housecontrols
Member
Hey are you guys still getting 95.00 HR.
Just thinking maybe I should change jobs.
Just thinking maybe I should change jobs.
How do you guys charge?
- Thread starter gf5300
- Start date
AnthonyZ
Active Member
If you think we "get" $95/hr, you're mistaken. We may bill in that range but there is a great deal of overhead to take into account.
housecontrols
Member
I realize that. I was just wondering if in this economy if people were still getting 95 plus an hour. My job has high overhead also,very high. We are finding it more and more difficult to get those custom jobs and get the high dollar.
AnthonyZ
Active Member
Oh, sorry, I thought you may be hitting this from the angle of the OP. As in, just getting into the biz. Personally, I don't budge on price. I don't negotiate. It costs what it costs. I'm swamped at the moment but, that is after being super slow for a number of months starting last September.
housecontrols
Member
I heard that Colorado is not hit as hard as other parts of the country. I am having quite a difficult time trying to get my price.
People are lowering their prices left and right. Materials are on the rise. I saw a ad for 35.00 Hr for a general contractor looking for work. I realize you get what you pay for as I would never hire that guy. On the other hand unless you have a following it can be hard to get what it takes to do the job.
People are lowering their prices left and right. Materials are on the rise. I saw a ad for 35.00 Hr for a general contractor looking for work. I realize you get what you pay for as I would never hire that guy. On the other hand unless you have a following it can be hard to get what it takes to do the job.
I can be hard to break into the field initially, but I have found that if you treat your customers well, and promise less while delivering more (dont let your mouth make the sale, let the products and results do it) you will quickly establish a solid following.
I started in business 9 years ago with 2 customers resulting from 4000 cold calls and a mail-out. Everything since then has been word of mouth and referrals from existing customers. I have more business than I can handle. I am mainly focused on IT, with a strong bent on automation (not HA, but IT automation) so this is somewhat different, but its the glad-handing sales-types who wind up without a following, not the solid workers who spend customer money as if it was their own. Case in point... I had a new client looking for a high end color laser printer to handle ledger sized printouts. After taking a look around they were looking to spend around 4K for what they wanted (just the hardware, much less the install and configuration), but I noticed they leased their copier and were very happy with the vendor. I gave that vendor a call and the cost to upgrade their leased high-end copier to do that was less than $20 a month. I made that recommendation to them, and billed them for my time.
They were ecstatic. The owner saw I was not inteterested just in making a buck, but in providing a cost effective solution to their problems. He signed me on as their IT consultant under a contract based on that transaction, and long term I am making much more money than just selling them a printer they did not really need.
You cant just be a salesman, be a solution-provider and think outside the box.
In another case, a client needed to install a signal light for an application that was hundreds of yards away from a control room at a plant. Using ideas from here, I installed a network-controlled switch and the operator signals the light from the control tower over their data network, saving them THOUSANDS of dollars of cost of installing a buried conduit that another firm recommended.
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