Here is my take on being a Solo Surveyor and I fully expect some disagreements.
These are the reasons I came up with for why someone might choose to be a solo surveyor.
1) You are a curmudgeon and find solitude enjoyable and people not so.
2) You do not want the burden of dealing with employees.
3) By virtue of experience and professional registrations you find yourself virtually unemployable for anything other than Department Manager and few of those positions come available.
4) You have no interest in commuting long distances and subjecting yourself to the dictates of others.
5) You are in a market where the fees for surveying services are very low and it does not leave enough meat on the bone to pay someone a decent wage and have anything left over for yourself and profit for the company.
6) Lincoln freed the slaves.
I am 3, 4, 5 & 6.
There are days when I do not like being a solo surveyor! It is hard, damned hard and I am too old to do this shit by myself, but necessity dictates otherwise. I have observed others from around the U.S. and elsewhere sing its praises and I can see where under the right conditions it would be the only way to survey.
For instance, if you are in an area where you can use a 4-wheeler or truck to drive close to where you need to be with no line cutting or long distance hiking that would be great. If you must hump it on foot, any kind of traversing literally sucks a$$ as a solo operator.
If you are in the desert southwest or maybe the Midwest you are in a perfect location for solo work. In those areas you can do most of your work with GPS.
If you are east of the Mississippi where thick woods and vegetation is a constant battle??..well????you better learn to work efficiently. This is especially the case in the southeastern states where you can watch things grow.
The safety factor cannot be minimized. I am on the other side of 50 and the older I get the harder it gets. Heat and humidity takes its toll as does being the go to guy for everything. I do all the drafting, research, proposals and cost estimates, field work.
My wife does the bill collecting, balancing the books and accounting and taxes, deliveries and sometimes on occasion limited research to pull deeds or plats and she has picked up survey supplies and she generally keeps the business side of the business running. She has a degree in accounting so that is her "thing".
You have to do a lot of pre-planning on how to best tackle a job instead of just jumping in and swinging. Being the RLS in the field, ??go-backs? are usually minimized. You can make all the decisions you require for most jobs right then and there.
You do not want every job and I find myself doing the smaller jobs more than the big ones. I find myself being very selective on what kind of jobs I take. I have always followed the motto of charge more and work less. While I will take on the occasional big job I prefer the quick in and out get-er-done type of jobs that are too small for most companies but are right in my wheel house. I take all credit cards and that I find allows me to charge more, which I damned sure do.
However, I still find myself ??losing? to companies with several crews and big time rent and even bigger overhead. How can a solo guy ??lose? to a much larger company? It is because a few of the local surveyors refuse to charge an appropriate fee. Also because they have more mouths to feed they are in a position where they have to feed those mouths so they chop prices.
I charge 50% upfront, with very few exceptions & I use a written contract. I do not release the survey until I have final payment. The only exceptions to these two are with commercial clients but then I get a clear understanding of their payment terms. I do not like getting ripped off and I can say that with 2 surveying companies I have collected every single penny I have ever billed.
The recent recession drove a lot of people out of business and even more of the "apprentice" groups were forced into other lines of work. You are not gonna find rodmen, I-Men, Party Chiefs, drafters or cad-techs as easily as before, those folks are gone. So finding good help will be damned difficult. This will not change unless and until the fees for services rise drastically and we are able to pay our help better. Now I am fully aware that in some parts of the country and in the large urban areas the pay is typically better, but in the outback of Georgia and Alabama that is not the case. Few people want to do this kind of work for the pay available.
I could go on and on.
I'm a 1 (I like people just fine in many contexts, but not when I'm working; I like to focus and not have to manage someone else), 2 and 4.?ÿ Most of my work is repeat business for commercial and institutional entities, so I don't have to hassle with collection headaches much.?ÿ However, one of my best clients has a protracted payment schedule -- 120 days is typical.?ÿ The last job I did for them (earlier this year) was a little over $40k, which made the cash flow situation a little uncomfortable.?ÿ I've only gotten burned once in 25 years, to the tune of $5k.?ÿ I still get pissed off about that one whenever I think about it.
I run the whole show:?ÿ field and office, from buying paper clips to billing.?ÿ But I don't have to deal with humidity (just heat), or snow, or crazy vegetation (most of the time).?ÿ At 65, I'm definitely slowing down some, but I still enjoy what I do.?ÿ My wife would like me to retire (we can afford it), but I'm simply not ready to hang up my boots yet.
?ÿ
I concur with nearly every single word that both of you have written. ?ÿ48.
Out of curiosity, have you ever talked with the owner(s) of the other local companies that are low balling??ÿ I had lunch with a?ÿclose friend not long ago, he runs semi-solo and focuses primarily on construction work.?ÿ He was saying how he was constantly getting beat on construction staking bids by this one specific company (also a semi-solo guy).?ÿ He finally got a look at the actual numbers and called the guy to let him know how much he was leaving on the table.?ÿ I feel like sometimes people?ÿhave their blinders on and get into the routine of "this is how much I charged a year ago, this year I'll add 5% and I'm good" and don't take a step back to see what the rest of the market is actually doing.?ÿ That day my friend taught me that sometimes?ÿwe have to effect the change we want rather than waiting for it to happen on its own.?ÿ ?ÿ
I don't consider myself "solo" because SWMBO handles books, routine client contact, and assists in the field.?ÿ?ÿ That allows me to concentrate on production, research, and clients with particular issues to deal with.?ÿ It's worked out pretty well for us.?ÿ?ÿ We did buy a Land Surveying business a few towns away but the only employee was a part time receptionist, office manager.?ÿ We did keep her on so we cold maintain some presence in the Town 🙂
Oh yeah, and I sub out some drafting to a guy that used to work for me years ago and I sub out most of my concrete bound setting to a technician from another company. LOL, he's going to using most of them anyway, and I set all the points for control.
My question is for those solo operators, Do you handle all the paperwork, or does your SO chip in and help out?
Don
Cameron,
I agree with this as far as other companies. We recently had a company we do a lot of work for tell us that a bid on a large road job by another firm was 1/3 my number and also another firm was close to my numbers. Luckily the group decided to stick with us and the other number was so low they wanted nothing to do with them.
I was hoping that since NJ went to a degree requirement in order to get licensed, you would see salaries elevate. But there are people I know that came out of the degree program that are charging very low rates to get things like flood certificates. I have called some of them to let them know we are often 3-4 times higher for our rate than they are. I get that some shops are small, but you are still a professional who should charge professional rates or you minimize the product and your own value. Just got beat up on a fairly large topo that needs to be an ALTA survey also. Client called to tell me we are almost double the other numbers they usually get - I told them to have them do it then. Interestingly they still chose us, I wonder how many times people just drop their rates instead.
?ÿ
Out of curiosity, have you ever talked with the owner(s) of the other local companies that are low balling??ÿ I had lunch with a?ÿclose friend not long ago, he runs semi-solo and focuses primarily on construction work.?ÿ He was saying how he was constantly getting beat on construction staking bids by this one specific company (also a semi-solo guy).?ÿ He finally got a look at the actual numbers and called the guy to let him know how much he was leaving on the table.?ÿ I feel like sometimes people?ÿhave their blinders on and get into the routine of "this is how much I charged a year ago, this year I'll add 5% and I'm good" and don't take a step back to see what the rest of the market is actually doing.?ÿ That day my friend taught me that sometimes?ÿwe have to effect the change we want rather than waiting for it to happen on its own.?ÿ ?ÿ
Yeah that has been attempted with no success.
None of them have anyone to pass the business onto and all the business are small shops and have been allowed to atrophy so there is no real value in them other than records. Now they have truck loads of records but still that is it.
It only takes one company offering up discount prices to screw up a local market but when you have a couple it is tough. You should be thankful if you live and work in an area where your peers are not forcing the market into a race to the bottom.
So yeah, a few people have tried to stage an intervention but at this point we are just waiting for them to push up daisies, so we can begin raising the fees. But that could be 10 years away as none of them have any real chance at retirement because of their damned cut-rate discount pricing. And in another 12 years I will throw in the towel and say good riddance to this so-called profession.
There is at least 1 other local surveyor on this forum who knows of what I speak so maybe he can step in and comment. And I think there at least 2 others who are lurkers so here is your invite.?ÿ
While alerting others to what the market COULD bear may be helpful, be careful to avoid charges of price fixing.?ÿ A state society once found itself in trouble for discussing prices.
While alerting others to what the market COULD bear may be helpful, be careful to avoid charges of price fixing.?ÿ A state society once found itself in trouble for discussing prices.
You can discuss what your charge with other Surveyors in the area, you just cannot say none of us here will charge less than X amount for this type of Survey.
Most professions if they find out they are charging $100.00 less than someone else they will raise their rates, however it seems with Surveying?ÿ its the opposite, more like oh on I have been overcharging let me lower my rates.?ÿ ?ÿ?ÿ
couple years ago i bid a certain job at 18,000.?ÿ that was a reasonable fee.?ÿ didn't get the survey, even though the company got the engineering.?ÿ old acquaintance got the survey.?ÿ of course i was told that he was doing it for 3500 bucks.?ÿ i called him just to let him know how far apart we were.?ÿ probably wouldn't have cared so much save the number of times i've heard him complain over the years about how hard it is to keep the doors open.
While alerting others to what the market COULD bear may be helpful, be careful to avoid charges of price fixing.?ÿ A state society once found itself in trouble for discussing prices.
Oh for heavens sake, that event has been used against us for decades now and surveyors have been scared sh!tless. Talking about prices are not a problem, conspiring to fix prices are a problem. So this scare tactic boogeyman has hurt surveyors for a Long time.
As a result surveyors have been beaten up by other surveyors and made to feel like someone is gonna break down the doors and throw us in a dungeon if anyone dares mention prices to another surveyor.
?ÿ
Price fixing.
Fix broke things.
Surveyors are broke.
Fix your prices.
We are good at complex math.
But simple math befuddles us...
Price fixing.
Fix broke things.
Surveyors are broke.
Fix your prices.
We are good at complex math.
But simple math befuddles us...
Well therein lies the whole crux of what our profession has to decide. Are we legitimate? If we are legitimate, then our prices, behavior and communication with our clients/potential clients need to be such that they have confidence in our own ability and we won't be pushed around or browbeaten into cheaper prices. Which, in this area is the norm.
There is a huge shortage of good help and really we have to reach out and start the process of infusing new blood into the profession or we need to go to the state representatives and explain the fact that either we continue to get strong support for land surveying, or they can delegate what we do to coordinate monkeys (those GIS professionals that think GIS will replace the legal practice of boundary surveying) or to the attorneys (which we know good and well will charge a healthy fee).?ÿ
?ÿ
It really is that simple and until we pay decent wages (albeit somewhat dependant on the cost of living for your locale) we won't attract decent talent.
The whole reason I even started this endeavor was that of Number 4.
So finding good help will be damned difficult. This will not change unless and until the fees for services rise drastically and we are able to pay our help better.
Preach on!!!!!
It is still amazing to me that companies in my area are offering pay rates that are almost the same as they were 25 years ago.?ÿ I know several people who are paying their employees now, what I was making back then.?ÿ Then they complain when they either can't find someone to work for them or find out that their hired help is not very concerned about the company's bottom line.
I just spent a few years teaching surveying at the local university a while back and saw many talented, good young people moving out of the area.?ÿ Even with higher cost of living, they were being offered MUCH better opportunities outside of the area.
