When a customer asks for a discount
Never cut the price without cutting something else. Three answers that keep the job and the margin, with the words.
"Can you do any better on the price?" is not an insult and it is usually not a no. It is a customer checking whether the number is real. How you answer tells them. Cut it on the spot and the number was never real. Hold it with a reason and it was.
Rule one: price and scope move together
If the price comes down, something comes out. Haul-off, the extra coat, the upgraded fixture, the Saturday start. "I can get it to $2,100 if you handle the old unit and the permit" is a real answer. "Okay, $2,100" teaches them that your first number had $300 of air in it, and the next customer they refer will start there.
Answer one: offer the smaller option
"The $2,400 is the replace. If budget is the issue, I can do the repair for $650, with the understanding that it is a few years, not fifteen." This is why options on the estimate matter: the discount conversation already has a smaller option in it, and you did not have to invent one under pressure.
Answer two: trade something for the price
"I can take $150 off if we schedule it for a weekday morning when I am already in the area." Or: "if you pay the balance by check instead of card." Or: "if you can leave the old unit at the curb for pickup." You are getting something back, so the number is still honest.
Answer three: hold it, with a reason
"That is the number. It includes the permit, the expansion tank, and a year on the labor, which is where the cheaper bids usually come up short. I would rather do it right once." Said calmly, this wins more jobs than a discount does. Customers are more afraid of the cheap contractor than the expensive one.
What never to say
- "Let me see what I can do" with no condition attached. You just agreed to a discount of unknown size.
- A bad word about the other bid. Say what yours includes instead.
- "That is my cost" when it is not. They may know a supplier.
The quiet version of the same question
Sometimes nobody asks. The estimate just sits. That is often the same question, unasked. The day-7 follow-up is a good place to answer it without being asked: "Happy to walk through what is in the price, or look at a smaller version of the job if that helps." The follow-up schedule.
Free, no account: job price calculator, markup vs margin, hourly rate, and 84 sample estimates.
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