How NOT to inspire confidence

in your products

[LifeinAsia]

We recently remodeled our kitchen, including updating all the major appliances. A few days ago, we received the following (paraphrased) letter from the appliance manufacturer:

Thank you for your recent purchase of [Major Brand Name] appliances! You have made a great long-term investment *blah* *blah* *blah* commitment to quality excellence *blah* *blah* *blah*

We would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to purchase extended warranty coverage for your appliances ...

Huh? If your products are as great as you say they are, and your commitment to quality is so strong, why on Earth do you think I need to buy an extended warranty?!? Or are you trying to convince me to waste money on an extended warranty that I'll never use because your products are so good?

[bwnbwn]

Extended warrenty is a big money maker for them as they know the life of a product their job to know and by selling extended warrenty for a product that is never used just money in the bank.
Plus if you do need them to fix sumtin the intrest from all the extended warrants being sold pay for your fix.

I never use to get it but on the last car I bought I got it because I broke it down in per payment and it was like 3 bucks a month for the payment life. This made it much easier for me to get figuring how cheap it was 3 bucks is spent on a buger.

PS you happy with the makeover?

[LifeinAsia]

Oh yeah, I know that the extended warranties are huge money makers for them. I just thought it was funny that in the same letter they were both extolling the merits of their products and suggesting that they might break down soon. :)

Love the remodel! Especially considering that we were able to do it at close to half the cost of if we had done it a year ago (or a year in the future after the economy (hopefully) picks up again).

[bwnbwn]

Nice glad ya like it. I took a year and did

1- laid 3/4" hickory hardwood down diagonal in the living room, 1 bed room, and hall. About 800 sq feet.
2-Tore out my wifes bathroom total gut. Installed a double tub with jets and heater, tiled the walls and made her some shelves for grandbaby pictures, tiled the floor diagonal, replaced the counter top 9 feet with double sinks built in lights, and added a shower.
3- Tiled the game room 1000 feet
4- New shingles 2 times in same year 56 squares. 1st time by myself then a big hail storm came along and insurance totaled it so the 2nd time I had a young stong kid come help me (poor kid liked to have died working with me)
5- Restained the house and caulked all open cracks and joints 200 tubes. We have a rock home/ cypress so there were some holes in the concrete and I just wanted to tighten it up.
6- Installed storm windows to all windows.
7- Installed new heavy guage tin to the 2 barns.
8- Refinished all the wood in the home. 4600sqft with only sheetrock is in the celings. A logger built the home in the 70's and he cut, finished, and used a different wood in every room in the home. Kitchen, hall, and living room are all back walnut. Rest are ceder, hickory, maple, pecan, oak, and some more I forgot. He also used natural rock outa a stream before it was illegial. Told me he was cuting a track of timber and hauled one pickup truckload a time.

I am happy with mine as well I know I saved over 100k in labor.

[piatkow]

I saved over 100k in labor.

I friend of mine, a skilled violin maker, started some home imrovements then realised that if he paid somebody else and got on with make violins he would be ahead on the deal.

[Fortune Hunter]

extolling the merits of their products and suggesting that they might break down soon

I have been dealing with this over the last 6 months in a big way. My grandma still has a dishwasher that is 25 years old and works great! I have gone through 2 dishwashers in 7 years! I think most appliances, regardless of who makes them, are junk. I think they are designed to last about 5 years and then take a crap so you have to buy a new one. After all you don't make any money if people only have to buy a new appliance every 10-15 years.

I am happy with mine as well I know I saved over 100k in labor.

I truly admire people that are capable of doing this type of stuff themselves. I am not quite so handy so I need to hire out a lot of this stuff.

[bwnbwn]

piatkow good poit but I actually continued to work two jobs while doing it. I did the home projects at night and weekends. I think I took a week off from my full time jobs to do the roofing.

Hunter I had never actually done it before but getting a couple prices on the work I knew the small loan we took out would cover 1/4 of what I needed to get done. I had let the house go down and it needed so much I really had no choice.

Afer it was all over I really feel was a great experience, hey I gots lots of neat tools and feel the work is just as good as a professionals. I am not at all scared to take on any project now.

I did install two air units {during this time a 5 ton gas air conditionar and a 2 ton heat pump air conditioner. They wern't the top of the line but are just fine and working. Air man said I will need to replace the cooling coll in a couple years. 2nd year is here. I was given free 5 year warrenty on the system so we will see.

[gpilling]

i built a house from the ground up in 1998. After that, almost nothing fazes me with home improvements. Has really helped with the rental properties and negotiating with contractors

[twycweb]

Sometimes, a good brand is good because of its well-service included. So the program may be where their Good at.

But if your confidence become lesser, that means their letter shows "Low-Quality" for you. They should pack the program with a "Silver Member Status" or "Golden Member Status" who owns the better service than others. It's pretty normal in many products on market.

[Fortune Hunter]

hey I got lots of neat tools and feel the work is just as good as a professionals.

How did you learn what you were doing without actually messing it up learning? That is my problem, I have the general concept of how to do it down, but there is a big difference in how I will do it and skilled carpenter would do it the first time out of the gate.

i built a house from the ground up in 1998. After that, almost nothing fazes me with home improvements. Has really helped with the rental properties and negotiating with contractors

In a similar vein I was trained as a home inspector about 8 years ago. I never did it professionally, but going through the training really help me understand how a house went together and how to evaluate if a potential rental property was going to need a lot of work or not.