How do you do it? Your business

[baldkev]

This has been a very useful thread.
I priced up a built in job in january, spent quite a while doing drawings, revisions, then the cutting list and pricing. The customer didnt go for it... but interestingly, one of the posts here described how a ballpark figure of 1k per linear meter is a good starting point. My price was in fact very close to that , so i could have cut out all that time by giving them that ballpark. I have since done that and won one, lost one! So thats helpful to weed out the ones who dont want to spend out without wasting time

 

[BrandonB]

I was having a similar experiance a few months back.

The trouble with being self employed is you can't bill for every hour you work. They're things you need to do to keep the business ticking over, the next job coming in and everything to stay running smoothly. For months I spent every evening quoting, designing, taking phone calls, making visits to clients homes to measure up, arranging materials and ensuring what I'm designing will work and so on. I would usually spend 2-3 hours a evening working on the part of the business clients don't see, but these hours aren't billiable to anyone, it's just part of it.

You might think, well i'll take half a day off at the end of the week or the start of the week to do all of this, but you make your week shorter and end up struggling to finish installs within a week and end up starting installs on a Wednesday/Thursday leaving the clients home distrupted over the weekend whereas you would of finished it if you hadn't of taken the day off for admin. No one is going to pay you for that day off so it feels like a guilty and a loss of earnings so what do you do?

There is no right or wrong answer, everyone's situation is different and as always every job is different. You have to make a change because it can all get too much and the stress is bad. Constant chasing and people pleasing to be told, someone else can do it for less would you match their price? or I wasn't expecting it to cost that much for a little wardrobe?....

If you actually billed for every hour to spent on a job, it would be way way more than you invoice for. If you spend your time researching a product, making a template for a job, going to grab parts for the job etc etc.

 

[BrandonB]

This has been a very useful thread.
I priced up a built in job in january, spent quite a while doing drawings, revisions, then the cutting list and pricing. The customer didnt go for it... but interestingly, one of the posts here described how a ballpark figure of 1k per linear meter is a good starting point. My price was in fact very close to that , so i could have cut out all that time by giving them that ballpark. I have since done that and won one, lost one! So thats helpful to weed out the ones who dont want to spend out without wasting time

I often just call the client, ask them a few questions as well as an approx size. I give them an expected cost on the phone and see what they say. I have been very polite and done all of the work before i.e rushing round their home to measure up and produce a CAD drawing with a quote to then be told....Oh we didn't think it would be that much, can you half the price if we supply the materials...or no reply at all. Save yourself the time and effort and just let them know with the initial contact, it saves alot of time.

 

[Jameshow]

I was having a similar experiance a few months back.

The trouble with being self employed is you can't bill for every hour you work. They're things you need to do to keep the business ticking over, the next job coming in and everything to stay running smoothly. For months I spent every evening quoting, designing, taking phone calls, making visits to clients homes to measure up, arranging materials and ensuring what I'm designing will work and so on. I would usually spend 2-3 hours a evening working on the part of the business clients don't see, but these hours aren't billiable to anyone, it's just part of it.

You might think, well i'll take half a day off at the end of the week or the start of the week to do all of this, but you make your week shorter and end up struggling to finish installs within a week and end up starting installs on a Wednesday/Thursday leaving the clients home distrupted over the weekend whereas you would of finished it if you hadn't of taken the day off for admin. No one is going to pay you for that day off so it feels like a guilty and a loss of earnings so what do you do?

There is no right or wrong answer, everyone's situation is different and as always every job is different. You have to make a change because it can all get too much and the stress is bad. Constant chasing and people pleasing to be told, someone else can do it for less would you match their price? or I wasn't expecting it to cost that much for a little wardrobe?....

If you actually billed for every hour to spent on a job, it would be way way more than you invoice for. If you spend your time researching a product, making a template for a job, going to grab parts for the job etc etc.

Sounds like you need a buffer day or two between jobs allowing you to quote for the job after next sort out accounts etc....

I know it's not easy! Tried it once never again!

 

[RobinBHM]

This has been a very useful thread.
I priced up a built in job in january, spent quite a while doing drawings, revisions, then the cutting list and pricing. The customer didnt go for it... but interestingly, one of the posts here described how a ballpark figure of 1k per linear meter is a good starting point. My price was in fact very close to that , so i could have cut out all that time by giving them that ballpark. I have since done that and won one, lost one! So thats helpful to weed out the ones who dont want to spend out without wasting time

ah yes -thats part of the selling skill, price conditioning. When I used to do orangeries, I would start usually with the first conversation by saying "last year we did a similar one, a bit bigger with underfloor heating, it was £75k incl VAT"

It helps very much to take away the awkwardness of selling, because it enables each party to get a price point set out without wasting anybodies time

the danger is that it sort of sets a precedent which stays in the mind -so if the actual quote is miles over it might put them off.

 

[ian33a]

If it's possible to produce a reasonably accurate quote without investing much time then it's worth the effort.

How much time to spend? Think about how many jobs you complete a week and how many quotes you needed to do in order to secure that many jobs. Then think about how much of your time you can afford to spend doing quotes each week - and, ideally, you should be considering this time within your productive day and not as an evening activity. Let's say you complete two jobs a week and you can afford to spend one day a week quoting. If you got one in four jobs for which you quote, you'd be quoting eight jobs on average per week to sustain your business. This gives you an average of an hour per quote - and that includes the time to send it and follow up. Some bigger jobs may afford a couple of hours while others may afford fifteen minutes.

The trick then is to invest your spare time building processes in your business which allow you to get your quoting times down to one hour each. If you have capacity, do it during work time. If not, this is a weekend pursuit because you can't derive an immediate income from the work but it's a mechanism to add mid term value to your business.

Try out the processes and hone them as you go. Most likely, the early methods will be inaccurate or plain wrong. It's really important that you learn from these and tweak your processes to make them better for the future. It's also important that you don't put off the tweaking. It often only takes a few minutes but gives you an opportunity to try the changes out almost immediately.

I'll give you an example : in a previous life I used to replace failed double glazing units. I'd spent most of my life doing something else. It was all new to me.
I'd go in, measure up, get an order from a customer, submit an order to a supplier and then wait for delivery. Plain units were easy. Leaded units or Georgian Bar units took longer because I would need to specify the lead or bar, measure the positions of the lead or bar intersections (and there could be dozens on each unit), build a drawing describing the positioning, submit it and wait and hope that it came back right. When we started I used to sit down with a sheet of paper and draw the squares and write the co-ordinates down. It took forever. It seemed like the whole glazing replacement industry was doing the same. Madness!
So, one weekend I thought about it and I built a small program in Microsoft Excel where, by inputting a few parameters in a spreadsheet, Excel then drew a picture with all of the shapes, sizes and intersections. It probably took me about six hours to write and a further four to hone and improve over time. In the next five years I must have used that program about five thousand times. Each unit took about a minute to input the parameters whereas, before, it was probably taking fifteen. My productivity improved massively and, with error checking built into honed versions of the code, errors dropped off massively too.
This may be an extreme example, not all of us are visual basic programmers, but I hope it illustrates the idea. Small changes to work patterns can make a massive difference to productivity.


One of the other issues of producing semi or professional drawings and showing them to your potential customer is that you are providing them with an opportunity to take your design or design idea elsewhere and barter a cheaper price. If you can provide a budgetary quote, quickly and efficiently with something that does not expose your IP - that protects you while portraying a professional approach.

Most customers will pay a bit more for something that comes across professionally, but it doesn't have to be perfect - so much about getting a sales win is about perception - if the customer likes you and what you offer and you can gain their trust, you stand a good chance of getting the order. Those who only consider based upon price are seldom worth the trouble, in my opinion. On average, my order win rate started at about 25% and by the time we retired it had got to about 70%.

 

[Kayen]

I was having a similar experiance a few months back.

The trouble with being self employed is you can't bill for every hour you work. They're things you need to do to keep the business ticking over, the next job coming in and everything to stay running smoothly. For months I spent every evening quoting, designing, taking phone calls, making visits to clients homes to measure up, arranging materials and ensuring what I'm designing will work and so on. I would usually spend 2-3 hours a evening working on the part of the business clients don't see, but these hours aren't billiable to anyone, it's just part of it.

I would suggest you stop thinking you're self-employed, but rather you're running a business - and run your business like a corporation runs its business. Everything should be billed for - from workshop/storage/garage/desk space etc. vehicles, insurance, tools, equipment, waste removal, and especially your time - every second of it.

You might think, well i'll take half a day off at the end of the week or the start of the week to do all of this, but you make your week shorter and end up struggling to finish installs within a week and end up starting installs on a Wednesday/Thursday leaving the clients home distrupted over the weekend whereas you would of finished it if you hadn't of taken the day off for admin. No one is going to pay you for that day off so it feels like a guilty and a loss of earnings so what do you do?

You have to work out what you want to earn a week (I would suggest a minimum of a £1000 per week) and divide that by 30 hours - that will give you your daily/weekly rate, then know that your physical working week is only 30 hours - so if you think something will take 40 hours to complete you price it as 1.3 weeks work IE. £1300 - and tell your client it will take 7 days to complete, not 5. This gives you 10 hours per week to 'run your business'.

There is no right or wrong answer, everyone's situation is different and as always every job is different. You have to make a change because it can all get too much and the stress is bad. Constant chasing and people pleasing to be told, someone else can do it for less would you match their price? or I wasn't expecting it to cost that much for a little wardrobe?....

Ask them how much would they expect to pay for a bespoke suit or dress to be individually designed and made?
Or for their BMW to be made six inches longer or shorter?
Or to hire a chef to come and cook them a unique meal?

I would suggest you don't even consider jobs for less than £5000 - that would literally give you two and a half weeks to measure, plan, design, draw, calculate, order, take delivery and storage of materials, make, paint/spray, load, deliver and fit - and in my experience a small wardrobe will take around 40 hours to fit.

If you actually billed for every hour to spent on a job, it would be way way more than you invoice for. If you spend your time researching a product, making a template for a job, going to grab parts for the job etc etc.

Can you imagine Tesco saying "we can't bill for the window cleaner" or "we can't bill for our manager's suits" - everything pertaining to your business is billable - that's how businesses make money and survive. If your customers don't want to pay special prices for special services, you have the wrong customers.

 

[ian33a]

Can you imagine Tesco saying "we can't bill for the window cleaner" or "we can't bill for our manager's suits" - everything pertaining to your business is billable - that's how businesses make money and survive. If your customers don't want to pay special prices for special services, you have the wrong customers.

What you said above made me remember doing a quote for a customer, leaded light bespoke glass replacement and giving him the quote. His immediate reply was "I can buy that unit for.... why are you charging so much more?". My reply was "because it isn't just about the material cost of what I am supplying. I am running a business and, among many things, I have to pay salaries, for vehicles, for fuel, taxes and the cost of advertising". His reply was "Why should I pay for your advertising?". To which my reply was "Well, if you don't pay for it, who do you think will?". Grumbles all around. To which I said, "You don't have to buy from me. If you prefer, go and buy the unit somewhere else" ... and that was that. People like that are not worth the trouble. The thing is, unless you actually run a business and properly understand the costs associated with it, it can be really difficult to understand why people charge so much more than the cost of goods sold (COGS). Plus, unless you really understand the cost of running a business, you probably wont make much money running it.

 

[Adam W.]

Sometimes it's just worth saying..."Sorry, but I can't help you."

Or become skilled at the Gallic Shrug.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I would suggest you stop thinking you're self-employed, but rather you're running a business - and run your business like a corporation runs its business

Absolutely right. A business charges an hourly rate which includes the costs of admin, purchasing, sales, training, transport, insurance etc etc. These are an essential part of running a business. The person actually doing the work may get paid (say) £20 per hour, but the client may be charged (say) £40 per hour.

As a sole trader you have a choice - price jobs to:

• ensure that you fill (say) 40 hours a week with chargeable work, and then do another (say) 20 hours a week (weekends and evenings) on admin and quotes.
• get (say) 25-30 hours a week higher paid jobs, and do the admin, thinking, planning and quotes in normal time

The former at £20 per hour generates an income of £800 per week. The latter at £30 per hour generates £750-900 per week.

The former provides a sort of demanding "comfort blanket" - you are working very hard to make the best living you can. The latter should provide an existence of higher quality, and the opportunity to grow should you be motivated..

When starting out there may be little choice but to go for all the work you can - it builds experience and knowledge. But once on, getting off the 60 hour a week treadmill is very difficult.

In many ways life would be easier working as a contractor to others - somebody else worries about all the admin and overhead effort. You get paid for the hours done.

 

[baldkev]

His immediate reply was "I can buy that unit for.... why are you charging so much more?".

I started a side project last year and whilst you can't just buy what im selling, a couple of enquirers did liken the product to posh sheds and wouldnt consider paying that much.... the most annoying part is that they are gaining a lot if property value if they buy, but they are being tight and looking at it all wrong.

In terms of the extra time quoting, researching, etc, i do that in the evenings. I occasionally build time in to the quote for the jobs that take longer to work out.
Luckily for me, in a couple of weeks, i start a job which will keep me busy until xmas. Its a lot of work, but just one site, one customer, one set of kit to worry about etc....

 

[Jameshow]

I started a side project last year and whilst you can't just buy what im selling, a couple of enquirers did liken the product to posh sheds and wouldnt consider paying that much.... the most annoying part is that they are gaining a lot if property value if they buy, but they are being tight and looking at it all wrong.

In terms of the extra time quoting, researching, etc, i do that in the evenings. I occasionally build time in to the quote for the jobs that take longer to work out.
Luckily for me, in a couple of weeks, i start a job which will keep me busy until xmas. Its a lot of work, but just one site, one customer, one set of kit to worry about etc....

I didn't know HS2 was going to Devon!

 

[baldkev]

I didn't know HS2 was going to Devon!

Jeez james, you are so behind the times! We secured a deal with hyperloop and not only will we have the fastest train service in the world, but it'll happen in a timely fashion and not go over price

 

[Jameshow]

Jeez james, you are so behind the times! We secured a deal with hyperloop and not only will we have the fastest train service in the world, but it'll happen in a timely fashion and not go over price

Just like the North Devon link road?

Must be the slowest roadworks ever! 40mph for miles and I've yet to see any workmen working! due finish in about 2030!

 

[baldkev]

Oh i dont go up north, im a southerner what does it link to????

 

[Jameshow]

M5 to Barnstaple...

 

[RobinBHM]

Plain units were easy. Leaded units or Georgian Bar units took longer because I would need to specify the lead or bar, measure the positions of the lead or bar intersections

diamond leads are the worst

they can be set out so many ways -sometimes the diagonals line up, but then you need to know the distance between one glass and the next. otherwise the intersections line up -but you have to know where that gets set out on the window, starting with a half, an intersection

and then there is the width of the lead, the shape, whether its silver, pre aged, coated etc etc

Im glad Im not involved in that any more!!

 

[Tris]

Many years back I worked for a firm doing DG, the chap who did the replacement units carried a roll of lining paper, masking tape and a black crayon. Did all the leaded stuff in situ like a brass rubbing, brought it back to the workshop, laid it on the bench under the glass and stuck the lead over the pattern. Worked a treat.

 

[Jameshow]

When they did ours they put in temp DG units and took the lead lights away to be encapsulated....

 

[ian33a]

diamond leads are the worst

they can be set out so many ways -sometimes the diagonals line up, but then you need to know the distance between one glass and the next. otherwise the intersections line up -but you have to know where that gets set out on the window, starting with a half, an intersection

and then there is the width of the lead, the shape, whether its silver, pre aged, coated etc etc

Im glad Im not involved in that any more!!

To be honest, diamonds and squares were never that bad (unless the gaps weren't uniform) : Measure the pitch of the diamond in X and Y. Then measure the offset of an intersection (from a stated corner), then state the width, if it's uncoated or antique coated and if the joints are soldered or not. The difficult ones were always the queen Anne units. Those needed photographs and each intersection needed to be measured from a reference. They were a real sod if we were trying to match one unit in a window with several. In addition, many glass suppliers weren't keen to make then (because they couldn't mechanise the process) and some down right refused!