turn downs

I generally hate having to turn down clients for work. We take pride in what we do and take pride in doing it well and a big part of doing a job well is doing it at the time and place a client wants it at. Obviously, any job we cannot cover (for either lack of time, people, or equipment) we will not get the revenue from. We're supposed to chase work, that's what we do and frankly, that's what we like to do. Sometimes we could do a job, but we turn it down for any number of reasons. Or perhaps a very small number of reasons.

Credit is one of those reasons. We work for a lot of independents around here and some of them have little to no established credit. Others have some, but need to be politely reminded to eventually pay the bills.

Safety matters too. A client operation that is known to have the potential to be unacceptably dangerous is not where we want any of people to be.

Another one is if the risk-reward balance is unfavorable. A couple weeks ago, we turned down a job that was, for a variety of reasons, not worth pursuing. It was the classic example of looking at the risk reward levels and realizing that sometimes you have to say no. Push back and say no and don't even say sorry. If sales can't make it worthwhile, then we don't need to jump through hoops to cover the work. Please don't promise high-risk work to clients at exorbitantly low prices without consulting the field district that you expect to do the job. It's just not going to happen.