Whats your hourly rate? and how busy are you workwise?

[theanalyst]

ok chaps. I know this gets asked a fair bit (how busy are you) but I would like to see an up to date set of statistics.!

I was thinking of the following info? I have put mine in to hopefully start the ball rolling

sole trader or company : sole trader

hourly rate: £38 (mainly for gas work, reduced to £200 day rate + materials if working for a builder on regular work)

Region: south yorkshire

Business Busyness! factor: 4/10 (eg, Im struggling to keep regular work going. Things are sporadic and a job comes in just as I'm getting concerned..)

Hope other people join into this. If you dont want to put your hourly rate (for some reason,..) then dont!


Anyone got any hot tips on getting work in? I nearly signed up to mybuilder and the other similar one until I read a lot of people saying it was a total con!!

Thanks

ps/ Im doing a big leaflet drop the week after next if its empty of work as it it presently
Not using yellow pages as Ive heard of too many say its a waste of money.

Word of mouth is all I use currently. Unfortunately there's not enough mouths and not enough words it seems!!.
My work is good quality and I do get a lot of recommendations, its just nobody seems to be spending round here!?!

 

[Cumbria Handyma]

Drop your hourly rate and advertise. Better to have a regular £20 an hour coming in instead of £38 an hour sporadically.

 

[theanalyst]

Drop your hourly rate and advertise. Better to have a regular £20 an hour coming in instead of £38 an hour sporadically.

yeah, unfortunately as a proper business 20£ an hour is not worth going to a job for! van insurance, liability insurance , massive fuel cost, van maintenance cost, tool purchases and on job wear and tear.

does anyone else have any input? I'm not dropping my rates they are cheap anyway( no callout charge) . there seems to be so many people at this game now, many of them being useless as well!!

 

[petercj]

Hourly rates don't mean a lot in my experience, people who quote a low hourly rate just take longer, i.e. they add on extra time to make up for the low hourly rate.

If you are aiming to get work from the public, I think it's better to quote an all-in price for a particular job.

Such as WB boiler supplied and fitted (changed) from £1250. Or a 3 piece bathroom suite fitted (labour only) for £175. Set price for a shower, etc.

Members of the public want to know where they stand.

Get a website with price examples on - put your website address in all adverts so that you can keep adverts short - use set prices such as WB from £1250 to attract attention.

When you fit a boiler with a long warranty, e.g. WB 5/7 year, offer the 6th/8th service free providing you get all the other servicing work.

Provide a folder with your name and number on the front to hold the commissioning information. Use texts to remind people of forthcoming service dates. Put a sticker with your name and number (tel & email) on the boiler - as Vaillant have started doing by sending out stickers to all Vaillant owners known to them.

And a top tip - get a pair of work shoes with smooth soles that will wipe clean, not a pair of boots with tread like tractor tyres that ensures that crap is walked all over people's carpets!

Plus, always keep in mind that your career ultimately depends on your reputation - even now, there are tradesmen with first class reputations who are booked up for weeks ahead.

 

[Phil]

Also when quoting for work don't use the F word too many times, I was chatting to a guy the other day and he had someone come and quote for a new kitchen and nearly every word out of his mouth was the F word!

As you can expect he was never given the job, he even swore in front of this guy's grandkids.

 

[petercj]

Also when quoting for work don't use the F word too many times, I was chatting to a guy the other day and he had someone come and quote for a new kitchen and nearly every word out of his mouth was the F word!

As you can expect he was never given the job, he even swore in front of this guy's grandkids.

Probably sees himself as the Gordon Ramsay of kitchen fitting!

Did he have "Hell's Kitchens" on the side of the van?

 

[dontknowitall]

Pricing makes little difference to the amount of work you receive.

For the last two days I've not had a single customer. On Monday I was charging £1,000 per hour and yesterday (thinking I might be a tad expensive) I was charging at an astonishingly amazing price of one pence per hour.

Result? No customers for either day.

Tomorrow I've two jobs neither customer has asked me how much I will be charging and will just pay the bill when I'm finished. I don't even know myself how much I'll be charging until I've nearly finished each job.

All I know is I want to do a good job for both of them, give them value for money and ask for enough to make myself a profit and feel it was worth turning up in the first place.

 

[GQuigley67]

£20 an hour IMHO is too cheap for any business, i can earn double that as a subby so if your charging your customers this then you are crazy

 

[petercj]

On the issue of dropping hourly rates - if people don't know of your work, dropping h.r. can give the impression you're not very good at what you do, and that you're a tad desperate for work.

If you can do a convincing "sell" on your services/ product, and then offer a discount off your usual charge, you won't come over as cheap and desperate.

Comparative marketing is the way to go - easy to understand, as you are surrounded by it all the time.

Basically, you spell out in detail what you offer for your charges, and give examples of how what you do, and what you charge, compares with other companies.

As an example: BG charge £2800 for a WB boiler with a 2 yr warranty - You charge £1500, with £250 off on special offer during July and August, and your boilers come with a 5/7 year warranty.

Spell out what you include in your Servicing, e.g. flue gas check; dismantle, clean, and check boiler parts as per manufacturer's servicing schedule; check condense pipe, etc; TRVs; radiator efficiency - for cold spots etc, and make a comparison with BG service, which is little more than a flue gas check.

Include on the leaflet a guesstimate of what an inefficient boiler/ system could be costing the owner per year.

If the rads are blocked up, offer a power flush for £250 with £25 off during July and August, being less than half the £599 charged by BG.

Also mention how a magnetic filter fitted on the system (Magna Booster, etc) would help to protect their boiler, and their wallet, from unnecessary repair costs.

BG charge £300 to supply and fit Magna Booster - You charge £200 with £20 off during July and August.

Get the idea?

Supermarkets get people to spend money by telling them how much they can save by spending their hard earned cash in their store, and not in their competitors store down the road where the items will cost more.

By spelling out in detail what you provide, you sell the fact that you are diligent and exceptionally good value for money, rather than communicating the idea that you are cheap because you are desperate.

Your marketing is focused on the money you can save people, and not just on what your services cost.

Providing you do a good job and deliver what you promise, they will pass on the word, and come back to you when the need arises.

The trouble with a lot of one-man bands is that they don't think about marketing until the work dries up, i.e. tradesmen do what they do best, which is fix things: head down, focus on the job in hand, and not bothering with where the next six months work is coming from. Most of the one-man-bands I know rely on the misses for admin, etc. Nowadays, you need a bit more than that.

 

[Chrissy1966]

It's really tough down here in Dorset. Too many plumbers chasing too little work, I get the impression that a lot of people are spending redundancy money and bank loans on two week plumbing courses and vw transporters. Hope it settles down soon.

 

[armyash]

Top quality post petercj. I went on a self employment workshop a couple of weeks ago and that was the sort of advice we were given. Marketing will be an ongoing thing for me when I finally go it alone. I have so much info and ideas that during the first 6 months marketing/advertising etc will be playing a huge part of my working life then it will be a matter of adding to it and improving it as I go. The guy who ran the workshop said constantly reminding your customers you are there is priceless, always put yourself out there and get your name out. Just look at TV ads we are constantly bombarded with special offers, new products, a better service etc. It might annoy us but they keep on advertising. Why? because it works.

I don't expect to be getting much work to begin with obviously, but by time I have advertised and set myself up to go I'll have made a lot of people aware I am there.

 

[petercj]

Thanks armyash

The one-man-bands don't have the millions to spend on advertising like the big companies do, but they can use the advertising of the large corporates to their advantage.

The current WB TV adverts being a classic. Let the big companies sell the product, and then undercut, undercut, undercut. But not just on the basis of being cheaper, concentrate on what will be saved by using yours truly, and stress any added value.

One-man-bands should also think about co-operation rather than competition with like for like, i.e. say six OMBs getting together to buy boilers in bulk, share advertising and marketing costs, and share the work when it comes in.

Set up a website and a free-phone call number, and either get the the wives to man the phone, or employ someone on a pt basis.

Being able to provide finance through a third party on the larger jobs would give a huge advantage.

The skills shortage in plumbing and gas fitting is over, there is now a surplus of labour chasing a dwindling amount of work.

It will be survival of the fittest.

 

[SimonG]

Not the place for talking pounds and pence, should be in the arms.

 

[AWheating]

i base my hourly rate on how much i hate the customer

 

[petercj]

Good example here of selling the deal on what is saved, and not the actual cost of the deal:-

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