I was hoping to receive some feedback about the financial future of surveying. In recent years I have noticed that municipalities and title insurance companies want more information on surveys. Which in turn takes more time to complete and cuts into the bottom line. When mixed in with the current economic climate, where many firms have had to reel in their prices, ends up leaving a small margin for profit. I am concerned about earning a decent living even after receiving a license. I have heard from many that being a surveyor you will never be rich, I do however want to be able to live comfortably. Thanks for any feedback.
A very successful surveyor, who is a member of this Board, shared some very good advice with me when I was planning my business startup. I won't mention his name, as some of the information was just between us. If he reads this, he will know who he is, and share that same information if he wants. What I feel comfortable sharing is below.
The key to making a good living in this business is finding a niche, and hitting it hard. You have to work both hard and smart, deliver a quality product, and develop good clients. It is not easy, but it can be done.
The first 5 years of your business, the business will will own you. I have been in business for 5 1/2 years, and it has not been easy. I have worked more hours in these past 5 1/2 years than I probably worked in the 10 years prior, but I have also controlled my own destiny, with alot of help.
Networking with fellow professionals is key. I get alot of referral work from larger firms, where I have friends developed through my professional association.
You have to become part of the solution, and not part of the problem. You have to provide excellent customer service, and go that extra mile. You must answer the phone. I get more work from people because I have my calls forwarded from my office to my cell phone, and always answer it, or return the call within just a few minutes.
I have been blessed. I am still in business. The past year has been pretty tough, but things are starting to look a little better, at least for the short term.
I could go on, but I have covered the basics. I don't plan on changing professions any time soon.
I agree about the 1st 5 years as being the most difficult.
I started or got back into surveying in 2005 after going into GIS business for awhile.
This period is difficult because you are looking for clients. The difficult part is that you don't
any credentials to back you up.
I would suggest putting up a nice website because Google is the best referral agent.
I don't advertise in Google, my website gets listed in their search results whenever someone
searches for a land surveyor.
As you build clients over the years, you will realize that they are the best advertisers for your business.
I would get a call saying that she was referred by xxx.
As your business grows remember to also get better equipments with the proceeds of your work.
Believe it or not, 1 large project could provide enough cash to get a used total station or gps.
If you have enough cash then buy new, if not get a decent used unit and have it serviced to function as new.
Then maintain a small crew of surveyor maybe a 4-5 man team - surveyor, driver, rodmen, gps etc.
You will find them valuable because you can't be in the field & get more jobs at the same time. Someone has to process all their data to produce a plan for the client. Field data from the best equipment is useless if the client gets crappy survey plans.
>
> The key to making a good living in this business is finding a niche, and hitting it hard. You have to work both hard and smart, deliver a quality product, and develop good clients. It is not easy, but it can be done.
>
> The first 5 years of your business, the business will will own you. I have been in business for 5 1/2 years, and it has not been easy. I have worked more hours in these past 5 1/2 years than I probably worked in the 10 years prior, but I have also controlled my own destiny, with alot of help.
>
> Networking with fellow professionals is key. I get alot of referral work from larger firms, where I have friends developed through my professional association.
>
> You have to become part of the solution, and not part of the problem. You have to provide excellent customer service, and go that extra mile. You must answer the phone. I get more work from people because I have my calls forwarded from my office to my cell phone, and always answer it, or return the call within just a few minutes.
>
Excellent advice Jimmy:good:
Ralph
:good: :good: :good:
> I was hoping to receive some feedback about the financial future of surveying.
Surveying doesn't have a financial future, individual surveyor do. It's the choices these individuals make, be they running their own business or managing a business group with a larger firm, that determine their financial future.
Looking at an individual market niche in one geographic area (for example lets say land development surveys in Suffolk County;-)); or, even more dangerous in my view, looking at firms that are still doing the same things the same way they were doing it ten years ago and trying to extrapolate some sort of general theory of surveying's financial future is crazy.
It's like looking at the layer in the strip mall who advertises on late night TV for clients who are accident victims and thinking that you shouldn't take that partners position in the Wall Street firm with a $1,250/hour billing rate because based on the first guy, it doesn't look like practicing law is going to be profitable.
FWIW - I've put out three six figure and one seven figure proposals so far this year...there is money to be made surveying.
Surveying is a pretty horrible way to make money, especally after the real estate crash. This coming from someone that made some decent money at it hit and miss over the years and knows this business inside out.
If your goal is to make money you will be pretty disppointed with surveying. I hear a lot about doing it for the adventure or the challenge but really thats a lot of BS, we all go to work to make money so we can provide for ourselves and our famlily, they cant eat on "having an adventure or enjoying a job" doing work for fun is what kids do not grown men.
Having a career, going to work, is analogous to a cave man or tribal hunter going out to get food for family, just imagine if he came back with no food but told his family when returning "dont worry I really enjoyed running around out there, it was a rewarding adventure but no deer meat for us", it dont fly then and it dont fly now.
The reason you go out to work is to bag food and shelter is to provide for you and your family, unfortunately surveying is not reliable enough to do much more than starve or barely barely get by with no security for the future.
If you want to know what your future holds, take a look at the top five people that you hang with and get advice from the most, that is basically where you will end up financially.
People that do not know how to make money are not qualified to dispense advice on making it, surveyors on the whole have bad business deals on every corner to be made, no real amazing options for making money.
Surveyors talk crap about RE agents getting a big percent of the action while surveyors fees are the same as the 1970s which amounts to chicken scratch so who has the better deal, if your goal is to make money then who is smarter? RE fees are tied to a percentage which means they fluctuate with inflation and deflation but surveyors lump sum fees or even hourly rate gets hammered when prices of goods and services rise. Again, these days surveyors fees are similar to the 70's when gas was 35 cents and milk was less than a dollar....how far does that go today, not very.
I also hear a many surveyors touting the virture of being your own man, no boss, creating your own destiny.....well guess what there are many ways to do that that will actually be lucrative ventures and true adventures, but chosing to do something that makes no money or just enough to survive actually locks you down not frees you.
Think about it, if your goal is to make money, which it should be, and you saw a list of professions then would you really pick surveying, if you did it would be a pretty bad choice.
Don't throw sticks and stones at me, I speak the truth for the benifit of all who care to listen. When you find yourself in a hole financially, stop digging...it wil be your best and most logical bet for getting out.
I have been surveying for 35 years now. Ive always said "its an easy profession to get into but impossible to get out of" if your any good at it. After the large engineering company I worked for closed its doors in 2007 I started my own business. In April of this year will be my 5th year anniversary! The large company I worked for helped me get started by giving me the two large stakeout projects I brought in for them and they let me use their equipment for six months. After that I had enough money to buy a robot and they gave me a bunch of other field equipment in leau of money they owed me. Never burn bridges behind you!
I started out with adding res lot surveys as well. The realtors n title companies kinda dictate what they will pay thanks to some of the low ballers. But after 5 years, I now tell them what I am willing to do it for. And I still have a few of those clients left who appreciate my hands on services and don't mind paying. I only have 4-5 contractor clients, but they all keep me pretty busy. The ones I have pay me within 15 days and I go out of my way 24-7 to do whatever I have to take care of them.
The point of all this, decide your business model up front. Mine, like many on this board, is a one man solo. My employees are my robot and GPS. My reg clients really appreciate that they get the PLS owner in the field doing their work and when they call with questions I can answer I don't have to first check with a crew to find out what's going on. You may never get rich from surveying, but if you choose to do good work right the first time you will build a good reputation and have a rewarding career! If you choose to operate on a volume basis by low balling and burn bridges your life will eventually suck and you'll hate surveying.
Good luck!
There are three elements: Time, Quality, Price. You can only choose two and Quality is not optional.
> I was hoping to receive some feedback about the financial future of surveying. In recent years I have noticed that municipalities and title insurance companies want more information on surveys. Which in turn takes more time to complete and cuts into the bottom line. When mixed in with the current economic climate, where many firms have had to reel in their prices, ends up leaving a small margin for profit. I am concerned about earning a decent living even after receiving a license. I have heard from many that being a surveyor you will never be rich, I do however want to be able to live comfortably. Thanks for any feedback.
I am a new solo business owner currently trying to get my business off the ground. So I don't speak from much experience. But I have noticed in my area (Florida), the numbers of licensed surveyors have been dwindling over the past decade. I believe that this is partially due to older surveyors getting out of the market when the recession set in. But also partially due to the College Degree requirement for survey licensure that was put in the late 1990's. I know back before the recession there was a lot of worry that Florida was not licensing enough surveyors to keep up with demand. So I am hoping that as the economy gets better with a reduced supply of surveyors that prices for surveying services should go up. I'm not sure if this situation is happening around the rest of the country. So for young surveyors in my area of the country, I think that there is reason for hope out there.
The Bow Tie Surveyor
I’m no good at predicting the financial future - we bought Apple stock at the top and have been watching it slide down daily. However, I have been financially successful in surveying and I can tell you what worked for me, with the caution that results may vary for others.
Work solo – often, but not always, critical for maximizing profit.
Deliver the best survey possible as fast as possible. Never compromise on quality. As Gex Williams said years ago, “Negotiate the best fee for the company, then do the best job for the client regardless of the cost.”
Be nice to everyone you meet. Make friends with all of the title people.
Be efficient. Every shot you take look at what you are doing and figure out how to be more efficient. Look at the order in which you take the shots because there usually is one shortest route. I wrote my own Field-to-Finish software and I’m always thinking of improvements. You have to be efficient to make money in surveying.
As soon as you can afford it, buy the best equipment, based on your needs.
Focus on what you do best and what your area needs. In other words, find your niche. Not necessarily too narrow a field, but you don’t want to try to do everything for everyone. Mine is ALTA surveys – that is all I do.
If you want to do lot surveys then you will need to pay for a Google enhanced listing and a big ad in the Yellow Pages, and you will have to put up with price shoppers. I don’t do lot surveys so I’ve never been in the phone book and I try to stay as stealthy as possible. I started out with select clients who followed me when I left the large firm, and built on that with referrals (the gold standard).
> In recent years I have noticed that municipalities and title insurance companies want more information on surveys. Which in turn takes more time to complete and cuts into the bottom line.
Your statement reads like a cause and effect. If it takes more time to complete a job the profit margin is lowered. That is not always true. There are many surveyors who will not change their price when new requirements come into play, but there is no law that says they are not allowed to charge for the time spent on the additional requirements.
For example, 95+% of my work is in my home county. On rare occasions, I have been convinced to perform a property division in a neighboring county. While I won't get on this rant again, that county has a planning commission that causes a simple division to take much more time and effort. Instead of charging the same price, I simply raised the cost of doing a division in that county by a factor of three or more.
As to financial success in surveying, that is highly dependent on the individual and on what you think of as successful, rich, or making a good living.
The majority of my work is lot surveys and small divisions with an occasional multi-lot subdivision thrown in. The extent of my advertising was to pass out some business cards the first year I started (over 10 years ago). I am not listed in the phone book (at all). I still manage to have work and make what is a very comfortable living to me. Others I know of have ads in various places and try to market like crazy, but have just about the same amount of work coming in.
It essentially boils down to luck. As surveyors, we generally think of ourselves as being the absolute best in our profession - even to the point of dislocating a shoulder to pat ourselves on the back. No matter how good you are or how knowledgeable you think you are, there is someone else out there who can do the same thing. If you are fortunate (the luck factor) enough as to fall in with some good clients, then word of mouth takes it from there. If I had passed out cards a few years later, it is entirely possible all of the good, steady clients I currently have would be hiring someone else. Yes, I took the initiative to get equipment and hand out cards and talk with folks, but the timing was absolutely not of my making.
A. My wife and I have been blessed.
B. Good luck is what happens when careful planning meets opportunity.
There is good information in this thread from different parts of the country. Some applies to Suffolk County and some does not. Suffolk county has the highest number of licensed surveyors (135 in 2012) of any county of New York State. In Suffolk County answers to your question are different if you are in western Suffolk or eastern Suffolk. The email in my profile is good. I can answer your question on the phone far easier then typing away with two fingers.
> Good luck is what happens when careful planning meets opportunity.
I pretty much agree Bruce.
Without all of the steps taken to achieve licensure (planning) as well as some frugal saving of money beforehand (planning), I would not have been in a position to seize an opportunity when it was presented.
I am not suggesting blind luck will carry one through a surveying business. I am just saying that no matter how carefully planned, the opportunity will not always present itself and pan out or the opportunity can be scooped up by someone else who is also making plans.
Yup. And if he has a better plan, or better resources, well then your best laid plans will gang aft agley.
I think a lot of people go astray because they confuse a vague dream with a realistic plan. Not the same thing at all.
Thank you all for your feedback. It has been most eye opening. It allows me to see that there is hope if i am willing to put in the work, time and dedicated to the profession. I see many solo surveyors who at least portray that they are struggling to get by or are so married to their work that there doesn't seem to be much else in their life.
> > I was hoping to receive some feedback about the financial future of surveying.
>
> Surveying doesn't have a financial future, individual surveyor do. It's the choices these individuals make, be they running their own business or managing a business group with a larger firm, that determine their financial future.
>
> Looking at an individual market niche in one geographic area (for example lets say land development surveys in Suffolk County;-)); or, even more dangerous in my view, looking at firms that are still doing the same things the same way they were doing it ten years ago and trying to extrapolate some sort of general theory of surveying's financial future is crazy.
>
> It's like looking at the layer in the strip mall who advertises on late night TV for clients who are accident victims and thinking that you shouldn't take that partners position in the Wall Street firm with a $1,250/hour billing rate because based on the first guy, it doesn't look like practicing law is going to be profitable.
>
> FWIW - I've put out three six figure and one seven figure proposals so far this year...there is money to be made surveying.
Great post James!:good: :good:
> ....It allows me to see that there is hope if i am willing to put in the work, time and dedicated to the profession. .....
Respectfully, putting work and time into the profession will have little bearing on your chances of success. (Of course, that greatly depends on how you define success.)
If you want to succeed as most people would define the term you need to work on getting better at the business of surveying. I know far too many good surveyors who struggle and scrap to get by. The common thread is they are bad at business.
We see it far too often right here in this forum. Earlier this week there was a thread where someone opined that if an ALTA survey client didn't want corners set they would cut the price.
That reflects a mindset that the ties what one charges the client with the cost to provide your service. You should develop a management style that does not charge based on your cost but on the value you provide to the client. (See whole series of POB articles on how to do that.)
Larry P
Larry..
Not to hijack, but you totally missed the point of my 'I would cut my price' reply. True, I didn't go into the reasons why I would. But it has to do with the value, or the clients perception of my value.
