What kind of deal should I make?

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Benton

Senior Member
Location
Louisiana
I have this part-time EC (he works full-time) who asked me to help him out at an apartment complex he services. They called him to fix a problem with the power going to an A/C for one of their units. He asked if I could do the job for him because he works nights. I agreed. I did the job, but after pondering it a while it came to me that I am making his company look better at a low rate, and my company gets no notariety. So, what should be our monetary exchange, percentage wise, hourly, whatever? i get the feeling that I am being duped:slaphead:. Or not:cool:.
 

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
So, what should be our monetary exchange, percentage wise, hourly, whatever? i get the feeling that I am being duped:slaphead:. Or not:cool:.

I think you should charge whatever you agreed to charge before you did the job.


For me I wouldn't help out for anything less than normal service call rates. If he wants to mark that up ( and can get it ) then he is welcome to anything extra.


I will work for anyone at anytime if they are willing to pay for it but I don't do favors. :happyno:
 
Business is business. You should charge as if you normally would otherwise, buddy or not. But if you agreed to do the job for $XX, then you can only expect what you agreed upon regardless of how much either one of you made on the project.
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
You should charge whatever you agreed to upfront.

His arrangements with his customers are his business, and not yours.

A lot of times the worth of a service related business is not in the technical skills associated with the work, but in the ability of the business to actually acquire business and service it in a cost effective way.

You might want to learn from what he is doing.
 

sameguy

Senior Member
Location
New York
Occupation
Master Elec./JW retired
You get what you said you would do it for.
Your buddy may not make any money just to service his customer. He only made a phone call.
 

Alwayslearningelec

Senior Member
Location
NJ
Occupation
Estimator
Business is business. You should charge as if you normally would otherwise, buddy or not. But if you agreed to do the job for $XX, then you can only expect what you agreed upon regardless of how much either one of you made on the project.
Are you serious???????/
 

satcom

Senior Member
I always wondered how anyone could try to do electrical contracting when they had a full time job, answer emergency and problem calls on work they did, and be there for the customer.

Yup, make him look good and he may (USE) you again
 

renosteinke

Senior Member
Location
NE Arkansas
There's a lot more to this than the OP has described.

First off, turnabout is fair play. If you're getting your buddy out of a jam, perhaps he has already done the same for you.

Full price to your buddy? Probably not- no matter what he charges the customer. After all, he's the guy taking the business risk, collecting payment, and stuck with any warranty claims. At the minimum, your discount should reflect the commission you would pay a salesman.

We're assuming that your buddy is making money on this deal. He may not be; he might be 'eating' a loss just to maintain his reputation. Profit or loss, it's really not your concern.
 

satcom

Senior Member
There's a lot more to this than the OP has described.

First off, turnabout is fair play. If you're getting your buddy out of a jam, perhaps he has already done the same for you.

Full price to your buddy? Probably not- no matter what he charges the customer. After all, he's the guy taking the business risk, collecting payment, and stuck with any warranty claims. At the minimum, your discount should reflect the commission you would pay a salesman.

We're assuming that your buddy is making money on this deal. He may not be; he might be 'eating' a loss just to maintain his reputation. Profit or loss, it's really not your concern.

He is not the guy taking all the risk a EC with the burden of keeping a full time business afloat,he is secure in a full time job, and if anything is using his buddy because he is not secure enough to go it on his own, let him pay the full burden and learn the real risk of being in business
Or just help him and charge nothing.
 

gadfly56

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
I have this part-time EC (he works full-time) who asked me to help him out at an apartment complex he services. They called him to fix a problem with the power going to an A/C for one of their units. He asked if I could do the job for him because he works nights. I agreed. I did the job, but after pondering it a while it came to me that I am making his company look better at a low rate, and my company gets no notariety. So, what should be our monetary exchange, percentage wise, hourly, whatever? i get the feeling that I am being duped:slaphead:. Or not:cool:.

I'm going to assume that you want to maintain a business relationship going forward. IMHO, others to the contrary not withstanding, all the risk on this is yours. Push come to shove, you did the work and any warranty claims will flow down to you.

We have customers who are in the fire protection business just as we are and with whom we do a lot of business. The usual arrangement is 10% off our standard price for labor and materials, and they can tack it back on (or more) when they pass it on to their customer. He has no risk on this other than nonpayment; no gas, no insurance (auto, workman's comp, etc), labor overage (we do what we can to limit our exposure in this regard) and his mark up is straight to the bottom line. On the off chance their customer asks us direct, we send a quote for full price. There's no price fixing, because the discount is up front for our regular customer across the board for any work we quote him. Consider something similar, whether you go T&M or fixed price with your buddy.
 

cowboyjwc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Simi Valley, CA
I agree with growler and he said what I wanted to say, but didn't really want to get into a long rant about people making money off of me.

If I had the business arrangment with anyone that gadfly described, pretty soon I would just sit in the office and let gadfly do all the work and I would just make phone calls and collect my 10%+
 

gadfly56

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
I agree with growler and he said what I wanted to say, but didn't really want to get into a long rant about people making money off of me.

If I had the business arrangment with anyone that gadfly described, pretty soon I would just sit in the office and let gadfly do all the work and I would just make phone calls and collect my 10%+

Usually these arrangements are mutually beneficial. Our partners have access to proprietary products we don't or can't carry, or they simply don't provide that particular fire protection service (special suppression systems, for example). We don't incur the cost of developing and maintaining the sales relationships or "personal touch" that can be very important and very time consuming when it comes to keeping the customer happy.
 

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
I agree with growler and he said what I wanted to say, but didn't really want to get into a long rant about people making money off of me.

If I had the business arrangment with anyone that gadfly described, pretty soon I would just sit in the office and let gadfly do all the work and I would just make phone calls and collect my 10%+

for 80% of your ten percent, i'll answer the phone for you....
 

cowboyjwc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Simi Valley, CA
Usually these arrangements are mutually beneficial. Our partners have access to proprietary products we don't or can't carry, or they simply don't provide that particular fire protection service (special suppression systems, for example). We don't incur the cost of developing and maintaining the sales relationships or "personal touch" that can be very important and very time consuming when it comes to keeping the customer happy.

Well if it works for you that's fine.

Had a local EC call me up one time about 8:00 at night and it's raining. The mobil home patk that he has a contact with called him and the power was out to some of the coaches and he was out of town and wanted to know if I would go take care of it for him (I had helped him before so we knew the drill). Just before I hung up he said go ahead and bill your normal rate and then add 10% on for me. When I finally quit laughing.........
 

stevenj76

Senior Member
But if you agreed to do the job for $XX, then you can only expect what you agreed upon regardless of how much either one of you made on the project.

Okay, an A/C connect is going to be at least $XXX, and I target stuff that is $XXXXX. WTF are you smoking?? Did it cost $XX per eighth?
 
Okay, an A/C connect is going to be at least $XXX, and I target stuff that is $XXXXX. WTF are you smoking?? Did it cost $XX per eighth?

Oops, did I forget a couple XX's for your clarification??? You obviously understood my "example".... And just in case you did not, I used the XX in place of currency to reflect an example, not an actual cost.... WOW :happysad:
 

renosteinke

Senior Member
Location
NE Arkansas
Welcome to the Mike Holt "XXX" forum! :)

I don't much care for comments like the ones in this thread that refer to glass pipes and smoking. Please refrain from such personal slurs.

One need not resort to that sort of thing, just because they hold a strong opinion, and disagree with another. Indeed, I'm about to show you how to express a strong disagreement.

There seems to be some confusion about just what is 'businessmans' risk.' That's the risk of doing business, and it matters not whether the business has other financial resources. Whether one is doing contracting on the side, after their regular job, or has a full-time business with a fleet of trucks and corporate headquarters, the concept of businessmans' risk is the same.

It's the contracted EC whose license is required, who needs to pull the permits, who is liable for the completion of the job and any warranty issues. It's the contracted EC who found the job, designed it, and made the deal with the customer. It's the contracted EC who sends the bill and collects the check. It's the contracted EC who takes the risk of a bad quote, and the risk of nonpayment. I will agree that the risk of nonpayment seems trivial- until it happens to you.

The second guy, the OP, isn't the 'contractor' with the customer in any manner. From the customers' perspective, it's no different than were he an employee of the first EC. The second guy is nothing more than an 'independent contractor' type employee to the first EC. Which, btw, can bring up some interesting issues if the job goes sour and a lien needs to be filed.
 
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