In reply to Toyman01 :
The problem with that is that even with a stupid price they sometimes still say yes and you have to deal with their ridiculous attitude/ineptitude. I had two projects that I gave sky high quotes on that both excepted and although I made three times what I would on a normal project it was no where near worth it. I'm with tr8todd, best way to deal with people is to walk away and let someone else take on the headache. You can't fix or charge enough for stupid.
An on demand and a tankless system are two totally different things. An on demand system hangs on the wall and has its own heat source. As the water passes thru it, the water is heated by either burning gas or an electrical element. These are the newest most efficient ways of making hot water. Yes they are limited in how much hot water they can make, but they meet normal requirements for a house and cost the least to run. A tankless is a coil inserted into the boiler vessel of hot water. Water goes into one end of the coil and comes out the other side hotter. The more water you use, the faster the water passes thru the coil and the less time it has to absorb heat from the boiler vessel. Remember a boiler usually runs at around 180*. You are inputting 55* or so water. It stays inside that coil for maybe 15 seconds and you are asking it to rise from 55 to 125 merely by exchanging the heat with 180* water. These are the least effective, least efficient hot water making systems there are. These require you to maintain a boiler temp of 180 year round. So middle of the summer, you have this 500 pound lump of steel filled with 180* hot water in your basement. It fires off all summer long trying to keep the boiler water at 180 just in case you call for domestic hot water. Now your AC has to work to not only cool the house but also to combat the heat loss from this giant heat sink. Even when they are new and the coil's fins are clean, they suck. Go a couple of years and the coils fins get corroded up, and they suck even more. A good one might give you one hot shower at a time in the middle of winter. A somewhat good one will give you a hot shower if you restrict the amount of cold water available for use in the shower valve. An old one and you might get to take a luke warm shower. Turn on another sink or dishwasher at the same time, and you get blasted by cold water.
Oh and as far as people tearing out high priced on demand units and going back to tanks, it happens more often than you think. Same thing with those fancy wall mounted high efficient boilers. I literally spent a day and a half fixing a very expensive 8 year old wall boiler mount last week. The owner was seriously considering ripping it off the wall and installing a new cast iron old school boiler. If the owner wasn't an acquaintance of mine, he would have been on the hook for 10 hours of labor. As it was, parts alone were expensive and it took two days to get them. That was three almost four days with no heat or hot water. How's that cast iron boiler and storage tank water heater looking now?
In reply to imgon :
I have a customer like that. Demanding, irritating, and frequently stupid. I charge them $5000 a month just to answer the phone when they call and deal with their stupidity. That is on top of the equally high hourly rate. If it doesn't make you smile every time they call, you didn't charge them enough.
I get that, take them for all you can, but somebody still has to deal with the bs. For one and done projects sometimes you just don't guess the breaking point high enough and then get stuck with them. For me I'd prefer working with normal people and not be stressed out all the time. Where I work now we have a repeat customer that always wants their projects done in unrealistic time frames, wants us to start before most of the equipment has even been ordered never mind being on site and then restricts the hours we can work in the building. More often than not they change their minds as to where the equipment ends up so we do everything twice. We charge them accordingly but is so frustrating dealing with them. It is like them asking us to build a building from the roof down, it can be done but it is not the most efficient way to do it. In the 8 years we have been doing projects for them they have not learned that they pay exponentially more than they need to or learned to plan out a project properly.
In reply to tr8todd :
That's why I defer to you. 
I know just about enough of hot water systems to replace what's there.
As far as system design is concerned it's worth it to pay the man for at least the consulting.
Modern internet thinking about customer service is odd. If they were knowledgeable in your field, they wouldn’t need you.
I’m with Toyman on this. Difficult customers are my best customers. Mostly because so many people don’t want to deal with them.
My company generally doesn’t do houses. But we did one last year for a regular customer (we’ve built 15 commercial buildings for him). “Worst” possible customer. Wife bought a house for $950K, then sunk $2.6 million more into it in renovations. House appraised for $1.4 million when it was finished. Had 2 Superintendents quit during the process because she was so aggravating.
Ok by me. Makes me more valuable for sticking with it.
And we currently have $25 million more business in the pipeline with the same customer.
Some companies would blow him off because he’s aggravating. He is loyal to us because we solve his problems, even though his biggest problem is himself (or his wife).
BTW, I threaten to fire subcontractors regularly with that attitude.
I get guys every day who ask, “How do you want me to do it?”
I ask, “What do the plans say? What does your contract say? What does the code say?”
Then I tell them THEY are the professionals, not me. Their job is to know their trade, my job is to supervise their work. If I knew everything about their trade, then I certainly wouldn’t need them.
It’s quite impressive how smart, knowledgeable, and responsible some guys seem to become instantly when told if they are unable to survive without hand-holding, I will be happy to hold their hand while I escort them off the premises.
Sometimes work is aggravating. That’s why they call it “work”. If it was always fun, they’d call it “sex”, or something.
SVreX said:That’s why they call it “work”. If it was always fun, they’d call it “sex”, or something.
I always say we "pay" to go to Disneyland because it's a lot of fun and they "pay" us to go to work because it's not always a lot of fun. See the difference?
Toyman01 said:In reply to imgon :
I have a customer like that. Demanding, irritating, and frequently stupid. I charge them $5000 a month just to answer the phone when they call and deal with their stupidity. That is on top of the equally high hourly rate. If it doesn't make you smile every time they call, you didn't charge them enough.
You're my hero. Stupidity should hurt, physically, financial, emotionally, doesn't matter as long as it hurts. Maybe then people will learn.
In reply to SVreX :
I'm looking at it as the fine distinction between customers and prospects.
I have difficult customers. They pay me well and we provide a lot of assistance to streamline their manufacturing processes, as a courtesy, often without charging for consulting time. It's in my best interest to educate them and for them to use my product efficiently so they stay a customer.
Prospects are a whole other matter. At some point they're going to have to accept that I or my organization is the expert. If they want the same level of support as our customers they need to be a customer. Completely educating them for free costs my organization resources. If they're going to go with whoever shows them something similar (not the same mind you) at either the same or a higher price point, just over a 5 year term; How does that help me grow my organization?
The0retical said:frenchyd said:Ransom said:The0retical said:Minor explanations are typically required but the moment you go further then "code says" it's a lost cause.
I generally am very happy to defer to experts, but sometimes I need to understand why. And sometimes getting "code says" feels like an evasion.
On the flip side, while it probably is an evasion sometimes, a contractor can also probably tell the difference between "I want to understand this before I blindly write the check" and "I don't like that answer, let's try a different reality."
Exactly. I sold equipment for decades and expected to explain everything Down to the last but and bolt.
Most of the time I didn’t have to because they were referrals but that knowledge served me well. To the point I was often in the company Lear Jet being flown around.
Knowing how to educate your customer without offending them is the difference between a profitable sale and “ I’ve got to get some more bids”
Sorry but I'm going to disagree. "If the customer just understood x, they would choose us." That's a refrain you hear from highly technical people in sales all the time. I know because I was/am one of them.
It works fine if you're the only fish or the biggest fish, or you need to slightly educate if your product/offering has unique design points, but if you need to educate the prospect on the very basics of the offering, it is consulting.
That sounds pretty dick but when you're competing in a space where competitors often completely co-opt your language to make it sound like their product does what yours does or the prospect is claiming someone is offering them a magic problem solving wand, it doesn't work in your favor.
I've got plenty of examples of this including one from Thursday where I made the mistake of telling a prospect that pegging inventory for long lead time jobs was a bad idea. I then explained how MRP and DRP systems worked. Since I consulted on his processes, he walked off with free knowledge on how to control inventory and manufacturing jobs that he won't heed. I can assure you he won't choose us as the solution.
Prospects love to hold their cards close, fish for information, then disappear. They're less likely to do so if you are viewed as the expert and are honest with them.
It's the same with OPs post. What's the likely hood the prospect will put in a tanked hot water heater instead of an on demand unit? From tr8todd's explanation I assume that would fix the issue (I defer to the contractors of the board on this one.) I'm betting almost zero the prospect will tear out the on demand system. But someone will sure as E36 M3 sell the prospect a $40k+ bathroom remodel and the prospect will go along with it.
Always be closing. A mantra I used every second I was selling. You have to read your customer. Are you talking to him? Connecting? His eyes will tell you and if not his eyes his body language.
Dont for one second think that Always be closing gives you license to be pushy, Ask open ended questions , questions that require answers other than yes or no.
In the case of the inadequate water heater ask if he’s sure the water heater will provide enough water, hot enough to satisfy him. If he says yes it will! Drop it, because that’s his opinion and he’s wrong but you don’t tell him that! (Leave your ego back at the office)After you close then you re-ask the question, are you sure it will give you enough hot water? Would you like a quote in case it doesn’t?
Always go for the easy close. He’s called you there because he wants something. If you give it to him it’s easy to sell him what he needs in addition. It’s hard to tell him he’s wrong and then sell him.
It can be very difficult to determine who is going to end up being a good, long term client. I have some people who have come to my shop, and you get a serious "I hate you, and all of your bullE36 M3, but my berkeleying car is still broken and you are going to berkeley me right in the ear because all mechanics are stupid thieving bastards."
Lots of those people become really good long term clients because we make their problem go away.
Others, it's almost impossible to offend enough that they will take their garbage away after they won't let you fix it.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
One of the things that still grinds my gears/chaps my ass is a negative review we got online from a customer who brought their car to us and had us diagnose it but didn't want to fix it. (It was something like blown head gaskets on a 3.4l GM cute-ute. Was turning combustion leak tester fluid bright yellow so there was no question that the heads had to come off) The negative review was something like "my car is still broken, they can't fix anything don't take your car there".
YOU DIDN'T WANT US TO FIX IT, OF COURSE IT IS STILL BERKING BROKEN.
Reminds me a lot of the time much earlier in my career when I was given a car for a brake inspection. Yep, the pads are metal to metal, it will need pads and rotors and calipers because the one is hung up. Customer said okay, give me my car back. Two days later, car comes back: "Brakes still grinding". Pull it in to see what whatever backyarder they took it to berked up: Nothing. Nothing was done, it's still the same worn out brakes and stuck caliper.
"But I paid $45, that didn't fix it???" No. $45 was the charge to inspect the car and make an estimate, you declined the $400 (or whatever, hell it was over 20 years ago) charge to fix it.
In reply to The0retical :
I have absolutely no disagreement with the difference between prospects and customers. It’s important to learn how to tell the difference.
But you are in software sales, where conversion rates are often below 5%. Conversion rates in construction frequently exceed 90%.
The issue isn’t whether they are a prospect or a customer. The issue is how do you convert them to a customer.
Frenchy makes a lot of good points.
SVreX said:It’s quite impressive how smart, knowledgeable, and responsible some guys seem to become instantly when told if they are unable to survive without hand-holding, I will be happy to hold their hand while I escort them off the premises.
That's an interesting one. I don't have any insight into the building trades, but I've noticed in a lot of places that even simple decisions are being escalated way to high in the hierarchy than one would think necessary. I'm not sure if it's fear of lawsuits, CYA or whatever else, but I've worked at places where the CTO or CEO was literally dictating code to people after exactly prescribing how they needed to solve a specific problem.
And that wasn't because the person was incompetent or the CEO's solution was so brilliant - in fact, neither of the two were the absolute truth. But a culture like that fosters questions along the lines of "how many corners do you want me to cut today?".
In reply to SVreX :
Valid. I have a bit of a different outlook since most of what I sell is intangible. I got drawn in a bit further than I intended.
Even in construction though, you're not going to go into the base level methodology of how to perform a job because that service is part of what you're trying to sell. If the customer was asking for the flow calculations for the new piping system for the bathroom and how sweat pipes, you probably would understand that they're pumping you for info. (Again, examples I'm not a subject matter expert here.) At that point you need to make the evaluation if there is even anything that can be done to convert that prospect to a customer.
It's the same with my industry, just less tangible.
I have a tankless system and absolutely love it. I get as much water as I want and it has capacities to keep up with the huge tub and shower at the same time. Capacity is the key to any tankless system.
You guys ought to be in the mortgage business if you think you've got people who don't understand.
One unfortunate thing about the modern age is everyone is an expert when it comes to construction and some of the stuff is absolutely batE36 M3, Concrete countertops are apparently huge on pintrest now because i get some odd requests... like 4 inches thick with a 12 inch water fall edge, not polished or finished because "we all know you dont need to really do that". When i explained that concrete was heavy, you have to polish, and seal it, i got "just dont use rock for aggregate, use like....oatmeal"
Holy. berkeleying. E36 M3balls
BoxheadTim said:SVreX said:It’s quite impressive how smart, knowledgeable, and responsible some guys seem to become instantly when told if they are unable to survive without hand-holding, I will be happy to hold their hand while I escort them off the premises.
That's an interesting one. I don't have any insight into the building trades, but I've noticed in a lot of places that even simple decisions are being escalated way to high in the hierarchy than one would think necessary. I'm not sure if it's fear of lawsuits, CYA or whatever else, but I've worked at places where the CTO or CEO was literally dictating code to people after exactly prescribing how they needed to solve a specific problem.
And that wasn't because the person was incompetent or the CEO's solution was so brilliant - in fact, neither of the two were the absolute truth. But a culture like that fosters questions along the lines of "how many corners do you want me to cut today?".
I was selling Forklifts to Ford and noticed they were horribly inefficient in getting parts to the line. We had a solution with a two year payback that would make the line massively more efficient.
This was the Ford Plant in St Paul. ( built Ford Rangers) It had always been profitable for Ford but they were determined to close it.
So even though they could quickly profit they refused to make the investment.
Knurled. said:In reply to Streetwiseguy :
One of the things that still grinds my gears/chaps my ass is a negative review we got online from a customer who brought their car to us and had us diagnose it but didn't want to fix it. (It was something like blown head gaskets on a 3.4l GM cute-ute. Was turning combustion leak tester fluid bright yellow so there was no question that the heads had to come off) The negative review was something like "my car is still broken, they can't fix anything don't take your car there".
YOU DIDN'T WANT US TO FIX IT, OF COURSE IT IS STILL BERKING BROKEN.
Reminds me a lot of the time much earlier in my career when I was given a car for a brake inspection. Yep, the pads are metal to metal, it will need pads and rotors and calipers because the one is hung up. Customer said okay, give me my car back. Two days later, car comes back: "Brakes still grinding". Pull it in to see what whatever backyarder they took it to berked up: Nothing. Nothing was done, it's still the same worn out brakes and stuck caliper.
"But I paid $45, that didn't fix it???" No. $45 was the charge to inspect the car and make an estimate, you declined the $400 (or whatever, hell it was over 20 years ago) charge to fix it.
Cars are different. Most people only see them as expenses. Houses tend to involve wants rather than needs. Especially when contractors are called.
Try working on people.
I'll bet. Cars don't flinch when you stick your finger in their tailpipe.
docwyte said:Try working on people.
how much for a 3rd arm doc?
Antihero said:One unfortunate thing about the modern age is everyone is an expert when it comes to construction and some of the stuff is absolutely batE36 M3, Concrete countertops are apparently huge on pintrest now because i get some odd requests... like 4 inches thick with a 12 inch water fall edge, not polished or finished because "we all know you dont need to really do that". When i explained that concrete was heavy, you have to polish, and seal it, i got "just dont use rock for aggregate, use like....oatmeal"
Holy. berkeleying. E36 M3balls
I'm trying to figure out what sort of disaster would happen if you mixed Portland cement with oatmeal. This seems like it would be somewhere between "falls apart in one month" and "burns even when underwater."
My fil runs the labs at a large industrial firm that sells a lot of stuff to the concrete industry. There is actually a concrete product that uses styrofoam balls instead of rock as aggregate and it is very light with almost all the same properties of concrete.
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