It sucks turning down contracts, but I think we are better off with ridding ourselves with some of these messes. It's made my business more profitable. It took me awhile to figure that out.
Shawn and JMAC, you both get an A+ in advanced business management. A significant portion of my CPA business is working with contractors and consulting with business owners. Usually one of the difficult concepts to convince a business owner of is that in addition to knowing what type of work you should bid on and perform you must also know what type of work to avoid. Some types of jobs are just not going to be profitable. Many times this is either due to unrealistic client expectations or that the job itself has built in obstacles that will be expensive to overcome and the client doesn't acknowledge that (and accordingly doesn't want to pay for it). Many times, usually for reasons of cash flow requirements, a business owner will take on such a contract and regret it in the long run. What starts out to be a cash flow infusion results in a contract loss in the long run. Knowing when to turn down a prospective job is a very important component of business management that is sounds like you two have already learned. I congratulate you, it does my bean counting heart good to see this discussion - that's it, end of lecture - I'll go back to my corner now.
Oh except one more thing, I was really hoping that you had pithophora. That would have allowed me to say that it appears that you had a plethora of pithophora - now that joke doesn't work so good. Ok, NOW I'll go back to my corner.
