How Come Nobody Ever Says "Let's Charge More"

dirt diggler

Someone made the recommendation to someone earlier to lower their price ... go find the thread ... not looking for it



and then there's someone saying how the illegals beat em out

and then there's the hacks beating people on price

this and that



why beat yourself to death for the same amount of money you could get working for someone else??




why?? seriously - why?




If you go too low, running out of cash --- you can get yourself in more financial trouble than you could if you never worked.





and if you're just making enough to stay out of financial trouble --- what good is that still??


Why should someone who hangs drywall (hypothetical example) not make $200K a year???



just thinkin out loud

Teetorbilt

It's what I did. Seems to put you more in demand.

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Mike Finley

I'm with you dirt, I don't see the point of doing all this for any other reason then making a bunch of money at it. Don't need the practice, don't need to make new friends, don't just need something to do, don't just love the smell of saw dust, don't just not want to work for somebody else...

POOLMANinCT

price raising is my middle name.

i am lucky to be in a market that handle, nearly abusive pricing.

i use the term in a relative sense. when i see what a window guy or general hammer swinger puts for the mark up on their jobs..

im not complaining, but by the nature of IG pools, anybody whos calls is not hurting. it is the HO "disposable dollar"

i have often felt the boat biz is the biggest competitor for the disposable buckaroo

Charles Bagley

I support charging more. Who wants to be the cheapest guy around. What does that say about your quality. It may be the best in the world, but people percieve low price with low quality. Conversly people tend to think higher prices must be better quality/service, or people wouldn't charge that much. Plus I think everyone should try to raise their price incrementally. See what the market will bear. If you get every job or sale, you are probably underpricing yourself. Were not doing this stuff for practice. This is serious business to me. Our oilfield economy is still booming and we have to get the money while we can. I raised my prices last summer when fuel prices were soaring. You can always find something to blame it on. Now that fuel prices have retreated from the 3.00 / gal. mark, our prices haven't come down or anyone elses that I know of. I still think everyone should read the book "How to sell at margins higher than your competitor". If you don't want to buy the book, check your library to see if they have it or check Ebay for a cheap book. It is an excellent book and it helped me. Most everyone wants to have the best price or deal. Like I said, who wants to be cheapest? If you come down on your price, more than likely your customer will play you against your competion who will lower his price to match yours. Then one of you will be doing the work or making the sale at a reduced price just for the sake of trying to be cheapest. I love to hand those customers to my competition. I don't want to babysit a picky lowballer.

CB

Stone Mountain

I changed my "boo boo" factor last summer from 5% of material to 10%. then I started adding in a flat amount for hardware (Stupid me, for years I never factored in nails and screws). Then I started putting in a flat fee for admin (again, stupid me: my bosses, when I sold cars 30 years ago used to have what they called a "pack" or a flat $100 cost on a car that wasn't commisionable or negotiable. Profit was counted on gross over that).
The upshot of all this was that I basically increased my selling price on decks by an average of $400 per job, starting in August. Not a peep from the customers. It worked out to about 20 decks at this extra cost.
I did 183 jobs last year, including fences. For this year, if I get the extra: $400 times 183: nearly $75,000 in extra revenue.
Later in the season I also stopped taking any job less than $3000.00 Smaller jobs just don't pay.
As the hairspray commercial goes: I deserve it!

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King of Crown

Oh, great! That means I have to raise my overhead.

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Real nice guys

ruskent

I am going into my 3rd year in business. I really didn't make any money the first 2. I realize that if i can't make money in business i do not want to be in business.

I know my overhead and have a good marketing plan lined up. I am going to price jobs so i can make a decent living. I have nothing to loose and everything to gain. I will not working unless i am making money. No point to put up with the aggervations i do and the long hours unless i am making money.

Not everyone can be good at running a business for whatever reason. I will not live a miserable life because i am not making decent money.

I'm giving this business my all. I think i can make it. If i can't i have other job offers on the table.