Home Theater Company & Low Voltage Wiring

bpjones

Hey everybody,
I own my own home theater company in Utah, and we do wiring, systems, etc but also do a lot of LV wiring for cable, phone, intercom, etc and I am having difficulty coming up with "Standard" procedures etc for quotes and also had a few management problems I wanted to ask as well. Hopefully I can get some help.

1) I have not been able to get any help with determining hourly rates to charge customers etc. For low voltage wiring, does anyone have an average or recommended rate per hour for labor?

2) Customers like to pay on their schedule, not mine which has been a big problem. They only want to pay 50% upfront and then the other 50% when the job is finished and they are satisfied. Problem is, sometimes things that are beyond my control (IE They dont like the way the receiver works etc) they don't want to pay me until it is resolved. This has caused financial problems for me and I want to find a good way to resolve that.

3) Getting a budget. I cannot find a good way to get a budget from a customer and so I do "blind" bids which sometimes can scare them away, and other times I could've made more money because I bid below their budget. Any recommendations on this?

Teetorbilt

Regional differences and packaging make pricing difficult ( my wife is an IT consultant). If it helps, companies here are getting around $75-130 an hour + materials but this is often manipulated with the purchase of eqipment.

2) Customers should pay on the conditions of the contract. They don't 'run the show'.

I'm not making much sense out of #3.

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GregS

1) Only you can answer this question. Figure out what it costs for you to stay in business and pay yourself, and then add a profit. Round up to the next $10 and charge that.

2) If they don't like how the receiver works, why did they buy it?

3) Good, better, best. Figure out what your client wants. You'll know if they live in a million dollar villa up in Park City that they can afford a bit more, but if they are stuck in Roy then maybe you should scale it down a bit. And always sell on the 'wow and cool factor'.

GregS

Oh and I hope you are going to Denver this week... Unfortunately I still haven't received my new passport so I didn't get to make it.

GSE

First you will need to find your break even cost of doing business, then decide on what amount of profit you desire and add that to your berak even figures, these will be all you costs for operating, and overhead.

Home Theater companies make their money from profit centers, they have the equipment sales, which are paid in full up front, before any other transactions take place, they do not delicer or install any equipment that is not paid in advance, then they offer installation services, which usually run from $200 to $250 an hour, but they never quote an hourly rate, they use the rate, to quote the installation, on a bottom line price contract, the customer never sees the breakdown.

Another profit center, is the build out, for the theater room, construction, lighting, seating, and all the wow stuff.

The average showroom sales, can usually generate a pretty good income.
Some of the local installers in my area enjoy an upper six figure income, plus some nice profits.

Magnettica

$200 - $250 per hour.....

Geesh, I gots to get mees a job there!

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GregS

My guess is that's for at least 2 guys.. Maybe I should charge $400 for it being just me

GSE

Yup that is for a tech and a helper.

GregS

I borrow the home owner for helping lift displays up on the wall, but that's it. When I start selling $50000 projects then I'll hire someone

mdwilson00

#1- What we charge is $75.00 a wire. This includes plates, rough in boxes, and punchdown in low voltage panel. But does not include the phone/data or cable splitters or 110 punchdowns the are housed in the panel. so for example if you are working with a customer that would like a phone/data combo plate in there office, it would be $150.00 plus panel and parts for panel. This makes estimates very easy.

#2- Are you supplying the audio equiptment? If you are I hate to say it but if you are as into customer satisfaction as I am, you just bought yourself an audio receiver..... Its your fault as a salesman for not giving your customer enough information on the receiver. Dont worry you can always sell it in the future. It might be overkill for your next project, but you can at least get your money back. If they supplied the receiver its there problem, but you should be the one to guide them in the right direction.

#3 The way this works best for me is doing a prewire estimate first. Get the customer comfortable with what the house/office is going to be capable of. You need to push the prewire. When the contract is signed for the prewire, then you can work on an equiptment budget. You need to know what the owner wants before you can create a budget. And the best two words as an eletrical contractor are "CHANGE ORDER". There is only so much you can offer for "free". Dont forget that you are doing what you love, but you still need to put food on the table for yourself and your family.

GregS

$75USD for pre-wire?? Or is that a retro-fish-fit price?

$75USD would price you right out of business here for pre-wire.

mdwilson00

as for to much or not enough money?

thom

My alarm guy does a prewire in my houses in about 3 hours, working alone. That would include 2 or 3 keypad locations, 3 exterior doors, 2 motion detectors, and 12-14 windows. At $75 per that would be $1,575, which is just about $1,375 more than I pay for a pre wire.

In fact, this year the price doubled to $1,300 total for pre-wire and trim. Last year I was paying $750.

GSE

$68.69 is about the national average break even price, for running one device, with aprox 20 ft of cable in new open work, no bored holes, anything less then that, you most likely have someone paying you, to do the work.

Pre wires, can price a bit different, depending on how each pre wire company is marketing their wired services, such as ongoing monitered services on alarm accounts, and subscription services for video, and any other added services after the sale. So pricing pre wire work, is not cut and dry.

GregS

Too much. Average price here for RG6 or cat5 is $25CAD in new construction pre-wire. Any more than that and they'll just keep shopping around until they find someone who has no clue what to charge.

Of course builders resell additional runs in a house for about $110CAD...

It takes me about 2 hours to do 3 security, 3 home run cat5 (phone), 3 home run RG6, and 3 central vac dropped to basement. That results in about $300. Do two a day and it leaves enough time to go and do some service calls.

The other day I did a 4500sf house first/second floor. 35 runs in 6 hours. Did 5 vacs in it the following day about 2 hours. I do the basement next week.

mdwilson00

In my eyes $75.00 a a wire is cheap compaired to the "Union" electrical contractors in our area. They will charge $264.00 for a phone/fax combo plate. That is only two cat5 cables with a cheap ass pass and seymore double phone wall plate.

The problem in our feild is that there is no "standard" in low voltage wiring. Due to the fact that there are so many "fly by night" companys. On the otherhand there are some mom and pop shops in my area that still only charge $35.00hr for a state licensed tech, and still charge by the foot on pre wires....Who has time to do that?

I figured up in Canada that you would get more money for low voltage. You guys have all the fiber optic infrastructure. Do you do a lot of fiber Optic in Canada?

GregS

All new Ontario GTA construction has it run to the side of the house.. I think it's the hydro companies putting it in. But no one is using it.

Now with the phone and cable mega-opolies battling each other out in the consumer space for telephone and TV things are heating up. Bell is always doing fibre testing, and Rogers/Cogeco keep cramming more and more things down coax.

I think Vonage is getting close to dying off. Their service reliability is horrible, and they have a lot of problems connecting to regional toll free numbers.

syle

1. We charge a minimum of $75.00/hour
2. Same thing here, although we do have a contract stating the terms of the agreement and payment schedule. They give us 50% down and the balance when we pass final inspection or when we deliver the system. Do you have a contract to protect yourself? Legal title to the equipment remains with you until the full agreed price is fully paid.
3. Budget: I tell my sales guys to try and get a budget from the clients. Why? Well, bc that way we don't go over what they plan on spending. When we don't get a budget we give them two options, depending on the client, we can do a hi hi end and a "medium" end, or we can do a "medium" end and the minimum they'll need for the system.