So basically you did it for the 10K. Just reworked how the material was paid for and let the GC take the parts profit? Not saying that is wrong, just that you are also in the same ballpark . . ish.
Yeah, I think that's about right. It was what I was implying in my post. The thing is, he wanted to strong-arm the price out of me. I could have turned down the job or demanded more money. If he knew then what he knows now, he probably would have paid me more money to take care of all that other stuff. But we finished the job and both of us were happy. Happy enough that he called me to do another job with him recently. And once again, we worked together to do the best job we could and both came out happy at the end of that job as well.
I like the idea of having the GC acquire and pay directly for the parts. Its a simple way to make your part of the job look a lot cheaper to him. He thinks he is getting some kind of bargain, but probably never figured in the time and resources spent getting and paying for the parts that he won't recoup for a long while.
I also like how you got him to do all the grunt work like gutting the walls and mounting the fixtures.
You will probably make more real profit on the job handling it this way, and the GC thinks he got a steal.
Just don't smile too much while you are there. Complain a little so he won't realize what a deal you got out of this arrangement.
Yeah, I mean with the recessed lights he was really particular. So he spent time running strings from point to point, cris-crossing string at each location to make sure all the cans lined up exactly where he wanted them, then mounted the cans. It was a little bit more work for me to actually get the wires into the boxes and make up the splices, but well worth not having the responsibility of making sure the cans were in the right place and physically hanging them.
He probably DID make a little more money for himself by billing the customer for his work, but I did less work at a higher profit margin with less risk.
Very rare to find somebody that's easy to work and I've found a few of those types of customers.
