How Far is Too Far??? - Machine Underground -Tractor & Commercial Equipment Discussion Forum

Dougster · 05-03-2008, 09:32 AM

The old Dougster has taken some heat in the past for blowing off potential work that he deemed too far away to be logistically and economically practical. In the past, I got a lot of calls from folks more than an hour away because of the weird shape of my yellow pages advertising coverage. I corrected that mistake this year by switching yellow page providers... but for now, the long distance calls keep coming in.

I took a call the other day from someone on the far Northern edge of my service area and agreed to come out Friday afternoon to inspect the property so I could give him an accurate proposal and quotation. As it turned out, the necessary work was very different than what I had been told and I had to quickly formulate an alternative approach or the project was doomed. But even before I got home, the owner called my cell, heard from me that the initially discussed approach would not work, and then he blew me off before even listening to my alternative proposal.

All this is not really so strange, bad or unusual... that's business for a residential excavator & grader... but I blew an entire afternoon and a bunch of fuel for absolutely nothing. I quickly came to a brand new realization:

It ain't just the extra time & logistical practicality of doing the distant job... It's also the time wasted inspecting and quoting the distant job in the first place that turns me off as well.

Dougster™

**Ducati996** · 05-03-2008, 10:18 AM

Quotes should always be done on off hours, and not impact your schedule for generating money. I would investigate all opportunitites until they are deemed unworthy, and if they really involve time and effort, start charging for the estimate upfront. Just my .02 cents

**LoneCowboy** · 05-03-2008, 10:45 AM

sucks, don't it?
But that's the cost of doing business.
I find I win 1/3 to 1/2 of the bids I do. But without bids, you don't get any business, just another cost.
I do however, always ensure that the person is there. People aren't hiring a faceless thing to do a job, they want to meet the person, get a connection, etc. I almost always try to meet the person there. Then, if something is slightly different, you can explain it to them, right then. Just a thought for ya.

Oh, and forget duck's suggestion of charging. That will go over like a lead ballon. You won't get any bid requests, which means you get no jobs.

Dougster · 05-03-2008, 10:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ducati996

Quotes should always be done on off hours, and not impact your schedule for generating money. I would investigate all opportunitites until they are deemed unworthy, and if they really involve time and effort, start charging for the estimate upfront. Just my .02 cents

Oh, I did time it for a rainy Friday... and the guy did offer to send me some pictures via e-mail ahead of time (even though they would have been pretty much useless and it would have required a visit anyway). He even offered to pay for my time after realizing the mismatch between the approach he had proposed vs. what the job would really take to complete. But I refused: "free estimates" means "free estimates" in my book.

It just struck me as funny Duc: How easy it is to meet a client, inspect a property and discuss a job locally to your heart's content... vs. trying to do the same on a jobsite over an hour away. The guy couldn't be there during daylight hours anytime soon so I ended up having to visit the property on my own. Funny thing was that there was no great rush... other than my standing promise to quote all jobs "same day" or at least before the weekend if I am otherwise committed elsewhere.

Once again, being a "one man show" has shown it's limitations and the need to be realistic in terms of what jobs are and are not worth going after.

Dougster™

**Ducati996** · 05-03-2008, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneCowboy

Oh, and forget duck's suggestion of charging. That will go over like a lead ballon. You won't get any bid requests, which means you get no jobs.

want to bet? If it involves a drawing or considerable amount of effort, then there is a charge and folks expect it and ask of it. it can be waived if the services are purchased of course.

Nobody cares or charge for estimates for lawn or field mowing, fertiziling or seeding, but if it requires excavation to plans, planting redesign or hardscaping, it usually requires a drawing - and I have no problems charging, and folks paying - totally different business youre in Brian

Dougster · 05-03-2008, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneCowboy

I do however, always ensure that the person is there. People aren't hiring a faceless thing to do a job, they want to meet the person, get a connection, etc. I almost always try to meet the person there. Then, if something is slightly different, you can explain it to them, right then. Just a thought for ya.

Amen Lone. No more "I'll go up and take a look at it and we'll talk about it later by phone."

Haven't gotten a single job without an initial face-to-face meeting... but then again, this concept of inspecting sites alone is purely a long distance-related problem.

Meeting folks locally (even on the little stuff) is never an issue.
Dougster™

Dougster · 05-03-2008, 11:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ducati996

want to bet? If it involves a drawing or considerable amount of effort, then there is a charge and folks expect it and ask of it. it can be waived if the services are purchased of course.

Nobody cares or charge for estimates for lawn or field mowing, fertiziling or seeding, but if it requires excavation to plans, planting redesign or hardscaping, it usually requires a drawing - and I have no problems charging, and folks paying - totally different business youre in Brian

Entirely separate from my "free estimates" for any legitimate proposed residential excavation and grading work, I am thinking of offering myself out with a modest "consultation fee" mainly just to cover my expenses. For my home computer repair work, I charge a $25 dispatch fee right up front to cover such expenses... so why not something similar for true project-related consulting?

I do need to be careful here because my business liability insurance forbids me from performing actual landscape design work... a concession I had to make related to my experience and degree in engineering which they did not wish to see me leverage under the current policy.

Dougster™

**LoneCowboy** · 05-03-2008, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ducati996

want to bet? If it involves a drawing or considerable amount of effort, then there is a charge and folks expect it and ask of it. it can be waived if the services are purchased of course.

Nobody cares or charge for estimates for lawn or field mowing, fertiziling or seeding, but if it requires excavation to plans, planting redesign or hardscaping, it usually requires a drawing - and I have no problems charging, and folks paying - totally different business youre in Brian

ahhh, but that's different
that's paying for a drawing. People do that.
But pay you to come out and put together numbers?
no, nobody pays for that.
Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, GC's, etc, the estimate is free.
if you actually want the drawing or the numbers I created, well, that costs money. That's certainly fair, but a number, nobody pays for that.

Even sprinklers. It's easy enough to come up with a number (anything up to and including small commercial), but the actual drawing, well that costs money to give up.

I was talking about this with someone the other day. His BIL was in the sprinkler business (I used to be) and he was bemoaning the fact that an estimate took hours, because he had to draw it all out, price every item, add them all up, etc.

I told him that that's stupid. For any small job (under 24 zones or so) that doesn't have weird stuff, you can figure out how many spray zones, how many rotor zones, what size backflow, how many valves, etc and do quick multiplication.
rotor zones cost this much
spray zones cost this much
valves cost this much
mainline costs this much per foot
clocks cost this much
backflow costs this much

You should have those numbers from previous jobs and know what it should cost. add up any extras, etc and boom, there's your number.
Should take 20/30 minutes and you should be damn close to your actual numbers.

Considering you only win 1/4 to 1/2 of the bids, you can't spend tons of time on bids, you have to find a way to do it better. time is money. I know what it costs to seed per acre and just multiply that number out. Up to 10 acres or so. After that, there are some savings in size that I can pass along. But really, I don't have the time to multiply every little thing out for each adn every bid. (esp because you have to drive). Specialty jobs of course require an exact bid, but those are much rarer than people think.

People just want a price. Half the lookers get knocked out by the initial price ("ohhh, that's more than I was thinking", and that's fine, but my way you haven't spent tons of time on it) Once they get a price, then you can give them exacts (drawings, parts list for you to buy, etc), but then the job is in hand and you aren't wasting time.

JMHO

Now certainly, some things don't work this way. Even I sometimes spend hours putting together a bid. And of those, I win 1/3 to 1/2 of them. But I think there are a lot of opportunities that people miss to make it work this way. Time is limited and unproductive time isn't valuable and needs to be limited by any means possible. Shortcuts do work.

**Ducati996** · 05-03-2008, 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneCowboy

ahhh, but that's different
that's paying for a drawing. People do that.
But pay you to come out and put together numbers?
no, nobody pays for that.
Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, GC's, etc, the estimate is free.
if you actually want the drawing or the numbers I created, well, that costs money. That's certainly fair, but a number, nobody pays for that.

Even sprinklers. It's easy enough to come up with a number (anything up to and including small commercial), but the actual drawing, well that costs money to give up.

.

we are splitting hairs here somewhat but overall
Its different around here in Mcmansion land, in order to create stunning concepts it gets into providing visuals to sell or close the deal. Sprinklers arent something that changes the landscape. Driveways, hardscaping, and total landscape restoration requires visual documentation. This is what Im talking about, not the straight forward run of the mill stuff which you should know the numbers by memeory, and save yourself the trip, and should be able to offer many quickly. Like what does it cost for mulch per yrd installed? How much to mow 80k square feet? Thats simple math
cost per 1k sq ft of seed and fert, etc...acre per hour mowing per man hour, etc.

The busy guys charge, those that are in demand from reputation that is (GC's, electricians, plumbers) - its slow for them but not that slow

Its a math equation in the end, the more quotes you throw out there, the better your chances of success

Dougster · 05-03-2008, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneCowboy

People just want a price. Half the lookers get knocked out by the initial price ("ohhh, that's more than I was thinking", and that's fine, but my way you haven't spent tons of time on it) Once they get a price, then you can give them exacts (drawings, parts list for you to buy, etc), but then the job is in hand and you aren't wasting time.

On one recent job quote, my competitor gave a quick "seat of the pants" estimate to the homeowner and got the job. Then he proceeded to double the price once he looked more closely and actually saw what needed to get done.

The owner immediately pulled out of the deal and called me. I got the job easily by beating the competitor's "revised" price!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ducati996

Its a math equation in the end, the more quotes you throw out there, the better your chances of success

So true... and the funny thing is that I enjoy talking with homeowners about their projects (almost more than doing the work!) and giving out quotes when I know it's a project on which I am cost competitive.

But at the end of the day, the long distance thing is still problematic for me and I'm wondering after yesterday's complete waste of time (which seemed to reaffirm last year's similar experience) if I should just set some strict rules and try to live with them.

Dougster™