Can Not Sell a Coyote Job

I have trouble understanding what people are thinking when they call me with a coyote problem.

About half of the people who call me are surprised that I charge for services to begin with. Then when I tell them how much, they seem to go into cardiac arrest!

$175.00 set up fee plus $100.00 per coyote OR 10 day line for $500.00. I don't see how I could do it any cheaper!

I've had people who called with calves killed, goats taken, pets attacked and even one who's horse had to be put down due to wounds from an attack. I got a call just last night from a lady who had her dog attacked WHILE SHE WAS WALKING HIM!! Every time I get the same reaction, "Oh! That's too much!" The lady who called last night confessed to me that they had tried to catch them with foot hold traps but had no luck, so now I'm dealing with trap smart coyotes to start with, but my price is too high?

Even when I tell them that if they wait until trapping season, then I'll do it for half price, they tell me, "Well... I need to speak to my husband" or "Wife and we'll call you back."

Well, do you have a problem or don't you?!

I have not been able to sell the first coyote job YET! And I just can't do it for FREE! Anybody have any suggestions?

Like you said it must not be too big of a problem if they cant seem to afford the cost of doing something about it. We all hear those comments who are in the business long enough.

I wouldnt come down on your prices as my fees are more then you are quoting on average. Some alot more depending upon the size of the area and the limitations of where you can set and the access other properties etc to get to the best locations for set ups.

Listen to your customers.

A lot of folks would rather have the $500 and the coyotes than have no coyotes and no $500.

Yep, understand where you're coming from - had 3 different individuals contact me since they were losing exotics and native deer in high fences, they thought I must have just come from Mars when I quoted them my set-up fee and price/day or job plus/coyote killed.

Heck, they make boo-coos money off those hunts and they just aren't willing to part with the money at all for some reason.

A couple summers ago, I had a guy call and tell me that I had to get the fox from under his storage building. Yeah, I "Had" to go git them. Then when he found out that I charge, he says, "Whut?... Well, I'll let you keep the fox."

Ain't that like telling the plumber that he can keep the hair ball he pulls out of the drain?

Years ago, I had a painting company. No matter how hard I try to sell an inexpensive, quicky paint job to high end customers, I got nowhere. No matter how hard I tried to sell a, $800/room, high end paint job to the low rent slum lords, I got nowhere.

When I listened to the customers and offered them the service they were looking for, I made money.

You have to listen to your customers.

Okay... I'll buy that. But when the lady ask how much I charge to catch coyotes, I'm guessing she wants me to catch coyotes. The conversation went from "Hi, my name is..." to "Coyotes attacked my dog" and ended up with "How much do you charge to catch them?". I assumed from that the lady wanted the coyotes gone. What did I miss?

That she had no intention of paying $500 to achieve it.

I have the same problem. I had four calls about coyotes killing pets and livestock this summer and not one sale once I gave them a price (and my prices are lower than yours). And that's fine. Losing a few animals just isn't worth that kind of money to most people in my area.

But wackin' beaver for flooding out your yard and well is.

Everyone seems to have different takes on this and some will say it gets better with time as you learn what to listen and look for in the prospective client.

We are only a few years into this now, and while I'm on about 85% of the time, there are quite a few folks that surprise me either way. Some that don't act, look or seem like they'll buy end up buying, others that seem 100% end up passing.

It is definitely an art more than a science, though plenty of folks sell how to sell as a science, so maybe I shouldn't say that.

The important thing is probably more how many opportunities you get to achieve a new client. If you only have 20 opportunities and you misread 1/2 that can be rough, whereas the folks fielding 100+ calls a week during the busy season could tolerate missing quite a few and still come out ahead.

Knowing your market and your service offering is important, but human nature can surprise the best of us.

Good luck and keep plugging along!

Muddawg, you state in your first post that you'd discount 50% if doing the work in season, then later complain that a customer would let you keep your quarry. Which is it: are you doing wildlife control or fur work?
If you're willing to discount your services for a pelt, you devalue your services, and the catch itself becomes a commodity - just like removing aluminum gutters for their scrap value. If you're doing true WC, it is being done strictly as a service: just as a lawyer or doctor, you charge for what you can do to solve the customer's problem.

I wouldnt worry about them really. I have come to think that if someone isn't interested in paying then the problem was not worth having someone come out to deal with it.

A summer pelt is worthless. A winter pelt I can sell for around 70 bucks. That's coyote. Fox, is different here. I don't give half price for fox as my county has no season for them. I can trap them under permit but can't sell, trade or release them. They are worthless to me.

Question for you. If you trap nuisance beaver, say in January, you don't sell the pelt? Why not get that extra 20 or 30 bucks?

Wait....

You know what?.... I see your point. Never mind. I think I'm gonna go back and rethink my "In Season" pricing policy.

Thanks, Dave

I did rattlesnake removals as a kid, 50 bucks show up and one snake and 10 bucks apiece for any others. If they complained I dumped out the snake sack and ask what they could afford...usually the check was forth coming. Course gas was 80 cents a gallon then

I wouldn't lower your prices at all. About five years ago I had a guy call me about a beaver problem he had. He had gotten my name and # from my cousin and after a few minutes I explained my process and fee's. After he realized there were fee"s he said "oh...well Brad told me you like trapping and I just assumed you were looking for land to trap on". I told him that I do enjoy trapping but I haven't figured out how to cash in my enjoyment. Like you mentioned, this guy also was surprised to hear there were fee's. You soon realize that their problems only exist right up until they find out its not free. I always tried talking to the customers for several minutes before talking about prices. If you can get a little dialogue going back and forth it seemed to me that they were more likely to go for it than they were if I had said "you got beavers? I charge X amount to get rid of them." The conversations shut down pretty fast once they knew what the price was. Coincidently I also used the same logic when I was selling cars. Tell them to much right out of the gate and you answered the only question they had. So if you can tell them a little about what you do and why I think it might be easier to convert some of those potential jobs into money jobs.

The issue is that the callers do not have the same value for your services that you do. They most likely are only thinking it's only a coyote so it shouldn't or can't cost much based on their opinion of what the pelt may be worth. After all, it isn't their coyote it's the States so why should they have to pay for it in the first place? Understand that if the client has a value of $0 for this issue and you're charging a fee, you most likely will never sell the job. Just like if they have a value of $25 "cause that's what the pelt is worth" you will have a difficult time selling the job. Customer's don't understand that your knowledge/skill does have value and as a business you have other expenses that need covered. Don't waste time trying to justify your rates as the majority won't understand it no matter how much detail you use to explain it, and in the scheme of things really don't care.

When you offer a service there is a specific price that service costs you in order to perform. The only negotiating room you have with your rates is with your profit. So if a service costs $100 to perform and you're charging $125, you only have $25 of negotiation room before you're paying the client for the privilege of providing a service for them. Look at any other businesses and you'll see that this is not unique to this industry. All service industries must pay the technician, pay the government for the privilege of having a technician (i.e., matching funds, self employment taxes), and pay/offer benefits to the technician not to mention all the expenses the business has itself for equipment, gas, electric, phones, advertising, equipment, paper, etc.

To really understand this look at the Big Mac. To make and sell them an individual must first get a franchise, build a store, hire staff, pay for training, purchase the necessary materials, prepare the materials, assemble it, clean the prep area, machines, and store and pay for additional expenses such as utilities, accountants, advertising, etc. As we know, all of this costs money so the only way to be profitable is to sell the sandwich for an amount that not only covers these expenses but also provides profit. As a consumer, if you walk into any McDonalds and say you want a Big Mac but will only pay $1.65 for it, you won't get one because McDonald's would rather turn certain customers away then essentially pay them to eat the sandwich.

Something that is unique to our industry is that unlike other service industries, there is no guaranteed product that they get at the end of the service. For plumbing, HVAC or electrical issues, fixing of the problem usually results in replacement of failed parts. When a person goes to a doctor or dentist they generally get something physical to take with them when they leave (prescription / bandage / filling / etc.) In our industry, what the client is paying for is our knowledge and willingness to address their problem to the best of our ability. At times they will have animals removed and repairs made which gives them something tangible to apply to the service, but if the animal isn't there, has been captured elsewhere, or has died and no repairs need to be performed there is no tangible closure to your service. Realizing this makes it important to understand what the clients is hiring you for and then giving it to them. Don't assume you know what they want, rather ask them what they are looking to for. When they have an unrealistic expectation, tell them and make sure to include what the realistic expectation should be.

If you really want to make the sell, try offering different programs for them to choose from. You can offer them the discounted "in season" at cost program, a per animal program, a management program, a set number of days program, a set number of traps program, or any combination of these and other ideas that you want. How you present these options to match what the client wants so you can be hired is a different matter.

Yeah, I always try to do that. That's the same in any business. Kind of explain the difficulties before hand so the price seems more reasonable.

Out of curiosity, I went out there late yesterday afternoon, just before dark. I wanted to see how much of a problem it takes to have a dog attacked while walking him.

Found out a couple things. One, it was the neighbors dog and it wasn't on the leash at the time. That sounded more sensible to me. The dog was fighting with a coyote just in the edge of the yard, so it was a fight and not s much as an all out attack. Don't know who rushed who.

But anyway, they were more than happy to have me poke around and investigate a little. I drove down the path between the two houses and around a dry pond that was grown over with trees and underbrush. I stopped a couple places an looked for tracks. I walked the edge of the field looking for trails an scat. Further down the path I found a couple tracks an a few more at the very end of the path. I got out and walked another 300 yards or so down a trail leading to the river where I found an adult set of tracks along with two pups and one very LARGE track that I figured HAD to be Mr. Alpha male.

At night fall, I made my way back to the truck and tried calling to them. The first call I gave was a male territorial call. It blew my mind when I got an answer back. I was waiting to hear something from the woods in front of me but my answer came from behind me, right at the head of the dry pond not 50 yards from the front door of the folks that called me. "Whut?!" That surprised me. What the Devil was he doing there? But I howled back at him just to make sure that's where I heard him and he answered my call again.

As quietly as I could, I fired up my truck and eased back up the path about halfway back up the dry pond towards him. Once stopped, I tried a female call. I got an instant answer from the edge of the wheat field directly in front of me and within spitting distance of both houses. All these woods and field to roam behind me and they are gaggled up right in these folks' front yards! Why?

Anyway.... Reporting back, we had a long and interesting conversation about eerie coyote cries from under the bedroom windows and pictures on deer cams. The one LARGE set of tracks I found must have belonged to the big coyote they had on film and the same on they thought was tied up with the dog. Considering what information I could get from them and adding that with what I had just seen and heard, I had to concluded that they were denning in that dry pond right there beside the house.

The lady of the house did ask me if I thought there was any thing they should be worried about. Now how do you answer a question like that? As honestly as I knew how to answer, I told her, "If they were denning back there in the woods closer to the river, I'd say no. But personally, I would be uneasy with them denning right there at the house.".

And I STILL didn't sell the job!

Don't specialize in coyote removal in your area then..

You can't sell a service that people won't pay for. In east Tn I get about 10 a year. I land about half the yote calls I get. My price is a little higher than yours (not by much). Here our economy is booming and we have a bunch of yotes. More every year. I would advertise it but move on to other stuff.
Most people don't understand yotes so I help them understand what is going on with there family of coyotes. My knowledge (which aint much) sells the job. I don't come right out with the cost. I educate first.

I had an old lady call me about a snapping turtle under her house. I told her the price and she said she couldn't afford it. So I felt sorry for it and cut my price 3/4. Went I go to the house it as in a really nice neighbor hood and it was a really nice house. She had lots of money but scammed me.

Talking about getting scammed!

I was doing some plumbing work for an elderly gentleman who owned some rental property. It was my own sweet, dear Uncle who got me the work. Each time I was called to do a service call for this guy, I'd get the sob story, "Be easy as you can on him. He's old and feeble and can't work. This little bit of rent that he collects is his only income."

So, every time I did a service call for him, I'd take pity on him and cut my bill. 10 dollars here and 20 dollars there.

Come to find out, the old feeble man I had been cutting so much from my bills for?.... He sold his last business for 19 MILLION dollars!

Lol... I'm on a fixed income....

Oh, I got more stories about that.

I use to work for a lady who owned more rental properties than Carters got liver pills. Her home was 5 bedrooms, three full baths and high dollar trinkets decorating most every room. Cadillac in the garage. Complained about EVERY bill I ever gave her. Stopped calling me because I refused to warrantee a faucet that she bought from Lowes.

Another little old lady that gave me the "Fixed Income" excuse every time she called. I took pity on her, too, and cut what I could off each bill. When she died, I caught the article in the newspaper where she left her son hundreds of thousands of dollars and a farm!

There was the guy who owned a trailer park with over 30 units in it, who complained about ever bill I gave until I got tired of hearing it and charged the last one accordingly. He didn't pay it and has not called me back.

I have another customer who is a used car dealer. He's always griped about every bill. I normally have to sit down and explain ever dollar of each bill to him and SHOW him his savings. It's become a game with us now. But He'll continue to call me because, though he would never admit it to me, he can't get the quality work I do any cheaper anywhere else.

There was one lady who taught me a little about human nature. "That which can be seen is worth more than that which is hidden"
I went to her house to check a leak in her sink drain. Turns out, her sink drain had deteriorated to the point where I had to replace it from the sink all the way back to the main sewer line. Half a day and some 30 some feet of pipe later, I gave her a bill for about 275 dollars. Wow! From her reaction, you would have thought that I have slapped her. BUT... She called me back a couple weeks later wanting me to change out an outside door to her utility room. This door I had to cut to fit as the hole was nowhere near standard. The ceiling was too low for a standard door. Then I had to reframe the opening to accommodate it. It took me a full day to hang one stupid door. The bill for that was over 600 dollars. She smiled, said "Thank you!" and wrote the check. I was a bit surprised that I didn't have to explain that bill but soon after it dawned on me what the difference was. The sink drain was under the house, hidden from view. But she could SEE that door.

I had to learn the hard way but over time I DID learn. The bill is what the bill is! Can't help it but I can't work for free.