I recently received a note from one of our clients. He often writes with questions, comments, or newsletter suggestions. His notes are always relevant and to the point. He asked:
I just returned from a sales call. Very nice guy, with some special needs obviously. He has worked at our local supermarket for many years. The job is a full bath remodel. He is okay with the $30 to $40k budget I suggested with a $1,500 Letter of Intent. The way I left it was for him to think it over since he had to figure out exactly where the money was coming from (maybe a 401k).
My issue: the house smelled so bad that it took your breath away and was in a real state of disrepair. My guys will certainly not enjoy working in this environment.
Help your clients with our Buyers Guide
Guide your potential remodeling or renovation clients to find the contractor of choice for their job.
Order it Here
How can you tactfully bow out when the only reason is the smell/condition? Normally folks have problems with the budget, etc.
Any advice is most appreciated!
After reading his note, I started thinking about all the homes I’ve visited on sales calls over the years that were like that. I’ve been in homes where my pants below the knee were practically covered with fleas. I’ve been in homes so full of collectables, old magazines and newspapers, sacks of garbage, whatever, sometimes five or six feet deep, that we walked on a cleared path between the rooms. I’ve been in many others that were reasonably clean but for some reason smelled really bad.
The worst I experienced was a two-story home in a lower income part of town. When I walked in the door, I smelled raw sewage immediately. They explained that the toilet on the second floor sprung a leak and was dumping the waste onto the floor below. The pile was probably one and a half feet deep, and they’d piled old newspapers around it to keep it from spreading. They wanted it fixed, could we help them? I talked about this situation in the book Profitable Sales, A Contractor’s Guide.
If you’ve been selling remodeling or taking service calls in a home for any length of time, you’ve witnessed conditions like this. Not everyone lives the same, not everyone has the same sanitary or health standards. We have to deal with what we find when we walk through the front door.
You work hard to build a good reputation for helping folks. The last thing you want to do is have someone bad mouth you to their friends and neighbors or go online and blast you for not being willing to help. What do you do?
Smile, even though your nose says otherwise. If it’s just a bad smell and not animal droppings, human waste, rotten food, etc., you can buy deodorizing liquids to spray around the work area, or even the whole house if needed. Find a time when the client and family aren’t home, get the sprayer out and have at it. It might take a few applications to knock down the smell. If they ask why, explain that you often do this to protect your workers from possible germs or bugs. You can always blame it on covid.
Now, if it’s more than just a bad smell, if it’s fleas, human or animal waste, or rotten foodstuffs, you have a decision to make. The note that came in said it loud and clear, “My guys will certainly not enjoy working in this environment.” You can’t blame them. Most of us wouldn’t want to work in that environment.
You can excuse yourself by telling them you don’t do the type of work they want done, thank them for calling you and be on your way. This takes some diplomacy.
Every scenario is different. Your potential clients are used to the situation and think it normal, so you don’t want to embarrass or chastise them for the way they live. You could tell them you need to keep the call short because you’re dealing with an emergency on another job, or your spouse needs you at home, or whatever you can comfortably say. Call back in a day or two and tell them that you won’t be able to do their job and thanks for calling you. Again, I can’t tell you what to say, but come up with a few options that work for you ahead of time and it will be easier to handle when you’re on the spot.
If the owners are aware of the problem and want help in dealing with it, direct them to someone who specializes in that type of work. That what I did in the situation I mentioned earlier; I suggested they call a company that does sanitation cleanups, then give us a call and we’d repair the home.
Figure out ahead of time how to handle situations like these and when the time comes you’ll be able to either do the job, or excuse yourself and protect your workers from a nasty jobsite. Your workers and subcontractors will thank you.
The knowledge and experience Michael Stone gained in his 60+ years in construction has helped thousands of contractors improve their businesses and their lives. He is the author of the books Markup & Profit Revisited, Profitable Sales, and Estimating Construction Profitably, and is available for one-on-one consultations.
Listen to the audio here, or select dots on the right to download: