I have told my families I'll be switching to 4 days a week come fall, all the families are fine with it except one. This one wants to stay but needs a lower rate since to they need to pay more for a center one day. I don't have a problem negotiating and thought we already had come to an agreement for both their kids. Then this morning they show up with a confirmation written up that only includes one kid now and is $5 lower than what we talked about for that child...wtf. I don't care either way if the family stays just thought it'd be nice since our kids are friends. My hubby says I should redo the confirmation to what I originally told them it was and see what they do but I'm not sure. Any suggestion on how to handle?

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I agree with your husband. YOU decide your rates.

They get to decide if they stay or not.

That ^^ is the extend of a client's ability to negotiate for me....

They don't get to decide the rate or anything else.

If you allow them to negotiate this, it won't be the last thing they try to "adjust".

I'd re-write the confirmation to what YOU decide it should be and stand your ground. They need to agree to the new rate or submit their notice.

I have no issues with a client asking if I have discounts etc but I am not okay with clients that TELL me what they will be paying etc...

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I would bring it up to them. Say "oh! It looks like you have written down 5$ less than we previously agreed upon. The rate is x amount, please rewrite this with the correct amount" and hand it back to them. Or actually,I would just have a new agreement typed up for them at pick up and say "I noticed your confirmation was written up with an incorrect rate. I re-wrote it for the correct amount." And hand them it to sign. If they give you a hard time just be polite but firm, state that was the agreement and you are not willing to negotiate further. Unless you want to...but i wouldn't.

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"Hi Susan, so I was looking over the new terms and I have a few concerns. What you have here is not what we discussed before and I'd like to go over that. When we last spoke about reducing your rate because of going down from 5 days to 4 I agreed to the rate of $XX for each child, that was based on a discount because you have two children. On here you say $X per child which is lower than I agreed to and that's only for one child. Will you still be bringing both kids or just one? Because the rate that you gave me here is not the rate we agreed to initially and I'm not comfortable with lowering it anymore than that so this rate you gave me here won't work. Also the rate was based on two kids coming so if only one is going to come then one child doesn't get that extra discount so the rate will be higher than what I quoted you beforehand. Let me know what your plans are, how many of your kids are coming and I can quote you properly based on that information. If anything changes please let me know since changes will impact the amount of the rate"

That's what I would say anyway lol

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