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Never say no, but rarely say yes (2011)

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

#71

Post by lee »

I have a similar anecdote in my career as a developer.

At the height of the financial crisis I was just 2 years out of school and working for a small startup. Our first child was just born, and I got fired from my job as they discovered I was trying to bootstrap my side-project. There was no non-compete clauses in my contract but the company used it as an excuse to avoid paying me severance as they laid off a quarter of the staff the following week.

So there I was, anxious that no one would hire a young developer who has a tarnished work experience with a newborn at home.

I was desperate to just find some work. I eventually got two offers with the exact same salary as the job I had gotten fired from. One job sounded more appealing and offered me a chance to learn and grow. The other was for a job to maintain an existing legacy codebase for a struggling company that just went from 100 employees to 10. My wife suggested to just counter-offer with a 50% increase for the unappealing job. If I didn't get it, it was no big loss as I had another in hand. Sure enough, they accepted and the job wasn't actually that bad in the end.

Strangely, when I look back everything turned out in the end for me. I got a 50% pay raise and I also got to spend 3 months at home with my newborn child while unemployed.

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

#72

Post by bigstrat2003 »

Aurornis wrote: post #23
waisbrot wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. In my experience, a more common case is that the buyer has no way to evaluate value other than quoted price and so they're actually _much happier_ with a huge price than they would be with a smaller price for the same work.

You think they’re happier to pay more than to pay less? I’m having a hard time believing that hypothetical. Regardless, companies that don’t know how to evaluate the value of quoted work will eventually figure out the value later. A client that that is initially happy with a price will likely become retroactively disappointed when they deal with another contractor in the future who has more realistic pricing. In my e…

> You think they’re happier to pay more than to pay less? I’m having a hard time believing that hypothetical.

I believe it. Here's an anecdote which blew my mind when I saw it as a kid, and which illustrates the point.

When I was growing up, we had a guy in our church who made guitars. Beautiful instruments (seriously, look up Petros guitars sometime because they're really beautiful), and played/sounded good to boot. Bruce was charging between $3000 and $6000 at the time depending on specifics, so while pricey they weren't expensive by guitar standards. He told me that he got feedback from customers that they weren't sure whether or not his guitars would be good, because they were priced so reasonably (compared to what one would expect to spend on a custom made guitar).

So Bruce decided to raise his prices, and see what happened. He said his sales went up after raising prices, presumably because the guitars were now at a price point where people went "yeah this is what a custom handmade instrument should cost" rather than "what's the catch here". Weird, but hard to argue with results. People aren't always rational buyers, as someone else pointed out.

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

#73

Post by sbayeta »

paulsutter wrote: post #28

Focus means saying no to almost everything The hourly rate example is a clear tell. If you're selling your time by the hour you're already doing the wrong work. Consulting = death, and I mean that literally. The months of our career are finite and we should allocate them carefully

Could you please elaborate on consulting = death?

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

#74

Post by lmm »

paulsutter wrote: post #28

Focus means saying no to almost everything The hourly rate example is a clear tell. If you're selling your time by the hour you're already doing the wrong work. Consulting = death, and I mean that literally. The months of our career are finite and we should allocate them carefully

Career is a means to an end. Billing hourly I can look after my family, not get too stressed, and focus on what really matters when I'm off the clock. Even if the EV from swinging for the fences would be higher, it's not worth the risk.

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

#75

Post by nextaccountic »

syndicatedjelly wrote: post #60
ilyt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"

there are billion dollar markets that operate entirely due to information asymmetry

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

#76

Post by NullPrefix »

xyzelement wrote: post #68
NullPrefix wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A guy who's drowning in business and a guy who's sitting idle will likely quote you very different rates Yes, that's how it works. That's why no one goes out of their way to hire unemployed people

// That's why no one goes out of their way to hire unemployed people I don't know why someone would "go out of their way" to do that, but the numbers take care of it. For example, if I post a job at $XXXK per year, if XXX < FAANG salary, I would expect nobody from FAANG to apply, but I might get some "laid off from FAANG" candidates.

And you wouldn't hire them, because they were laid off and currently unemployed

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

#77

Post by paulsutter »

garrickvanburen wrote: post #35
paulsutter wrote: post #28

Focus means saying no to almost everything The hourly rate example is a clear tell. If you're selling your time by the hour you're already doing the wrong work. Consulting = death, and I mean that literally. The months of our career are finite and we should allocate them carefully

While I agree the combo is death, billing hourly and consulting are two different things. Consulting with value—based fees is a fantastic way to deliberately allocate our finite time .

No consulting is always death, you’re dividing up your energy into little packets of focus and you just can’t accomplish much

You can only get the value of your work over time though equity. If your impact really is large, nobody could afford to pay the net present value up front (and only a lowlife would want to damage the company by taking out cash like that)

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

#78

Post by remram »

daneel_w wrote: post #12

For personal relations I will maintain that it's always better to be clear and give a straight yes or no. Nobody likes being left hanging in uncertainty, and nobody likes people who always do that to them - people who cannot even provide a "maybe" - when asked even simple questions.

I disagree, I like a qualified answer. I often have other options and this allows me to use them.

"Can you do X?" "Maybe, I'm very busy so I might not get to it this week" "Ok nevermind I'll ask [other team member] / I'll do it / I'll do Y instead"

If you say no when you're busy/uncertain, you quickly become useless to me and I'll learn not to ask you for things. But if you say yes, I'm counting on you and I will be both disappointed and in trouble if you don't deliver.

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

#79

Post by fsckboy »

p3rls wrote: post #66
SoftTalker wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

The plumbing company I work for charges $240 per truck for the first hour in labor and $160 after that. For those prices it's definitely worth trying to google it first.

>$240 per truck for the first hour in labor and $160 after that.

That's a bargain! I needed a kitchen faucet replaced (the kit kind you can buy at Home Depot) in Los Angeles and was quoted "$225 per plumber and two would be required, one hour minimum" and this was not from a large plumbing contractor, but the one recommended by the condo front desk. And I got to thinking, "unless they show up with everything they need, which they haven't even asked me anything about (it's cosmetic, it needs to match the kitchen) there's no chance this is done in an hour"

did it myself.

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

#80

Post by p3rls »

fsckboy wrote: post #79
p3rls wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The plumbing company I work for charges $240 per truck for the first hour in labor and $160 after that. For those prices it's definitely worth trying to google it first.

> $240 per truck for the first hour in labor and $160 after that. That's a bargain! I needed a kitchen faucet replaced (the kit kind you can buy at Home Depot) in Los Angeles and was quoted "$225 per plumber and two would be required, one hour minimum" and this was not from a large plumbing contractor, but the one recommended by the condo front desk. And I got to thinking, "unless they show up with everything they ne…

There's no reason a non-disabled stem person should call a plumber for a faucet install unless they want to check out some plumber ass :)
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