First Commission.....sort of

Bob Gibson

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11,473
Location
Merrimack, New Hampshire
Doing the barter system. For the past year my dentist has been asking me to make them a bed in exchange for dental work. I finally gave in yesterday and agreed to do it.

They want a fairly simple twin bed for their grandson. I shot them what I thought was a high price and they immediately agreed to it. Guess I should of quoted a higher price :doh:(Ok Rob and Carol, can't wait to hear what you have to say about that:))

I know that I do fairly decent work. Certainly not on the scale of a lot of you guys, but I've always refused to sell anything because I've been afraid that the customer wouldn't like it. I've built tons of furniture for family and friends but actually taking money by building something for someone I don't know well really makes me nervous.

Can't quite figure it out because I'm an extremely confident person in all other aspects :dunno:

Anyway, Hopefully this will be the start of something good.
 
Bob, you did good. You quote a high price when you don't really want the commission. Sounds like you did that. You got what you asked for, so now you have to deliver. Next time you don't want to do the job you will have an idea of how much higher to quote!

Let this be a lesson to all. Your selling price only has to meet the expectations of the buyer. Never attempt to decide for them what a fair price is. That is their decision. You get to decide what your bottom line price, what your fair price is. Don't you deviate. When their idea of a fair price doesn't meet yours, you are in no way obligated to change. It's up to them to find someone who will provide the product/service at their price point - and they will get what they pay for. Only had one potential client come back for a quote of rejecting the first bid. So I did. Having decided life is too short to try to work for cheap skates, I quoted them 30-40% more than the original quote. Told them costs had gone up. And there is a cost working with difficult clients! Wished them luck as they trudged out the door, and then thanked God they were gone. My other clients more than appreciated the quality of my work and the fairness of my prices.
 
dont hold back bob, tell us what you are charging them .twin bed with backboard and footboard, solid hardwoods, 700 dollar minimum.


I charged them $600. Cost for everything will be about $100.00. It will probably take me a week to build it. My back feels much better since the last procedure I had on it but I still only put in a couple hours a day in the shop. They want it made from pine so the wood is pretty inexpensive and easy to move around the shop.
You're right Carol. I really didn't want to do it so I charged what I thought was a pretty high price. I also figured that they had no problem quoting me what I though was an outrageous price for bridge work so I would return the favor :rofl:
 
Congratulations Bob. I love barter. It beats money in my books hands down.
In my view the two parties to a barter deal can exchange and receive way more value from each other than in a money changing hands deal.

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