My First Client

A couple weeks back a potential client for Inside Outside contacted us regarding her interest in a soapstone countertop for her kitchen island. The job was given to me. I was now in charge of selling the job. Most of the contact between me and the potential client was by email since she lived far away. She began telling me the size of her island which would later have to be precisely templated for correct measurements, but, for estimation purposes, this would be fine. She also told me she would like a charcoal grey color, but, as far as the level of movement in the stone, she did not specify this information at all.

With little information to go by, I told her I would do some research and first send her what soapstone slabs were available and which ones I thought she would be interested in. Then, after the specific soapstone slab was chosen, I would then be able to do a price estimate for the job to be completed.

I contacted our local stone distributors to become more familiar with the types of stone they carried and the sizes of those slabs. Inside Outside has approxiamtely nine distributors of stone they work with. Out of the nine distributors, only three had soapstone slabs available. Although I thought this would make my job a little more difficult, I soon found out that sometimes less options are better.

Once I contacted the distributors, I asked them to send me a picture of the soapstone slabs they currently had. I then sent those pictures to the client for her to choose which one she would like to use for her kitchen island. Luckily she really liked one of them. In her email she stated that she would like to use, let's call it "soapstone #1", in her kitchen and asked what the next step would be.

I explained to her that I had the price and size of the slab and that I would complete a job estimate for her to be able to look over the price of the entire job including fabrication and installation of the material. I did have to tell her up front that, since we do not have the slab on consigment, which means Inside Outside does not currently have one available in their own slab yard, it would have to be a special order. I would explain how this affected the price and payment later.

Taking into consideration that this is a special order, the client would be purchasing the entire slab not just what was needed out of the slab to make the kitchen island counter top which affects the cost of the job. This particular slab is very large and, after using what was needed for the island, would have a lot of material left over. As soon as I found this out by taking the measurements of the kitchen island and comparing it to the size of the slab, I told the client the situation. I explained that she would be purchasing the entire slab, so, since only a portion of the slab would be used, I asked if she would want to use the rest of the slab in another area of the house, perhaps in a bathroom or laundry area.

After taking my suggestion into consideration, she thought it was a great idea to go ahead and use the what was left since she had to buy the entire slab anyway. She told me she had a butlers pantry she would like to use it in. After she gave me the measurements of the this area, I was able to complete a price estimate for the entire job including the kitchen island and butler's pantry.

Once the price estimate was complete I sent it to the client. SHE APPROVED IT!!

I JUST SOLD MY FIRST JOB!!

I was very excited and so were the other Inside Outside employees which made me feel even better.

I quickly called the distributor to put a hold on the soapstone slab. Once this was done, I explained to the client that in order for us to have the special order slab shipped to us, a half deposit would have to be made. Since she lives far away, I faxed her the contract for her to sign and soon after that she faxed over the signed contract and a copy of the check. The next step, which has not occurred yet, is for her to make a trip down to Inside Outside to see the slab once it has been delivered.

This was a very exciting learning experience that I hope to have more often.