Too much money

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tmbrk

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
aline said:
Quite often when I give the customer a price they'll think it's high but after I do the work they comment on how they had no idea it was that much work and would take that long.

This is exactly what I mean. I guess they don't know until after you are done.

I personally am not anti-Nexstar or ESI, I was just wondering if there were other ways of doing it.
 

tmbrk

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
BryanMD said:
If you are closing on 90% at the prices you need to get...
Sounds like you have a real good handle on things. Well done.

That last 10% is almost required to know you aren't leaving too much on the table with the 90% that you do get; if you get 100% you are probably too low.

I should have said 90% on referrals and return customers. But those are people that already know what it takes to do a good job. If I was busy everyday with referrals and return customers I'd pull all of our advertising. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
 

satcom

Senior Member
tmbrk said:
I should have said 90% on referrals and return customers. But those are people that already know what it takes to do a good job. If I was busy everyday with referrals and return customers I'd pull all of our advertising. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

As long at the 90% is from jobs that were all priced for profits, we have a lot of contractors that get a lot of referrals and return customers, because they are in the dirt with pricing.
 

tmbrk

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
I totally agree. No sense in building a customer base with people expecting cheap prices. We have recently raised prices and instituted a service charge. It will be interesting to see what happens.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
tmbrk said:
I totally agree. No sense in building a customer base with people expecting cheap prices. We have recently raised prices and instituted a service charge. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Few people understand that it is totally acceptacle to 'fire' low-paying customers. If you want to do nothing more than be a Wal-Mart electrician, then go right ahead. In ten years, you'll still be working as a Wal-Mart electrician, but for $1.25 more an hour.

Lose the low-profit, low-dollar customers. Let someone else take the loss from now on. Aim higher. Concentrate on customers who KNOW the VALUE you bring to them.
 

aline

Senior Member
Location
Utah
ultramegabob said:
I just love how people want to dictate what your hours of operation are, they want you to come out and start a project after 4:00 or work on a weekend, I will do it, but they usually drop a brick when they find out what my after regular hours rates are...
Not only do people want free estimates they want you to come out and give them after 5:00pm or on weekends.

It's not enough that they want a free estimate but they don't want the incovienence of taking off from work either. If they're getting a free estimate the least they could do is take a little time off from work to be there. How often do they get estimates anyways? Is this a monthly or weekly thing for them?
 

crossman

Senior Member
Location
Southeast Texas
480sparky said:
Lose the low-profit, low-dollar customers. Let someone else take the loss from now on. Aim higher. Concentrate on customers who KNOW the VALUE you bring to them.

Woohoo! More work for the trunk slammers!

Disclaimer: I don't do side jobs.
 

satcom

Senior Member
crossman said:
Woohoo! More work for the trunk slammers!

Disclaimer: I don't do side jobs.

Trunk slammers are not dummies. they charge $30 to 35 an hour, and they keep every penny of it plus the have a day job to pay for their benifits, the average small to middle size EC only gets to keep $17 to 20 an hour, out of every $75 to 90 they charge, overhead is a killer for small 1 or 2 man contractors, most are lucky to be able to keep even $15 an hour, most of the slammers have study jobs with good pay and benifits, and they still try to steal work form the little EC's just trying to make a modest living, talk about greed, seems the slammers know what greed is.
 
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