Sure, you can know the reason we didn’t retain your services. It wasn’t any one main reason. It was nice working with you so no worries there.
Timing – four or five days after you were at the house the last time, we had a bid from another contractor for cabinets and countertops and the installation of both for a really good price. His timing was perfect and he was a good salesman.
Cabinet selection – this other contractor pointed us first thing to the web site for the cabinets he likes to sell and install. It was a really awesome web site, very detailed, great selection tools, pictures of door styles, stains, door overlays, everything … It was the best web site I’ve ever seen for a cabinet company. Whereas we only saw the door styles you brought over that day (certainly you could have brought over more samples, but you brought the ones we indicated we were interested in). We saw your few samples (only the doors) and had your verbal description of how the cabinet boxes are made, blah blah blah. However – having access to the manufacturer web site instills confidence in us that the whole product is well known, beautiful, has lots of options, is not made by child-labor in Mongolia, and a good web site does a good job selling the product after you leave or are off the phone. This contractor also had some amazing samples of wood species and finish colors, door styles, moldings, etc., etc., etc. The cabinets are one of, if not the largest expense, even at a good price, so this was probably the most important reason we didn’t go with you. We weren’t getting the information we needed to make a good, informed choice. And, FYI, the cabinets we bought were very close in price to your cabinets. So the good low low price you said you can get isn’t really that good.
Cabinet install – your price for install was two to four times higher than all other cabinet install quotes. Maybe you have to do more work to install your cabinets? I don’t know. Explaining this expense in greater detail to future customers is probably a good idea.
Countertops – I am sure you have heard the saying “the customer is always right.” Well, at the very beginning we wanted engineered stone. You mentioned a good deal on granite. We specified engineered stone again and you mentioned granite again. When you came back out to the house, we were pretty well set on an engineered stone and you again mentioned granite. Kevin gave a little and said to give him a bid and he’ll see if he can find something he likes in granite. He didn’t even look at granite because he knows he doesn’t want granite. Then we get your prices and your granite quote is twice as much as any bid we got for engineered stone. They are both great products I am sure, but we wanted engineered stone. My advice is to go with what the customer wants and don’t tell them you can get a great price on a different product when the price you quote is significantly more than what they are expecting to pay for the material they want. Not good. Maybe some more product research on your part will be beneficial in this regard.
I guess one other thing was the appliance install. I know for sure the appliance install was something I said (in an email I sent on Feb. 6) we would do ourselves. This was after your first proposal, but it was still included in the last one. And even now, after we didn’t want it, $2300 for appliance install seems extremely high! I don’t know what you’re hourly rate is, but I make $50 an hour at the low-end of my rate scale and I could certainly install those appliance all by myself in less than 46 hours!!!!!! I know you could install them in a lot less time than that as well. The first time I saw that number I thought for sure it was an error. Then it was in the last estimate again, so I can only assume you thought we might actually (re)consider paying that much for something we can do ourselves for free. This was more comical than anything as I am sure there are people out there who will pay you that much for appliance installation! That’s great when you can get someone to do that! More power to you! 
We didn’t get around to checking references so it’s not that at all. It’s not that we didn’t trust you or something like that. It was more a lack of confidence about the numbers you were giving and having and receiving a good base of knowledge for the products we were going to be paying quite a bit of money for. Information information information – you have to give your clients information about what they are buying. The more the better! Flood them with it! Give it to them until they say stop. Web sites, print outs, brochures, pamphlets … if they are like us (and maybe we are different, but I think not) your clients will appreciate it. Attention to detail is extremely important!
I apologize for this being so long. Kevin woke up at 2 am yelling for me to call 911 because there was a drunk guy making noise in the back yard of our house and we had to call the police to get the guy to leave! So I was up and couldn’t sleep.
I hope this helps in your future.
Steve
NOTE!this note/post has absolutely nothing to do with the company called Mr. Contractor. I had no idea there was such a place.
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