As shared previously, Meimei seems bend on getting another ID and has been asking her colleagues for recommendation. So here comes John who has received good reviews for his work on renovation forums.
The caveat is that he is leaving his current ID firm and striking out on his own. Ok, so this is a contractor ID who may not have the baggage of fixed margins and high overheads of larger ID firms. So we met him and he came across as a down to earth fella who listens to our request and design ideas.
As with other IDs, they were surprised that we are looking for marble tiles and parquet for flooring. It seems the common trend now is homogenous tiles and vinyl flooring. But oh well you can call me old school but I find the charm of marble and parquet flooring irresistible. So anyways we discussed and gave him our revised budget of $80K when he asked for one.
The most memorable part of our first meet-up was that he kept reiterating that since he is now his own boss he can dictate his cost and margins and will be able to give a good price. I was happy to hear that but didn't let my keenness show. He went on to tell us how his other clients love his work and how he never takes any project which is less than $80K. He came across as over confident of himself if not bordering on stuck-up. But ... that's ok I can live with your attitude if you can give us a good price. The other thing that bugged me was when he couldn't fit parquet into a $80K budget and asked for $5K more. I gave him a flat no and a smile with "you are the boss now, give us a good price lar!" before sending him off.
He came back a week later with a rather surprising quote. It's exactly at $80K but with lesser items than what our ex-ID Jerry had quoted. There is also a fat 'discount' of $6K on the quotation and has now included the parquet. I took it and did an item to item comparison with Jerry's quote and every item was more expensive by 5-10%. Oddly enough Meimei still thinks he is a better deal than Jerry ... Argghhh. This caused quite a bit of tension for a couple of days.
Eventually I stamp my ground and asked Meimei to notify John that we are not going with him. This triggered an interesting turnaround ... He asked for my number and decided to discuss with me directly. I shared with him that our approach with ID hunting was to give a reasonable budget and see which ID gave us a better deal. He asked for the difference between quotes and I gladly shared with him. He promised to get back in a week.
And sure enough he did and gave me good news "$80k include 6ft to feature and console, 2ft shoe cabinet and curtain pelmet . Can be done. Which else you still require? Since I promise my offer to be better let me know I throw in as well." Great ... now that you are not getting this job you are turning around and being accommodating.
I really don't know where he got his confidence from in the first place when he was boastful of his achievements and ability to price things cheaply but yet didn't deliver on that promise. He is leaving his current ID firm and setting up his own. I checked his new firm and its a sole proprietor incorporated just last Aug. Its not HDB approved contractor and not listed on CASETrust. How does he think that he will be getting a lot of business such that he doesn't need to compete on pricing?
Anyways only he knows what he is doing. I've lost all trust in him when he came back to offer a better deal. I can't work with someone who is obviously not sincere and requires me to constantly watch my back to ensure he doesn't pull a fast one over me.
No thank you. I declined him politely the next day as Meimei insisted and breathed a sigh of relief ... good riddance!
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