Most of them that I reached out to didn't bother responding, and the others that I didn't bother reaching out to had extremely unrealistic budget, a lot of the ones I didn't reach out to never really bothered calling the company to ask about the lack of follow up because most of them apply to meet up Interior Designers through renovation portals and they are always linked up to at least 6 different IDs, so having one out of the six not reach out is not really going to affect them too much and I guess most of them don't really want to spend their time talking to so many as well.
But there are times when some do reach out weeks later either through email like the customer I had blogged about previously or to the company to ask why the Interior Designer didn't reach out, well today, I had one who did the latter.
So I got her enquiry pretty much a few days after I got the leads of the customer I blogged about previously and at that time, I was already really unmotivated after that last lead and had given up on the company's lead having any sort of potential, this was 2 leads in a row that had the same issue, it was just too tiresome to even deal with, in the enquiry that was forwarded to me by my office admin, the owner was adamant about staying on her unrealistic budget, so I didn't bother reaching out because why waste the time? Eventually all the other Interior Designers from other companies who got assigned to entertain her will come to the same very conclusion and give her the very same answer, that her budget is simply not viable for the works she want done.
Weeks went by and I didn't get any complaints from the customer about my lack of response, so I updated the leads in the company's system and labelled it as "dropped", listing the reason as...
"Extremely unrealistic budget."
... everything was fine until today, when my company's admin suddenly messaged me and asked me if I had reached out to the customer, so I lied and said I did but she wasn't responsive and was immediately send a screenshot of the message the client had exchanged with the admin, asking when would be a good time to have a consultation session.
I wasn't feeling flustered about getting caught not following up with the client, I was actually more annoyed that I had to deal with that customer, my admin then told me the customer wants to have a video conference later in the evening and ask me if I was available, so I said I wasn't and that it would be great if she could reallocate the leads to someone else, because I didn't want to have to deal with leads that will ultimately be a waste of time. Unfortunately, my admin couldn't do that, so I told her very begrudgingly that I will liaise with the client directly.
I reach out to the client and told her I was sorry I got caught, did not reach out sooner, and then suggested that instead of a video call, she can just share her requirements with me via Whatsapp, because I didn't want to waste time doing a video call with a client that I know will go nowhere in the end, and thankfully, she agreed and shared her requirements.
Well, a month has passed since she first submitted her enquiries and her budget has dropped, but so has her requirements, and she sounded like she knew her budget was not feasible, so she told me she only wanted to do a single space and that was it. The budget she set aside was clearly still too low, but it was not as ridiculous as the last time, so I entertained her for a bit, got her requirements and in the end, despite her lowered renovation requirements, it was still a project that would result in a severe lack of profit margin for any designer who decides to take on the job.
I mean she has CLEARLY spoken to other designers and have gotten multiple quotes from them, that is why she knew her budget was insufficient and that was the main reason why she decided to reach out to me, because I was the only one left who hasn't entertained her, it is the exact same scenario as the other client, all the other designers very likely told her that her budget was not realistic, which is something I don't fucking get, multiple industry experts have already told you very clearly that your budget is insufficient, so why the hell are you still sticking to that?
Customers like these are the reason why there are so many horror stories of homeowners getting swindled, they are such an easy target because they are so desperate to look for prices that are too good to be true, it's just dumb.
It would be like me trying to get a new iPhone that retails at $1088, seeing a bunch of online stores selling at an average of between $988 - $1088, and then suddenly go to eBay and see a listing for that Brand New iPhone at $299 and think to myself..
"WOW WHAT A STEAL! I WILL BUY THIS IMMEDIATELY BEFORE ANYONE ELSE GETS IT.!"
... and weeks later receive a small box with a rotten pear inside.
So anyways, I have already prepared the quote and it has definitely exceeded her budget by 150%, if I charge her lower,like dirt cheap, like I don't even get paid charity level kind of low, I can work around her budget, but alas, I am not a philanthropist, so NO. I don't even want to really send her the quote to be honest because I am afraid she will start to bargain and I am in no mood to get into a drawn out discussion with her about why her project is not worth any designer's time.
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