Did one a couple/few weeks back where I started out doing 4 trees on one of the guys rental properties (4 small dead Oaks) and one medium Oak at his home. I hit him a little harder than I meant to so when he asked me to give him a price on pruning 25 and removing 11 more on his property I gave him a very reasonable rate. Especially being that this was a gated, million dollar community and I wanted the referral. He stalled on me and got another bid. I was confident that no one would beat my price as I was really trying to make it up to him for hitting him so hard on the earlier removals. He called me about a week later and said that if I would throw in one more medium oak removal for my price he would go with me. I agreed.
Fast forward to the next week doing the job which took me 2 full days and two return trips, about an hour each time, for brush and little things to make him happy. My second day on the job, while I was doing the large prunes in the front yard, he asked me if I would remove two small trees for him, one in the front and one in the back... Took me about 5 minutes a piece so it was no biggie. He added something else to me, can't remember what but I had a trick up my sleeve to stop him from requesting anymore freebies. Initially I was going to sub the stumps out on the smaller removals. He said he wanted all the old stumps ground as well. My sub was supposed to be rolling to the job and I couldn't raise him on the phone so I just told the guy to work it out with the sub, that he was reasonable and would work with him. Well When I bid the subsequent work I told him I would throw the stumps from my removals in, being that he had already paid for the stump on the initial removal (which the sub never did). When it came time for me to grind the stumps I walked around and counted all the stumps and came up with 19. I called him and asked if he wanted me to grind out the old stumps in the yard and he said he wanted every stump gone. I told him it would run him another hundred dollars (all small, old, rotten stumps). LOL, he acted like he had been gut shot. He said he thought that the stumps were included in the price. I told him that all 11 stumps from my removals were included but he had added three more trees in all and had 5 older stumps that he was adding on. Told him that that was a deal at less than $20 a stump. He didn't like it but what could he do??? I had the stump grinder on site and it would cost him two or three times as much to get someone else out there... He said fine, whatever, just do it... LOL, that stopped the add ons... And the best part is he is a car salesman... LMAO, love getting one over on those guys!
