Free Estimates?
- Thread starter Benton
- Start date
- Status
bradleyelectric
Senior Member
- Location
- forest hill, md
Same as I feel about free prime rib.
jmsbrush
Senior Member
- Location
- Central Florida
Benton, what size and what kind of jobs are you talking about?
Commercial, residential?
$125.00 jobs or $25,000.00 jobs?
Commercial, residential?
$125.00 jobs or $25,000.00 jobs?
jxofaltrds
Inspector Mike®
- Location
- Mike P. Columbus Ohio
- Occupation
- ESI, PI, RBO
I use to be the nice guy but I got tired of being USED.
walkerj
Senior Member
- Location
- Baton Rouge
We do mostly commercial $100k and up, so every estimate is free to the customer but not to us
In my former days of 'running' a residential shop, we would never go to someones home/business for free to look at 'small' jobs.
In my former days of 'running' a residential shop, we would never go to someones home/business for free to look at 'small' jobs.
LarryFine
Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
- Location
- Henrico County, VA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
I offer them, but whether it includes a trip to the job is up to me. It's always free on the phone.
If I must go there against my wishes or gut feelings, it's no longer an estimate, so it's no longer free.
hotwire1955
Senior Member
- Location
- nj
Around here if you charge for an estimate you will not get the work. I don't know of any EC that charge to give an estimate, to many guys looking for work. If you'r looking to do large Com.& Ind. projects you are paying them to bid the job.
Our estimates are free, but we always charge a trip fee, we learned from years of experience that most of the guys trying to give free residential estimates were no longer in business, the residential market looking for free, are not the ones you want to build a customer base on, if you want to build a business to grow and profit long into the future, even commercial and industrial accounts end up paying in the long term, they end up paying in the final pricing.
jumper
Senior Member
- Location
- 3 Hr 2 Min from Winged Horses
But how do you get paid if you do not get the job?
laketime
Senior Member
Part of business. Just like esitmating larger projects. If you do not get the project you don't get money for estimating it. That all has to be considered when figuring out your overhead.
You just end up with a pile of losses, and these losses are not part of your overhead or operating expenses, they are just bad business decisions that can tank your business over time.
renosteinke
Senior Member
- Location
- NE Arkansas
Let's look at things from the 'big picture.'
Contact with potential customers is the only way to let them know what you have to offer, and it's reasonable for them to want to know just what sort of money is involved. I can't count the various jobs I've had that were the result of several casual conversations, over many months. I mean ... what teen hasn't gone into a car dealership and drooled over some car he'll likely never be able to buy?
Unfortunately, I also have the 'other' memories: memories of folks who had no intention of getting anything done ("home inspection"), folks who were only interested in ratcheting the price down (including their kid as your competition), folks who were looking for 'instructions' before they DIY'd it, etc. I'm still PO'd at a supposedly 'loyal' customer who used me to plan the job, gutted the plan, then farmed it out to someone else.
The fact is, you need to be making money. There is NO 'free' time in your life. If you don't make it this hour, you need to make twice as much next hour. It's also a fact that you often won't be able to give an accurate opinion without first spending considerable time and effort scoping things out.
I recently saw an ad in Craigslist, where a guy wanted an electrician to troubleshoot and fix a circuit on a 'contingency' basis. Anyone else see a problem with that approach? OK, the guy wants things fixed ... but he wants an absolute guarantee, sight unseen, with you taking all the risk. Well, I want a night in Paris- but that's not likely either.
So it all comes down to: who's asking? What's your liklihood of getting the work? Just what's involved in making the estimate? If nothing else, a 'token' fee can help weed out the casual and unscrupulous. There's some merit to the argument that only the 'bad' contractors are available on short notice, and have lots of 'free' time.
Contact with potential customers is the only way to let them know what you have to offer, and it's reasonable for them to want to know just what sort of money is involved. I can't count the various jobs I've had that were the result of several casual conversations, over many months. I mean ... what teen hasn't gone into a car dealership and drooled over some car he'll likely never be able to buy?
Unfortunately, I also have the 'other' memories: memories of folks who had no intention of getting anything done ("home inspection"), folks who were only interested in ratcheting the price down (including their kid as your competition), folks who were looking for 'instructions' before they DIY'd it, etc. I'm still PO'd at a supposedly 'loyal' customer who used me to plan the job, gutted the plan, then farmed it out to someone else.
The fact is, you need to be making money. There is NO 'free' time in your life. If you don't make it this hour, you need to make twice as much next hour. It's also a fact that you often won't be able to give an accurate opinion without first spending considerable time and effort scoping things out.
I recently saw an ad in Craigslist, where a guy wanted an electrician to troubleshoot and fix a circuit on a 'contingency' basis. Anyone else see a problem with that approach? OK, the guy wants things fixed ... but he wants an absolute guarantee, sight unseen, with you taking all the risk. Well, I want a night in Paris- but that's not likely either.
So it all comes down to: who's asking? What's your liklihood of getting the work? Just what's involved in making the estimate? If nothing else, a 'token' fee can help weed out the casual and unscrupulous. There's some merit to the argument that only the 'bad' contractors are available on short notice, and have lots of 'free' time.
laketime
Senior Member
Anybody that has estimated a project over $500 or for a larger GC knows you don't get paid for providing the estimate. I just bid a project that came in at $350k and guess what they paid us to estimate it.......
I pretty much agree with that. It's often a judgment call.
Most of our work is in the industrial and commercial sectors. It is all fixed price. When we bid a job of course we estimate labour and material costs but what we present to the customer is a fixed price.
We have fixed rates for service and emergency breakdown call outs.
We don't offer a "no fix, no fee" option. But sometimes I take a view on how well we have served a customer. If I think we have not done as well as we should have, I might reduce the charges or waive them altogether. Lose the charge, keep the customer.
Bidding a project for a GC is not the same game as dealing with a residential customer, a GC worth investing your time in, should be ready to supply you with a set of good plans for review, if the plans are good and complete, you should be able to whip up an estimate without spending a great deal of time, on the other side of the coin, is the Green GG with a rough dwg on a napkin, he needs some work done before you can quote, and work in never free.
laketime
Senior Member
Yeah I see what you are getting at now. I guess it all goes back to my main rule and that is find the right customer.
In residential service the average invoice may be as low as $500 with a net profit below 10%. Even if you raise the average invoice and net profit, what is 90 minutes of your time and truck worth? Free estimates can have a major effect on the bottom line.
Large projects, net profits over 25% and commercial maintenance are another story.
Large projects, net profits over 25% and commercial maintenance are another story.
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