Maybe they went out because they were too cheap?
I simply don't attempt to compete on price alone anymore. Sometimes I barely consider it.
But I agree with your comment, I have subbed out the doors before when I had more jobs going that I should have. I had eight guys working for me in 99 and we were doing too many jobs and getting to where the quality statred to suffer.
The doors I subbed out on this one job were so bad I told the customer that were so far behind that I had some temporary doors made for them to use until I was able to make them myself.
The customer was a longtime client of mine. One of my first.
She knew I was full of it and what had happened and tried to say they were good enough. I insisted. Told her it would'nt matter that I was going to show up with the permanent doors and a court order to install them in order to protect my reputation.
That got a laugh out of her. Two weeks later I installed doors from a different sub that I had gotten a commitment of quality from after he had to listen to my story. They were not cheap but they were top notch. In the long run it worked out great. I took the doors back to the original sub and pointed out all the flaws and told him how I was sure it was great for his NH contractors but I didn't accept this junk normally and was sorry I hadn't picked them up myself or I would have rejected them.
Since I was fairly laid back about it and non-confrontational, he responded the same way and said there would be no charge and would I give him another chance sometime. I said yes and I did a couple years later. the doors were perfect, and the pricing had not changed.
Quality comes in people too. He had a super busy shop and had sacrificed some quality control for big volume, and i understood his position because I had unitentionally done the same thing. He made up for it. I went by there back in May and dropped off soome prints for a bid. he had downsized and dropped a couple of NH contractors and said he was glad he did. Said he had already started getting complaints when I broght the doors back, and since he downsized his returns were back to zero.
Be careful about subbing cabinet work and make clear you are on the same page as to quality before you put in an order.
