town open up the house and go over the list of things needing completed. I worked it up and called the owner asking if it was possible to come in to town and do a walk through, since it was way more work than he said over the phone. He came over and we did the walk through. I told him what it would it take. He added a some addtional things and wanted me to fax him over the bid.

So I typed it up and faxed over to him with the addtional items and it raised the price by about 25% from the orginal estimate. The orginal number seemed to be in the ballpark he wanted. I called him a couple days later to see if he had a chance to review it and if he had any questions. He said he hadnt had time to review it and would call me at the end of the week.

Well the week ended and no call. How should I approach this from here? I gave him the bottom line price. Should I give a broke down version?

Darwin

The budget he may have had in his head didn't match up to what you came up with. Happens all the time. All is not truly lost, unless this guy was price shopping-- which I suspect because he had a proxy to open the home to you.

Customers and people in general will never tell you the truth when it comes to their money issues. They would just rather leave you hanging. While hanging there, ask this prospect what his budget is for this project and decide if it is realistic.

Call - no! - email/fax him! asking those important questions which you should have asked before you drove all the way over there and burned up your gas! Then call and ask him to check his email. Don't give him a breakdown! he he.. unless you feel pressured

Good Luck.

csv

I am not sure he was price shopping. He lives 200+ miles away is why he had someone open the home to me. He did drive over after i said it would be better for him to come over and we can go over the scope of work he wanted done.

Darwin

ok, i got you csv. Most property owners are hands-on, so i found it strange that this H/O would have someone else show you the house! (If I was serious about getting remodeling work done, i would have met with you in personny)...

but that's just me..

Still I think you can take the correspondence between both parties further and possibly get a contract signed, but you just have to find out what the H/O true motives are:

Just checking on price?

trying to use your bid for a leverage with another contractor?

is H/O getting more than 1 other bid? 2 bids are great if H/O pre-qualifies both contractors. 3 bids (estimates) or more is a terrible sign!

If the guy said he would call in a week and didn't, you and your company may not be a priority. Make yourself thee priority. Go sale that job!

davitk

I was supposed to call somebody on Monday, the week got out of hand and didn't. Doesn't mean anything other than I used poor time management.

Give him a call.

csv

I get what you are saying. Thats one of the reasons I only gave him a bottom line price. If he is shopping my numbers he is shopping the package deal. I know he needs to have the work done. It is unliveable in current form and pretty much unsellable.