Everest home improvements £250m2

[nick65]

Ive just read about the woman in bedford being aghast at Marshalls giving her a qote of £9000 for 75m2 of standard 50mm block paving. Good job she didnt ask Everest.I was told by one of there consultants that they START at £240m2 for a standard 60mm block drive.Thats 18 grand for 75m2. Were talking of a mere 9 packs of blocks.Ive been in the game for many back breaking years but could some one please explain to me how they come to such a figure for for a standard no frills installation.Once theyve catered for materials and labour how would they explain to the customer what the rest was for?

[ambient]

its to pay for salesman and rest goes to company subby only gets basic rate and gets all earache cos salesman has told them my lads will do anything you want

[juggler]

Nice to know I have changed gender overnight.

[Tony McC]

To be fair, it's not just Everest that charge mountainous prices (do you see what I did there?); there's a number of companies that promote themselves via expensive routes, such as the Sunday glossies, and try to give the impression that they are somehow better than the rest, but in truth, they are no better than anyone else, but rely on the naivete of folk who believe that a high price is a guarantee of higher quality.

Think about it: if you were getting four times the going rate for your work, you'd need only work one week in four, and you'd need only win a fraction of the work you price. If only one out of thirty prices results in you getting the job, you're still going to cream it at that sort of rate.

I dislike this method of marketing as the client has no direct relationship with the installer. In many cases, and I'm not saying this is how Everest operate, the company that wins the work will spend a half-hour on the phone ringing around local contractors to find which poor sop will take on the work for the lowest price, a sort of reverse auction. So the client pays top dollar and thinks they'll get top dollar craftsmanship while the installer is working for peanuts and just wants to get the job done as quickly as possible. Ideal recipe for trouble!

And as Ambient has pointed out, the salesbods, who operate on a commission that will probably outweigh the money made by the installer, will promise the client absolutely anything, if it gets them to sign on the dotted line.

One thing I have noticed with work done by these 'national' companies is that they invariably lack any real design. The hapless client is given a very limited choice of materials, usually from just one manufacturer, and because the salesbod doesn't actually lay the paving (and usually knows sweet FA about it, in truth) the same "look" is used on almost every job.

As contractors, we don't need to worry that these companies will take much work from us. Yes: it would be great if we could get that sort of money, even if it was only every now and again, but then we're not paying for flash sales staff and full-page ads in the national papers. From a homeowners viewpoint, if they fall for this sort of selling, they have only themselves to blame, and it has to be regarded as a sort of 'stupidity tax'. If only they had the common sense to get AT LEAST THREE QUOTES they'd soon realise that this sort of price is simply unjustifiable and opportunistic.

[lutonlagerlout]

well everest is the *highest* mountain

indeed it is almost like the darwin awards where by people remove themselves from the gene pool,by vicarious methods (dunno if this is the right word,but it feels right)

the problem is it isnt just rich folk who get conned,its inadequate and vulnerable people on low income who get hardsold into lengthy and punitive finance agreements.

btw my 85 yr old nan got burgled, beaten up, and robbed wednesday night .
although the junkie scumbag who did this deserves to die,if some buffoon from upvc/blockpave,rooftile/wall,cladders ltd had ripped her off for a kings ransom for some subbed out unnecessary work,would he get the nod from st. peter??

LLL

[seanandruby]

sorry to hear about you nan tony. it will probably get an orange reflector hi vis then taken on holiday. love to be in the same cell as it. :;):

[surreyhillslandscapes.com]

The firm I used to work for were sub contracted by Everest to do their driveways when they started a few years ago, I was running one and we had Everest window salesmen on site desperately trying to learn the process, The customer in question paid just over £22 k for 120m rumbled block driveway ( Think they were Brett Alpha but were re-wrapped in an Everest branded plastic) Asked the sales guys how they were getting away with charging this and the answer was that customers were willing to pay a premium for a nationally recognised company.
Beggers belief how some people think sometimes, If the customer had come to me he would have had the same result for half the money !

[Amogen]

I saw a job laid by Everest last year. Well it wasnt them, it was, as is said above, some small local contractor who i probably being paid a pittance. Anyway, i dont know what was paid for the job, but it was about 130-150 Sq/M and was completed in 3 days. A bit quick if you ask me. Anyway, i assume the customer has paid the Premium Price and expected a Premium Job. Well its about 7-8 months ago now and driving past the other day, the drive is a right mess. The side that was extended into the lawn has sunk, the rest is slipping over that way!!

I feel bad for the customer as that job should have lasted many many years, particularly for the price i assume they paid. Instead they have a ruined drive!!

[williams]

i spoke to someone the other day who does work for everest.

they get £45 per meter to supply and fit but not including the blocks so roughly £55 per m including vat

i cant believe people go with these nationals.

[Tony McC]

...but some people, and these are usually the more elderly, believe there is more security in using a 'name' rather than employing their local contractor.

I don't have any real data to back this up, but anecdotal experience suggests that a customer is no more likely to get an exceptional standard of installation from a 'name' than from their local contractors, and that's mostly because so many of these nationals sub the work to local contractors, after taking a sizeable wedge for themselves, of course.

[nick65]

I applied for a job with Everest,around christmas time, as a sales bod.
Thinking it would help as a secondary income because things were looking a little grim for a while.
I spoke to Phil Lamb, and told him that design,installation and sales of all things paving and drainage had been my lot for about 26 years.
He told me they do around £6m worth of paving a year, and that there starting price is around £240m2.
I was amazed at this price,and asked how you can look a customer in the face and give them a figure that is 4 times the going rate.
He asked who id worked for in the past.
When i told him i work for myself, and that i have a intimate knowledge of the material and labour costs of a job.
It all went very quiet.
I was thinking that he would be impressed with my experience and knowledge.
I honestly thought id get the whole package, design,pricing,sales and installation.
How wrong could i be. He coughed and spluttered a bit then said he was driving and put the phone down.
Over the following 2 weeks i rang his mobile 9 times, rang his office 4 and filled in an online job app twice.
Thats was 3 months ago and ive had no reply.Seems to me there much happier with sales bods who no nothing about what theysell, only how to sell it for as much as poss.
A life long friend of mine who also has a small paving firm,told me in the pub sunday that hes just got 3 jobs subbed to him by everest for 75m2 to supply and fix.
I believe people are going to a high profile company thinking there getting something better.When in fact there just being ripped off.

[lutonlagerlout]

paving for £60 per metre??
all in most of ours comes out nearer a £100 per metre
£240 would be nice of course,but i couldn't sleep at night
cheers LLL

[Rich H]

Doesn't sound like very good treatment but I would say that selling is a profession just as paving is a profession. I spent 10 years as a salesman (totally different industries) and came to believe that a good salesperson with the ability to learn quickly and an understanding of things technical would far outsell a technical expert in the field with a basic ability to sell.

The old adage is that those who can't do, sell, but there's a world of difference between a shiny-arsed bloke going from call to call in his Mondeo and a professional salesperson who learns and perfects his craft to the point where he makes serious money for his employers and himself.

I don't know anything about Everest but I'd expect the sales manager to be looking for experienced salepeople who could be taught what they needed to know about selling paving, rather than the other way around.

[paul243]

Doesn't sound like very good treatment but I would say that selling is a profession just as paving is a profession. I spent 10 years as a salesman (totally different industries) and came to believe that a good salesperson with the ability to learn quickly and an understanding of things technical would far outsell a technical expert in the field with a basic ability to sell.

The old adage is that those who can't do, sell, but there's a world of difference between a shiny-arsed bloke going from call to call in his Mondeo and a professional salesperson who learns and perfects his craft to the point where he makes serious money for his employers and himself.

I don't know anything about Everest but I'd expect the sales manager to be looking for experienced salepeople who could be taught what they needed to know about selling paving, rather than the other way around.

Rich H is quite right. I had 30 years in "direct selling" ie. selling direct to the consumer. As a sales manager responsible for recruitment and training I was looking for sales technique and a hunger for money. Product training is easy but a natural ability to sell, particularly a high priced home improvement, is hard to find. As to where the money goes, I guess the salesman will be on 15%,(remember he won't have a salary or any expenses-no sale no income), his manager will be on a 4-5% "override" plus bonus,his manager on 3-4% etc..Add in advertising, and endless numbers of "admin" staff and it's easy to see why they need to charge premium prices. As far as how many "deals" they need ,I would guess if the salesman and his line management didn't close better than one in three consistently,they would be out of the door rapid.

[Dave_L]

One in three closed deals? Blimey.................:p