2469 Lawsuit Free Days

4379 contracts signed over the last 5 years. $15m of money changing hands. 2469 lawsuit free days. I feel like Cal Ripken, keeping the streak alive. It takes a special customer not to be able to reach a compromise with Catskill Farms - because we know how to take a lot of abuse before pushing back. Today, we close on Cottage 7, and for all you 9 to 5'ers, that means we get a paycheck today. Depending on how many houses I sell in a year, that's how many times I get paid. So once every couple of months I get some money, and that's always a good thing. And then next week we close on Cottage 8, an 820 sq ft lofty cottage with a built out basement. This house is getting rave reviews, I mean really, people are flipping out over it - I think because of it's very intelligent use of space. We started framing Gayle 1100 sq ft 2 bedroom 2 bath house, started framing Dean's 1300 sq ft 2 bedroom 2 bath house, and we are backfilling Albert's house, and getting ready to pour the concrete slab for his barn. This weekend my old baseball coach is coming up to check us out. He runs one of the largest and oldest design/develop/build companies in southern PA, and he is duly impressed enough to come up and check us out. Maybe with an eye on helping us expand in to Woodstock, Rhineback, New Paltz, Stone Ridge and Marbletown. I played baseball for the longest time, from the ages 7-20, and we had a kick ass team that year after year took home the gold. And I wouldn't be surprised if those sports lesson don't continually help us compete hard and gracefully. A woman spear-heading our marketing just came, very concerned about the previous blog post and the harm she perceived it will do to her efforts. I told her 1, I don't accept excuses so work around it. Anyway, the emails have been coming in 4 to 1 congratulating me for standing my ground. I think people who have accomplished anything understand tough decisions. And if they don't, I can always go back to waiting tables or mowing lawns. It's amazing and discouraging we can exceed all expectations, finish projects on time, on budget with the highest quality, and still find we are unable to meet expectations. Really, the only answer is to sometimes let customers who want to be unreasonable deal with the local talent pool if only so I can add some perspective to how easy I've made it for them. http://catskillfarms.blogspot.com/2009/05/hugh-gran-farmhouse-9-followup.html