Business
Quotes, prices, client conversations: the commercial side that small businesses rarely write about.
Belongs here
- Quotes you understand without asking
- Fixed price versus time and materials
- Jobs you should turn down
Does not belong here
- Sales rhetoric
- Growth for its own sake
- Figures with no relation to company size
What a quote has to do
It has to answer what the money is being spent on — before anyone asks.
A total without a breakdown gets compared, not understood. Put next to it what is included and what explicitly is not, and the conversation shifts from “too expensive” to “do we need this”. That is the conversation worth having.
When to say no
When requirements are still growing in the third conversation while the budget is not.
A declined job costs revenue once. An accepted one that does not fit costs months, and usually the relationship too. You can explain a refusal without justifying yourself: one sentence is enough.
Posts on Business
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