"We have a policy to beat any competitor's service fee, and general plant/container pricing." Why? Of all the incentives I can think about to get a customer to buy from me, undercutting the competition isn't one I'd ever use, especially with a blanket policy of promising to always be cheaper.

It is a very common mistake for people new in the green industry to underprice their product so much they sometimes don't survive start-up. What if the other bids are from companies like that, who may not have based the cost on a logical formula?

In design and maitenance, the idea of quality is also abstract. You can be the best in the world, but the money comes in only when your client admits it. One can't set this service and product side by side with a competitor and compare them, because it is very, very subjective, and it can't be YOU, but the customer who is willing to pay for your product who must admit it. Will he/she be honest? Maybe. Maybe not.

Yes, of course I'd expect to see the competitors' contracts, so I could go over with the client if they are providing the equivalent service and material as you. But, what do you do if they are? I can see no easy way out of that corner, without renigging on your "policy".

Something I learnt years ago. I price my wholesale product on the high end, because it is worth it. I sometimes lose a client because of it. Almost without exception, they return, because we are in the Beauty business. If it isn't beautiful and if it doesn't fulfill their needs, it isn't a bargain is it? Leave that one to the box stores.

In other businesses it is common practice to require the competitive quote as proof before reworking the contract. Most of the times it is all hot air, but there are those times.....

Well, we have found that most of our competitors in our area just flat out overcharge. Most of the time, we don't have to truly enforce the policy. We usually already beat the prices of others, and this policy ends up not even being discussed.
Every once in awhile though, we hear of fees that other companies are charging, and we wonder how they could possibly be making any money. They probably didn't base their pricing on a "logical formula" as Caliope mentioned. These are probably "fly by night" companies that Hap E was talking about.
We do hope to someday be big enough that we don't have to use this as a selling point. It does get peoples' attention though. This has caused many accounts, who have previously had this type of service, to call. But for most people who have never had this type of service, they have no idea the cost involved...even when the service is slightly discounted. Unfortunately, they only focus on the cost.

I don't know or care what other people charge. It is not even interesting to me.
I know what a 40 head irrigation job costs, and I know what I would charge. I recently got outbid on a job by some guy that works as a clerk in a Pawn Shop. Apparently he has a pickup truck and has put in 4 whole irrigation systems!!!!

There was also a job once that I figured to take 102 heads. I bid $7,800, another guy bid $9,500 and said it would take 96 heads. Yet another guy claimed he could do the system with 42 heads, for the bargain price of $3,200 (which I almost wish I could have watched him install).
I won that time due to my system pumping out of a pond as opposed to using thier deep well, the customer also claimed that they felt most comfortable with my knowledge of irrigation *shrug*

customers love it when I say:
"ok, great. heres my card, call me if things don't work out."

good day,
drew

>Unfortunately, they only focus on the cost.By announcing a beat any competitors price policy you are directing their attention to the cost right off the bat.

Their focus is already on the cost. Especially people who already have a plant service, and are getting bids to see if they can get the service for less money. The same goes for people who are new to plant service. That's the purpose of them getting more than one bid.
When working for other companies in this business, I spent much time on many bids, only to be declined because they found someone who'd do it for less. We have this policy due to what we've learned from past experience.

You need to define in detail what you are delivering for that price and require that any price comparisons must be apples for apples. That should be both in terms of time & materials as well as results. If that does not weed out the lowballers, it will most likely leave plenty of holes in any litigation attempts to keep the bottom feeders from dining on your bill.

You can never be cheap enough for people who use lowest price as their top priority. Catering to this does not seem likely to be the road to success.

I agree that I think you will kill yourself going for the lowest dollar. In our greenhouse business we found that when we decided that we would work on offering our customers the 'best value' vs the 'cheapest price' our sales went up. We now have a smaller number of sales transactions but the average sale is substantially higher as are our total sales.