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.
Hmpft.....I am reminded of that movie The Untouchables, with Sean Connery and the wise Greek Philosopher Kevin Costner. There was a scene that had Robert DeNiro playing Al Capone and he was walking around a table with a baseball bat lecturing his Capo's and all of a sudden he stops and beat the brains out of the nearest "Yes Man" just to get everyone's attention.
I often think that is what it is gonna take to get our peers to change their pricing structure. I know I would not recommend anyone become a surveyor simply because it is hard bloody work that pays crap.?ÿ
The great & wise Greek Philosopher Kevin Costner once said, Pay them and they will come. As a "profession" (notice the quotes) all we have to do is step up and charge more and pay our people more and most of the problems will fix themselves. Nobody is gonna want to do what we do for the same money that they can make pushing shopping carts at Wal-Mart or working at Auto-Zone. And I know it is gonna be tempting for someone to say, "But they can get licensed and have their own business".?ÿ Yeah sure, but you have to get them in the door and surveying in the field is a lot of hard work, doing grunt work, in the heat and cold and briars and vines and snakes, oh my.?ÿ An inexperienced guy around here might be paid $10-$12 an hour, just a grunt but still he can make that elsewhere for a lot less hard work. Now if that same guy shows promise and is able to grasp some of the basics he might move up to $15 but that is about it and he would probably max out as an I-Man button monkey since he has limited experience and I have fairly high requirements for a Party Chief.
All I am saying is that if we are gonna attract and be able to hire good people we have to pay them more than they would be able to make elsewhere doing much less strenuous and physically demanding work. If someone can make the same money at a liquor store that a surveyor pays for entry level work.....well that is a no brainer. Show me the bourbon at least they wont have chigger bites on the nether regions itching for days on end.
And don't even get me started on benefits or the lack thereof that is a subject that could take days of typing and I don't have the patience.
It seems the discussion has evolved into re the low fee problems, but on the subject of solo...
Basically a solo here, although in a round a bout way sort of. Raised 2 sons who have become licensed, although 1 is a practicing politician. The other employees several crews and subs them out mostly to me for my overflow work, however, I have zero employees and can go and come as I please as he (PSM son) takes care of things. So, I get to chose my own projects and work as much as I wish.
So far as I am concerned I have the best situation a professional could possibly have. The freedom of being self employed can not be beat. My friends and extended family spent their entire working lives dreaming of the day they could retire. Not me. I have no desire to ever retire, and I can think of no other profession which could have given me the freedom and challenge this profession has to offer.
My engineering friends have always been jealous, telling me that surveyors are lucky because they are the ones who have convenient excuses to buy expensive toys, and then get to play with them (ie robots, GNSS, drones, etc., before that it was EDMs, total stations/electronic data collectors). Another pleasure that few careers offer is the ability to work indoors and out of doors; something lots of men wish they could do.
I could on. But, you get the picture. My advice for someone starting out is you should give strong consideration to being own your own, regardless whether that means solo. However, I think being a solo operator is the absolute best, especially with the kind of equipment that is available now days. Another suggestion is that if you have children, get them involved, grand kids too. I used to take my oldest grand son out with me, teaching him the ropes, now that he has his law license he will be sharing an office in my building in a couple months. And, another grand son will be graduating with a degree in Geomatics in 2 years. He will likely be the biggest beneficiary of my records one day. But, in the mean time there is plenty of work to go around.
So, if you stay in one place and keep pecking away at it, your records will grow and the rewards will start to pay off. Now, with several hundred PLSS section breakdowns most of which are in State Plane Coordinate position, and with 10,000 private boundary survey maps, I have multiple opportunities each week to make an extra sum due to all the resurveys I get. Also, since I have always taken the position that a survey has a certain value, and that the value is no less whether Joey Bag o'Donuts gets the job or I get the job, the fact that I have already surveyed it and have the map is good for me. So, when a call comes in I price the work according to what I think the survey is worth. Always have. No reason to stop now.
If you are in the right location, and have confidence in your ability to make correct decisions why should you not choose solo? I wouldn't go back and do it any different even if I could.
I think there's an important distinction between "solo operation" and "solo operator".?ÿ To me a solo operation is "have gun will travel".?ÿ It's just the PLS and that's it.?ÿ?ÿIf your SO helps with the books or billing I don't think that makes you not solo.?ÿ It's more of a business model than anything.?ÿ I see pluses and minuses to it.?ÿ Pluses are pretty easy to define; freedom with your schedule, freedom to choose the kinds of work you do, freedom in the Clients you accept,?ÿect.?ÿ The minuses can be a little more stressful depending on the type of work you do I suppose.?ÿ If it's just you there isn't anyone else to step in and take a project to the finish line if something happens midstream like an extended illness or injury.?ÿ If you are the type of person that likes to have a lot of work ongoing it makes vacations difficult to schedule and stressful when you go.
I worked my way up through a large multi-discipline multi-state firm.?ÿ I saw the good and the bad of that type of operation both in good times and in bad?ÿtimes.?ÿ Now?ÿthat I've started my own thing?ÿI'm not sure if I could ever go back.?ÿ I'm not a solo operation although it did start out that way 6 years ago.?ÿ I think what I wanted was the horsepower to be able to take on the larger scale longer lasting projects but avoid the politics, infighting and overhead inherent to the type of place I cut my teeth at.?ÿ I learned a lot of what not?ÿto do while moving up from an?ÿI-man to running the Survey division in 14 years.?ÿ
I really like the setup I have now.?ÿ I have 3 full time?ÿPC's in their 30's that are all working towards licensure and another?ÿyounger PLS that helps manage projects?ÿbut still gets out to the field on a regular basis.?ÿ The PC's mostly go as solo operators but it depends on the job/task.?ÿ?ÿSometimes I combine 2 of them or all of them if a particular job calls for it because of safety concerns or deadline requirements demand it.?ÿ I also have a recent Civil Engineering grad that?ÿI'm training up.?ÿ He bounces between all 3 depending on the needs of the job gaining valuable experience from the various job types and individual PC's.?ÿ I did the same thing with another FNG engineering grad a year ago although once he got the lay of the land he gravitated?ÿto our Engineering group.?ÿ I can't win them all over but I'll settle for an Engineer that knows how things actually get done if I can't keep?ÿthem for my own selfish intentions, plus I have a spare guy I can send out if someone calls in sick or the sh*t really hits the fan.?ÿ I still take my computer on vacations but I worry a lot less and I turn things off at 5:00 at lot more often than I did before.?ÿ Sure employees can be a challenge from time to time and HR hassles like health insurance benefits can feel like they're sucking the life out of you but overall?ÿI'm happy with it and?ÿlike I said, I don't think I could go back.?ÿ?ÿ
2 PLS's, 3 aspiring PLS's,?ÿ1 FNG with potential and 1 utility guy?ÿcan get a lot of work done.?ÿ I?ÿhaven't run into a project yet that scared me away because of size and the multiple?ÿcrews allows everyone to be more flexible with vacations and kid commitments.?ÿ I think I could go with 1 more PC the way I'm staffed?ÿcurrently and?ÿI'll hire any newcomer that wants to learn the profession.?ÿ I watch the Craigslist "resume" section on a semi regular basis and reach out to anyone with some kind of construction/math background looking for an opportunity or to make a change, I have also made connections with the local High School career counselors who are on the lookout for me for youths that aren't able to get into college for one reason or another but that are driven and motivated.?ÿ Nothing has come from either of those endeavors yet but I have hope.?ÿ
I'm not going to sit here and try to say my way is the best way.?ÿ There isn't?ÿa "right" answer to this question and Surveying seems to be one of the few professions that?ÿallows for?ÿthe entire spectrum of setups.?ÿ
....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.
....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
Lot's of good observations.
I don't know enough about your market to know what (if there is) a valid strategy for solving the problem. I believe that the market economy will solve these problems in the long run but none of us (since the average age is what it is) have the time to wait it out.?ÿ
It's a common business strategy to obtain critical mass by buying the competition. If you had sufficient capital at your disposal (at current market rates): Is there a viable business plan scenario where you buy the lowball competitors businesses?
Are the competing owners looking for a reason to retire?
Would you even want to own those businesses (do they have lots of hidden potential liability)??ÿ
Do you want to grow your business and have employees (you have a huge business advantage here since your wife is an accountant)?
Even if you bought those businesses, would eliminating the low ball prices raise revenue enough to cover the cost and effort or would other low ballers just drive for another 30 minutes to snag work in your now more profitable work area?
You probably couldn't be as selective in your work as you'd have to have greater cash flow to keep afloat.?ÿ
Even if you could pay well, could you even find the trustworthy employees you need to get work done properly and at a reasonable pace?
Our business strategy has been to focus on working for civil firms that don't have survey departments. Our firm is strictly geomatics - we promise our clients that we won't do engineering so we'll never be competing on that front. We do little private sector work and almost zero residential work. We just passed the 10 year mark so the concept has demonstrated validity in our market.?ÿ It may not work in yours.?ÿ
Like others - we have found that the better clients (reasonable expectations on schedule, deliverable content, & cost) tend to be knowledgeable enough to know that they can make money by receiving appropriately scoped and well organized geomatics services/products. These clients understand that the overall cost of the basemapping/platting/etc. includes the costs that are NOT in your price.?ÿ The cost for them to work with the geomatics/survey deliverables (is the data organized according to their standards, on schedule, complete, well organized, etc.). The cost for delays for services/products, the cost for errors, and the cost for ommitted/missed data can easily exceed the cost of the survey services many times over. When you have a client that understands the impact of these problems - they aren't real price sensitive - they are cost sensitive and quality sensitive - and they recognize that at the end of the day - well organized and reliable geomatics services cost their projects less.?ÿ
There may be other types of clients in your area who are less price sensitive and more cost sensitive. (Others on the board may have good suggestions of the sectors these clients may work in.)
If so, do you know who these potential clients are?
Can you do the work they need?
Can you market your firm as capable and reliable?
Is your market large enough to seek out and establish relationships with clients who are less price sensitive?
Maybe there is no viable business model in your current business environment and locale.?ÿ
On another note: There's a local electrical contractor who has been quite successful having three firms - he's often submitting three bids on a project - that's enough to establish a baseline cost for purchasers (who don't realize he owns all three companies) to be confident that all of those bids are in line with market cost - if there are just a couple of other bids they tend to look like outliers. I don't think he's gouging because he has lots of repeat work and has been thriving for 20+ years - at the very least he's?ÿ providing the buyers with a sense of confidence. Is this price fixing? I'm not sure but I suspect that the three bids are done by a person in each company without collusion - their basic pricing education and concept of profit are just cut from the same cloth. I haven't seen a surveyor do this - the purchasers sense of cost validity is TOTALLY missing from the majority of purchasers when it comes to geomatics/survey services.?ÿ?ÿ
Best of luck to you JAS
The smallest survey should be an ounce of gold, $1216.63 today. Less than that, might as well go wash dishes somewhere, because it's not worth the liability. Unfortunately, that's about twice the local average for a small lot survey, so people hang up pretty fast.?ÿ
$479 is the price point where people say "when can you start?"
I could be working for nothing every day if I wanted; the phone rings off the hook when I advertise. It might make me a better surveyor in terms of practicing my profession instead of washing dishes, and there might be some cash flow, but it wouldn't help the profession in the long run, and it would rapidly incur more liability than I could insure for those prices. People want a bargain. They even say "can you do a little better?" to the $479 price.?ÿ
I came up with an alternative pricing scheme, which was to take the square root of the lot area, multiply x4 to get the perimeter of the virtual square, take the square root of that perimeter, (which I can't recall where I saw, maybe here, I thought it was in Sipes' book but I can't find it there) multiply by the price of a gram of gold ( $39.07 at this moment). Today's price for an acre would be $1129.02 and a quarter acre lot would be $398.60, and an entire section would be $5670.67 ... plus the recording fees.
It's still too much, because the fly-tie bandits can do it cheaper, and no one will know the difference.?ÿ
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......Why a gram of gold? That seems about as arbitrary as saying Ill charge by the average cell phone bill in the US.
......Why a gram of gold? That seems about as arbitrary as saying Ill charge by the average cell phone bill in the US.
You can take a gram of gold and sell it or trade it, with someone's phone its has the value of toilet paper.
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.
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I agree with this.?ÿ Everyone in town knows what the realtor is going to charge, but the idea that we're not allowed to tell others what we charge?
Please.
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.
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As hard as it is for some surveyors to believe, there are still clients out there willing to pay for quality work that is on schedule.
I'm doing a lot of surveys right now for a developer that is sites under an acre.?ÿ When they started all of this, they wanted to hire a local surveyor.?ÿ Well, they got broke from that real quick when the local surveyors were taking more than month or longer to produce a survey than they should have, and when the engineer got the survey, it was too hard to work with.?ÿ The engineer asked them point blank, is it worth saving $1000 or more on the cost of the survey, when it is going to delay the opening a month or more, when your average revenue is $5000 day??ÿ You all know the answer to that.
I like solo surveying. I've been at it for a little more than two years and enjoy the benefits. As others have mentioned it comes with its own troubles. I work 12 hours a day routinely, but I get to pick which 12 I work, so how's that for flexibility. It is tough to take a vacation. Drives Mrs. Billings a bit crazy because she loves travelling. I'm still fairly young and fairly new to the solo experience. I may get tired of it at some point, but for now it's really good... and profitable.
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Regarding pricing mentioned above. I have not found that area is the prime concern when pricing a survey, the site conditions and the records (plat or descriptions) are. I can survey five acres about as fast as one acre in most cases, all things being equal. But what will slow me down is surveying from a poor description or plat or conflicting descriptions and plats. A lot of that can be identified before going into the field and if I can, I'm going to try and do a little bit of preliminary research and identify it before I even take the job. Being well prepared makes a huge difference and is the ace in the hole for an experienced solo operator over a traditional surveyor/crew arrangement. Hopefully, just like a well executed strategy game, I have my steps all planned out before I hit the ground on what I need to tie in and generally where I need to look for it.
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Regarding safety, I am careful not to do stupid things. I take my time when crawling down and up a creek bank or cutting brush. I take breaks as often as I feel like it. I don't typically charge hourly so I can sit in the shade if I want to or take business calls when needed. Most of my charges are lump sum.
Oh, and I do take lot surveys from time to time, but I'm not cheap, I'm just fast. Having said that, it's nice to fill in a week to keep a little cash flow coming, but I don't think you'll find a very profitable business model in lot surveys unless you are doing poor quality work.
I've been solo since about 2004.?ÿ I have no problems with employees except for the fact of keeping them employed.?ÿ I'd have to really change my business model.?ÿ Right now I just have to worry about me.?ÿ With employees you have to worry about them and their families.?ÿ I'd have to start chasing work.?ÿ I don't know, it would be a big gamble.?ÿ Might be too late for that as I'm retirement age, don't know if I want to throw the dice.?ÿ I'll find out this winter though.?ÿ We'll see what happens.
What really heats me up is why the damn cheapscate crooked Real Estate Agent get a percentace of the selling price and bitches about the price of a survey. The only thing that scares me about death is being in hell with all the Realtors.?ÿ ??ÿ
@just-a-surveyor Seems like if the rest of you kept your fees where they should be, then the low-ballers would eventually get more work than they could handle, and would force clients to look elsewhere to get the job done.
@shawn-billings Best thing I like about Solo is I always win the arguments. 🙂
