'No pricing consistancy'

[ROLLACOSTA]

Yesterday I went out biding/quoting for work,now today I told myself stick to you guns and charge exactly the price you want/need..

Well first job/bid , a day of stump grinding,gave the client a price ,she accepted straight away,now only the other week I bid on a similar job yet I bid that client £100 less,I haven't heard back from this job..

I priced another job row of trees leylands to be felled and stumps ground out again stuck to my guns and got the job,now for similar work bid [cheaper] weeks ago again I haven't heard back.

Now in a small town my guess is i'm bidding against the same competition,so why is there no consistency,why do we seem to vary in price so much,my guess is some firms just think of a number..

It's as though some firms vary there price from week to week job to job,now thats not good business sense at all,from now on my prices stay the same no matter what the competition does!!

 

[treeminator]

- one time a customer showed me the other bids for a removal. it ranged from $1500 to $4000. that's a huge spread. another was $5000 vs. $11,000.

- sometimes i come across othe company's prices that are so rediculously cheap it makes me reconsider being in the tree biz. things like $250 for a take down/stump grind that has a trunk 3 feet across and roots everywhere.

- there are customers out there who are so frugal that they love nothing more than to hammer you down on the price and then say "i'm still shopping and i'll get back to you."

- i've found the majority of my customers will give me the job as long as it's priced fairly. most don't have time to shop for estimates. so as long as they feel you're not ripping them off, they'll sign the dotted line.

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

I've seen a lot of low bidding companies start up and then go out of business. Quite a bit of the low bidding comes from these kind of companies and then after a couple of years they are out of business and two new one pop up to take their place.

The trouble here is the lowballers manage to stay in business and the decent firms are the ones that go bust..

But yes I know what you mean,we've had umpteen firms come and go around here over the years..

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

As for price variation,around here its astonishing the difference in price company's charge,surely 2 men 1 truck and a chipper cost the same or near on the same to run..

Or are lots of them un-insured,un-qualified etc etc humm I wonder..:jawdrop:

 

[SteveBullman]

well things are slow here at the moment as you know rolla, if the likes of you and i can dig our heels in for a while i think it should be beneficial to us in the long run

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

True weather the storm ,hope a few fall by the wayside then reap the rewards..:hmm3grin2orange: ,actualy work has picked up a bit the last few days..

Just hope things don't go into reverse and work gets even tighter

 

[S_T_S]

Rolla,

I see where you are coming from but I must admit that I do sometimes vary my pricing. If it is a job i want either because I like the look of it or am running short of work then I will price to get the job and pay myself/workers/equipment with little or nothing left. If I have weeks of work ahead of me and can't really be arsed to drag 20+ conifers up 2 flights of steps then the price goes up (sometimes quite a bit). if you get the high priced jobs then no matter how crap a day you are having you know you can reap the rewards.

Are you saying you charge a standard £xxx per day regardless and don't budge on it?

Kev