When I'm working alone I get a little better than 50% of the jobs I bid. Some folks think I bid too high but I sure had my ass handed to me this week on a mixed job of pruning and removals, took me a day and a half to take down and firewood a big white oak... that I bid at $350!
I thought I could lower one lateral and fall the rest but I ended up spending 5 hours in the tree lowering 6 big laterals that threatened a house. I'm glad i did it that way though cuz even after I removed all that weight it still wanted to set back against the fall (you gotta love a 5:1). I just didn't realize how much weight was going toward the structure until I got up into the crown.
I hate it when that happens. I just finished up one sort of like that, it turned out to be not so bad though as I knew I was not going to make my hourly rate ($100-$120 for me and a helper $150- $200 for and additional guy or 2) And I knew the job was going to take at least the following morning beyond what I bid, Sooo Rather than try to squeeze everything in and be all PO’ed about it, I rescheduled the following days work and took 2 full days to do this job. I used all the extra time to try out some new techniques, do some training, and generally have a good time. It was nice and very much worth the lost income; although I would certainly like to keep that sort of thing to a minimum.
Perhaps anytime a job is a little on the dark side it would be a good idea to price the job for whatever you think its worth, but to schedule twice the time you think it will take. That way you don’t have the pressure of trying to get ready for the next job in spite of time overruns on the current project.
As for my bids I get about 70%.
Brush Hog , I think your on to something with tree work + landscaping, people seem to love getting package prices, one contractor who will do everything. I started doing lawn patching and repair to fix stump holes and skid trails, but I think I might start doing full installs; much of the work I get is yard expansions anyway.
Customers are more difficult to deal with from the landscape side of things, maybe because there are more guys doing it?
Keep posting, it’s always good to here how things are going for someone else in 6 months or a year. Any way, Good luck.
BTW Blinky, who is Hildreth and why do you want to chip him?