None of them. But you ask to find out why the client is asking. At that point, if it is a client being nosy, "He gets paid a very fair wage" will do.

That rat thar is damn funny because the whole deal is that they didn't pay you the dollar!

I now have two ready responses:
I understand that you want a discount, but I have no way to discount the quantity of food I need to eat.
and my favorite
Jesus himself said to give to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and to God that which is God's. This was a call to keep the physical world and its rules separate from the world of spirituality. Don't confuse the two and ask for a discount, which will hurt me, to be considered an act of worship.




One of their mutual friends then said "If you're not going to at least take the 48 cents, I won't be able to believe you're actually Jewish". I don't think I have seen Dave laugh so hard in the whole time we have known each other.

At least they didn't demand that I do it as an 'indulgence'.


I don't think anyone actually called him 'Wimpy', but that was his M.O. and he's a classic case of "No good deed goes unpunished".

But what difference does it make finding out if the final answer is "none of them"? Like I said before, I can understand intellectual curiosity but at the end of the day all you are doing is wasting time delving into that request any deeper if you know the answer before hand.

It is not like a client saying "I was at Joe's house, it is amazing, I want the same thing" which I see as a starting point for something "custom" where you need to ask a million questions to get to something that will work for the client.

This is like sitting down for a test with

Instructions:
1) you can leave as soon as you are done
2) the answer to every question is C

You realize, though, that many people fail tests like that because they don't read the instructions, right?

It's actually like:

Client: (Looks at bid) "That's expensive"

You: (without asking questions) "It takes a lot to put this together...finest automation products today...this is an 85" 4K blahblahblah, Monitor Audio is an incredible speaker...we're put speakers in the Dining Room, Butler's Pantry, Master Bedroom...we have this OVRC...etc."

When you ask questions like ANY salesperson should:

Client: (Looks at bid) "That's expensive"

You: "Is there something you're comparing it to?"

Client: "I thought I saw that TV at Best Buy for $400.00 less."

Communication helps us get to the root of the objection, situation or implied thought. We're assuming that the customer in the original post had a problem with our labor rates. You don't know if he did until you ask.

In my opinion, the above is a better option than not answering the e-mail or pretending the question didn't happen. If the customer ends up asking you in person the next time you see him, do you just look at him, smile and say nothing?

I think the propper emaul response to the OP question is

"Lol...no of course not".

That's it. Don't elaborate. One line response.

+1000

TCA how did it go?

yes I do they also don't read the questions, make up their own question and then give an irrelevant answer. Just like


The OP clearly stated

Where did he say the client (Looks at bid) "That's expensive" or "I thought I saw that TV at Best Buy for $400.00 less."

as for your scenario(s)

IMHO
1)

should not normally happen. That is why you sit down with a customer and play 1000 questions before you start on the design. Yes sometimes you will get a customer that wants a Lamborghini but only has the budget for a Civic but it is during that process that you need to make him realize what is happening and come up with something that is acceptable in features and budget to the customer.

There is no sense designing a system with a 30k$+ projector if the guy can only afford a 1K$- projector.

That being said there was this one time when during the wait period ( the time between the design and us starting to work on his project) the client was let go from work and so it became hard for him to afford plan A and so we did a redesigned scaled down plan B.

2) "I thought I saw that TV at Best Buy for $400.00 less."

a) We itemize the equipment (i.e. TV brand x model Y....) but just give a total equipment cost for them, so unless it is a "swap" (i.e. what will it cost to replace the TV I have now with a bigger one) he can't exactly compare the cost of the TV.

We don't do it to stop comparisons but because it is a "package" , it is an all or nothing choice so why make it look differently. Otherwise if the client decided to go buy the TV at BB because there is a special what would it mean for support? will he call BB? will he call us? will we need to try and fix it for free (not fair for us), will we need to charge him labour (there go the savings) and then say "sorry we can't do anything about it, the issue is with the TV and you now need to call BB (plus call us back after they come and mess it up and we need to charge for a second service charge)"

b)We don't negotiate on prices (work or stuff), so if he can get the stuff cheaper somewhere else he can say no and get it from there and ask them to install it. There will be no hard feelings on our part. We charge for designing so we got paid for all the work that went into the project already. The way we see it a project can have one or more of three parts: 1) design; 2)pre-wire/build; 3) equipment and installation. each needs to be seen kind of like their own job and a client can choose what he wants from the three.