Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

longform.asmartbear.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 83 posts

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#51

Post by xyzelement »

This is also why you should get multiple quotes for any transaction without an obvious and transparent market. When your roofer quotes you $XK to replace your shingles, that might be what he thinks is a competitive rate in your market, or it might be the "I am too busy but if they really want to pay that much I'll find a way to make it work" rate.

A guy who's drowning in business and a guy who's sitting idle will likely quote you very different rates. Obviously you should also be conscious of why someone is busier than another, but sometimes it's just a matter of timing, etc.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#52

Post by xyzelement »

zzzeek wrote: post #20

say "yes" for things you aren't into doing but just make sure you ask for super high amounts of money, so that you're happy if they accept your offer. nice theory for "getting more money is good" but doesn't work for "I have no time". If people could package up "more time" for me in some kind of interdimensional container, I'd be all set.

If you end up in a situation where people consistently offer you more money than you are otherwise getting, you will solve the time problem by shifting to the more-money type work...

If your big (technically, your ask) isn't high enough to cause you to make the time, the it's not high enough.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#53

Post by SoftTalker »

ilyt wrote: post #42
londons_explore wrote: post #5

Downside of this approach: Often you are quoting a super high price because you don't want the work and maybe it isn't really what you love to do or your expertise. But the buyer assumes you have a super high price because you're the best and can charge what you're worth. End result: The buyer is unhappy with your work, because you priced as if you were a world leading expert and actually you are learning on the job…

You can just tell them that. "That is not the type of jobs we usually do, and if we did we'd have to use a lot of time to build competency in the problem and that would've costed you a lot. You'd be better off trying X or Y contractor, that's closer to their wheelhouse" And as a bonus you'd still be considered for future work that's not that rather than being filed under "those are those super expensive guys we can't…

A friend of mine who is a plumber said he tells people this all the time, basically "this is a pretty small job and not what we normally do. If I did it, I'd have to take one of my plumbers off of this big job we're in the middle of and charge you what that is costing me, here's the number of a handyman I know who can take care of that for you"

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#54

Post by creer »

Aurornis wrote: post #22
londons_explore wrote: post #5

Downside of this approach: Often you are quoting a super high price because you don't want the work and maybe it isn't really what you love to do or your expertise. But the buyer assumes you have a super high price because you're the best and can charge what you're worth. End result: The buyer is unhappy with your work, because you priced as if you were a world leading expert and actually you are learning on the job…

When I look for contractors I ask around my network first. In recent years I’ve been getting more recommendations for who to avoid than who to hire. There are a lot of contractors and small agencies out there who have gotten good at selling the contract but not so good at delivering satisfactory work. Often the negative recommendations are from a situation like you described where they pitched a high price or otherwi…

> have gotten good at selling the contract but not so good at delivering

This has been a problem beyond "recent years". In part because of splitting the sales function from the technical function - which is many agencies as soon as they decide on growth vs specialization.

For clients with a little more time and budget - i.e. a little more forethought in general, it's good reason to hire someone more broadly technically competent or at least aware just to help with the process of hiring more specialized work. At least the first time around it can end up being a recursive problem: if you hire a hiring advisor who has their mind locked on just one way to do things, then you just shot yourself in the foot.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#55

Post by SoftTalker »

bumby wrote: post #45
sokoloff wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You think they’re happier to pay more than to pay less? People are not rational consumers. See the Palessi story from a few years ago: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/payless-sold-discount-shoes... Tl;dr: Payless Shoes, a discount shoe retailer, opened a fake high-end store under the Palessi name and got fashion influencers to gush about how great the shoes were. People who actually bought such Palessi shoes proba…

Years ago, a luxury car company (I believe it was Mercedes) did a study measuring demand with the same car across a relatively wide range of prices. Contrary to economic models that assume rational actors, there was a point where lowering price further made demand go down. People apparently assumed the higher price tag on a car made it more attractive as a consumer.

Probably why Mercedes does not bring their lower-end or lower-optioned car models to North America. They want to maintain their image as a luxury marque so they can command premium prices that their customers are happy to pay.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#56

Post by creer »

ilyt wrote: post #40
Aurornis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I look for contractors I ask around my network first. In recent years I’ve been getting more recommendations for who to avoid than who to hire. There are a lot of contractors and small agencies out there who have gotten good at selling the contract but not so good at delivering satisfactory work. Often the negative recommendations are from a situation like you described where they pitched a high price or otherwi…

> I think a lot of these contractors operate with the mindset that customers will always be available and none of them will talk to each other or seek reference checks, but this approach suffers as the person’s reputation permeates their local industry. There are a few contractors in one niche I worked in where nearly everyone knows to avoid them, or at least to put strict oversight and micromanaging in place on thei…

Are you arguing that there is some (other) system that solves the issue of over-selling and under-delivering?

More constructively, I don't think anyone argues that there isn't (rudely speaking) a broad supply of fools waiting to be parted from their money. For the purpose of this forum the question is what can the clients (quite possible technically weak which is why they need to hire out) do to improve their odds.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#57

Post by creer »

gumby wrote: post #48
londons_explore wrote: post #5

Downside of this approach: Often you are quoting a super high price because you don't want the work and maybe it isn't really what you love to do or your expertise. But the buyer assumes you have a super high price because you're the best and can charge what you're worth. End result: The buyer is unhappy with your work, because you priced as if you were a world leading expert and actually you are learning on the job…

Commit to doing a good job, or at least a job that meets what you promise to the customer. Back when I did support and custom dev, our minimum price was $100K/year (back when $100K was a lot of money). Most of those contracts were fabulously profitable. But once in a while a bug would be reported that took five or even ten person-months to fix, scrambling all our other plans in the process. So what: we didn’t charge…

Exactly. A high price does not necessarily promise that you have the technical solution ready to go. There is such a thing as building an understanding with the client (even if the contract text itself is more conservative). That leads to a "relationship" with some level of solid grounds for it. As opposed to a common practive of throwing a one-off contract over the wall and merely praying that this will go well.

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#59

Post by creer »

Perhaps there is space for a nuanced:

- "yes"

- "no"

- "this is not our specialty but we'll do it within our current relationship for $BIG_ENOUGH" (and then you know, actually do it.)

- "this is not our specialty but we'll help you hire and manage a specialist so they fit in (for $MODERATE)"

Re: Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

#60

Post by syndicatedjelly »

ilyt wrote: post #40
Aurornis wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I look for contractors I ask around my network first. In recent years I’ve been getting more recommendations for who to avoid than who to hire. There are a lot of contractors and small agencies out there who have gotten good at selling the contract but not so good at delivering satisfactory work. Often the negative recommendations are from a situation like you described where they pitched a high price or otherwi…

> I think a lot of these contractors operate with the mindset that customers will always be available and none of them will talk to each other or seek reference checks, but this approach suffers as the person’s reputation permeates their local industry. There are a few contractors in one niche I worked in where nearly everyone knows to avoid them, or at least to put strict oversight and micromanaging in place on thei…

It's a great working strategy purely due to information asymmetry, not because "markets"
Post reply on HN