What to say when a client asks for a discount
You send the quote. They come back with a version of the same sentence. Could you do anything on the price. Our budget is nearer four. The other chap was cheaper.
Most trades have two responses available: hold firm and probably lose it, or knock a few hundred off and resent it. Both are worse than the third one, which is to change what they are buying instead of what it costs.
Why cutting the price is the worst option
Not because of the money, though that matters. Because of what it says about the first number.
A quote of £4,650 that becomes £4,200 the moment somebody asks tells the customer the £4,650 was not a real figure. And if that one was not real, none of the others are either, including the ones on the next job. You have taught a customer that your prices are an opening position, and they will treat every future quote accordingly.
There is also the arithmetic. A £450 reduction on a £4,650 job is not a 10 per cent cut, it is a cut of roughly a third of the profit, because the profit was never 100 per cent of the price. Discounts come out of the only part of the number that was yours.
Reduce the scope instead
The reply that works is some version of: I can get to that number, and here is what comes out to do it.
"I can do £4,200. That version has the existing tiling stay on the two walls that are sound, and I would leave the making good for your decorator. Same suite, same fitting, same guarantee."
Three things happen. The price they asked for is available, so you are not refusing them. The value of the work is preserved, because the reason it costs less is visible. And quite often they look at what comes out and decide they would rather have it, which gets you the original number with the customer feeling they chose it.
What you must not do is take work out quietly. A reduced price with the same description is a promise to do the same job for less, and you will be reminded of it when the making good does not happen.
When it is a real budget
Sometimes the number they said is genuinely all there is. That is not a negotiating position, it is a constraint, and it is worth finding out which one you are dealing with.
Ask. "Is four thousand where the budget actually stops, or are you seeing whether there is movement?" Most people answer honestly, because the question is not accusatory and because they would rather you designed to the real number.
If it is a real budget, the useful move is often to stage it. The bathroom this spring and the ensuite in the autumn is two jobs at the price they can afford rather than one job you both compromise on. You keep the rate, they get the work, and you have a booked second job.
When it is the other chap
"I had a quote for three and a half."
The answer is not to match it and not to criticise them. It is to find out whether the two quotes are for the same thing, and they very often are not.
"That is a good price. Does it include taking the old suite away and making good after the tiling? Mine does, and it is usually where the difference is." That either explains the gap, which helps them decide properly, or it tells you that your competitor is genuinely cheaper at the same scope, which is information about your market you wanted anyway.
A customer who cannot tell what is different between two quotes will pick the lower one, every time, and that is not a pricing problem. It is a document problem.
The number below which you say no
You need one, worked out in advance, and it is not a feeling.
It comes from your real hourly rate: the point below which the job costs you money to do once the unbillable hours are in. Above that line, a discount is a decision about how much you want the work. Below it, there is no version of the job worth having, and the right answer is a straight no with the door left open.
"That is below what I can do it for, but if the budget moves I would be glad to pick it up." No justification, no apology, no long explanation of your costs. The customer does not need your accounts, and a lengthy defence of the price reads as a price that needs defending.
The sentence to have ready
Most of this comes down to having a first line prepared, because the ask usually arrives when you are on a ladder.
"I can probably get near that. Let me look at what comes out and send you a version." It buys you the evening, it does not concede the rate, and it turns a price conversation into a scope conversation, which is where you want it.