whadja do today?

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Hell 300 bucks won't get me to leave the house most days, if I'm taking my personal equipment out. For example my neighbor asked for some work 2 guys 2 hrs if we put effort into it 3 if we bum around and my discounted sexy neighbor price was still 450 bucks and she was more then happy to pay that...

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1 bedroom apartment in Illinois around 1000$ per mo.
1 bedroom apartment in Arizona, around 500$ per mo.
that's the difference.... different cities, different prices
 
Dude unless ur a chick u don't meet the requirements I'm not even sure what I'm discounting u for

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You got me wrong bud.... I wish I had sexy enough neighbors to wanna do discounted work ...... I got a whale, a train wreck, and the rest are all dudes ....

Jesse
 
You got me wrong bud.... I wish I had sexy enough neighbors to wanna do discounted work ...... I got a whale, a train wreck, and the rest are all dudes ....

Jesse
I know I was ****ing with you.
I almost did a job for free just so I could come back to this one chick's place haha

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I know I was ****ing with you.
I almost did a job for free just so I could come back to this one chick's place haha

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Oh err my bad ...... So I can stop trying to squeeze my overweight ass into this to tight speedo then

Jesse
 
What is this? Looks like a ferret but it's bigger then any I've ever seen!

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Yeah I sure wish we had some industry pricing guidelines. Plumbers around here are $95/hr, same for a good mechanic, yet I get underbid daily when my target is $75. Largest outfit in town is approximately $50. Makes it tough but I'm not giving up yet.

That's just ridiculous. So the crew works 8 hours for $400?
 
$50 per man hr. So 2 man crew would be $100 an hour. They mainly run 3 man crews. So $1200 a day.
 
$50 per man hr. So 2 man crew would be $100 an hour. They mainly run 3 man crews. So $1200 a day.

I got a $2,200 check today for four guys for three and a half hours. Then invoiced $1,550 for the same four guys for three more hours this afternoon at another job.
We don't exactly go by that "so much an hour" sh!t. I found out long ago that is a good way to go broke.
 
I got a $2,200 check today for four guys for three and a half hours. Then invoiced $1,550 for the same four guys for three more hours this afternoon at another job.
We don't exactly go by that "so much an hour" sh!t. I found out long ago that is a good way to go broke.

Somebody finally said it.
 
So when you look at a job how do you come up with your numbers? You just put a price on a tree or what? I brake it down into time. Don't get me wrong I will often scribble a price down on my bid sheet for what I think the tree would cost, but next to it I put down how many hours it will take with x amount of guys. Sometimes my price for the tree is a little higher than my time estimate, and I will then adjust accordingly. I will admit I need to up the $ on bucket work. Yesterday we removed a large Birch that I would put $850 on, my estimator put $650 on it. It took under 3 hours with 3 guys but still. So I do see both sides of it. I lean towards the man hour method because I find it more constant, and it's very hard to lose money that way if you know your crew well.
 
I lean towards the man hour method because I find it more constant,

You lean toward the man hour method because you are far from having my ability to set in a price on the fly based on what you think the job is really worth regardless of hours and are afraid of losing money. It took me years to develop a gut for what I believed we could really get for any particular job. Plus, if you are savvy, you know you can bury competition financially if they are stuck with the hourly rate deal. I looked at a job that will essentially take only five hours to do this past Saturday. But, it's a difficult job with very little access and I figured a way to rig it that I believe my "competition" wouldn't pick up on. I bid it $3,500....so that's what...$700 an hour for four guys. The caretaker of the property sent me an email this morning with a signed contract and said set it up and get it done.
 
+1 on the gut pricing im a 1 man show. I simply can't price by the hour give up trying to figure out how long it will take to do jobs. I just try to give the job a fair price no matter how much money it looks like they will or wont pay and do quality work regardless of the $per hour .... Sometimes I'm 250$/hr sometimes I'm kicking myself at 10$/hr but that's a lesson learned. I almost always get referrals and customers are very happy with the work

Jesse
 
+1 on the gut pricing im a 1 man show. I simply can't price by the hour give up trying to figure out how long it will take to do jobs. I just try to give the job a fair price no matter how much money it looks like they will or wont pay and do quality work regardless of the $per hour .... Sometimes I'm 250$/hr sometimes I'm kicking myself at 10$/hr but that's a lesson learned. I almost always get referrals and customers are very happy with the work

Jesse


That's right. One of the great things about being a small or smallish outfit is not being harnessed to hourly rates. You get to play a little poker with the client on pricing at times. And I know, of course, you can't price up easy routine tree work much but if it involves tricks to get it done I've picked up over the past 40 years I'm not afraid to charge for it.
 
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