Mark, I'm not sure what you are attempting to explain but that business practice is terrible. I mean, yeah the 24 hour long term contract is great but the 16 hours of prostitution is horrible and that kind of stuff happens all too frequently. I'm am not advocating gouging folks but I am strongly suggesting that we charge all the market can bear and then some if possible. And don't short change yourself either. If it truly takes 6 hours then by golly charge 6 hours.
I hear all kinds of stories from our peers that go like this, "I won't even start up my truck for less than $750" and I gotta tell ya that is pure BS.
I agree with Just A. We are not a charity, we work for profit and not just to keep the doors...open. Shoot for 30%+ profit or more, none of this working for wages BS.
Holy Chit I agree with all you have written in this entire thread. Praise be to someone or something.
30% is a good benchmark but who are we kidding, many here are still working for wages and refuse to understand the concept of a for profit business actually making a profit as that would be a sin.
Thank you. I has my toes in the other boat at the start of my career until I was taught the business side of things. It's never too late!
Sometimes there are good business reasons for doing jobs at or near cost. Sure, in my imaginary scenario Justa Surveyor would prefer to do those extra 16 hours at a high rate. But he must do those 16 hours at all costs so that he can retain staff for the 24 profitable hours.?ÿ If he can only recover costs on the 16 he is still ahead, still profitable overall, still operating a viable business model.?ÿ
This isn't just a pipe dream. I've been involved with a survey firm that did regular work for the local Port Authority and for the State DOT.?ÿ Those jobs were very profitable and kept the doors open and the trucks, equipment, and software fresh and new.?ÿ Bennies and pay good. But there was a staff to support, and sometimes there was a lull between work orders. At those times we snapped up short term lot jobs just to keep the staff occupied and recover costs for those interregnums.?ÿ?ÿ
I??m of the opinion that if you are more than about 3 weeks behind, you probably aren??t charging enough.
Sarcasm does not become you.
I have never said that there are not some times, occassionally, where you can do a job at cost. But all of these blasted scenarios that are being presented are not the occasional at cost job but a standard operating procedure.
If you believe that operating 16 hours a week at cost, (working for wages) as a business policy is justified then you are the damned problem.
If you believe that operating 16 hours a week at cost, (working for wages) as a business policy is justified then you are the damned problem.?ÿ
I'll accept that as your concession speech.?ÿ
Brother you and I are in agreement. 3 weeks is a sweet spot and anything more is nearly unmanageable and if you have consistently more than 3 weeks you should go up a little on all your fees.
I know some who claim to be 90 days out.
I’m regrettably 4 weeks out right now because I had 3 topos that I priced at the “I don’t want it price” come in.
I can live with that though.
Apparently your "I don't want to do it price" needs to be reconsidered.
I hear you Brother.
I’m not too concerned at the moment about the low ballers.
I’m more befuddled.
I had a recent request for a 10 acre boundary and topo from a long time client. We had recently completed the boundary and the land was open pasture with few utilities that needed tracing.
I gave a very fair bid but the firm that got it came in at $2500.
Seriously?
Now my long time client thinks I’m trying to stiff him...oh well.
Mostly this kind of crap is coming from the local engineering firms who don’t really value the surveying side.
Unfortunately it is reflected in the end result.
I am finding more and more shoddy work where pins that should be found are not...and pins to be set are not.
These are fairly young surveyors too...doesn’t bode well for our profession.
I have told some very insistent clients that expected me to stop everything and get to their place today or tomorrow that I would do it for $1 million per day.
AS they slowly started to meltdown get rude and offensive, I had to continue and let them know that once the word got out that I was neglecting my current promise with any project on my list of things to do, that my future chance of getting any other projects around here would dry up.
I don't have set fees per day or an hour or by the week or month.
My fees are set according to the expectations of the highest amount I can charge and make a profit and leave after making a solid survey for that property.
Having to deal with so many bottom feeder/low baller competitors in my area, I am always keen to the negative effect low pricing has on the profession as a whole. Of the states I am licensed in most of my work is in Florida, so I'll work with that.
The problem with bottom feeder/low ballers has been endemic in this profession since about the late early 70's as technology began to transform the way we work. In Florida, up until about the year 2000 it seemed like every other week a new survey business was opening up down the street. For several years 250 or more new licenses per year were granted. Then, around the start of the new millennium Florida brought down the curtain on non-degreed license seekers.
Many, myself included, thought that would herald the beginning of decent compensation rates for professional surveying products. The thinking was that there would be fewer licenses granted, and as the pool of licensed surveyors shrunk those that were licensed would get the clue that they could start charging more. By 2019, if surveyors have indeed started to charge more ?? other than for reasons that the economy is doing better -- I am unaware of it.
In 2017 Florida saw a total increase of 51 in the number of licensed surveyors. For 2018 that number was 56. Florida now has a total of 2,627 licensed surveyors, of which only 187 are 40 years or younger. However, of that 2,627 total, 1,273, or nearly half (48.5%), are 60 years of age or older. And, that number actually increased from last year when 'only' 1,195 were 60 or older.
I have changed my thinking on when/where the end of depressingly low compensation rates will come. Four years ago a competitor (he's in that 60 years and older group) sent out emails to all realtors, builders. banks, title companies, etc., advertising a rate of $375 for all lot surveys. I can also count at least 10 other competitors in surrounding towns that boast similar rates. These guys stay very busy. However, none of them has a nice office, nor do they use the latest equipment or drive new vehicles...there is simply not enough income for that. I do not know, but I doubt any of them have decent compensation packages for their employees. Also, these guys will likely never retire or leave the profession until their health is gone or they just die.
When Florida began licensing only degreed candidates, my thinking was that the impact these new kids would have on the profession would be an upward push in incomes for the profession in general. In the past I had seen guys go from working as an employee, getting $15 an hour, to where they got licensed and started out on their own charging $45 an hour. This probably seemed like big money, but their low rates damaged the profession in many ways. I thought/hoped the new kids would say,"To heck with that", and the profession overall would start to rise in esteem and prestige. Hold on though.
In Florida, what I see happening with those 1,273 aged 60 and above, is that those who never charged enough will keep working. They will have to. They have no other choice. And, it will be this group, who because of their own bottom feeder pricing policies have guaranteed their inability to escape, that will continue to depress compensation rates for the small sole proprietorship professionals in general. It will not end until they die off. Maybe then, the small shop can begin to experience a living wage and be able to look forward to decent offices, latest equipment, new vehicles and retirement heaven. Might even begin to live life like realtor brokers, CPA shop owners, engineer sole proprietor, small office attorney...you know, like any other professional shop owner just dreaming the dream.
Very good.
I have had the same conversations with friends. We are afflicted with a HUGE number of over 65 surveyors that refuse to raise their rates that they are killing the profession. Understand what I just wrote, they refuse to raise their prices. I hate the way that sounds but damn I have lived with the consequences of surveyors offering up cut rate prices for decades.
In my little corner of the state there are about a half dozen surveyors who have been in business for 40 to 50 years and their prices are stuck in 1990. They have been here for so long that they have most of the surrounding areas surveyed and they discount price everything. They have old ragged out vehicles, old equipment, software and computers. They pay their help crap for wages and no benefits.
This has been ignored for far too long and it is not helped when there are surveyors who serve as apologists for this behavior. Locally these low price leaders are decent surveyors but they are doing great harm to this profession.?ÿ
As you stated they cannot afford to retire and will keep surveying till they are not able but it will not get better until they are gone. Most all of them should have sold 15 to 20 years ago but once again their poor business acumen prevented them from doing so.
I will retire before they do and it cannot come soon enough.
I would like to know more about your pricing method.
As for belligerent or demanding clients I just don't react well and if they behave that way I always triple my prices.
Florida went to the degree requirement around 1990, with a 10 year grandfather period. At the time I believed by 2005 or certainly 2010, we would start to see real improvements in rates. However, at that time (1990) I never considered there would be a thousand or so who would keep working, because they had to, into their 70's, 80's or even 90's, till they died. But, it appears that will be the case. Of course by the time they die and move out of the way, the next generation will be getting up there in age, into their 60's, so they'll likely have to work till they die too. Because, in order to retire in comfort by age 60 or 65 you have to have things going your way from early in your career.
I hate to make things so negative for the sole proprietor (I presume that's what most of this conversation is about), but I truly believe the large numbers of low ballers in this profession have rendered a huge disservice to their fellow travelers. I still hear talk of realtors quoting $300 dollars for home mortgage surveys. There has to be a reason they say/think/believe numbers like that. That would be like me/you telling someone they ought to be able to go buy a new truck for $10,000. But, everybody knows that isn't the case so you never hear that.
I realize we can only charge whatever the market will bear, but if things are ever going to improve it will have to have a beginning. When will that be? Likely, it won't happen until the available numbers of survey business goes way down. And, with Florida licensing only 50 (and, a number of these are out of state and will never work here) a year the numbers are set to go way down as there are presently only 187 licensed surveyors aged 40 or younger, and with only 1167 between the ages of 40 to 60. This, in a state with a population well above 20,000,000.
Why do I think the rates will rise as the number of available surveyors go down? Past experience. Consider, for example:
When I was growing up, Ocala and Gainesville (Florida) together only had 4 survey businesses. One of them (Moorhead) even ran as many as 25 three or four man crews. Back then land owners knew a survey cost a lot of money. In 1969, my uncle hired M. K. Flowers (Gainesville based company) to survey out an 80 acre patch of woods he (my uncle) had sold for $150 per acre. The cost of the survey was $3,400. That same property was surveyed within the last 10 years for around a third of the 1969 price.
Today, there are around 70 survey businesses in the Ocala-Gainesville area. Yes, the population has gone up a lot, but just think, likely every one of those 70 businesses are using GNSS and any 2 man crew today can turn out more work in 1 day than 2 or 3 crews could have turned out in the 60's (with no EDM). Point being, when the numbers of surveyors are small they can charge a decent rate. And, they can pay a decent salary. As a kid in college working part time for Moorhead I was making better money than any of my friends who were working various other full time types of jobs. I wonder how many part time survey jobs you could say that about today?
I have met the enemy, and he is me... seem to remember seeing that in a cartoon. We run three man crews for the most part, it just depends on what kind of work you do. Most people who aren't from here wouldn't have a clue.
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