Get a call at 7:45am (we start at 7:30am) from my main firewood customer. He needs firewood for campers before the weekend. I tell him It will be after the weekend as my summer help is back at school and I am busy with tree work that needs to be done before the weekend. He says it is funny how I can deliver wood to everyone (referring to a couple of customers he referred to me in which I delivered wood to a couple weeks ago when we were slow and the summer help was still here) else but him and he started buying from me first. I explained to him that as I have said in the past...I need some lead time on delivering wood as tree work comes first. He hangs up on me. I figured oh well....got rid of my lowest margin customer. He wants his wood to be split about 2" X 4" but he wants to pay the same as everyone else for firewood. I would say most of my wood is twice to three times the size he wants for his customers. I sell him a cord of wood for $150 (delivered) and he usually buys 10 cords a year. I know...I am a dumbass. I sell regular firewood for $165 a cord...delivered.
About 8:15am...I returned a customers call from the day before to get my ass chewed out for scooping up wood chips from his trail when I removed piles of vines that another contractor pushed off to the side when building this trail around a small pond. To set up the scene a couple of weeks ago I agreed to chips some limbs and brush for this guy at an hourly rate. We go out there and chip all the limbs that we can and then we start tearing into the bigger piles but it is vines, dirt and debris mangled together by a small bulldozer. We do what we can and call it a day. I charged him for a hour and a half. The guy told me before we started that the most important thing is for us to get as much as possible. Keeping cost in mind I go up to the guy and tell him that chipping up the piles is not the best way to do this. I told him I would do it but it would take about 6 hours plus I want him to cover half the cost of a set of knives due to the dirt being in the piles. I explained that it is best just to leave the stuff alone and not pile it up. It is much harder to get it out of a pile, especially when pushed together with a machine. I offered that the best thing to do is to get a small loader in here and pick up all the piles and remove the debris with a dump trailer. He says you are probably right and that he can do it with his tractor. I said OK and left. He calls me up a week or so later and asks me to come out and pick up all the debris in the piles. He also asks for another load of wood chips. In the meantime he spreads the chips from the first visit on the trail. So I go out to the property start loading the debris and after I get the first pile loaded onto my dump trailer...he tells me he did not want me to mess with that pile. I say to myself...OK...he can have that for free. I go to the next pile back drag on the trail and scoop it up. The next pile same thing. And so on and so on. 4 loads of debris hauled out....3 hours of work...$250. I realized some chips got scooped up and the trail needed to be smoothed out with more chips. I even told my guys I was going to go back and smooth it out with some of the chips we had just brought out. About 5 minutes of work. But I figured he must have realized this was going to happen when he spread the chips before the piles were removed. As we are leaving for the day...he asks me if he can throw a few piles of debris on the ground by his house onto the trailer. Yeah no problem. Oh by the way...you think your tractor can lift that root ball...I say yeah no problem...I forget about the trail and load the root ball....and I get a second one as well that he did not ask me to do...figuring hey I want to make him happy and throw in a freebie. He explains that I did more than he expected and he appreciated the work but it was not necessary....(what?)...he pays me and I leave.
He calls and complains that I scooped up all his chips that him and his wife spread out and that the new chips I brought sucked (pine chips with needles). I explained that if he wanted playground quality chips he would have to pay about $500 for 10 yards delivered and that I told him the quality of my chips is not the best but they are cheap. I offered right away to bring some chips and fix the problem but as he kept on degrading me he talked me out of fixing the problem (in his mind). Whether he is right or not does not matter as he will tell everyone how I screwed him. This guy is an ex CEO of a bank and he moved out to the country and he wants to act like a country guy but he is ####ing useless outside of his office. And there he was an idiot to....In 20 years the value of his company's stock stayed about even. I know...I owned a couple hundred shares.
Oh well...sometimes you just have to realize you can't make everyone happy and when you meet them...you should just shut your mouth and move on. I have learned a valuable lesson on these two deals and hopefully I will communicate better up front with my customers.
Thanks for reading....I feel better.
About 8:15am...I returned a customers call from the day before to get my ass chewed out for scooping up wood chips from his trail when I removed piles of vines that another contractor pushed off to the side when building this trail around a small pond. To set up the scene a couple of weeks ago I agreed to chips some limbs and brush for this guy at an hourly rate. We go out there and chip all the limbs that we can and then we start tearing into the bigger piles but it is vines, dirt and debris mangled together by a small bulldozer. We do what we can and call it a day. I charged him for a hour and a half. The guy told me before we started that the most important thing is for us to get as much as possible. Keeping cost in mind I go up to the guy and tell him that chipping up the piles is not the best way to do this. I told him I would do it but it would take about 6 hours plus I want him to cover half the cost of a set of knives due to the dirt being in the piles. I explained that it is best just to leave the stuff alone and not pile it up. It is much harder to get it out of a pile, especially when pushed together with a machine. I offered that the best thing to do is to get a small loader in here and pick up all the piles and remove the debris with a dump trailer. He says you are probably right and that he can do it with his tractor. I said OK and left. He calls me up a week or so later and asks me to come out and pick up all the debris in the piles. He also asks for another load of wood chips. In the meantime he spreads the chips from the first visit on the trail. So I go out to the property start loading the debris and after I get the first pile loaded onto my dump trailer...he tells me he did not want me to mess with that pile. I say to myself...OK...he can have that for free. I go to the next pile back drag on the trail and scoop it up. The next pile same thing. And so on and so on. 4 loads of debris hauled out....3 hours of work...$250. I realized some chips got scooped up and the trail needed to be smoothed out with more chips. I even told my guys I was going to go back and smooth it out with some of the chips we had just brought out. About 5 minutes of work. But I figured he must have realized this was going to happen when he spread the chips before the piles were removed. As we are leaving for the day...he asks me if he can throw a few piles of debris on the ground by his house onto the trailer. Yeah no problem. Oh by the way...you think your tractor can lift that root ball...I say yeah no problem...I forget about the trail and load the root ball....and I get a second one as well that he did not ask me to do...figuring hey I want to make him happy and throw in a freebie. He explains that I did more than he expected and he appreciated the work but it was not necessary....(what?)...he pays me and I leave.
He calls and complains that I scooped up all his chips that him and his wife spread out and that the new chips I brought sucked (pine chips with needles). I explained that if he wanted playground quality chips he would have to pay about $500 for 10 yards delivered and that I told him the quality of my chips is not the best but they are cheap. I offered right away to bring some chips and fix the problem but as he kept on degrading me he talked me out of fixing the problem (in his mind). Whether he is right or not does not matter as he will tell everyone how I screwed him. This guy is an ex CEO of a bank and he moved out to the country and he wants to act like a country guy but he is ####ing useless outside of his office. And there he was an idiot to....In 20 years the value of his company's stock stayed about even. I know...I owned a couple hundred shares.
Oh well...sometimes you just have to realize you can't make everyone happy and when you meet them...you should just shut your mouth and move on. I have learned a valuable lesson on these two deals and hopefully I will communicate better up front with my customers.
Thanks for reading....I feel better.
