My job hunt was a huge bust, that's why I am now back to taking leads from my company, that being said, I am still actively seeking and applying, and the timing now is actually perfect for me because of how many projects I have on hand right now, which is close to zero.
For the first time in 3 years since I joined the company, I can actually see myself run out of projects to do, in the past, I would always have a few on the back burner, waiting to start months later, but this time, I literally have none, after I am done with my friend's project, I will no longer have any new ones that will be tying me down to this company.
A few days ago, a client I had met in the beginning of the year suddenly reached out to me and requested to meet again, I was a little surprise because the last time I met up with her and her husband, it was 3 months back, I had prepared a quote for them and ran through everything in person that time, and for me, the way I work is simple, I will give you all that you need for you to make a decision as a homeowner, you have my quotation and you have my proposal, I have done my part, if you are interested, then you will reach out to me, if not, then it was just not meant to be. I am not the type who will give the customer a call every few days to ask if they have made their decision yet because that is generally how a lot of Interior Designers in my line of work do things, just keeping in constant contact with the customer until the project is clinched or they get rejected. I try not to do that because I just find it very irritating, if I was the customer and the 5 interior designers that I have visited kept messaging me on a daily basis asking me to keep them updated on my decision, I will probably block their number, so I didn't do that to most of my customers unless I really really want to take their project, which honestly speaking only happened once and that particular customer ended up becoming a great source for new referrals, but anyways, because I wasn't reached out by them after the last meet up for 3 months, I pretty much dropped them as potential customers and deleted their number from my phone. I even vividly remember the last time we met, they were really interested but said among themselves...
"The price is a bit too high though..."
... so I also kinda knew that if I wanted to get their project, I would have to lower my price, which I wasn't willing to at that point because my price is the market average, I am not charging them higher than usual, the problem isn't with my quotation, the problem is with their budget.
Anyways, when the wife messaged me again recently, I had already deleted her contact so I had no idea who it was, luckily, the wife had a picture of her face as her display picture of her Whatsapp, so I instantly remembered who she was and she requested to meet on site with her husband. Their apartment is in the East, I live in the West, so location wise, this project was already sounding like a huge hassle to me.
My personal rule when it comes to doing projects that are located at an inconvenient location is simple, I don't take them.
I am a worry wort, I get stressed out very easily, when a client messages me about areas in the renovation they are unsatisfied with, my first instinct is to drop everything if I can and head to the site to assess the situation myself, if a sub-con tells me they have an issue that requires my clarification, even if it can be discussed over the phone, I would rather go to site and talk in person, happens all the time. They would call me and ask about something, I will tell them what they need to know, sit around at home or in the office for 15 minutes, mulling about whether I should head down to site to make sure everything is okay, and then pack up and head to site to make sure everything is okay in person, even though the sub-cons already have the answers they need to proceed with their work.
Anyways, because I really like these two clients as individuals, I agreed to the site meeting, we are able to click really well and they share the same sentiment, that is why despite the fact that they were able to find other Interior Design companies who were able to quote them at a lower rate than me, they still came back to me and requested a meet up.
So I don't take project that are located at an inconvenient location, but if I were to do it, there were certain conditions that are needed to be met.
1. I need to click really well with the customer, I need to like them enough to make me even want to consider taking on the hassle.
2. I needed to earn a generous amount of commission from it to make it worth the hassle.
... over the course of the last 5 months, I have met 2 clients who have projects that are located way too far for me to even consider, and those 2 were both equally unpleasant, one was the brick walls I met back in December and the other is actually Mr Antoinette's friend who was just demanding and very unpleasant to talk to via Whatsapp. If you are getting a free quotation, you don't get to have the privilege of giving me a deadline, it just reeks of entitlement, and I fucking hate that smell on clients who haven't sign a contract with me yet.
The brick walls actually reached out and wanted to meet, but I had to find an excuse to turn them down because I would just be looking for trouble if I actually took on their project.
Mr Antoinette's Friend went so far as to create a Whatsapp group, the only people who do that are the ones who are sure they want to engage me, I honestly am not sure where they were with their decision when they created the group chat, but that group chat has been silent since I updated the quote back in January, once I have gotten the Antoinette to pay up the final payment and officially complete that project, I am going to remove myself from his friends' Whatsapp group to let him know indirectly that I am not interested to take his project, because if I were to actually take on the project, I don't need to have good foresight to know that the Mr Antoinette's friend is going to be a complete and fucking utter nightmare to work with.
Anyways, I digress.
So the two clients showed me the quotations they had gotten from other Interior Design firms and they were all cheaper than mine, all the firms they had visited and receive quotes from are firms with huge reputations, my interior design firm is also pretty big as well, so this was not about which company is the best, but purely on who they liked more and they obviously liked me a lot more than the other Interior Designers they met from the other firms because otherwise, they wouldn't have bothered reaching out, they could have just signed a contract with one of the other design firms.
I took a copy of one the quotation from the other design firm to bring back to study, I could tell that the clients really wanted to engage me but my price was "too steep" for them, so I told them I will do my best to match the price and hopefully within a few days, can present them with some good news.
Well, attempting to match the price proved to be impossible.
The price was way too low and I was not comfortable going that low, especially because the location of the apartment was not exactly ideal for me. I tried to go as low as I could but my figures were still a few thousand dollars short, if I actually matched it figure for figure, my personal commission will be taking at least a $1000 cut, which I am simply not willing to sacrifice.
I also believe that the other design firm will have some sort of trick up their sleeves to earn that money back after the client signs up with them because once the homeowners are locked into the contract, the designers can and will very likely start adding in additional items, also known as "hidden cost', looking at the quote they shared with me, I already noticed a few key items were excluded from the quote and labelled as "optional", all in an attempt to lower the final figures.
I actually prepared my quote based on what the other design firm quoted them, and also did what they did by taking out key items and listing them as optional, I then send the quote to the client and wrote that I had already done my best but simply couldn't match, and then highlighted the issues I had found with the other design firm's quote.
No response, no word of thanks, just double blue ticks and that was it, that was about 2 days ago, so I decided to delete the chat and drop her and her husband as a potential customer for the second time. I am not going to reach out and ask her about her decision because I am now selling them at a price that is bordering towards "not worth my time", if she reaches out and request to go even lower....sigh, if I were to really think about it, I might actually agree because I do really like the both of them, but I shouldn't and I won't!
What I REALLY need is to look for a new fucking job!
No comments:
Post a Comment