I have no idea how many times I have been called in to a house where the h.o. wants to sell and leads me to believe I have a strong chance at the listing. They waste an hour, or usually 2, of my time there, and prep and travel. When I call to follow up, I usually get the machine answering. I then see it come up listed. If I ever ask why they chose someone else over me and if there had been something I could do differently the next time, they sweetly say "no" and mention that they had to list with a family member, and/or neighbor, best friend's cousin, etc... Usually, they are not full time agents or local and often the ink on their license is still wet. Our office does more business than the next 2 competitors combined despite not being as large as our competition, yet blood or obligation trumps ability/track record a lot of the time.
It is hard not to be disappointed because the h.o.s give the vibe of such enthusiasm and I feel very led on each time. I guess that is the nature of working for hire and not a salary... OTOH, when I get a listing or make a sale, it is a great feeling.

I would be REALLY upset too, that just isn't right to say you'll do something "order the cabinets in 2weeks!" and not to go through with it. Especially after all the work you did for them.
I hope they still buy you that loaf of bread, that's the least they could do.

I'm so sorry about your accident!

As much as I am sorry for your disappointment, I am glad that I read your story. We have been working with one designer (arranged through our GC) but had been having trouble coming up with a plan. Based on a friend's recommendation, I stopped in to the showroom of her KD to see if we wanted him to do a plan for us. We spent a while talking, but, as much as I could see that he was talented and creative, I didn't think that his "high-energy" style would be a good fit (I tend to be a little Type A and I worried that it would just bring out the worst, high-stress side of me.) I ended up not calling him to come out to the house and to spend the time to do a full design, since I knew I probably wouldn't give him the project.

Based on your story, perhaps it was better and more honest not to waste his time. From a KD's perspective, can I be absolved of my sin of not arranging an in-home appointment?

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. I don't give out free design work either. (Anymore) "Nice" people are exactly the ones who end up screwing you on something like that. You know the PIAs are PIAs and you aren't sentimental and sweet to them. Just professional. It's those folks who butter you up and just love everything about you and your designs that you have to guard yourself against.

This is a business, and it's really rare in the working world that people demand free work of someone, and I explain it just like that. If a customer wants an estimate, I'll ballpark one only. Or if they have a cabinet list, I'll give them an exact price on exactly what they ask me about (without any design input). If during our one hour free design consult, I don't inspire you and give you enough ideas about how your space could turn out, then you aren't destined to be one of my customers. The ones that walk away and don't ante up for the retainer are usually the ones that are too focused on price to the exclusion of everything else, are are the DIYers who think they know enough about my spec books to be able to do the entire design (but who want to blame me when something goes wrong with their measurements) or they are the dreamers who think that a 5K budget will get them a whole new kitchen. If a customer is serious, but just not ready to commit yet, then I sometimes offer a rendering of how the choices we've discussed could look, but that's it. My designs are my intellectual property, and unless you pay for that you're not getting them.

Shake it off, and keep being professional without being so "nice"! It's a business, not personal. Remodels are really picking up around here, and I hope it is for you too. :)

(((((((Kompy))))))). Some people just have no class.

A thank you, or a card, or a bunch of flowers could go so far.

But know what? In the end, this aspect of that particular client would have come out in your working relationship. In a way, it looks like you're well rid of them.

What I've also found is that something super positive often can come along from someplace you don't expect and I hope it goes that way quickly for you.

I'm on the other side of things, but I did have a situation that I felt badly about and definitely hope to rectify in the future...

a little over a year ago I spent a lot of time, and I mean a lot of time, with a kitchen designer. She is a friend/acquaintance. I know she worked hard for us. As we were beginning to finalize the idea, our master bathroom literally fell apart. Kitchen was put on hold. We did use her for the master bathroom (& love it), so I guess she still did get a job - but it certainly was much smaller in scope than the kitchen.

now, a year later, my kitchen still sits here, waiting to be redone. I still have her plans/ideas in a folder - but honestly, after a year to ruminate on things I thought I wanted and things I realized I truly needed, I have graph paper plans that look almost nothing like the original. I'm not sure when we'll have the budget to complete the kitchen. But I do know when it's time, we will go back to our friend, graph paper designs in-hand, and let her do all the minutiae which I know nothing about. (But in the meantime, I feel badly that she worked so many hours and will be waiting so long for that to pay off!)

Oh Kompy,

Terrible. Simply Terrible!
I feel for you. It hurts to get burned and your creative
talents abused. I am really glad you posted this. Your post
is a gift of education to all who would like to hire
someone in this field. To really understand the sweat,
time, energy, effort, creativity, talent, hours and
patience involved by a KD, Architect, Woodworker,
Designer, Contactor, Cabinet maker,...
They should all be thoroughly appreciated, paid and
thanked for their efforts.
I believe in the concept of 'harm none" but in this case
I do hope a little Karma kicks that contractor and his wife
back during their kitchen reno.
~boxer

Kompy, I am very sorry that you had that experience - I am sure that it must have been terribly disappointing to lose a job like that.

I have never used a KD before (never remodelled a kitchen - this will be the first time), so I don't know how the whole process works - are they on retainers, paid hourly, etc? Do KDs also sell cabinets? I'm very confused.

Regardless, I can't imagine working with a professional KD and not expecting to pay them anything. It seems to me that there should be some kind of agreement up front for how things get paid for each step of the way. Otherwise, I think that has the potential to put both the KD and the client in an awkward position later on.

You said that you will do a design for free (sans drawings), but that seems to me like you are agreeing up front to do work for them without expecting to get paid. Then when the clients change their mind about ordering cabinets, for whatever reason, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Is that how the whole industry is set up?

I am only asking these questions because I want to avoid "leading on" a KD, when all I want to do is hire them for kitchen design and leave my options open as to where I order my cabinets. Or do I have to select my KD based on where I think I'm going to order my cabinets?

Thanks in advance for your words of wisdom!

ps - I have done my own kitchen layout on graph paper, refined it about a dozen times, and what I want the KD to do is to use their tricks of the trade to optimize efficiency and function of the layout....

Kompy,

I understand completely. I work for a kitchen and bath remodeling company, selling the plumbing, tile, flooring, faucets, etc. I am on straight commission. When I go to great lengths to help a customer with flooring information, track down a sample for them, go over every faucet ever made with them and they take my information and sometimes my backsplash designs and go "shop Lowes", I get so frustrated. It's the way it goes (as I'm sure I take customers from others), but it almost seems worse when the rapport and connection are so good with a customer, and then they "cheat" :)

After I took this job, I did make a mental note to send thank you/apology letters to every salesperson who I've talked to at length in the past, said "I'll call you!" and never ordered from. I have yet to do that. ;)

norcalpeetnik - in some professions people do estimates, plans, proposals, bids, etc. for "free" in the hope of winning a job - it's a cost of doing business and is probably paid for overall by the people who do hire them to do work. Generally, there's a certain amount of work that people will put in for free based on the expected size of the job that they are bidding. In some cases, such as this one, you can put in too much work and then get burned. I'm sure it was nothing personal, just business, but I do think the couple should have been more upfront with kompy about what kind of cabinets they wanted.

send em an invoice, and the new cabinet co. a letter warning about the use of copyrighted designs!

I don't know if some people understand that they are getting you to work for free when this happens. There have been a number of discussions in here about how people have been upset that they can't take an independent designer's kitchen plan and shop it around for the best price.

I know two women, one a client and the other a designer. The designer who works solely on commission did an entire furniture plan and fabric and finish selection for a LR, DR, Great Room, MBR etc. The client kept the sample boards to show her husband, then wrote down all the furniture and fabric information, hopped on a plane to NC and bought it all herself. And still doesn't think she did anything wrong. I think she may have paid a token fee of $100-200 for the initial consult and apparently thinks that is adequate compensation for designing most of her interiors.

kompy...

oooh... i am so mad them. that is really rotten.

i'm sure you created a really nice design, too.

you are a kind, generous person. those people are just... ugh.

like boxer said, hope some karma applies here.

Now that I know better, I do better. -- Maya Angelou

chin up! *hug*

Kompy, I feel your pain. I can't count the number of times I have felt great rapport with a prospective client and had them disappear or go elsewhere. We all know that we are not going to get every job we bid but it is extraordinarily frustrating to lose a job to a competitor who bid something entirely different than what they asked you for. If they had told you they wanted pecan you would have designed a pecan kitchen for them.

Go get the next one!

What goes around comes around. You will be rewarded for your generous nature, and they will be "rewarded" with cabinets that come with wrong stain on the doors and the have to wait 3 months for new ones, and while they're waiting their favorite granite slab will go missing and their ice maker will leak.

I'm in a mood.

Sorry this happened to you.

So sorry to hear this. But this reminds me of what happens to my husband. As a favor, he has fixed many friends computer, to the point where he is called at night in emergency situations! Way out of the realm of the original favor. All of a sudden now he is THE computer guy! Yet these same people would never even consider giving him a break on their services. One is a hair dresser and the other our accountant. Both would never offer a discount or a free haircut. And it is not that my husband is looking for this, it's just that you would think after helping someone mutiple times, they would WANT to reciprocate in some way. Personally it would never occur to me to want someone to do something for me continuosly for free. Am I wrong here?

Because our project has so much DIY in it, we've tried to be very very clear when we're hiring a friend/relative. I sure hope we haven't lead anyone on. One nephew apparently was not aware that there were wages involved--he was surprised when DH gave him a check. We paid a guy from the get-go for design services, including a blueprint and calculations for roof and supporting walls and beams. He had to ask for more money at one point and we paid him more. So I get to blame him for some of the sore points--it's only fair. But all in all, I'm glad we hired him.

ellendi - I had to laugh at your post because just like your husband, I've become THE COMPUTER GUY to a few of my friends. Most of them are generous and take me out for lunch or make dinner. As I tell people, I work for food :-) But it has become annoying since some of them feel free to call me with the slightest problem and expect me to drop everything and run over.

Weissman, LOL!

This is very interesting and informative. My husband and I are DIYers- only way we could afford it. Over the period of a year we fine tuned our plans. (also posted them on this site for more input). Now we are in the process of getting bids on cabinets. We do want the cabinet suppliers to install.
We have gone to an independent cabinet maker who added some really good ideas to our plans (small details- not reworking the layout). We also went to Lowes for an estimate and to compare quality. The KD at Lowes was great, he also had some detail ideas and is working up the estimate. So, I didn't feel guilty asking the KD at Lowes for an estimate because how would I know which cabinets to choose without one? Where is the line drawn?
As soon as I know the estimate I will choose one or the other though both have been helpful beyond just giving the estimate. Do the KD's at Lowes only work on commission or is the design help they give part of a salaried job? I like to save money but don't want to take advantage of anyone.

Kompy I'm so sorry, you have such a giving, caring nature and it's obvious that you really are not only good at what you do, but that you love it. It's especially galling that this person was a contractor who should have(most likely) known exactly what he was doing.

If it helps, I've been on these boards for years and even though I have a jaded eye towards the field of KD's...I would hire you in a heartbeat. Good eye, good design and good heart...can't ask for anything more.

I feel bad for you in this situation. It always upsets me when people don't realize that work such as you are doing is actual work. Same with RE brokers. When we were looking, we found a realtor we liked and she ended up doing tons of work on our behalf. She was so helpful to us that we were bent on making sure she got a commission when we purchased. So even if we saw a house at an open house and she wasn't involved, we made sure to get her involved so that she'd get her commission. She told us that there weren't many people like this.

But back to kitchen design. Sometimes it's hard to know where to draw the line between "work" and what people need to do to get the business. We interviewed 4 kitchen designers. One came out to the house to take detailed measurements and spent weeks trying to reel us in. He had beautiful design ideas, but he refused to talk price with us as he had us come in numerous times to look at refinements in the design. Great design, but when we heard the price we almost keeled over. Two other KDs came out and took measurements and put a design plan together. We didn't ask them to come out-- their business plan involved taking measurements and putting design plans together and hopefully we'd like the plans and choose them. They, too, spent some time on their plans and time with us discussing their ideas. The fourth KD said he wouldn't come out to measure without a $2000 deposit, but we should take rough measurements ourselves and he would put together a rough design. If we decided on him and paid the $2000, he'd come out and measure and do detailed elevations. Ultimately, we went with the fourth guy, who did the least work up front. We just liked his ideas best, even in rough form. So ultimately, the first 3 KDs did a bunch of work for free-- but this is how they told us they wanted to work.

Now we never led the other 3 on like your potential clients did. Nor would we have thought of taking their designs and shopping them around to others to try to get a lower price. But I'm sure that we left these people feeling like they wasted their efforts with us-- when in one case the price was all wrong and in the other two we just didn't like their ideas. So where does one draw the line between auditioning KDs for the best idea and totally using someone?

ellendi... no you are not wrong! your husband's time is precious too. considerate people know that.

We interviewed several contractors for our kitchen remodel and narrowed it down to two easily based just on first meetings. Both contractors encouraged us to meet with their KD's. We were happy to do this because we needed to know how much the cabinets were going to add to this project(we tend to have expensive taste). We told gave the KD's carte blanche to design what they thought.
Contractor #1's KD blew us away with his design because it was a total departure from what we have going on now. We loved the KD for beign so creative and told him so. Of course, the cost of the cabs were more than we wanted to spend and didn't include any pull-outs, lazy susans etc. He tried to get us to sign with him then and there and got the price down a little, but his design was SO different and we weren't familiar with his cabinet brands so we told him we couldn't commit. He gave us his measured design so we could dwell on it. We went home and taped off various parts of his design so we could see how it would lay out in the space.
Contractor #2's KD stuck fairly close to our current layout with small changes based on what we liked and didn't like about the current kitchen. The cost of these cabs were still a little above what we thought, but less than KD #1. It also included some of the extras we wanted in the lower price.

We ended up going with Contractor #2(felt he was best for the job) and so picked his KD. I'm sure Contractor #1's KD is kicking himself for giving us his design and thinks that we must have used it with another KD, but we didn't at all. We didn't go with him because we didn't go with the contractor he's connected to and went with a design that is most like our current kitchen.

Ok that sucks...I've wanted to say the same thing a million times but instead of a hug I'll buy you a beer and whack you on the back and say suck it up and move on dear. You KNOW this is the business and you know you have to deal with three or four of these flakes for every one real job so take your licks and move on to the next real job, which will be much more rewarding!

I was in banking....none of you think a wink about having me put together a bid on your loan, credit review, property reviews, approvals etc, which takes from hours to literally days and weeks on the multi million dollar deals now do you? I have lost so many deals to so many clients I hoped to work with because I liked them or their business or the challenges they presented....hours of unpaid work so they can go diwn the street, often with the idea of taking my idea for a financing package, which might be totally different than they came in with, and they move to the next bank fir a 1/4 percent fee reduction....not even asking if I can beat that....

And I have a cosmo with the other guys....often including the other banker....who must buy in that case, and I look to get the client next time, or a better client....such is the life of many in the service fields.

Want a cosmo instead of a beer? I'll buy.....but can we talk about my kitchen while we order..see I just want to tweak xyz.....and so it goes on :).

Kompy, did you read crazydiygal's post above? This is what I kept thinking while reading your post, which I read and re-read to see if I was missing something.

How can you be certain that they used your design? In planning my remodel, I've declared love at first sight many times for our architect's ideas only to ruminate and then change every last detail.

If I'm understanding this correctly, it seems that the only problem is that you put in too much effort for a job where you hadn't been retained.

If they did use your design, that's just sh**ty, but for your own sanity, I'd blow it off as time lost and nothing more.

it sounds like you did something against your better judgement (giving out the designs). However i'm not sure if the couple did anything wrong, or if mainly this is just disappointment of what you thought was a sure sale, went away?

In doing my home renovation I've visited 3-4 kitchen places, i came in with my space, a design I did, even speccing configuration of the cabinets, I sat down with these people for an hour or so as they priced out what I wanted, made a few suggestions etc. Most gave me elevations when we were done along with a price quote. I did not really feel obligated to any one of them and the fact that they gave me the design didn't really impact me, maybe this is b/c I started with a design.

I guess my point is, for these cabinet salespeople they need to do a certian amount of work to make a sale, if they don't make the sale, thats lost time, but thats life. I'm not sure what time you invest in what you're doing; KDs come in all shapes and sizes, but it sounds like you need to have a point where the people need to put a deposit down before work can go further.

I'm nice, pleasant and happy when dealing with all of these salespeople, they may all think that this means they have the sale. Really it just means I'm a nice guy. I go back home and think about price vs value and finally make a decision.

I guess it really comes down to how you are marketing yourself and the services you provide and where the value is. Not saying that you can make this model work.

While I sympathize with you Kompy, I have to say that it's the way business is. I'm in IT and we spend hundreds of hours & thousands of dollars on proposals all the time without winning the work. Sometimes we, the proposal writers, get paid, sometimes not...it depends on the company. I've worked both ways. It's "expected" of us to work any proposals...with or without pay. And yes, our plans, etc. are often used by the buyers when they award a contract to someone else...not fair, but it happens.

The expectation is that when we do win contracts, the "profit" will help cover the "loss" of those we spent time/money on but lost.

I agree though, it's kind of depressing to lose after spending so much time & effort on proposals! So...lots of (((hugs))) go out to you.

buehl - that works when you have a med/large size firm to back you up and carry you till the next "sale". When it's just an indiv. like kompy - it's an entirely different story.

I had a lawyer tell me a few months ago that our commission was not deserved when we were sitting down to discuss listing her family's home. She felt it was out of line for the work we would do. I explained to her that real estate agents end up spending much of our time doing "pro bono" (inadvertently, lol) and need to be able to make a living from those we do get paid for. Long story short, we listed her home, I found buyers for them with good offers and yet they ended up not selling (or buying, which I also spent a lot of time on including showing, negotiating and the engineer's report). I worked my butt off trying to keep it all together, the buying and selling, and easily spent 80 hours on the deal from day 1 to the day they decided to cancel everything. I was out of pocket for money spent listing her house and costs involved in marketing. I was soooo tempted to ask her if she recalled our earlier conversation about how we often spend a lot of time and end up not being paid and if she now understood that we earn every dime we make, even if it is not specific to the deals that pay us.
It is the sucky part of not working for a salary, but truth be told, I also like that we can work for great pay at other times and are not boxed in by a set amount of pay. If I work harder and smarter, I make more overall than if I didn't.

hmmm this thread is certainly thought-provoking. As bad as I feel for the OP, I have to say as a consumer, I'm going where I can get the best bang for my buck. Do I feel bad for the Ford salesman who spent the better part of the afternoon letting me test-drive, then working numbers on various vehicles, just so I could go over to the Toyota dealership and purchase there? not really, I thought is was all part of the experience of shopping around.

When we built (almost 13 years ago) I went to KD who was the one and only that I visited. We sat down, worked up a "design" which was not custom cabs but I liked it and so I bit. And then last summer, when I decided to replace my laminate with granite, I went straight to him. He got a cut of $8000 without having to do a thing. But because I had to go thru him to get a fabricator, that's how it worked. So, IMO, that KD got paid for doing squat. So I'm assuming that it goes both ways and it all evens out in the end. I know that will sound harsh.