how to charge for hours worked?

[MasterBlaster]

You win some - you lose some...

Just persevere!

 

[Chris E]

The beautiful thing about the small job market is that under bidding is of little to no real consequence....

 

[NickfromWI]

What? The size of the market doesn't change things much. If it's underbid it means you're losing money. Losing money sucks in any market!


love
nick

 

[woodslinger]

I dunno about the market size, but business size seems to be to my advantage. Small business = small overhead => small consequences for under bidding. Sure I could have made more profit and that will get better as I get better at running my business, but I am still making money.

 

[SouthSoundTree-]

Small job market... $500-1000. A lot easier to be off by 20% and survive that job, than on a $50,000 job like a municipal contract, paying Prevailing Wage.

Last PW job I bid with another small operator was for $17k, average was $10k, low bid was like $7k. If we got it, paying PW I didn't want to underestimate labor at $44 per hour. If the $7k bid was legit, and not owner operator, not subject to PW rates, I bet they lost their butts.

So much crystal ball reading in bidding tree work. Will it rain? Will wind mean roping instead of cut and chuck/ free drop? 70% of a chip truck load, or 120% requiring a stop to chipping while dumping off-site? How much does a tree weigh?

 

[NickfromWI]

Ahhh- ok- that's totally reasonable. You still lose....but you lose LESS. I'm with you on that.

I wonder though- does a small loss hurt you MORE? Say like a $300 loss. For a smaller company $300 is probably a heck is of a loss but something that for a bigger company, all the other jobs that week more than made for.

Just a thought.


love
nick

 

[Bixler]

I had a customer actually ask on an hourly job if she was paying the guy that had to sharpen his chain and change out a saw filter once. We were cutting some old rotten wood down in a rocky creek bed and hauling it out.
My reply was that it was her job that was causing the wear and tear on the equipment that day, of course she is paying him. He is NOT on a break. I fired her after that ... That way, she could only ask once..

What an ignorant bitch.

I think if you start running multiple crews and you personally aren't onsite, bidding hourly can be very nice. We shoot for between 70-80/man hour in Hawaii for most pruning jobs and 90-100 for larger removal projects when we have to bid by the hour plus the added costs like log disposal etc. It takes a lot of the pressure off the crew members, and myself and if things do go much slower than anticipated the client pays for that risk as it really should be. We have several large projects we've been billing hourly for years, and we really enjoy those projects, we make good money and the consistency and simplicity of the billing is great.

Now, if you are running one crew and you have your skill set on site you can hedge your bets quite well and usually come out on top when bidding projects based on market value from my experience in the past.

Great info JP.

Small job market... $500-1000. A lot easier to be off by 20% and survive that job, than on a $50,000 job like a municipal contract, paying Prevailing Wage.

Last PW job I bid with another small operator was for $17k, average was $10k, low bid was like $7k. If we got it, paying PW I didn't want to underestimate labor at $44 per hour. If the $7k bid was legit, and not owner operator, not subject to PW rates, I bet they lost their butts.

So much crystal ball reading in bidding tree work. Will it rain? Will wind mean roping instead of cut and chuck/ free drop? 70% of a chip truck load, or 120% requiring a stop to chipping while dumping off-site? How much does a tree weigh?

Sean, I'd like to pick your brain on Prevailing Wage jobs/info as we're just getting into this.

As for bidding, no crystal ball here... hasn't rained in years, no wind, people pay for chips.

 

[treetx]

This thread is a hoot!

Interesting to see the different way people think of things.

Locally, the big tree services bid a job at a day or half day rate. If you have a crew at a job 6hrs instead of 8 and there isn't anything small to do, that job cost you the whole day.

Willard and his $200 an hour is just silly. I used to think of it that way too. Change that number to $/yr instead of $/hr.

Getting out of this trading time for money gig is tough. I haven't figured it out. Yet.

 

[NickfromWI]

You nailed it. If you call my office and ask how much it costs for a 1 hour consultation, the answer is $150. But that doesn't mean I make $150 x 40 hrs/wk x 50 wks/yr.


love
nick

 

[Chris E]

Locally, the big tree services bid a job at a day or half day rate. If you have a crew at a job 6hrs instead of 8 and there isn't anything small to do, that job cost you the whole day.

That's what Ive started to do in terms of full days, it makes pricing work easier and means you get more opportunity to finish early . I wont try to charge a half day for what is substantially less though. The other advantages of the small job market I have found is that it still pushes along with work in tough economic times & the larger outfits cant compete price wise or are disinterested when its busy.

 

[treetx]

I only figured out how they were bidding after comparing their bids to mine. I found I tended to win certain jobs more than others. I would bid a 3hr job as 3, they would bid it as a half day. I would bid 6hrs as 6, they would bid it as a day. I realized I was winning bids for the wrong reasons.

Exactly correct about the consultations. Maybe for that hour you get $150 but how many non billable hours are in the mix to put you in the situation where you scoop up that one sale.

Currently I am in the extreme end of that. I work days and weeks with nothing to show, but when I close a project, I may take a $4500-$12,000 commission. The better you serve your potential customer base, the more projects seem to come in with little to no work. Easy to lie to yourself that you make $200-$500 an hour. I have to put it on a yearly basis to see the true spread - distribute the rewards over the total amount of time I spend to make them happen.

If you are a one man gig, the small jobs and cashies can be nice but it is not a sustainable way of life.

 

[sotc]

Locally, the big tree services bid a job at a day or half day rate. If you have a crew at a job 6hrs instead of 8 and there isn't anything small to do, that job cost you the whole day.

Hmm, good food for thought, thanks for the input Nathan

 

[pantheraba]

I only figured out how they were bidding after comparing their bids to mine. I found I tended to win certain jobs more than others. I would bid a 3hr job as 3, they would bid it as a half day. I would bid 6hrs as 6, they would bid it as a day. I realized I was winning bids for the wrong reasons.

Exactly correct about the consultations. Maybe for that hour you get $150 but how many non billable hours are in the mix to put you in the situation where you scoop up that one sale.

Currently I am in the extreme end of that. I work days and weeks with nothing to show, but when I close a project, I may take a $4500-$12,000 commission. The better you serve your potential customer base, the more projects seem to come in with little to no work. Easy to lie to yourself that you make $200-$500 an hour. I have to put it on a yearly basis to see the true spread - distribute the rewards over the total amount of time I spend to make them happen.

If you are a one man gig, the small jobs and cashies can be nice but it is not a sustainable way of life.

And this is very good, too, Nathan...thanks for sharing how you analyzed that. I am impressed you took that extra step to decipher what was happening with those won/lost bids...good show.

 

[Mick!]

I guess now I have three main categories.

1 full day, which is usually to mid to late afternoon.
1/2 day, finish the job before lunch. (Then onto another job)
Little fillers, an hour or so on the way home or put 4 of them together to make a full day.
I've recently upgraded some equipment so say an takedown that would have taken two days at €1200 (which I may not have got) is now done in an easy day at say €900. (And win on price far more frequently)

 

[HolmenTree]

Willard and his $200 an hour is just silly. I used to think of it that way too. Change that number to $/yr instead of $/hr.

If you are a one man gig, the small jobs and cashies can be nice but it is not a sustainable way of life.

2007 was the last year I had a full time employee as a groundie.
Since then working alone with my multi use trailer outfit I take weekends off and no evening work. I stretch my season over average 8 months a year at the longest. Within that time my family and I do a lot of camping and travelling on summer holidays when the kids are out of school, so that's about 1 1/2 months off. Plus another month off throughout the season doing child care, reno's etc. Equipment and truck were paid off years ago so it's good profit besides operating costs and taxes.

I'll use this job as an example of $200hr. Working for the town where I last lived I removed 21 DED elm trees and stumps, felled, limbed and bucked into rounds. I chipped and hauled away the limbs, ground and hauled away the stump chips. The Town loader and truck hauled the rounds away.

You'll see my estimate, invoice, diary, hours a day and deposit slip for that job. Took me 35 hrs [from home to home ] for $7,565.25=$216.15 hr. Heavy work working alone so only working 6-7 hrs a day.
The deposit slips deposited on Oct. 25/11 totals $13,875.75 for 67 hrs of work in 2 weeks time. We did some camping during that time period. Still averaging $207.10 hr , could have done much better but the MB Hydro ROW work was residential and forest in hilly ground. Everything chipped and hauled.
So anyways anyone wanting to try solo take my advice: If you need someone to B.S with everyday on the job, a little bit lazy and want someone else to do the bull work, a procrastinator, whiner, not in very good physical condition making you weak, don't care about family time with your wife and kids, not mechanically anclined ..... then solo is not for you.

My advice for a good candidate: Heavy work do only 6 hours a day on the job 5 days a week, stump grinding with light cleaned work more. Keep track of your daily hours and calculate your daily hourly $ earnings. Rain day stay home and work on equipment then work Sat. or Sun.
Take arborist training courses and pay your equipment off and reap the extra rewards, like I have done.

 

[HolmenTree]

Here's the rest.

 

[treetx]

What was your total annual income after taking out expenses?

i.e. - what was your taxable NET annual income?

2011? Lol. Cherry pick your examples much?

 

[Dave Shepard]

treetx, that's all that really matters in the end. Make $100k, keep $20 or make $250k, and keep $20k.

There was a contractor near here that was hired to grade a woman's driveway. She paid half of her bill. The reason? She said the bulldozer wasn't doing anything when it was backing up.

 

[HolmenTree]

Nope a little too much information Nate, anyways Canadian and U.S. tax systems are 2 different scenarios.

Examples? Well I cherry picked for good reason . Lots of good examples of do wishers right here on this site

 

[HolmenTree]

treetx, that's all that really matters in the end. Make $100k, keep $20 or make $250k, and keep $20k.
:

Well said Dave , more you make the more you spend and then lose alot more in the end.

 

[HolmenTree]

I'll shoot out more advice here. As you noticed I wrote both invoice and estimate for the town on the same day, that's how close of a relationship I have with my client as there is no competitive tree service and the DED removal has to be done for the benifit of the healthy elms.

Always write out your estimate on the reverse side of the previous estimates carbon copy. This way if you change you mind you can make adjustments or correct mistakes. Then when you got it right write out the official estimate......that's why mine looks so neat and has good presentation.
I wrote the estimate about 2 hrs earlier that morning as I had a late start at 9:15am.

 

[Tucker943]

Here's food for thought. How often do any of us "lose" money on a job? Real loss measured in dollars. Doing a $500 job and spending $600 between hard cost upfront and silent costs in the background. That's almost insane. I think more often tree rats don't meat their hourly target figures and get their panties in a bunch and call it a loss. That's not a loss. That's a lowball bid that didn't allow the company to hit necessary figures to cover both overhead AND profit. Guys meet overhead with $50 bucks to spare and use the word loss. No.

 

[Tucker943]

2007 was the last year I had a full time employee as a groundie.
Since then working alone with my multi use trailer outfit I take weekends off and no evening work. I stretch my season over average 8 months a year at the longest. Within that time my family and I do a lot of camping and travelling on summer holidays when the kids are out of school, so that's about 1 1/2 months off. Plus another month off throughout the season doing child care, reno's etc. Equipment and truck were paid off years ago so it's good profit besides operating costs and taxes.

I'll use this job as an example of $200hr. Working for the town where I last lived I removed 21 DED elm trees and stumps, felled, limbed and bucked into rounds. I chipped and hauled away the limbs, ground and hauled away the stump chips. The Town loader and truck hauled the rounds away.

You'll see my estimate, invoice, diary, hours a day and deposit slip for that job. Took me 35 hrs [from home to home ] for $7,565.25=$216.15 hr. Heavy work working alone so only working 6-7 hrs a day.
The deposit slips deposited on Oct. 25/11 totals $13,875.75 for 67 hrs of work in 2 weeks time. We did some camping during that time period. Still averaging $207.10 hr , could have done much better but the MB Hydro ROW work was residential and forest in hilly ground. Everything chipped and hauled.
So anyways anyone wanting to try solo take my advice: If you need someone to B.S with everyday on the job, a little bit lazy and want someone else to do the bull work, a procrastinator, whiner, not in very good physical condition making you weak, don't care about family time with your wife and kids, not mechanically anclined ..... then solo is not for you.

My advice for a good candidate: Heavy work do only 6 hours a day on the job 5 days a week, stump grinding with light cleaned work more. Keep track of your daily hours and calculate your daily hourly $ earnings. Rain day stay home and work on equipment then work Sat. or Sun.
]

On the flip side, working alone might be ideal if you can't manage men, can't manage the financial dynamics of payroll, can't provide steady work, have control issues stemming from emotional or social fears, can't handle anyone having an inside look into your company and whether its all its cracked up to be, or if you can't keep men because of personality glitches that make people run the other way.

 

[Dave Shepard]

Tucker, do you have a couch in your basement and moonlight as a head shrinker? You often have a lot of interesting insights into human behavior.

 

[Tucker943]

Would you say in often completely wrong though?