Have you raised your hourly rate

Unless there is something complicated most around here scream at $65/hr. GC are quoting $45/hr. handyman $25/hr. But they will pay the Garage $185, and the plumber $175.
Except for commercial customers if I say $150/hr. I have extended unpaid vaca.
When the GC or handyman messed it up, Then I can get the $150/hr. premium.
 
imnotscared said:
No! You're gonna take care of them and give them the best price and service. Nothing less than the best at no less than the going rate. Going rate... mark that brown baby diaper filler up. It's fair they have the money. Dr. PERRY, READ HIS ARTICLE ON MATERIAL. Change your game. God bless.
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Got a link for this article?
 
sw_ross said:
Do you think 5% for material is enough?! Every time I go to grab something from the box store I have sticker shock!
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It’s not only sticker shock I had to pick up some Romex that was locked in a cabinet, they had to have an employee escort with me to the register to buy a roll of Romex, so I also needed a drill bit, guess what another locked walk case, and a different employee has to escort me to the register, so now I have 2 oranges following me carrying a $50 roll of rope and another with $10 worth of drill bits, I aso needed a key cut, a a battery for m18, in all I had a parade of four HD oranges carrying my stuff for 1/2 hour. And then the pro checkouts is closed so you have to go stand in line for self check out Another 10 minutes with 4 employees in tow. Unfortunately as crazy as this seems, the electrical supply houses aren’t much better at getting you in and out.
 
Yes I did.

$160/hr here. Controls and engineering services. Commercial refrigeration and HVAC both. NO residential. Joe and Mary homeowner can go find someone else.
 
JRichards said:
It’s not only sticker shock I had to pick up some Romex that was locked in a cabinet, they had to have an employee escort with me to the register to buy a roll of Romex, so I also needed a drill bit, guess what another locked walk case, and a different employee has to escort me to the register, so now I have 2 oranges following me carrying a $50 roll of rope and another with $10 worth of drill bits, I aso needed a key cut, a a battery for m18, in all I had a parade of four HD oranges carrying my stuff for 1/2 hour. And then the pro checkouts is closed so you have to go stand in line for self check out Another 10 minutes with 4 employees in tow. Unfortunately as crazy as this seems, the electrical supply houses aren’t much better at getting you in and out.
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Home Depot has taken a beating with shop lifting recently. My local store had someone walk out with... get this... $30k worth of wire. How does that even happen??!!???
 
herding_cats said:
Home Depot has taken a beating with shop lifting recently. My local store had someone walk out with... get this... $30k worth of wire. How does that even happen??!!???
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They need a resource officer it sounds like. I'm sure they'd make up the 200k costs in saving vs having 2 or 3 loss prevention guys who just watch it walk out the door. Non political point BTW just saying I think it'd be cheaper and maybe possibly work better
 
herding_cats said:
Home Depot has taken a beating with shop lifting recently. My local store had someone walk out with... get this... $30k worth of wire. How does that even happen??!!???
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The criminals are so brazen now, that along the I 575 corridor outside Atlanta, they were taking garbage cans in the middle of the day, and filling them with arc fault and ground fault breakers. That’s why big Orange locks them up now. They have a facial recognition camera at the front entrance, but by the time the police get there, the theives are gone. Like most of the other big box stores, they will not let their employees confront them for fear of lawsuits and bad juries.
 
Just had a repair on my truck. Labor rate was $170 hr. Why am I so cheap?
 
ptonsparky said:
Those people feel they have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Hurt them and you along with the store are sued. They win.
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O well, the correct path in life tends to be the one you have to make yourself.
I could sit on my ass today and be on my computer, or go get something done? Ones easy one hard, life’s full of choice.


I do understand what your saying but personally I would hope I could stand up to the bullies and not cower down
 
kec said:
Just had a repair on my truck. Labor rate was $170 hr. Why am I so cheap?
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I think a big part of it is the billable hours. A mechanic almost certainly has a lot less than 40 billable hours per week. Sure some types of electrical work are the same, like service calls, small jobs, but if you have a big job you can sink your teeth into and have your tool belt on almost 8 hours a day it might be different.
 
AC\DC said:
Have you increased your hourly rate since this” transitory”:ROFLMAO: inflation.
I would like to but I don’t see how people could afford it.
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After paying for other's services at times, I got rid of the approach you mentioned and figured I can't afford not to raise rates.
 
kec said:
Just had a repair on my truck. Labor rate was $170 hr. Why am I so cheap?
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One guy in my town is 150 other guy is 90, another is 100
the cheapest use to be the worst and the 150 guy was gold.
Well now is sons back on heroin and the cheapest guy has two parking lot full of cars

Point I am making is we are talking about how much we can make on here per hour.
The cheaper you are the more swamped you’re going to be( most peole with go with cheapest) So you may not make a lot. But now you can have 5 employees and can make a little off them.

Though I hear from you guys that you make more and less headache on your own( approach I have taken also) so I got higest rate in my area and still getting calls
So more than one way to skin a cat
 
herding_cats said:
Home Depot has taken a beating with shop lifting recently. My local store had someone walk out with... get this... $30k worth of wire. How does that even happen??!!???
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It happens because instead of confronting them they just let them do it and then they call police.

I know someone that was using self check out at a grocery store, ended up seeing someone they knew and got into a conversation with them while checking out. With the distraction simply forgot to pay for her items. Store employees never confronted her or she probably would have apologized and promptly made it right. Instead she finds a picture in local paper of herself saying "do you know this person" and information to contact the police. She called them herself and found out why, went to the store to try to make it right. They said they have zero tolerance policy and refused to take a payment since prosecution was already in progress
 
AC\DC said:
One guy in my town is 150 other guy is 90, another is 100
the cheapest use to be the worst and the 150 guy was gold.
Well now is sons back on heroin and the cheapest guy has two parking lot full of cars

Point I am making is we are talking about how much we can make on here per hour.
The cheaper you are the more swamped you’re going to be( most peole with go with cheapest) So you may not make a lot. But now you can have 5 employees and can make a little off them.

Though I hear from you guys that you make more and less headache on your own( approach I have taken also) so I got higest rate in my area and still getting calls
So more than one way to skin a cat
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You need employees that know what they are doing, and they will want to be paid well enough to live as well or your new job is going to consist mostly of interviewing perspective employees, and possibly doing a heavier load of the actual work than you planned on top of it if you aren't getting the right people.
 
kwired said:
You need employees that know what they are doing, and they will want to be paid well enough to live as well or your new job is going to consist mostly of interviewing perspective employees, and possibly doing a heavier load of the actual work than you planned on top of it if you aren't getting the right people.
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I understand that.
There just other approaches to getting we’re you want.

If a personal calling without any references to try and find an electrician, price is going to be there biggest hurdle to overcome, so I try and be as nice and polite as possible and knowledge as possible to try and sell my self at a high rate than the guy down the street.

If we both sound the same she going with the lower price!
So me at 150 and guy down the road at 120.
He may have more work than me cause of the cost saving and still afford to pay a nice rate to employees. He may only make 20-30 bucks off him an hour but now he matches me and has help.
 
This I just anecdotal, so I am not advocation cutting your hours just playing devils advocate, also trying to figure out why I don’t have an employee yet lol
 
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