On the Business end of Surveying...

Charge a client some small fixed fee to do your research and spend a couple hours on site to see what monuments can be dug up with the pin finder. Then you give a price to finish the job from there.

Or charge more and more and make more money and have more free time as well.

Norman Oklahoma, post: 342099, member: 9981 wrote: do your research and spend a couple hours on site to see what monuments can be dug up with the pin finder.

There went the 800 bucks.

I guess surveyors might always be stuck in the "purgatory" of vocation categories. We want so bad to be acknowledged as professionals, but a lot of us operate our businesses like the guy at the swap meet selling t-shirts and hunting knives. While I think a lot of that has to do with the way the public perceives the surveying profession, it is somewhat our own fault, too. The public "shops" for prices and we agree. Every week I read a post about someone getting "low-balled" by the guy down the road.

I don't have any answers, though. Hardly anybody is willing to give a surveyor a notice to proceed without some sort of idea of the bottom line on the final bill. I usually find a survey I've done that is similar to what someone is enquiring about and in the same neighborhood. I let them know what the fees were for the similar survey, with a stipulation that I base my fees on hourly rates and the final bill might vary. I also let them know if I uncover some horrible and expensive error in the field or records I stop immediately until I've consulted with them.

I won't "barter" with folks. If they tell me someone else is cheaper I wish them luck and thank them for the consideration. I also ask folks when was the last time they got a plumber or an electrician to give them a final price BEFORE the work was completed....I'm trying to run a business, not a swap-meet. I've been operating like this for years and I have never wanted for work.

You're right, Nate, surveyors need to communicate. We might eventually be considered professionals if we operate as such with a good amount of consistency.

YOu got that right...........

Today, Did a new job in the middle of an old job I surveyed 20å±yrs ago today.
Neighbors had done some swapping of and and put up new fences between what they are going to keep.
After dozers and brush hogs had run amock along the old boundaries, the looking to find old monuments and control points and picking the right place to see everything took 4hrs and the actual measuring took about 30mins.

I don't leave the house for less than a days pay. Everything can be done from my memory of the area, google earth and other inhouse records.

You should ask them the last time they got a bid from their lawyer, or a fixed cost proposal. How about getting bids from your doctors?

A request came in for a bid to do a specific boundary survey. We provided "An Offer of Agreement". It listed what we would provide based on certain things they would provide or agree to do as a part of the job process. Nowhere did the word "bid" appear. There was a cost shown, but, it was only valid if they agreed to do their part. A different firm could make a similar offer but have different terms, so it could be a case of apples versus oranges.

The county GIS systems have pretty much eliminated the 'oops' in my boundary estimating process. I won't even whisper a number until I get to the internet. Once I see the situation from above generally it knocks the cob webs out of my noggin and a good number presents itself. I suppose having done umpteen surveys for umpteen years doesn't hurt the process either.

ALTA's are different kettle of fish. I usually get out bid on them. Don't know what brand 'x' is doing, but I ain't doing it for that.

Steve

paden cash, post: 342109, member: 20 wrote: I won't "barter" with folks. If they tell me someone else is cheaper I wish them luck and thank them for the consideration. I also ask folks when was the last time they got a plumber or an electrician to give them a final price BEFORE the work was completed....I'm trying to run a business, not a swap-meet. I've been operating like this for years and I have never wanted for work.

I agree completely. I lost a construction job about a week ago because I wouldn't come off of my hourly rate by $10/hour. The potential client said "Well, so and so will do it for this much". I had to tell him to let so and so do it. I'm not interested in being the cheapest guy in town.

I try to give clients a not to exceed price and give myself a little leeway so I don't get a reputation for asking for more money for any small unforeseen. Recently I gave a not to exceed price for a tract of land in which I had done the adjoining property about a year ago. Since I had located the corners for several tracts in each direction, I was confident that this was an easy job. "Easy Money" I was familiar with the area, had all the plats I needed and had already proportioned the corners of this tract on the previous job. I just needed to set monuments and pickup any improvements which weren't many, the property was vacant and had a few crossing ditches that served others. This was on a Friday, on Monday morning I woke up to 8 inches of snow. My previous client had re-fenced his property and set rail road tie posts adjacent to the corners which were now up against the post and not in there original location and the other neighbor re-stretched his fence also, the fence corners were leaning along with the adjacent monuments. I had set several traverse points (40d nails with a whisker) at different ends of the job so I could keep an eye on the base station which was near a road at both ends. I previous thought was, that placing them inside the fence would make it less appealing for a thief who was just driving by, but this time of year the ranchers have cows in the pasture and the cows pulled up the traverse points by the whiskers of course. It turned out to be a long and somewhat frustrating day. It usually takes me a couple of jobs to get in the winter mode.