We seem to be involved in a little chess match with Garrison. I would post the latest details, but I think I should wait until the matter is settled. We've learned that we can't underestimate him, but he has certainly learned the same thing about us, as well. :D And I like our attorney. He's cool. In the game of chess, he is our Queen. :)

Because I am a girl. :)

Because I need a visual change on my blog.

Because, although, running a business is part of a reflection of my identity; the actual drywall part of the business isn't an appealing aspect.

Because I like pink.

Because I like hearts.

Because I like polka dots.

Just Because.

All In a Days Work

Dear xxxxxxx : Your invoice is attached. Please remit payment at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your business - we appreciate it very much.
Sincerely,
"us"
****Drywall is scheduled for delivery on ------- 2008 per our discussion. Please contact me by Tuesday if this needs to change

Rick:

I will call you tomorrow, but a personal friend gave me an estimate on the drywall far less expensive than your quote.

Garrison,

As you are aware, we are not a framing company and did the framing only as a favor to you with full understanding that we were guaranteed the drywall work. We made absolutely nothing and it actually cost us money. Because you asked us to, we even added additional custom framing of shelves, extra walls and a theater stage at an extreme minimal cost to you, that you could not achieve anywhere else. We also consulted for you; sending other contractors for electrical and plumbing.

Garrison, on a personal level **our attorney's suggested statement, times are tough right now and we were really counting on that income. We gave you an excellent price on the drywall just to obtain your business in the first place. We were already making less of a profit than anticipated due to the unexpected cost we incurred from doing the framing so cheaply for you. Hopefully we can resolve this in an amicable way, as we only want to receive just pay for our efforts.

Rick:
I understand where your coming from; however, the framing work was not based on a guarantee to do the drywall job from my vantage point. If this were the case I would have definitely signed a contract with you. With that said, I am not stating that we don’t want to use your organization, but as you stated with today’s challenging financial times money is an issue for most everyone. We have many things we must consider in a budget each year and with the increase cost in the framing every penny needs to count for us. As I recall, when I originally walked through the framing job with Patrick I am certain I explained that we designated the one room as a home theatre with the platform (in other words, I thought this was included in your original quote). However, when I saw this wasn’t being worked on as Patrick was nearing the end of his work, I asked about it. Patrick stated that he didn’t recall this being mentioned and I never pushed the issue. The only additional framing that I requested was the build out for the projection screen and speakers.

In any case, all I’m looking for is some reconsideration on the pricing for the drywall job. If this can be done great! If not, I will have to consider the other option. If we cannot come to terms and you lost money on the framing job I will be glad to reimburse you a reasonable amount to provide you profit for that job. However, I would ask that you take a look at the numbers again and re-quote the job. There is nothing personal about this at all, it is purely a business decision that must be made. And at the end of the day, I am sure you have deal with issues like this every day in business just as I do. My company has received several verbal intentions of us serving a new client without them actually coming aboard. And this is exactly what I gave you a verbal intention to do business.

So please understand there is no anger or animosity on my end, but I have to be mindful of every dollar spent on this project. I look forward to hearing back from you soon.

Garrison



Garrison,

We cannot adjust our price on the drywall at all. We charged you builders production pricing, which is far less than residential homeowner pricing. As far as fair payment on the framing with you allowing your friend to do the drywall, we cannot take anything less than $800 dollars compensation for the loss on the framing. I tried to call you a few minutes ago. I'm available if you'd like to talk on the phone.

Regards,

Rickey

Rickey:

I will contact you sometime tomorrow morning. However, I don’t see $800 as a reasonable amount. If you’ll recall I did receive other estimates on all phases of the job and your original framing bid was somewhat competitive with everyone else (keep in mind that everyone’s bid did include the home theater build out) . However, if you add $800 to the job it is not competitive at all. It just wouldn’t be prudent of me to do this. If you were looking at this from my perspective I would think you could see why I have to consider the other option provided the other person will do an exceptional job.

Let me put it this way. If you were to bring your vehicle into a couple of shops for a quote for repairs or mods and although you knew that both quotes were higher than you expected, you still intend to go with one of them based on your belief in their work and the cost. However, while the shop you intend to go with is doing an oil and filter change on your vehicle your discussing with your friend the situation with the vehicle. He then says that he wished you would have thought of him because he could do the job for far less and you already know his quality of work. Unless you just had money to burn, you would more than likely let the shop know that although you intended to have them do the mods or repairs you found someone else that can do the job at a lower cost. You would probably even give them a chance to match the other price or at least come closer to it. But, I doubt you would ignore the other offer. In this same scenario, if the shop owner told you that he took a big loss on the oil/filter change because he expected to have the repair/mod job, you would probably be somewhat skeptical of this.

Now I understand that small business owners will do various jobs/offer services at a breakeven point in order to win a bigger project. We even take small losses for this type of opportunity, but to claim that your loss was anywhere near $800 just doesn’t seem right.

Garrison,

We need to know what you've decided based on our conversation yesterday.

Thank you,
Rickey

Rickey:

I discussed everything with ym wife, and we believe it is best that we remain with our current team of workers for the drywall prjoect.


Garrison,

We still need to resolve the outstanding balance you owe to us. We have been advised by our attorney last week that we have a solid legal claim against you. You even stated in your voicemail that you understood that you had verbally committed to us, which is legally binding. At this point, I will settle for the $800 dollars in lost income from the framing that we've already discussed, or I will pursue all other legal options to collect the full amount.


I never committed to anything. However, we will be in touch after hearing back from our Lawyer. Have a good day!
Garrison's BlackBerry

Synopsis to our attorney:

We were called by Garrison xxxx from a flyer to possibly install drywall in his basement. We personally met him at a subdivision we do work in and showed him our company's work. We gave him a written estimate and he later accepted our bid verbally. He told us he had gotten several other bids, and we were the cheapest. He said he liked our work and he was going with us.
He indicated several phases that needed to be done in his basement just prior to us installing the sheetrock and indicated he would really appreciate any assistance. We then referred several contractors to him (electrical, plumbing, HVAC) and called several framing companies and found that the cheapest price was for more than what we could pay one of our employees to frame, which would save him money. The framing company could frame the job in one day--our guy would take approx. 4 days. Garrison opted to save money and use our guy for less money, but then added several change orders for additional framing and our guy ended up spending nearly two weeks there. We made minimal adjustments to his framing bill, (which he paid in intervals) for far less than framing companies would have charged. We actually lost money.
We would have never given these discounts without having been hired for the drywall.

Garrison never indicated at any point that there was even a possibility that our company wouldn't be installing drywall. Several witnesses heard many indications as to us having the job, including Garrison expressing the date that we could have the sheetrock delivered to his house. He also recently left a voicemail that we have saved, stating "I know I more or less gave a verbal agreement, but my budget is tight due to auditing by the state." and that he found a cheaper guy, his friend, to do the work.