# Chapter 115

I don’t want to do business with people like this. The potential customer called me back, having decided that he wants me to do the job. He wants to be put back on the schedule for next week. He wants us to do the assessment for free. He wants us to do the job more cheaply than the people he has scheduled on Monday. Even though our process is more expensive and lasts much longer, he wants us to be “competitive” and to skip our processes that make sure he will be a happy custom in the end - but he never will be happy.

Don’t get me wrong, he and you and I all should get more than one estimate when we are having a costly job done and we are footing the bill. But expecting one surgeon to use the measurements and assessments of another surgeon before cutting on your intestines, is a very apt metaphor for the situation we are discussing. This is not like getting four estimates for pest control around your home. Those companies will never have to leave their telephone and desk to all give you their programs and costs. This is not pest control, it is instead highly skilled measuring and planning and investigation, specific to each and every job. I can’t use your data, and you can’t use mine.

And this customer, in his drive to save $5, already knows this and doesn’t care. Even if it results in unsatisfactory work in the end. Like I said, I don’t want to do business with people like this, who want to hamstring your processes, to save a few pennies. They will never be happy nor content, and neither will you by working with them.