The importance of asking for more...

The other day I got a call for an estimate on an office clean-out job. It's going to be amazingly simple and straightforward--two heavy items requiring the help of another guy, and they're not THAT heavy. Heck, after some of the things I've lifted, I'm thinking about wearing a spandex superhero outfit under my suit. Some cheerleader is unbreakable? Hah! I curl armoires before breakfast.

Anyway, the customer must have caught me immediately after another one of my "charity weekends," in which I radically underbid everyone else out of fear of *gasp* losing a job. I do this all the time--I'd rather throw out my back, lose money, and potentially destroy merchandise than have to tell someone "I can't do it." So, more often than I'm comfortable admitting, I throw out some low-ball figure and--surprise, surprise--customers throw themselves on the quote like it's a candy grenade.

(Hmm...does "candy grenade" work? Have to think about that...)

The customer is a nice old lady with a third floor art gallery in Old Town. She needs to move a number of items downstairs to the trash, but one item is going to her place a couple of miles away.

After she showed me the details of the job, she asked "What would you charge for this?"

I thought about it for a few seconds. I was going to need an extra dude, the staircase, while spacious, was still a staircase, and the "extra" trip to her home was basically another move. The thought of doing all that for less than $100, (then my standard in-town rate for moves under five miles) depressed the hell out of me. So, I confidently gave a figure I felt comfortable with--something that I thought was worth my time.

"$250."

"Great!" she said.

"This is a Lesson," that interior voice said. For some reason that voice, which has been instructing me quite a bit lately, sounds just like Samuel L. Jackson.

"Listen," Samuel L. Jackson said, "How many more times do your customers have to tell you your prices are too low? You don't have to wonder about this--your prices are too low, mother @#$%er!"

"Uh..." I say to Samuel L. Jackson.

"Raise your damn prices."

"Yes sir," I say.

"Excuse me?" the gallery owner says.

"Never mind," I say, and leave.

Anyway, my prices have since gone up--WAY up, relative to what I was originally charging--and I'm still underbidding most guys out who are doing what I do. Not only that, most of my business comes from referrals and word-of-mouth. I suppose it's a stupid lesson every entrepreneur or new small business owner must learn, but it doesn't hurt to ask for more--particularly when your "more" is still LESS than the other guys.

Thank you, Samuel L. Jackson, for your badass advice.