bellerose said:
How do you handle something like that ? If you give a quote and don't hear do you go back and give a quote for another job ?
No. No way, no how, never.
I just went through this last month. The guy had me look at two different jobs. I quoted him on the smaller one and we discussed the bigger one.
About 4 weeks later he called me and wanted to know if I would now come out and quote him on the bigger one.
I asked him "What happened on the smaller job that I quoted you on already, I never heard back from you on that one." He answered, "We ended up going with somebody else because he was cheaper."
So I told him "I don't think it is in my companies best interest to spend any time quoting your second job." He stuttered a few times and asked why? I told him, "If you didn't see the value of us doing the first job there is no reason for me to believe you will suddenly see the value of us doing the second one. Thanks anyways." At that of course he had to repair his now damaged ego and started stuttering and stammering about how it must be nice to be so busy you don't need to talk to people ready to have you work on a project for them...
That's when I cut him off 1/2 way through his sentence and told him again much firmer. "Thanks but no thanks, have a good day. Good-bye." click.
The answer to why you shouldn't bother with this customer is quite clear:
If he didn't see the value of you doing the first job there is no reason for you to believe he will suddenly see the value of you doing the second one.
But if you have a lot of time on your hands go for it, I'm sure one in a million of these guys actually gets his head out of his butt.
The flip side to all this could be that maybe you really do suck at selling your companies services since both quotes were within a few hundred dollars. If that's the case, you need to do some soul searching and figure out your weakness.
Regardless the answer is still No to wasting anymore time. He already has an establish rapport and relationship with the guy who got your first job, chances are now all he is doing is using your quote to keep the other guy honest.
Of course you could be a real jerk and come back with a ridiculously low quote just to jack with the other guy, then drag your feet for months and months about starting it, of course you never start it and just muck up the homeowners life for as long as you can. But that would be a pretty nasty trick to pull.