Getting the client(s) involved

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I fully understand some do not, personally I do and I promote it. Welcome to Lost Creek! (It's about 40 min mighway from home base) One day earlier this week we were rained out so I jumped in the Jetta and headed to my new target markets, private communities, this is one with two 5 star golf courses, all new within four years, I left a card at one fellows place that says I see you have wood to be chipped, long story short he wrote me that night and asked for a quote, I responded within 30 min and my helper and I met him at 8 am the next morning, gave the quote and he said do it in fact I am telling my neighbours, you won this for two reasons, the equipment on your website is amazing and we have a lot of work, there are 11 of us on this private road and we all need wood chipped but can we help? I said by all means we encourage the owners to help, but he said honestly it’s because you wrote back so soon, most companies take days. I did my overkill thing, over the course of three days 5 owners called and said while you are here can you chip us also? I sent three of our biggest chippers, 5 owners helped and guess what, each showed us what they would like done while I took notes starting with the road, the developer put 12” culverts in for small streams that should be 20” as they turn into small rovers in the rain, he used the wrong type of rock, in short it’s a mess. I let my workers work with the owners while I wrote a four part quote in the truck and printed 11 copies and placed them in our folders, I gave five out and the other 6 to the fellow who is the president, it’s four steps and will be around $50,000 for what they mentioned, all 5 agreed to start ASAP however they have to have a meeting to approve the expense and said they will the first part of this week. They were shocked we were set up do print a proposal so fast. I was a pretty happy camper, they said they had hired chipping crews today and some bigger than us but not one held a candle to our equipment and staff, I sent the best I have and went myself to mainly build the relationship, it worked and worked well! Just got home, we started at 8 this morning, it’s now almost 11....lol we have lighting but quit at 9 and had a beer with the group around a fire to keep warm, all the staff buttered up, they know I want into this area..

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Andy
Halifax, Nova Scotia

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Very nice work! I said by all means we encourage the owners to help On such a job site, what are the home owners looking to do to help? Are they wanting to help to give them something to do and be outside or are they looking to help to lower the price of the job?

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[picframer]

Originally Posted by Steve

Very nice work!



On such a job site, what are the home owners looking to do to help? Are they wanting to help to give them something to do and be outside or are they looking to help to lower the price of the job?

Be part of the process, this is hard work, I already know they are thinking they will save money helping, work beside one of my trained guys for two hours and you will be ready for a nap.....but they still feel they are helping, as long as they wear safety gear, they can feed the machines, staff give them a 5 min crash course, they may simply lug the wood from the woods to the operator feeding the chipper, doesn't really matter to me.

[Steve]

I could picture a homeowner doing some work and then after coming up to you and saying, can you knock $X off my bill cause I helped out?

Do they ever do this and how is it best to handle such situations?

[picframer]

Originally Posted by Steve

I could picture a homeowner doing some work and then after coming up to you and saying, can you knock $X off my bill cause I helped out?

Do they ever do this and how is it best to handle such situations?

Never and it's because we tell the owner right from the start, you are more than welcome to help however it has no bearing on the rate to do this job, these are by the hour, we have probably had 30 clients help us feed chippers this past summer, not one has lasted more than half a day, some only two hours, it's hard work, some see how fast we are going, grab a chainsaw they own and start cutting more trees down that are dead or whatever.

On excavation sites these are by the hour, sometimes drains are exact quotes but no, not one person has asked that question and if they did the answer is simply no.

[Steve]

For those customers that did want to get involved, maybe they would like a shirt. The kids really get a kick out of them, I bet the adults would too.

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