I’m with you there. I’m in the process of hanging out my shingle as a management consultant, and the school of hard knocks has taught me that one of the most important things to know is when to decline or resign from business. I’ve seen far too many deals go sour because they shouldn’t have been made in the first place.
Darn tootin your right there. I’ve been with Angies List and Servicemagic both for years, and its now a bad trend with Angies list for your competitors to give you bad grades. this will be our last year with them, because they don’t let you dispute the claims, actually they don’t tell you about the bad grades unless you actively file to find out about them.
It has not happened to us, but in the cutthroat world of contracting, it is becoming more and more common for your competition to complain about you bringing you down.
That, and our advertising on Angie’s List to get ranked up in the top is now around $800 a month, our direct marketing mailers are giving us a better return this year.
Servicemagic won’t allow you to complain about contractors unless they’ve actually done work for you, and the contractors can dispute the claims. And... they don’t take advertising.
IMHO, if your a consumer, Servicemagic is the way to go for referrals (well word of mouth is the best, ask a friend or neighbor for a referral).
If your a contractor, with deep pockets, go with Angies List, they are more popular, and will bring you more business though, but you risk the chance of spending tons of money to advertise with them, only to have one joker (maybe your competitor) destroy your investment.
But as far as picking and choosing your customers, we have to do it all the time. I’m not a racist, but there are certain groups of restaurant owners that I demand “cash up front” on jobs, because we’ve been burned too many times, I won’t bid jobs for Lawyers or Doctors (Lawyers won’t pay, they EXPECT you to sue them), and Doctors just take too long to pay.
Other ethic groups will agree to your quote before the job, then want to haggle with you, and make grief after your done, even on a signed contract, its a culture thing I think, so we avoid them if we can.
If I’m doing a quote, and the person I’m dealing with is a dick, I just bid super high, and walk away. I’ve learned the hard way. First impressions tell a lot about the customer. I would bet that is what this guy did, he talked to her, sensed she would be trouble, and decided it wasn’t worth the aggravation. Apparently, his vibe paid off, she wrote him a bad review without even doing business with him.
Is this fair? I dunno, I know consumers do it too, if the contractor gives you a bad vibe, or comes of “greasy” he won’t get the job.
The sword swings both ways.