Reply To: Upholstery – Restaurant Warning Signals

[mitchellreid]

To all Owners and Techs,

I had an interesting call last week. It was about an upholstery quote from a year ago.

Maybe some back story is in order. In September 2023 I was asked to quote some upholstery damage at an Arby’s location. I submitted my quote, and their response was they were surprised at the cost. I told them I understood and thanked them for allowing me to submit a quote. I did get the impression that they would have been more excited about doing the work if the price was lower. This has happened many times to me in the restaurant upholstery game. In the following weeks they did not call back, and I did not submit a lower bid. To be honest with you, after a while, I completely forgot about the job. Then last week, September 2024 I received a call from the same Arby’s regional manager. She referenced the quote and said they were ready to proceed. I was caught off guard to say the least. I pulled the file and started reading the details of the job. I told her I would honor the quote. She apologized for the delay and said she had a total of 22 locations in the area. She said that if I could, she would like me to do all their upholstery work from this point forward. I told her we could do. We start installing the first 2 locations next week!

The moral of the story, I think, is patience. Do not assume that because the job didn’t come quickly that it won’t come at all. Also, don’t lower your prices for a quick sale. If you do, you will probably always have to do so.

On another occasion, I have even been told that the customer has had a lower bid submitted, and I will lose the job if I don’t drop my price significantly. The customer felt the quote was negotiable. I did not. It was not that big a surprise when he called back 2 weeks later to say the lower bid was a fly by night outfit that could not do the job. Please understand, there was never another bid submitted. It was just a poor attempt to get me to lower my price.

The reason I agreed to honor the Arby’s quote from a year earlier was I bid it correctly the first time. I know the common question I always get asked about upholstery prices is
“What do you charge for a 4′ booth cover?”

Well, in this case, for this particular job the 4′ booth price was $275. It was an easy call to honor that old quote. It was a very profitable job.

Bid the jobs so you can be profitable not so you can just stay busy. You can be the busiest upholsterer around and not be making any money. Doing so will just put you out of business and provide less competition to your competitors. Let your competitors take the butt kicking on non-profitable work while you focus on making money so you can not only stay in business but thrive and watch them go under. Survive to become not only busiest but the most profitable one as well.

I am no one of consequence. I am not a Franchise Owner or an employee of Dr. Vinyl Corporate. I am simply an upholstery tech just like you or just like you could be. I do not perform some sort of magic tricks to grow our upholstery sales. I simply make sure we are making money at anything we do OR we do NOT do that work. Please keep this in mind on the jobs that come your way in the future. You owe it to yourself to succeed. Isn’t that the reason you joined Dr. Vinyl in the first place?

You will only know if YOU TRY. Best of luck. I can’t wait to hear about your success.

Sincerely,
Mitchell Reid
The Wandering Upholsterer
“All Who Wander Are Not Lost”