Had to drop my rates to an all time low.

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bullheimer

Senior Member
Location
WA
yeah, good one.

as far as negativity goes, sorry to disappoint, but despite all the GREAT things you have in those threads, my negativity does not show thru as you are for some reason, thinking it does. I am professional enuf not to let things like my crappy life effect me, although i can tell you that despite the multitude of them, the one most significant thing that affects my attitude is if the sun is out or its raining cats and dogs as usual. But i am actually happy to get any chance to bid or do anything, so i am automatically in a good mood when i am interacting with customers.

Funny about the church i last went to. the Galloping gourmet, Graham Kerr who i always liked alot, goes there. I got sucked into a light change for a couple days for free, the first week i was there. Didn't really care for all the singing, but when they refused to let me do a class i teach in that very room, (large multipurpose room) and then the next week, handed out flyers for other classes that were being offered, that was it for them - i have never been back.

I am going to have to force myself to go to all the clubs i mentioned before, hit the bulletin boards etc as was offered up. and i guess church too. I had a job yesterday for a hundie and another tomorrow for a buck and a half. a long way from paying bills. one out of the phone book and one a past customer. also last week i gave back a customer $250 because i overcharged him, (not keeping track of the payments he made to me), even tho it left me with $10 in the bank., i also yesterday had to give back money to a friend of mine (another elec contractor), i subbed out work from, because i forgot he referred the job to me, so i am good at being honest. i don't want anybody to feel i bent them over, even if i have to borrow money to do it. and yeah, even tho some might not believe me, with a smile on my face. i have also recently been given a $200 tip because the customer didn't think i charged him enuf, but i did. i have received alot of tips some of a hundred dollars.

you know the expression, got to blow sunshine up their, uh, dresses. i do. i am not so dumb as to think that i am going to get work by being grumpy. the last bid i was on (couple weeks back), the lady had another elec. contractor on the walk thru doing exactly that. man he was blowin the sunshine. i couldnt even compete (in sunshine blowing dept.) he did not get the job either. but compared to THAT guy, yeah, i wasn't even close. but he gave me an up close an personal lesson on how to do it, that's fo sho. even he has gone from seven trucks down to three.

and i do 'dress up' alittle when i do estimates. maybe not so much when i go to work a i crawl thru alot of muck, but for schmoozing, of course. trust me, i might need to work on some things, but not everything. but i do plan to sit down and do a list of goods and bads. at least the goods, since no, i do not think that much about them. When one is up to their butt in alligators, it's hard to think happy thoughts. but i do when i know i need to.
 
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growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
Times are hard, things change, life goes on.

You are right John. Things have changed, a lot. In the past if a recession lasted very long people would just change jobs if there wasn't work enough to go around. You could always pick up some sort of a job, working on a loading dock or doing factory work. I went over to doing maintenance in a factory during one recession.

These days there is less work and still the same number of contractors out there trying to get it. Even when things get bad there is no place for them to go so they do whatever is necessary to put bread on the table and if that means working cheap that's just what they do.

I think we are in for a really rough ride because this thing isn't over. Nothing has changed and no new job have been created. :happyno:
 

cowboyjwc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Simi Valley, CA
You are right John. Things have changed, a lot. In the past if a recession lasted very long people would just change jobs if there wasn't work enough to go around. You could always pick up some sort of a job, working on a loading dock or doing factory work. I went over to doing maintenance in a factory during one recession.

These days there is less work and still the same number of contractors out there trying to get it. Even when things get bad there is no place for them to go so they do whatever is necessary to put bread on the table and if that means working cheap that's just what they do.

I think we are in for a really rough ride because this thing isn't over. Nothing has changed and no new job have been created. :happyno:

I mentioned that we're losing our house, and someone asked me if I couldn't get a second job. I said most people can't ge a first job, where would I find a second one at.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that my 35 years of experiance in the electrical trade will really impress the rest of the pizza delivery guys.:happysad:
 

bullheimer

Senior Member
Location
WA
i agree that things are still going to get worse. especially when nobody in power even mentions the problem. which is NOT CREATING jobs, but KEEPING the ones here that we have. we have and still are, at an alarming rate, outsourcing more and more production jobs, take Square D for example. My plan, when i'm prez. is to nationalize every factory that has been shuttered, like say, any that made cordless drills for example, and re-open them making cordless drills, and slap a levi from hell on any imports. anybody remember Harley Davidson and the tax put on any jap bike over 750cc's? well, Honda didn't exactly go under, and Harley is still around. but that's a different story, or is it?
 

KVA

Senior Member
Location
United States
Even when things get bad there is no place for them to go so they do whatever is necessary to put bread on the table and if that means working cheap that's just what they do.

Yes so by poor planning on their part by not having a "rainy day fund" they lower their prices and hurt the rest of us. Every job i get i toss some money into a savings account for days with no work. Even if it's only $20 per job that $20 adds up quick.

And I'm working on finding part time work for 3 days too lessen the blow of no work. Just because I'm sitting at home without work some days I'm not going to ruin the trade by playing "lets make a deal" with customers just to get work.

Their are many bs jobs you can get to make extra cash in down time. Go stock shelves, pizza delivery, maintenance, etc.. Yeah you will take a major pay cut but it's some money.
 

satcom

Senior Member
I mentioned that we're losing our house, and someone asked me if I couldn't get a second job. I said most people can't ge a first job, where would I find a second one at.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that my 35 years of experiance in the electrical trade will really impress the rest of the pizza delivery guys.:happysad:

You have that right, about getting a job, just on my street only 2 out of about Evert eight homes have someone still working on a regular basis, good thing there pizza delivery and super market stocking jobs, to help the out of work and out of unemployment funds people. But cheer up I hear they. Are going to create some jobs, I guess they just can,t get the ingredients they need to create them!
 

bullheimer

Senior Member
Location
WA
hey i want to point out that i only charge $55 if they mention the craigslist ad. because that is the only place anybody else is advertising $55/hr. i am not charging that if they call on my website, nor out of the phone book. i charge my regular rates which are $75 resi and $85 commercial. i give people a break, i guess a large one, if i think it's taken me too long to troubleshoot something. like last night. working five hours after four i am charging time and a half at $75 instead of $85 because i didnt want the bill to be almost $700. i figure six was already too much, so i gave this commercial customer a break. probably stupid, esp in my situation. i won't be getting return business from this place anyway, so why give him a break, because they have their own electrode on staff (property manager) i only got called because he couldn't find it.

as far as putting money away for a rainy day. i am trying like hell to put the sales tax away so i can pay it on time w/o a 25% fine, but i can NOT seem to do it ever. i know i am not the greatest saver or book keeper. but lets face it, i am more like a hermit when i need to be out there 'campaigning'. meeting people, handing out cards. i got to do this even tho it might be too late but as long as i am still in biz, at least till the end of the month i got to force myself. i am going to be selling my 56 utility truck on ebay very soon. and that will dig me out of this whole until probably July, so i my plan is take some of the money and join those organizations i mentioned previously. thanks guysngals, this thread was a learning experience for me.
 

Sparky555

Senior Member
bullheimer:

This is a link to a simple hourly rate calculator:
http://www.contractorselling.com/public/505.cfm

I suspect you are selling your services at less than cost. Therefore you have no funds to:
Carry you through slow times.
Pay your taxes.
Purchase a new vehicle.
Etc.

If you use the calculator and feel that there is no way to raise your rates above cost, you have the choice of suffering the losses or seeking employment.
 

satcom

Senior Member
bullheimer:

This is a link to a simple hourly rate calculator:
http://www.contractorselling.com/public/505.cfm

I suspect you are selling your services at less than cost. Therefore you have no funds to:
Carry you through slow times.
Pay your taxes.
Purchase a new vehicle.
Etc.

If you use the calculator and feel that there is no way to raise your rates above cost, you have the choice of suffering the losses or seeking employment.

He is not alone, we see it all the time, someone figures they will give going it on their own a try, and they never take the time to estimate the true cost of operating a business, it is not as simple as how much they charge, it is all about, what it costs them to run the business, the key word COST.
and it is not a simple matter of working for less to continue operations, your fixed expenses will eat up any attempt to save the business, it is just as you say, if you sell your services for more then it costs you, you can survive the bumps in the road to making a go of the business. The big flat rate guys figured their costs from day one, and this may be why they are eating everyones lunch.
If you have know your costs, and bill to cover your costs and overhead with a little profit, you can make a business run in just about any area waalthy or depressed.
 

petersonra

Senior Member
Location
Northern illinois
Occupation
engineer
the big flat rate guys survive on servicing homeowners who have no clue that they are being charged a lot more than they need to pay. there are only so many consumers who buy those kind of services based on repeated TV, radio, and print ads. I bet the big guys are hurting too.

there is something to be said for the little guy who can go into survival mode for a few years by reducing his prices. but after a while, he is in a world of hurt too.

there is very little in the way of barriers to entry into the low end EC market. It is that way in most contracting fields too. There is a limit to what can be done though with limited capital. The reality is that for a relatively small amount of money, a guy can become an EC and do some limited EC type work. But because there are a whole bunch of guys with limited funds competing in that niche of the market, prices are driven down to survival or below survival levels.

It won't get all that much better in that niche until homebuilding comes back. And that could be a decade or more. there is a ton of unsold houses overhanging the market in most areas.

OTOH, these are the same guys that often were making money hand over fist when times were good. When things are popping, those guys can raise their rates and they are still in the market with very little invested so their margins are impressive when things are good.
 

97catintenn

Senior Member
Location
Columbia, TN
bullheimer:

This is a link to a simple hourly rate calculator:
http://www.contractorselling.com/public/505.cfm

I suspect you are selling your services at less than cost. Therefore you have no funds to:
Carry you through slow times.
Pay your taxes.
Purchase a new vehicle.
Etc.

If you use the calculator and feel that there is no way to raise your rates above cost, you have the choice of suffering the losses or seeking employment.

Wow, thanks for sharing the calculator! It makes figuring hourly rates kinda easy :thumbsup:
 

Strife

Senior Member
Same as my experience as a project manager with a 30 million job(5th largest in US at the time), 3-4 10-20 million dollar jobs, and many more 1-10 million dollar jobs would not impress anyone if I was looking for a different career.
As a matter of fact, I'd have to lie on my resume if I wanted to start a different career.
 

cowboyjwc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Simi Valley, CA
Same as my experience as a project manager with a 30 million job(5th largest in US at the time), 3-4 10-20 million dollar jobs, and many more 1-10 million dollar jobs would not impress anyone if I was looking for a different career.
As a matter of fact, I'd have to lie on my resume if I wanted to start a different career.

My resume has three jobs in 35 years. On the other hand my resume has two pages of volunteer hours.
 

satcom

Senior Member
How similar are these calculators?

This comes through on mac
http://www.masterplumbers.com/utilities/costcalc/
This does not come through on mac
http://www.contractorselling.com/public/505.cfm

I like the plumbers utility..........now if I can only get the work and charge the $237 hourly it says.

You never will be able to charge that $237 figure that number, is what you need to use in your flat rate schedule, to break even without a profit.

Around here, Just about all of the few EC that survived the past 3 years and do service work, charge a flat rate schedule in that $200 area , plus or minus depending on their own break even cost.
 

Sparky555

Senior Member
How similar are these calculators?

This comes through on mac
http://www.masterplumbers.com/utilities/costcalc/
This does not come through on mac
http://www.contractorselling.com/public/505.cfm

I like the plumbers utility..........now if I can only get the work and charge the $237 hourly it says.

I like that plumber's calculator also. I concur with satcom. Flat rate allows the recovery of job expenses and overhead. The three EC businesses I know with model businesses are in the $250-400/hour range. By model business I mean they provide quality service to their customers while paying their employees well with good benefits (holidays, overtime, health insurance, etc.).
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
You have that right, about getting a job, just on my street only 2 out of about Evert eight homes have someone still working on a regular basis, good thing there pizza delivery and super market stocking jobs, to help the out of work and out of unemployment funds people. But cheer up I hear they. Are going to create some jobs, I guess they just can,t get the ingredients they need to create them!

If it is that bad, who can afford to order pizza? Eventually pizza delivery job will be eliminated as there is no need for it. Our society has become too accustomed to conveniences. Even people that are considered poor today are not as poor as they would have been just 30 to 50 years ago, in most cases. When times get tough there are lots of things people can do to cut spending, but they don't want to give up conveniences, and certainly do not want to have to work very hard at pretty much anything.

hey i want to point out that i only charge $55 if they mention the craigslist ad. because that is the only place anybody else is advertising $55/hr. i am not charging that if they call on my website, nor out of the phone book. i charge my regular rates which are $75 resi and $85 commercial. i give people a break, i guess a large one, if i think it's taken me too long to troubleshoot something. like last night. working five hours after four i am charging time and a half at $75 instead of $85 because i didnt want the bill to be almost $700. i figure six was already too much, so i gave this commercial customer a break. probably stupid, esp in my situation. i won't be getting return business from this place anyway, so why give him a break, because they have their own electrode on staff (property manager) i only got called because he couldn't find it.

Did you solve their problem? JMO but many will agree that you lowered your value when you lowered your price. Some commercial/industrial customers are losing much more per hour when they are down than they are paying you, even if you are the highest rate guy around. They called you to get up and running again, and to certain extent do not care what it costs. If you can't fix it - the time they were down keeps adding up to more loss.

$500 repair, even $20,000 repair is a drop in a bucket if production losses are in the millions.
 
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