Got told my trim work looked like a 4th grader did it

Guy walked into my shop last month, looked at my window casings, and said that. I was mad for a day, then I realized he was right about my cope joints. Changed how I cut them, now I undercut the back edge a little before I even touch the saw. Anyone else had a customer call them out on something obvious they missed?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamesm381mo agoMost Upvoted

I had a customer back in 2019 tell me my paint lines looked like I used a roller blindfolded. Stung pretty bad at first. But honestly, some of the best lessons I learned came from people who were rude about it. I get why you took a step back and fixed your copes, that's smart. I just think there's a difference between a customer giving helpful feedback and some guy walking into your shop to dump on you. He could have shown you what he meant instead of making it personal.

milessmith1mo ago

Blindfolded roller is a new one, I'll have to save that for my own bad days.

jordan_webb1mo ago

Seventy percent of my repeat business comes from clients who were brutally honest with me from the start, not the ones who softened their words. @milessmith if someone had called my early work blindfolded I would have been mad too, but I would have asked them to show me what straight looks like. That customer who insulted jamesm38's paint lines might have been the only person willing to tell him the truth that day. We get so caught up in how people say things that we miss the actual message they're sending. A polite lie helps nobody, a rude truth can fix your whole approach if you let it.