Comon' guys....wrong way!
I'll do it for $105,000. This is now an auction for a professional service....yaddayayayadayadayayauada.....do I hear $105,500....going once.......goinf twice....speak now or forever hold your bottom line!
> Do you believe it is ok to take $100,000 for a job that only cost $2,000 to complete, exposing you from typical to low liability?
>
> Please explain...
I believe it is ok to place a value of $100,000 on a professional service that when competitively bid would price out at said value. If I have the skills, experience and ability to only expense 2000 on that job and still meet the scope of work and clients expectations then I am AWESOME.
So on the contrary.
Do you believe it is ethical for a client to take work done by you for a set fee even if you underbid the job and went over? IE.. If I bid 100k and win but it takes me 130k to do it even though I am contractually bound by the 100k, are ethics still involved in your pricing?
Price the professional product / service not cost of business.
I agree with Jered's statement, "If I have the skills, experience and ability to only expense 2000 on that job and still meet the scope of work and clients expectations then I am AWESOME." To expand on that statement there are times when there is a huge liability on a $2000 expense job. That takes a special surveyor that if their testicles/ovaries are rubbed together during stormy weather lightning shoots out of their rear orifice. THAT is worth $98,000.
I did a survey for $1000 -- little bit low.
The board of registration president did an update on the
property a month later for $10k.
I've been waiting for THAT job my whole life!
> Do you believe it is ok to take $100,000 for a job that only cost $2,000 to complete, exposing you from typical to low liability?
>
> Please explain...
First, your cost to do any job is irrelevant to the client. What is relevant is the value you create for the client.
Think about it like this. Take an ordinary ink pen. What is the value of that pen? Most of the time, not very much, maybe one or two dollars at most.
Now suppose I tell you that you can take that same pen down the street to my bank and present it to the teller. In exchange for that pen the teller will give you $10,000. (No not robbery, completely legitimate.)
What is the value of that ink pen now? Obviously a whole lot more than one or two dollars.
The same can be said for a survey. The value it holds is independent of what it costs you to conduct the survey. The value is determined by what it does for the client.
As for the ethics of the question at hand, so long as everyone involved agrees up front, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the deal you describe.
Actually, let me back up and reconsider my answer. IF (<<<-- big if) your work creates $1,000,000 dollars worth of value for the client, then I would suggest the surveyor who only charged $100,000 for the work low balled it.
The key we need to carefully consider is what value we create for the client. Only when we get a good handle on that, can we truly know a fair price for our service. Please note that creating $2 worth of value for the client and expecting them to pay us $2,000 for the time and cost we had in the project is a bad thing for everyone involved.
Rant over.
Larry P
Not sure how any job could only cost you 2k to complete.
I figure with the cost of college and going to college (more than just tuition), the cost of working for low wages in the indentured servitude (er, experience) system when I could have been making more doing something else, the cost of licensing exams and preparation, the cost of continuing education, the cost of charity work (which any professional should provide on occasion), the cost of keeping equipment up to date and maintained both field and office, the cost of volunteer hours to help the professional association(s) maintain a healthy profession to protect the public, etc..
I have no ethical problem receiving as much as I possibly can from any client. 100k doesn't begin to cover the cost for any particular job. The prep time to be able to offer the service in its most basic form was 10 years for me (plus all the prep costs mentioned above), and reckon similar for many others.
When you talk about cost you need to look at a bigger picture. Or, you can consider value as Larry. Either way, no ethical problem here.
