Charles
Moderator, Friend, Angel
- Location
- South East
YOu stay in business long enough you are going to lose customers. I have never lost any business to competition. I have lost business to the fact that people die, go into nursing homes, move away, management changes hands are the main reasons.Through no fault of your own. You have customers and you go up on them each year to keep up with inflation or the fact that you didn't get your asking price in the first place. If you dont go up to keep up with inflation you are making less money each year. That is a fact. Lawn equipment is going up at a higher rate than most goods it seems.<br>So you have been in this business 10 plus years like some of us one here. You have to go out and replace the business you have been losing. Lets say that for a 1/2 acre yard you have been getting 45$ avg per customer. Now you go to bid on 1/2 acre yards and most of the bids run from 20$ to 35$. There you are you are effected in the worst way by the competition. I recently bided on 2 jobs. 1/2 acre at least with ditches. One had a fenced in back yard that would have to be fenced. I bid 40. But i was told the lowest bids were 30$. I was SOL. Sometimes you may lose a job and not really know why until you think long and hard about it. This guy payed me on time everytime and sometimes in advance. Until I went up on him 5$. Then he was very hard to find and got 5 payments behind. I quit after he paid up. But customers play this game well. When you go up they will make it very hard for you to work for them. Then they go find the lowest price again and the cycle starts all over again.