Jay and I have noticed a counterintuitive behavior in some businesses. They don't seem interested in accepting money. Jay had a real bad bout of this first -- he had contacted several vendors about some such piece of equipment and none of them were responsive. He was practically waving money at them and saying, "Have money. Will Spend." Jay and I really don't play around -- when we need something -- we figure out what it is and get it. Just enough analysis to make sure we don't totally screw the pooch, but, not so much as to paralyze us.
Well, I just had the same experience as Jay (hardly as pronounced though -- Jay had a real serious case of this). One of things the City of Houston requires when doing remodelling is an asbestos survey. So, I contacted the mighty oracle (Google) and said, "Find me some people that do asbestos surveys in Houston". And the mighty oracle responded with a couple of firms. I sent e-mail to two of them telling them what I needed done, the size of the space, etc. and asked for a ballpark estimate. Basically, lowest bidder wins. Well, the first group I contacted was Tri-D Services, Inc. 30 minutes later I get a phone call from Lance Wilkerson and we discuss the basic situation and right there he gives me an estimate. I let him know I am expecting one more estimate and that my landlord *might* have a previous survey on record and if so I won't need the service. Landlord replies and lets me know they don't have a survey on record. No problem. I wait a day (a long time at Tribal Pizza!) and no response from the other company. So, I kicked in the second criteria for picking a company to do the survey -- responsiveness.
So, I send Lance an e-mail saying I want the service done through Tri-D and he arranges to meet me the next day and do the survey.
An hour later, I get an e-mail from the second company with a basic estimate. My response is short, sweet and to the point.
"Thanks anyways. We went with someone who was very prompt to our request for an estimate."
Why don't companies want to take peoples money?
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