23 September 2026 · 5 min read · Oscar Markham
When to turn down work
Growing businesses take everything, and for a while that is the right instinct. There comes a point where the jobs at the bottom are costing you the capacity to do the ones at the top, and recognising that point is worth more than any marketing.
The jobs that cost more than they pay
Work outside your travel radius where the driving eats the margin. Jobs outside your actual specialism that take twice as long. Customers who negotiated hard before you started, who will negotiate harder at the end.
And anything where the scope was never really agreed, which is the most reliable predictor of a difficult job there is.
- Far outside your normal travel distance
- Outside what you actually do well
- Heavy price negotiation before any work has started
- Vague scope the customer will not pin down
- A previous tradesperson who left mid-job, with no clear explanation
- Unrealistic timescale they will not move on
Recognise it at the enquiry, not on site
Most of these are visible in the first conversation if you are listening for them. That is what a qualifying form and a proper first call are for.
The cost of declining at enquiry stage is nothing. The cost of declining after a site visit is an afternoon. The cost of finding out three weeks in is considerable.
Raise the price instead of refusing
For borderline jobs, quoting a price that makes the difficulty worth it is better than declining. If they accept, it is now a good job. If they decline, you have lost nothing.
This is also the correct response to being busy, and it is how most trades gradually move upmarket.
How to decline well
Quickly, plainly, and with a recommendation if you have one. 'That is outside what we do, but try X' costs you nothing and frequently comes back as a referral later.
What damages you is going quiet, or stringing somebody along for a fortnight before saying no.
The test
If you would be relieved to hear they had gone elsewhere, do not take the job. That instinct is almost always accurate and almost always ignored.
Businesses rarely regret the work they turned down. They regret the work they took.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.