should i break out costs for HO?

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electricalperson said:
i think pricing electrical work is tough because all that the customer sees in the end is a little switch on the wall and some nice lights on the celing. they dont see all the hard work that went into making those lights work and look nice.
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YEP, I was working in a furniture store yesterday on top of a 12ft ladder, on the next to the top rung, changing ballast, and 96inch tubes.....the lady manager came by, and I asked her how many lights she wanted my to fix? She asked how much have we spent so far? I just quoted my labor rate, plus parts, and that I had been there a couple of hours.....She hung her head, turned and walked away not answering my question......And I thought, well if you think this is so easy, why didnt you do it? Then I billed her .8hr per ballast right from the data book...that stuff ticks me off.
 
CopperTone said:
I have this PITA customer who has asked me to break down my bid for a small job at his house - 5 low voltage lights, transformer, replace 2 gfi's, run low voltage wire in his back yard. (line voltage wiring already in place). Pretty easy job actually.

I gave him a price of $1580 - I gave him specs for the lights and transformer with links to look online. He want to know the breakdown of cost of material to labor to profit. I told him I don't do busines like that.

What I wanted to say was " do you go into a restaurant and ask them how much they paid for the steak and compare it to their selling price and then decide to dine there?"

does anyone break out their bids? (I do for T & M jobs - this wasn't one)
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I wouldnt do it either. If they dont like the price then dont go for it why do they need to know your costs? Thats just someone who either has no buisness sense, Or to far of an A personality thinking if they know all your costs then they can talk you down.
 
SEO said:
It's not going to change Mule it's a rough market out there.
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YEA I know, She probably was thinking how high my rate was......I was just asking how many lights she wanted fixed, so to keep the bill from being to large, since they are a repeat customer...But your right, things are changing.
Ive been thinking about a sliding scale for these types of jobs actually. But you know, overhead cost havent went down...? other than fuel cost..
 
Mule said:
YEA I know, She probably was thinking how high my rate was......I was just asking how many lights she wanted fixed, so to keep the bill from being to large, since they are a repeat customer...But your right, things are changing.
Ive been thinking about a sliding scale for these types of jobs actually. But you know, overhead cost havent went down...? other than fuel cost..
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Mule, dose the grocery store have a sliding scale? Then why should you?
 
When one of you guys do work for me (I don't do my own anymore), I want the labor broken out separately whether it is a bid job or T&M. In Indiana, the state sales tax doesn't apply to labor but if it is not broken out, I have to pay the sales tax on the bottom line. By the way, I also offer all the water you can drink and bathroom facilities. :smile:
 
ceb58 said:
Mule, dose the grocery store have a sliding scale? Then why should you?
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I agree, but just thinking foward for what MAY be coming. I asked the inspector today if they where noticing a decrease in permits and inspections, and he shook his head yes, and said "very much so"

I draggin my feet on changes, but every day, Im thinking "Lets see, I worked off XX hrs of backlog, and only x came in".
 
charlie said:
When one of you guys do work for me (I don't do my own anymore), I want the labor broken out separately whether it is a bid job or T&M. In Indiana, the state sales tax doesn't apply to labor but if it is not broken out, I have to pay the sales tax on the bottom line. By the way, I also offer all the water you can drink and bathroom facilities. :smile:
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I agree, and I think that to some clients, exposing break downs to them, can develop trust ,IF, your numbers are reasonable to them, but for the other clients, its only a wedge driven and has a negative effect. However, I still break out all of my invoices, and Ive been really busier than some my competition. All in a EC's business mindset I guess, I just dont think that big like most do..... I think unit pricing is the way to go, when feasable, and Ive been sampling with it here and there.
 
Mule said:
YEP, I was working in a furniture store yesterday on top of a 12ft ladder, on the next to the top rung, changing ballast, and 96inch tubes.....the lady manager came by, and I asked her how many lights she wanted my to fix? She asked how much have we spent so far? I just quoted my labor rate, plus parts, and that I had been there a couple of hours.....She hung her head, turned and walked away not answering my question......And I thought, well if you think this is so easy, why didnt you do it? Then I billed her .8hr per ballast right from the data book...that stuff ticks me off.
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I personally dont like billing people on T&M just for that reason. people like to know what they are in for. Especially buisnesses.
 
You gave him a price and that should be good enough. Personally I would spell out the work to be done and the price. The job isn't T&M, if the customer doesn't like it let them find someone else.
 
And to add to my previous post, I really beileve that as a proffessional and someone who claims to be experianced in their craft you should be able to guesstimate how long something should take so you can put a number on it. I understand that there can be many situations were this is kind of pricing is difficult to do, but changing balasts.....? come on dude...think of it from the consumers point of view... Hello I would like xy and z done to my store could you give me an idea of how much this will cost my buisness or me?
The EC scratches his head and says "well these things can be complicated to pin down every situation is its own....bla,bla,bla...
Or better yet he says that will cost you 130 per hour plus material cost. customer "oh great how long will that take"? Well these thing can be complicated to pin down every sit.....bla bla bla
That same person calls me or a fixed price person
That will cost you 150 dollars per light for a new ballast and bulb. At 20 lights your cost with tax will be this much.
Done and the customer doesnt feel like they are getting robbed.
And you see it all the time. most techs dont exactly move like the meter is running and god forbid if your worker is seen smoking a cigarete or going over a half hour for his lunch.
Hey but than again what do I know, Im the new guy here so maybe its me who needs to learn something. Either way thats my two cents.
 
CopperTone said:
i don't like him, i don't trust him, i don't even want to do the work - and I am a little slow. I get the feeling he won't pay at the end even with a signed contract.
I already told him that "my price and his budget do not seem to be on the same page so possibly he should find another EC or do it himself". He won't go away.
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i had one of those.... but his thing was "rescheduling"....

everyone has an occasional reschedule, but the second reschedule
was when i was halfway to his house. the second cancellation in a
row did it.

now, i am annoyed. i go home, and i send him a bill for 1 hour, at my
hourly rate.

he's never cancelled on me since then..... 'course he hasn't called either....


randy
 
tonyou812 said:
And to add to my previous post, I really beileve that as a proffessional and someone who claims to be experianced in their craft you should be able to guesstimate how long something should take so you can put a number on it. I understand that there can be many situations were this is kind of pricing is difficult to do, but changing balasts.....? come on dude...think of it from the consumers point of view... Hello I would like xy and z done to my store could you give me an idea of how much this will cost my buisness or me?
The EC scratches his head and says "well these things can be complicated to pin down every situation is its own....bla,bla,bla...
Or better yet he says that will cost you 130 per hour plus material cost. customer "oh great how long will that take"? Well these thing can be complicated to pin down every sit.....bla bla bla
That same person calls me or a fixed price person
That will cost you 150 dollars per light for a new ballast and bulb. At 20 lights your cost with tax will be this much.
Done and the customer doesnt feel like they are getting robbed.
And you see it all the time. most techs dont exactly move like the meter is running and god forbid if your worker is seen smoking a cigarete or going over a half hour for his lunch.
Hey but than again what do I know, Im the new guy here so maybe its me who needs to learn something. Either way thats my two cents.
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I think you are "reading into" my scenerio something that isnt there.....The pricing was not difficult at all...I only asked her how many, to keep the cost from getting too high.

The original call was "Lights out" and come fix it . When I got there, I found one string of lights, with only one working, and the other string, had the switch turned off. duh..When I turned the switch on, they had all kinds of light, but they had multiple ballast out in this storage room. So at the point I asked her, I had spent probably $400 of their money, and was just wondering how far they wanted me to go....and in addition, I didnt have that much time in my schedule and I needed to go to another job. But in either case, I think her frustration was the hourly rate in these economic times. This person didnt ask for a fixed price, although I agree thats what a person such as her wants to hear. But I have several T/M customers, and I have to kindly diagree with you, I like T/M, but Im smart enough to be a good steward of my customers billfold in such case, and becuase of that, most of my T/M customers are happy campers.
 
CopperTone said:
i don't like him, i don't trust him, i don't even want to do the work - and I am a little slow. I get the feeling he won't pay at the end even with a signed contract.
I already told him that "my price and his budget do not seem to be on the same page so possibly he should find another EC or do it himself". He won't go away.
He's comparing my price to big box junk.

I really hate to be rude but if he does agree, I want to ask for payment up front.
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Definitely let us know how you close this one out - very interested in hearing the final outcome. Good Luck!
 
Ive been thinking about using quickbooks estimates but is there a away to use qbooks with out giving a full breakdown?
 
Like Coppertone's answer
Also like Marc I wouldn't break it down
Like you I only break down Material and Labor jobs
My invoices just list materials and after the write up I have a column for material then labor and total
Semper Fi Buddy
 
You could break it down for him and then add a line item on the bottom like this one:
DAT- $300.00
When he asks you what a DAT is tell him it's the Dumb (you figure it out) Tax.

Seriously, I would never break out a bid like this for a residential customer. A long time, loyal commercial customer.... maybe.
 
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