# Just have to vent!!!



## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

Alright- here goes:
New customer (Horsey lady) calls me up at 9:00PM Wednesday night desperate for hay. Her normal supplier sold his entire shed of hay suddenly according to her and she can't find anymore anywhere. 
OK, what do you need?
"4 ton a week of alfalfa. I've got 40 head of horses to feed. I will be out of hay by Friday night".
I explain to her that I am down to my last couple of loads but will try to help her out short term until we can find her some more hay (which is pretty much non-existent) till new crop is ready in 6 weeks. I price it to her at $160 delivered 80 miles down the road (which is about $40 below market right now). 
OK that would be super she says! 
I'm out of town for the week so I have my son coordinate the delivery with her. He drives 2 hours and gets there this morning with a very nice load of 4th cutting 2 string which had slight discoloration (no mold) on the bottom bales from sitting on the ground all winter. Very feedable and very minimal damage considering it sat through the wettest winter and spring we've had in many years.
She declares to him that she doesn't pay for bad hay and proceeds to knock $80 off the total bill for the bottom bales. He is too polite to argue with her and goes along with it! 
I didn't handle it quite so well when he told me later what had happened. I picked up the phone and proceeded to tell her how unappreciative she was of what we had done for her and that we had bent over backwards to get her out of a tight spot and i gave up very valuable and scarce inventory that should be going to my loyal regular customers and then she had the audacity to impugn the quality of what we brought her and brow beat my son into taking less than we agreed on. Pretty much had her in tears by the time I was done.

Not my best day from a customer relations standpoint!

I tried to explain to her that there is not a decent bale of hay for sale within 100 miles at any price and that she may have to lower her standards just a bit till new crop is ready but it didn't seem to sink in. 
I proceed to tell her that i don't think my hay can live up to her standards and that we won't be supplying her anymore hay.

Come on lady are you for real. Your staring at 40 hungry mouths and you bite the hand that is trying to feed them!!!! Why do you think no one will sell you hay?

I have to say that fortunately these events are 1 in a 100 customers in my experience and that my regular customers are extremely cooperative and appreciative of what we do for them and their animals.

OK - onto a better day tomorrow!


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## swmnhay (Jun 13, 2008)

Sounds like maybe her normal supplier got sick of her crap also.If he was her normal supplier and sold it to someone else he wasn't worried about keeping her as a customer.Perhaps he just told her he was sold out instead of just tellin her to stick it I'm sick of your BS.

If she calls again I'd price it over the market and add the $80 on top of that!


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

The story is the same everywhere. Right now I am giving hay (free 0$)to a neighbour, it is a few years old and fairly coarse stuff but he has no money, no way to pick up hay and is mostly demanding and needy. He said to me once that the hay is pretty coarse for a horse (ha, it rymes), I didn't say a word, but the look he got while I was carring his free hay from the back of my truck into his shed must have been enough to stop his whinning and bitching dead. After the last bale was off I said good day and left, I've been donating 1 bale a day since September, some people should not have a horse. And last fall he even asked if I had any calves to sell.


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## NCSteveH (Jun 30, 2009)

I know what I would do and I would just laugh the whole time, Rounds this week, Idiot bricks next week, a few 4x4x8's the week after. Let her figure out how to deal with them. Oh and I would get my 80 back.


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## Cannon (Aug 18, 2009)

Just start to reload your hay, they will change there tune really fast. Customers like that can get out of the livestock business as far as I'm concerned.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me!

I learned a long time ago that people who play her kind of game once will usually play it again ... and again... and again. It has worked for them in the past, so they will keep on doing it; only not with me.

I also had some VERY expensive lessons which taught me to put some faith in the rumors I hear about people. If I hear that so-and-so does such-and-such, I will try to either avoid doing business with that person or find a way to protect my interests.

Should she ever call you for hay again (and she probably will), you might say something like: "Here's the price. I will need cash upfront before I load my trailer." If she says she won't, just reply, "No thank you. I won't do business that way."

Another thing I learned: Bad business is worse than no business at all.

And I agree with Cannon. Start reloading and the tune changes real fast.

Ralph


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

People will take a mile if given an inch. And that goes for all walks of life, the is not the sense of community with farmers today either, we fight over land, fight over customers by under bidding one another. Things are done by some competing farmers that rivals what hay customers do. 
Everything comes at a cost, a tire doesn't turn without costing some amount of fuel tire wear etc. so its definatly not right when you get screwed by a customer, but as "the salt of the earth" people that we (farmers in general) are we should not turn pass that on to someone else. Learn from it and never be put into that situation again.
Growing up I was taught that it does not matter who the person in question is, but if that person is a farmer or grew up on a farm they were good for their word. Not so today, no one can be trusted if 0.05$ is involved. Everything in writting, and if they have a better lawer than you, you're still screwed. 
Do not ever stick your neck out for anyone, don't gamble what you can't afford to loose etc. ????
people suck


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## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

Had I been the one on the ground in this situation the load never would have touched the ground on her place under those terms but my son did what he thought was best and I have to respect his judgment in this case. 
We both learned something about doing business that day.

1.Be explicit (and put in writing if necessary) *exactly* what you are delivering and the price and terms.

2. Some people do not treat us with the same level of integrity that we use in our business and our lives-but that is ok because we can still look in the mirror in the morning and like what we see!

3. If somebody has 40 head of horses and is "suddenly" out of feed there is a reason!

Normally this would have been no big deal and I would not have given it much concern-we just wouldn't do business again. But the fact that hay is so short here right now and I may have shorted good customers to help her out is what really stings here.


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## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

Toyes Hill Angus said:


> The story is the same everywhere. Right now I am giving hay (free 0$)to a neighbour, it is a few years old and fairly coarse stuff but he has no money, no way to pick up hay and is mostly demanding and needy. He said to me once that the hay is pretty coarse for a horse (ha, it rymes), I didn't say a word, but the look he got while I was carring his free hay from the back of my truck into his shed must have been enough to stop his whinning and bitching dead. After the last bale was off I said good day and left, I've been donating 1 bale a day since September, some people should not have a horse. And last fall he even asked if I had any calves to sell.


You are a better man than I!
I do donate a lot of hay to people in a tough spot and enjoy doing it but the second they get that "entitled" mentality I am done with them!


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## dbergh (Jun 3, 2010)

Cannon said:


> Just start to reload your hay, they will change there tune really fast. Customers like that can get out of the livestock business as far as I'm concerned.


Ya, I would have never set the load down but my son was trying to do the best that he could from a customer satisfaction standpoint and frankly he probably handled the situation better than I would have had I been there in person.

Your right-she should not own 4 horses - let alone 40!!


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

3. If somebody has 40 head of horses and is "suddenly" out of feed there is a reason!
that line just kills me, suddenly really???

Don't get me wrong, I can't follow my own advice either. I've been burned a time or two or three or ...
And it alyways happens by people that I would never suspect it from, people that I think are better than than the things that they did.
You just have to be cautious in new and creative ways. Ignore the rant, I've recently been "surprised" so it puts one in a sh%tty mood.


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## Hayguy (Jun 4, 2008)

This thread brought to mind the "horsey people" thread a year or so ago. Most of our hay goes to horse stables within about 20 miles of our farm, so I try not to bite the hand that feeds me. However....... I weaned my customer list of one very picky horse owner last year. I bent over backwards to try to please her for 4 or 5 years, but was never able to develop a sense of trust or confidence in my hay making ability despite 45 years experience. The straw that broke the came'ls back came when she asked me to deliver a load very early in the morning. It turned out that day started out foggy, with a very heavy dew. During the 1/2 hour delivery the hay absorbed a fair amount of dew and definitely felt damp on the surface. After sending up 10 or 12 bales to the loft, she had me stop,and complained about the wet hay, that she didn't feel was safe to put in her barn. I broke open a couple bales and probed a number with my moisture tester, but nothing would convince her that the hay was safe to store. At that point I pretty well lost my composure and started throwing bales back out of the mow, letting her know that was the last load she would be getting from me. Maybe " the customer is always right", but common sense tells me otherwise. At least I learned to avoid hauling hay in damp conditions - maybe it will help someone else avoid that situation. Sorry for my rant, wish I could say I felt better, but no.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Toyes Hill Angus said:


> Growing up I was taught that it does not matter who the person in question is, but if that person is a farmer or grew up on a farm they were good for their word. Not so today, no one can be trusted if 0.05$ is involved. Everything in writting, and if they have a better lawer than you, you're still screwed.
> Do not ever stick your neck out for anyone, don't gamble what you can't afford to loose etc. ????
> people suck


Yah, I'm not worried about any of my fellow farmers in the immediate area shafting me, it's the BTO's that drive their equipment 30 miles just to rent 50 or 100 acres that will stab yah in the back faster than you can blink. I never go around offering a landowner more money if they dump their current tenant in favor of me, if I did grandfather would spin in his grave. If I should happen to run into somebody that I know owns land, I tell em if at the end of the current lease they aren't happy with their current tenant then call me.


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