why do they have your "rate"? Fixed fee is the way to go
Tongue in Cheek (I just realized you are in Salt Lake City)
Nate,
With 12 wives and children you wouldn't need to work. You can only be legally married to one. So the other 11 are single mothers with children and qualify to the max for social services (probably at least $30,000 each per year).
First reaction was "Wow, how can they stay in business for $120/hr, and why do they stay in business if that is all their expertise is worth?
Second was along Larry's line of thinking, why does a client know the hourly rates?
I can't remember telling any client (it may have happened, but I'm getting old) what I would charge at a per hour rate. It is none of their business. If they want cheap work, they can go down the road and "roll the dice" to see if they get what they pay for.
My usual response to "why do you charge so much more to do this than what *&^%%$% said he would charge" is "Well, I know what my services, expertise, and knowledge are worth, and I can't control what he thinks his is worth".
I don't issue a rate schedule or refer to one.
It is an interoffice only item for my eyes only to use for estimations.
Everything is on a fee basis and before any project is completed, everything is a proposed amount.
I quote a range and rarely a set amount, unless I already know the outcome.
> "I can't speak to the value my competition places on their services, however I will tell you this much. I go to the ends of the earth to make sure that I have the best equipped, most qualified and productive field crews representing your interests and mine, and my rates reflect that fact. That is something I take great pride in, both personally and professionally."
>
> My stab at it anyway!
>
> Cheers! Willy
:good:
I'm not on board with the rude or flippant answers. Be respectful. I've had work from other professional services before and got at least three bids. It's a legitimate question to wonder why someone is at $150 when another service provider is at $1500. I want to know that the higher-priced guy isn't just out to rip me off. Think of it as if you were in their shoes, and didn't see the difference in the two services and wanted to ask the higher-priced person what they were bringing to the table.
Surveying is a highly unknown business to the average consumer, and on top of that many of them already think they know. Educating them is a much better approach than treating them like they are inferior for wanting to understand.
If they are just price-shopping, they will go with a cheaper guy anyway. But on the other hand, why would they even ask, if they already found a lower priced surveyor, unless they are legitimately trying to know what value you might be bringing to the table at your price.
Sorry, I can't provide you with what words you should use, but I would filter through the responses and eliminate any that might be offensive, and also any that might sound like you are disparaging the other surveyor. I know that if you told me how much better you were than the other guy, I probably wouldn't trust you as far as I could throw you (figuratively speaking).
Tongue in Cheek (I just realized you are in Salt Lake City)
Well, I guess that just shows how much I know. I would not want to do the 12 wives thing, unless I did support them!
🙂
N
Because my crew is worth the additional 40.
:good:
That is a very professional approach Mr. Adams. Well said.
I could get on board with that answer as well.
Well said.
Our rates are due to demand. 🙂
Pablo B-)
I was recently informed that another surveyor with GPS charges $55 an hour, I give the guy that surveyors name.
I always try to put myself in the other person's shoes. It is an honest and valid question. If I was paying for something I would question different prices if I didn't understand why they were what they were. Obviously he wants to use you for some reason or else he just would have chose the cheaper guys.
I wouldn't be rude about it but I would just tell him that you do quality work with quality employees and quality equipment and that is your rate. You charge that to everyone and you stay plenty busy so lots of others must think it is fair. The other guy is cheaper for some reason. Maybe he is cutting corners on his people, his gear, his insurance, his quality of work, who knows. If he was doing the same quality of work that you are for a cheaper price then you would have been put out of business.
I was recently requested (late last year) to reduce my hourly Expert Witness rate by approximately 5%. I concluded that charging at 95% for an enormous case was better than charging 100% for zero case.
I went with the 95% and made a bundle; they didn't even squawk when I flew First Class, and they insisted that I go to an uppity expensive hotel near the Courthouse.
Your mileage may vary ...
This is the type of question for which my answer would be tailored to the individual asking it. If it's a business person, I try to respond in a way similar to what they might use if they were the ones being questioned. If it's your typical homeowner, I tend to respond with something about everything being too danged expensive these days, but, I have to spend money to make money and therefore I have to base my income or my outgo. That $800 set of tires that didn't used to cost nearly so much is a handy example. And, if it's someone I can joke with I tell them, "Well, every morning I ask the boss how much to charge for what I do and he justs looks back at me from the mirror and says $160 for two-man GPS."
:good:
Client email - No brainer
> Just received an email from one of my clients.
>
> >Explain to me why your rate is 160 an hour and everyone else is 120
>
> The rate is for a two-man GPS crew staking a fence line. How would you respond?
That's a slam dunk. I'm sure that you've already replied to notify the prospective client of the obvious fact that your crew is able to work much faster since they know that the fence will become the new boundary whereas the other surveyors have the mistaken idea that the fence should be constructed along some pre-existing "boundary". I mean, expertise is worth money, right?
You could, of course, ask them if the low-ball surveyors will be furnishing them with affidavits from all the adjoining landowners to the effect that the fenceline as staked by your crew is where they have always regarded the boundary as being. My guess is that was yet another item left out fo the proposal, along with the contingency of boundary agreements being needed prior to fenceline staking.
Email back "...and if I take 3 hours and they take 4 hours...." LOL!.
Serious.... "The JB Stahl Survey Corporation provide a technical and professional standard to insure that our outcome will stand the test of time."
RADU
Client email - No brainer
If you hire our firm to set the boundary line, and since the fence is the boundary-line monument, your end product from us will be a fence. For one price you are bypassing the fence builders. 😛