Torture, a.k.a. Sales Pitches

Want to see Doug get really upset? Place him in front of a sales person pitching at full speed. His lips tighten into a line, his eyes start to wander (is there anyplace I can go to get away from this?), his shoulders square and his fists bunch. It makes me want to walk away, and I'm not sure how the sales people he encounters can keep going against the tide of his obvious displeasure.

However, I'm not quite like that. Working in marketing for a while has given me an appreciation of a good pitch. Moreover, I like to use pitches as an opportunity to learn.

So I set up a sales presentation on windows. Gasp! Our windows are builder-grade aluminum, and the mechanism for opening them is broken on several. Which led to a broken window when we first moved in. There's even one window that we take out the sash in order to open it. Not ideal. They are also very drafty, which is not surprising considering the issue I've already mentioned.

A broken window, very sad.

Using a tub to keep the window open. Just lovely.

What would be nice is to have someone come and just do the window replacement. Doug is so busy, and there are so many projects around here. We've started to call this house "the house that was never finished". And we wonder if it ever will be.

But contracting something out is really just a pipe dream of mine. As was evidenced by Doug's refusal to even meet with the sales rep who came out and spent two hours explaining their product and measuring our windows. Personally, I had to stop myself from laughing when he got to the math. "Here's our starting price", which was around $17,000. Then he proceeded to give me a discount for this, that and everything else he could think of, multiplying the percentage out and subtracting it. Slowly, and in great detail.

Really, I just wanted to roll my eyes. Eventually the price was around $13,000. And he wanted an immediate answer, which is always a no-go around here. If we're going to spend some serious cash, we are going to spend some serious time looking into other options to make sure we've got the best one going. Oh, and did I tell you where Doug was throughout this entire presentation? In his shop, hiding. Oh yes.

The Doug-Out.

We decided against contracting it out (I did say it was a pipe dream, yes?) because we can do it piecemeal and still do other projects around the house. If we just did the windows, that's all we'd be able to afford for a bit. Probably sounds familiar - who really has the cash to do more than one of these kinds of projects at a time?

So I texted the rep and told him no. Amazingly enough, he lowered the priced to $9800. Doug and I laughed. Just give us the real price the first time around. Honestly.

We still say no. But I learned a lot about windows. Glazing, spacers in the framing, the gas that fills the space between the panes. Double-hung (both sashes move) and single-hung (only one sash moves) I already had down. It's really interesting to have someone break the whole thing down for you, though.

That is, if you can see through the pitch and hold on to your wallet!