> > Business is business, and personal is personal. It's not rude when you > kindly reject his offer to use your services because you don't feel > right about the deal. > > Agreed. I have a company that called me this past week. Two years ago they asked me to provide my commercial automated DataExtraction and Translation services for their company. I already had a fine solution in hand, and I offered to do the work at $55/month/dealer. They were all excited, I spent some money on a contract, sent it to them, and suddenly things got real quiet. I called one of their programmers a few days after we were supposed to get client contact info, and he told me the owners had selected a different company to use for the data processing service.
I called these owners to see what went wrong. "Nothing, we love your solution, but these other folks offered 'the same thing' for a lot less, about $10/month." Okay, no problem, I told them to call me if they needed my help later on. Lesson learned. From now on I secure a Letter Of Intent and insist on getting 50% of the funds needed to have a contract drawn up in case anything goes wrong. Well, the Great Day Of Reckoning came this past week. This cheaper vendor (not necessarily less expensive) just could not get the job done. They provide inconsistent file uploads, and often the translations are not correctly done. Turns out that for almost the past 2 years this other vendor has been using dial-up modem connectivity to get the source data to translate, and the source data is often corrupted. Also, for the $10/month fee they can't afford to do anything about harnessing newer technology. So my prospective client asked me if I could do the job. "Sure, and the price would remain unchanged from before. When does your contract with this other vendor end?". "The contract ends this November 1st. Okay, so you can match the $10/month then? Good, because we can't charge our customers more than we already are.", came the response. "No, that is not what I said. Let me clarify, the previous quote of $55/month will be unchanged. There is no way I could provide the level of service you need for even $40/month. But rather than bump my previous price because you are in a pinch, I am keeping it at the same level although my own operational costs have gone up a bit." Well, they griped and bitched a bit. So I said, "Here is the deal. I gave you a fair price the other year. You slithered off somewhere else after I paid an attorney to draft a contract. You were supposed to get me the client contact info so I could put all this in motion, but I only heard you changed your minds when I called your lead programmer for the client info. This cheaper vendor is not getting the job done, and you are losing customers. I can get the job done right, and you know it from our past dealings together. But it makes no sense for me to provide this service at a money losing cost to myself just to help bail you out of your mistakes. If you want my services you will either need to bump your customer pricing, or kick in the difference in the fees paid to me out of your profits. I am not able to subsidize your costs. And I can't do it because we are friends, because as a friend of mine I know you would not want to hurt me any more than I would want to hurt you. Had you opted to follow through with me the other year you could have priced your services with my higher cost and you would be in good shape now. Your decision to not discuss the lower price from the cheap vendor is what really got you in trouble. None of this is my doing or my responsibility. But I can still help, but not if I am going to lose money on the deal." So that is where we left it. I like these guys, a lot, as we have done business in the past together. But, I do not like them enough to take a hit on my chin to their benefit and get nothing in return. They went cheap, and deserve everything they get if they try going cheap again. Failure to properly plan on their part does not constitute an emergency on mine. Step up or step out. Gil > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of MB Software > Solutions,LLC > Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2008 11:06 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [NF] Clients naming their own terms... > > > Kristyne McDaniel wrote: > > Stephen, > > > >> Run Kristyne, run very fast and far away. > > > > I have a problem with feeling like I'm being "mean" to > people... You'd think > > that by now I'd have gotten over that, but so far not so much. > > > Business is business, and personal is personal. It's not rude when you > kindly reject his offer to use your services because you don't feel > right about the deal. > > > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
