The Cost is the cost...

I had a bit of a disheartening day today. 

About 2 weeks ago I received a referral as a result of some concentrated marketing activities I've been undertaking over the last little while.  Once I received the referral I spoke with the prospective client, gave him a brief rundown on who we are, what we do etc etc...and he sounded really interested, and likewise, I was interested in his job.

His plans were awesome!  Fantastic new home in a beautiful area surrounded by million dollar homes right on the bay.  Double storey, pool, double garage, 4 bedrooms, study...nice....something they can really grow into.

So, I sent him our portfolio to review and we ended up making our appointment to meet today.

Now, before I agree to tender any job I always insist on meeting the prospective clients so they can get a feel for me and I can get a feel for them; afterall, they're about to potentially enter into a 12-plus month relationship with me so they need to be comfortable and I need to like them.

I spent 2 hours with them discussing every little thing about their new home from what sort of tiles they want to their appliances to their landscaping to the type of toilet the architect has designed into their plans, and of course, I'm diligently taking it all down to incorporate into my tender.

So, toward the end of the meeting I decide to give it a go....ask the unaskable (and rarely truthfully answered) question..."what's your budget"?

And...silence.

I continue, "I know you're thinking right now that you don't want to tell me your budget because you think I'll just squeeze my tender into your price so you'll not really get a true quote, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  I'm about to invest 4 weeks of my time to do your tender, and if in the first week or so it looks as though your budget will be blown, I'll call you and discuss it with you, so it is important that I know so I don't waste your time and I don't waste my time".

This must have made sense to them because the husband says "if I can get the whole job done, including the pool (!!), basic landscaping, the driveway and the front fence for between $500 and $600,000 I'll be happy".

WHAT???

My heart sank.

Now here's the part that I can never work out...is he telling the truth or trying it on?

The house is 253sqm, and every single job I've done/am doing over the last 2 years has come in at between $3,000 and $3,500 per square metre...so, we're looking at $759,000 to $885,000 plus GST.

He claims he received a quotation for around $1,500 per square metre to lock up, which prompts me to wonder exactly what sort of corners will be cut and what sort of building the poor client will end up with, and then, what must the client think it's going to cost to fix out the home?

But, honestly, do people really think you can get a decent home built for this sort of money?

So now I have the awful job of telling this person that I won't be tendering his job unless he either re-adjusts his price expectations or comes clean with the truth about his real budget.

It was a cracker of a job, so it's really disappointing for me.

I just wish people would get a better grip of reality.  I think I have to change my MO and only deal with architects from now on rather than the clients directly; at least architects may have a bit more realistic point of view that they can impart to their clients.

Till next time...

CRM, ERP, XRM, Blah!...

Oh my goodness, someone shoot me!

I've been trialling various software products for CRM and it was driving me absolutely bonkers. 

Initially I thought I just wanted CRM functionality because working off spreadsheets was driving me insane and honestly just putting me off all those things I had to do for my marketing endeavours. 

Then I discovered something called ERP, which is like Project Management software (I think - this is all so gobbledegook to me), which I found appealing.  Afterall, I'm working on projects that run for an extended period of time, and I'm looking to implement something now that can be used by others as well as myself in the not too distant future.

But then I started thinking, well, if I'm going to have a combined CRM/ERP solution, it's pretty dumb that I don't have the accounting functions integrated into it as well so when I'm working with my clients in the CRM I have a complete picture of their position in relation to my company....and this led me to XRM!

The X is basically anything you want it to be, as far as I can ascertain.

I thought I found something I liked that was the complete deal and it was specific to the construction industry which I rationalised was essential because of the nature of the way our industry works.  I've bookmarked it for future reference as I think it was too big for us, if that makes sense.

Now, on top of all this I discovered things called SaaS, open source, on premises, hosted and managed, hosted and not managed....and I really meant it; someone just shoot me!

Why on earth couldn't I find something that I liked but I could also get on premises?  Now, I'm not a ludite, and I'm ok with advances in technology, but I've got to say this whole Cloud technology doesn't quite sit so well with me yet.  It hasn't been around long enough for me to be comfortable exporting my data to it and leaving it in someone elses hands to manage.  Now, my data is really piddly compared to other companies out there, but still, it's my data and if something happens to it then I have to start again.

Simon (my business coach) thinks I'm crazy and says there's more chance of someone breaking into my home and stealing my laptop (where my data is stored) than there is someone hacking a cloud host and taking my data (and besides, there's not much they can do with my data anyway).

So, I did it.  I purchased my first SaaS (software as a service for those uninitiated!) application yesterday.

I decided to go with a CRM that had a really "loose" style of Projects in it.  I have to say it was the first one I trialled after I read someone elses blog who said she was using it too.  I liked the looseness of the Projects because it really just lets me run things my way instead of how the software developers things things should be run.  I trialled too many to remember but just kept coming back to this first one.  It just felt better than the rest.

Next thing on the list is to see if I can work with Google Apps including GMail for Business as this CRM that I bought yesterday intergrates with Google Apps and it'll save me keeping 2 sets of contacts; one in Outlook and the other in my CRM.

On other fronts, my marketing efforts are going reasonably well and Simon and I are developing a rather good system for all the marketing I need to do.  The only problem is I'm supposed to call the people I'm directly marketing to within 2 weeks of my initial marketing to them, and I hate it.  I really, really hate it.  I'm finding it so hard to get motivated to do it.

It's not so much the clients directly that I have an issue calling; it's the architects that I have the problem with.  Simon laughs, I'm sure, at my logic.  You see, in my mind, if I'm calling an architect enquiring about potential work, it's like I'm grovelling and it's a really uneven start to the relationship.  I don't do uneven very well.  I like even.

I really need to change my mindset somehow so that I can think to myself that I have something they need just as much as they have something I need.  Easier said than done, though...

Anyway, till next time...