Pricing up jobs

[GQuigley67]

you'll struggle to make £14k in your first few years or at all mate with your business plan, get a job as a trainee and bite the bullet

 

[mike_s]

this is a joke with no experience and only doing it part time along with your job it will never work. You would have to price up the jobs yourself and then subcontract them out otherwise the plumbers will just give the customer the price and keep the 20%.

Not sure what a cartel is exactly but illegal sounds about right.

Your best bet would probably be to get an experienced full time employee who can price up for you and do the installations then you'll be lucky if he'll offer you 50 quid for the sales lead. If you help him out with the installations as a learner you might get an extra £50 per day.

All you would be is a marketing manager which is a luxury.

last few weeks I've been spending around 60 hours per week actually plumbing then all hours I can in between on paperwork. I work on my marketing in patches and constantly advertise.

The business is ran by me and my Dad and we have a full time employed engineer as well. We have boiler installations booked up until 17th September so far. Even after 20 years we still have our quiet periods, will be hard to build up a loyal customer base if they don't know who is going to turn up at the job, nevermind do the call backs if the boss doesn't know what he's doing.

No offence just trying to give you a reality check. It sounds like you are doing things the wrong way round. You do this when you have built up a reliable team and simply can't afford to spend time on the jobs yourself.

Also with advertising costs and overheads it sounds like it wouldn't last. It's very risky not to start off small.

 

[Dotty]

The main reason you had so much derision was because we couldn't believe the audacity of your idea. Now I've no problem with someone making a living and would thoroughly applaud you if you discovered a real niche in the market and were looking for ideas and advice for that. But this really is a terrible idea mate. I hope you've realised that.

Purely out of interest would you consider returning to stonemasonry? I ask this because my cousin is in that game and is doing quite well restoring ornamental architecture.

 

[southcoastboile]

Also something no one has mentioned, the guys that would be subbing for you will have thier own work and that will take priority over yours because they will be charging and earning better money and they wont want to let thier existing customer base down. This idea will never ever work. Fair play for giving something a go but I think you would be wasting your money if you try it. Unless you are running an ad campaign and have several subbies that can do a job for you at the drop of a hat I cant see it working

 

[mike_s]

Anyway, some of the biggest and most successful plumbing firms around here don't use subcontractors, full time employee's only which is what I'm doing. Subcontractors are handy only for the occasions where you are exceptionally busy and can't handle it. It is not the base for a reputable business unless you're giving them signwritten vans and uniform as well. Customers don't like it when another van turns up with different writing on than the one that did the quote, very confusing.

Just sounds like it's not going to make money unless you have thousands to spend on advertising and price up the jobs yourself as this is the only proper way to do it. You can't have different people charging your customers different rates, I can't believe you have worked this hard on it and got the fundamentals so wrong, sorry.

 

[GQuigley67]

"

My only other option right now was to take a job as plumbers mate for 14k, which would cut my income in half"​

DON'T QUIT YOUR DAY JOB THEN !!!! you'll make nowhere near that anytime soon or every with that rate, most of my jobs is no profit or no more than 10% anyway, and i price and do all my jobs myself if i priced it to allow your 20% i wouldnt even be competitive

Another golden rule is not to let workers know what you charge, so if they price it then they will know how much you make !! then they start askin for more of a cut etc


​

 

[markfxy]

no different to trust a trader, myhammer, rated people and all those other scams they all want a percent of your profit.

 

[Scottish]

Good point on the last part of your post. Again, the laughter's a tad uneccessary, but you've brought something to my attention that I didn't think of. That's all I was looking for here. I assumed that there would be no need for plumbers to be calling me asking questions, I just thought they would be able to deal with the situation. But I didn't think that problems may occur, which obviously they do sometimes. It show's the inexperience on my part and the reason I came looking for answers. You guys have opened my eyes a little, and unfortunately my glass has gone from half full to dry as a bone. Please be aware that I'm not some scum bag trying to take advantage of anyone else, I'm just an overly positive person who may have over estimated himself somewhat on this occasion. In between all the negativity some of you have raised some good points that I'll need to address, and for that I thank you.

 

[Carl86]

Good point on the last part of your post. Again, the laughter's a tad uneccessary, but you've brought something to my attention that I didn't think of. That's all I was looking for here. I assumed that there would be no need for plumbers to be calling me asking questions, I just thought they would be able to deal with the situation. But I didn't think that problems may occur, which obviously they do sometimes. It show's the inexperience on my part and the reason I came looking for answers. You guys have opened my eyes a little, and unfortunately my glass has gone from half full to dry as a bone. Please be aware that I'm not some scum bag trying to take advantage of anyone else, I'm just an overly positive person who may have over estimated himself somewhat on this occasion. In between all the negativity some of you have raised some good points that I'll need to address, and for that I thank you.

The hardest part i found was finding an employer to take me on and train me, and thats even more scarce in these current times. If you can't live with the wage cut id evaluate what it is you want to do and achieve but if you are to set up a business youll be thankful for that training and even then youll have days when you even may be stuped by a problem and you need to get out your phone and call a friend you may have come across in the industry onsite or your head in books to resolve the matter. No body is expected to know everything but youd be better equiped with onsite training IMHO before you venture into evening becoming a sole trader. Lads an ladys on this forum will even tell you its not as clear cut as it appears and it can be a loney existance when things are tough.

If running a business in this industry is what you have your heart set on you will do it regardless of what others say, but your current business plan wont work for you.

The choices are like GQuigley said is either take it on the chin and train up...... then if you wanted to go it alone and expand if you have the chance you'll be better off for it, or stay put in your job where you know where you stand on the finances front.

Id say short time pain for long time gain but with the way things are at the moment its hard to tell when that gain will come with companies well established for years feeling the pinch.

 

[jtsplumbing]

Mate if you are earning 28k doing security your better of sticking to that job, no worries go to work come home get paid, if you cant get by on your earnings now you wont last 6mths in the plumbing trade , its very bad and getting worse, could be like this for next 10 years, unless government starts putting money into house building ! The day's of high earnings in this industry are past, As for working 60 Hrs , try being self employed doing 60Hrs you would be classed as part time.

 

[armyash]

Better off getting the leads and going out with the plumber doing the job for free, get the experience, do jobs yourself as sole trader then look at employing someone years down the road.