Need advice on how to handle a customer.

P

phatjohn

Well-Known Member
Ok guys, here's the situation. A friend of my wife's family wanted to buy her adult son one of my knives as a gift. I've emailed this guy many, many, MANY times trying to figure out what he wants. He's sent me pictures he's found on the web of different knives he's liked and I can't pull the different features of them into one design. I also met with him in person so he could show me a knife he likes (a cheap Chinese piece of junk) and I tried to go off that. He wants a skinning knife and one feature he is DETERMINED to keep is a 1 inch diameter hole in the blade back by the ricasso. I've tried to talk him out of it and he won't have it, he needs that hole to be there. So be it, I've submitted to him two sketches of what I think he wants and he's rejected both of them. I want the guy to be happy with the knife but at this point I'm so frustrated I want to tell him to find someone else to make it for him. So, my question is, how would you handle this guy and this situation?

I'm a new maker (and on a tight budget) and I really want to make a knife this guy will enjoy and use but most of all, I want him to tell his friends about me. My wife keeps telling me I need to make the money from the build but this is turning something I enjoy into something I don't want any part of. Should I ask HIM to give ME a sketch or tell him to forget it and risk burning bridges behind me? What would you do in my shoes?
 
I'll throw some things out there. Are his ideas going to make an ugly knife, or an actually bad one? I did a few customs when I was new that were such a wreck of features that I didn't even photograph them nor put my mark on them. The people who are super-tough to please oftentimes don't care if the work is signed - it seems to go in hand, outlandish demands and a lack of pride in their investment or faith in the maker's experience. Oftentimes they're in a hurry to have the product but have time to reject countless hours of your design effort. One thing to consider is that if he is hard to please now, the performance of the cutting edge or resilience of the finish, regardless of abuse of either may not be something he can be satisfied with, I've had that happen as well.

I've seen the skinners with the finger hole and they're not my style - but to get paid early on I would have made one and spray painted it purple if requested. Now, if he's asking for features that will make it dangerous (points facing the user was one I declined), fragile (overly thin waisted or unmanageable grinds), or perform so badly that it will reflect on your worksmanship (versus taste or style) he'll have to be educated and possibly politely declining the job would be in order.

I'd ask for a sketch, and try to build it for him. You might have to reject certain aspects, explaining why they won't work and how you don't want to build something to fail. If you can come to some meeting point, it might be ugly in the end, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Thankfully, I've found clients like this to be very far and few between - I stick with this work because it is so easy to make something that people will love. Most of the time!
 
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I haven't sold any custom knives (yet) but I can tell you from my experience as a computer consultant that the customer isn't always right. I'd ask him to give you a sketch and decide from there. If the sketch looks like a workable design, make it exactly to his sketch and call it good. If it doesn't seem workable, or he is constantly wanting to make changes, then it's not worth your time.

You can take a page from contract programming and consider a 'design freeze' and have him sign off on it. Then if he wants changes after that charge him extra.
 
Frank,

It's going to make an ugly knife (I can live with that) verging on bad. Using .156 inch thick stock, the blade width on my latest sketch was 1.75 inches at the point where the center of the hole is. I have .25 inch at the spine and .75 inch toward the edge. I'm looking at having a grind line no higher than .375 inch to keep from getting into the hole. With the amount of material above and below the hole, I think it would be ok as a skinning knife ONLY because if there is too much lateral force placed on the blade, it's going to fail right there.

There is no doubt, if I have to make this train wreck, it's not getting signed. But that also brings up my warranty. All of my other stuff has a common sense knife makers lifetime warranty. What about this thing, should I make it, do I tell him he's on his own? I'll ask him for a sketch and see what happens. I guess if I can't make it and have it perform to my standards I'll pass on the money. The most important thing to me right now is getting the best possible product out into peoples hands so I can build a customer base and my reputation. I don't want to make a knife that is set to fail, either in use or to my standards.
 
When you decline to sign it, tell him you only sign your designs, not commissions. He won't be offended and you don't have to have your name on it. Commissions are just flat hard. I grew to hate them and stopped doing them after a real bad experience with one guy. It wasn't his fault. He wanted something very specific and it wasn't a bad design, I just could not get into it or execute it well. It's part of maturing as a Knifemaker though. Someone is going to ask you to make a knife you simply don't like. You have to gut it out or just politely decline saying something like you aren't able to make the commission to a standard you would be comfortable with.
 
When I used to do construction I had one hard and fast rule. If you asked me to do something that was dangerous or against the building code I would refuse and tell the customer I could not and would not do that for them for those reasons!

Sometimes you just run into folks you don't want to work for, for one reason or another. For them I usually priced it at price that I knew if I got the job I was going to make money, whether I liked them or not! Or I went the other route and I would tell them, I am very busy right now It will be at least next year before I can get too you and if you would like I can give you the name of another contractor! I am sure some of my competition just loved me sending them some of the head cases!

That way you can basically keep your reputation in tact, as well as your morals. I had one guy I built a house for that I told my wife that I would never work for him again. Well its like the old saying goes. Never say never! My father was real sick and 2500 miles from where I lived. I hadn't seen him in a while and this guy who I said I would never work for again needs another house built. I built it but boy I sure had to bite my tongue a few times!

At the end of the day when you look in that mirror, you have too feel good about the guy looking back at you. If it's something you don't feel good about then your conscious is probably trying to tell you something. Saying No may not make you popular but it makes you feel better about yourself!
 
John,
I have seen the chinese pos that this guy thinks is a great knife.
I do index finger cut outs on most of my knives but have a standing policy of not doing inclosed circle or ring knives as they can be called.

I had to turn down one commission once because the man wanted a ring knife and I told him that I feel that is a unsafe feature on a knife because you can lose your finger that way cause you may not be able to release the knife out of your hand. I referred him to another maker that wasn't able to work with the man ether for some other reason?

I once had a man ask me to build a Strider knife for him because Mick Strider's time was too long for him.
I told him I don't make copy's of other peoples patterns but if you have in mind a certain kind of utility/Tactical knife send me a drawing and I will see what I can do.

So this guy sends me a check & picture of a then current strider knife and says I want exactly this!
Well you get the idea here, I just put the guys check in a envelope with a note stating that I appreciated his interest, but I make Rhino Custom knives and not exact copies of other makers knives.
I could have used the cash at the time being about 10 years ago but in the long run I feel much better about myself, My knives and my business.

I personally will sign all knives that I make or I won't make them.

As others have stated we all need to make our choices and you will make yours.

Best of luck on this one.

Laurence

www.rhinoknives.com
 
John,
I have done a few knives with holes and think are gimmicky and don't like them too much but newbs like because they seem like "some great design" that they personnally discovered (this is what I thought too). I happened to have laser cut steel blanks with .900 dia. holes (1 blank=2 knives) that is .265 X 1.75" 440C. Below is pic of one of the first (if not the first) knife made after building the grinder 4 years ago and it works well in field as processed a bull moose with it and it performed well and felt "ok" in hand. PM me if are interested in blank material and can make good deal if will help you out of this.
440steelblank1.jpg440C Skinner.jpgGetAttachment.jpg
 
I'll give you some advice that one of my mentors gave me...... YOU are now the expert! That means that if YOU are not comfortable with the design, and something is tugging at you to not make the knife.....DON'T! If you go against your better judgement, the only thing that will happen is the knife, and the individual will come back to haunt you. Like most makers, I've been down the same path, and endured the heartache it created....... If a potential customer and a knifemaker cannot see "eye to eye" on a knife design, that's a BIG RED FLAG that you need to send that individual down the road, to another maker, or somewhere else where the fallout won't be on you!
 
Wow gents, some very sage advice here and more than I could have ever asked for. I'm gonna stew on this until Tuesday because the ball is in his court at the moment. Whatever the outcome, I'll keep you all posted.

And, a big thank you to all who took time to answer.

John
 
UPDATE::::::

I sent the following e-mail to the customer tonight.

Since I haven’t heard from you about your knife, I was wondering how you wanted to proceed. At this point, I think the next logical step is for you to give me a scale sketch of what you want and I will do my best to work from that and build it to your specifications.
So if you could provide me with a scale sketch in the next week I can get started on your knife.
Regards,
John

Ball is in his court, I'll see where it goes from here.
 
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