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Randy Thompson

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Ethics questions for fellow golf architects and general public!
« Reply #50 on: July 28, 2010, 04:07:58 PM »
But i accept that what was done, should not be labled unethical but I still feel it is unhealthy! More so for him than for me, so time to let it go!

Nothing at all wrong with questioning the person's business practices or tactics, it's just not at all the same as questioning someone's ethics.

George draws a great distinction here. 

Randy, while it is possible you may lose a job, the likelihood it's the job from hell.  The one where the client doesn't actually care so much about golf, and wants rock-bottom prices for cookie-cutter quality.  Your "competition" promises two whole visits during a re-design?  Wow.  That business plan will work fine until they hit the first site that turns out to be trickier than expected, and all of a sudden it's surcharge city - or the cookie-cutter guys lose their shirts on the project.  You're already succeeding in this business (OK, grinding it out these days, but everyone is) by having a quality shop.  Stick with it. 

I had a business which sold specialized PCs nationwide to a Fortune 100 company.  The dep't manager beat us up all the time on our prices - why couldn't he just go to Best Buy?  Then lightning hit a server of theirs in a satellite office where they had no sysadmins, a city more than 1000 miles from us and their central office.  (Yes, they'd ignored our recommendation for back-up sw & hw.)  They were going to lose tens of thousands a day due to having a call center closed. 

We delivered a fully-configured replacement server to them EIGHT HOURS after we got off the emergency conference call.  You're in a niche market and provide great customer service - hang in there.

Oh, and that manager?  He was a bit slow to acknowledge our role, so we wrote him to thank him for the job his sysadmins did getting us the necessary config files.  Then he was stuck.  :-)
I
Jason
I started this post half an hour after reading the letter. Your conclusions are exactly mine now and it is doubtful I will lose work from this group, I always welcome the competition so clients can have something to compare to, one or two projects awarded to somebody else doesn´t bother me, once the projects are completed and if a group continues to win more projects it will be time to to take a hard look where I have gone wrong! Nicklaus had a successful five years in Argentina but I beleive he is done now and my value should increase. His product is ten percent better and cost 90 percent more and property owners are not willing to pay for that difference

Tim Nugent

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Ethics questions for fellow golf architects and general public!
« Reply #51 on: July 28, 2010, 04:37:11 PM »
Randy, this kinda thing has been around in one form or another for years, only now, the digital age allows for it to be brought to the surface.  By and large, most architects do not talk down the competition because, not only is it bad form, it makes all look petty.  Like Jason said, they will probably get the Jobs from Hell.  Once they get it, they will either under-perform (the un-eduacated client always thinks he should be getting more service) by listing a fixed fee.  "I thought that was included" will be heard over and over. Or be forced into much more uncompensated service.

A main reason why it is disingenuous to quote fixed-fee, site unseen is that with golf courses, everyone is different.  While 2 site visits may be satisfactory if just a tee is being built, what if a Master Plan proposed moving a green or hole!  What if the client isn't in agreement with what the Master Plan proposes?  How much for re-work?  Does a schedule and cost estimate come included? I did a Master Plan once that required 5 yrs of scheduling because the owner wanted to redo 36, add nine and move the clubhouse/range (and keep 36 in play at all times).

If this is ever brought up by a prospective client, simply explain you can't quote a fee until you know what the scope of work is and if they know of someone else who can, do they know where you might get one of them Crystal Balls too?

Better yet, ask if you can do the construction work T & M.

My bet is that they will get some low budget work that will be frought with problems and nothing good will come of it.  Sure, it sounds good on paper but anyone with any experience would run, not walk, away that kind of marketing.  Besides, it makes them sound really desperate - if they were that good, wouldn't they have work?
Coasting is a downhill process

Chris Kane

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: Ethics questions for fellow golf architects and general public! New
« Reply #52 on: July 28, 2010, 07:17:43 PM »
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« Last Edit: July 29, 2010, 12:15:45 AM by Chris Kane »