Dealing with Price Objects as an Estimator

Humor­ous Post Warning

This is a lit­tle bit out of the ordi­nary post this week. It is a short humor­ous sto­ry about an esti­ma­tor I once knew in the paint­ing indus­try and his expe­ri­ence deal­ing with price objec­tions! I am keep­ing his name and com­pa­ny con­fi­den­tial! I am also not endors­ing what he did. I just always get a kick out of his response to a prospect.

---

The esti­ma­tor got a call to go out to an über-wealthy neigh­bor­hood to look at esti­mat­ing the paint­ing of a small bath­room. Yep! Just a bath­room. When he arrived to the coastal prop­er­ty and knocked on the door, the wife answered the door. The esti­ma­tor asked to speak with the hus­band, the one who sched­uled the paint­ing esti­mate. A minute lat­er, the hus­band walked to the door and said, ​“Fol­low me!” (no greet­ing, no hand­shake — just a gruff ​“fol­low me”). The two of them walked to the bath­room, and the own­er said, ​“Here it is. Let me know the cost. I’ll be in my office!” The man briskly walked off. The esti­ma­tor looked at the bath­room and real­ly did not have to even mea­sure it. He knew it would take no more than a day at most –maybe even a few hours. He walked over the man’s office and told him that it would cost $65 an hour and then gave him a range of hours it would take to do the job. The own­er of the house looked up from his desk, looked at the esti­ma­tor and said in a rather loud voice, ​“SIX­TY-FIVE DOL­LARS AN HOUR! I ONLY PAY MY #$@% ATTOR­NEY $60 AN HOUR!” The esti­ma­tor kept silent for a moment and stood there just look­ing at the own­er. He thought to him­self, ​“Should I or should I not say what I’m about to say?” He decid­ed to speak his mind! ​“Well, maybe you should have your attor­ney paint your bathroom.”  After he said that, he smiled and left the house and said a pleas­ant good­bye to the man’s wife on his way out the door. He told me that the own­er sat there speech­less — his expres­sion was priceless! 

---

When you deal with a price objec­tion, using the sales tech­nique above prob­a­bly won’t help you sell more work. I think the paint esti­ma­tor knew he had a 0% chance of clos­ing that deal. He just had a few too many objec­tions at the time is my guess. It makes for a good laugh to this day. I’d love to hear some of your humor sto­ries with prospects or cus­tomers too. Email me or post below! Thanks for reading!