What would you charge?

[gavin.sibley]

Hello all,

Have been on here for a while so be easy on me! I'm an electrician by trade and started out doing domestics and working my way up. This last year or so I've found my biggest contract (practically full time). Is on tanker ships carrying oil, I went on as an electrician but now do all the maintenance and installation work on electrics, panels, motors, pumps, boilers, neumatics and pretty much everything else you would find on board.

What hourly rate would you be charging for this?

With no experience in this field I went in low to try and build experience but now feel I might be too cheap!

I should probably say that I work on them when there in dock and never sail with them, however I do travel around the country meeting the ships in different ports.

They also fall under ATEX classification if that makes a difference to what people would charge as well.

Also, I'm not a one man band I have 7 guys and vans, offices etc so all the overheads to take into consideration as well.

Many thanks

 

[telectrix]

difficult call. first, how much do you pay your guys per hour? say it's £15, then you need to charge the customer £30. as a ball park figure.

 

[gavin.sibley]

Hi telectrix,

Many thanks for your reply, to be honest what you've just said is exactly what I pay and charge, it just makes me doubt myself when I occasionally have to call in the manufacturers of certain equipment on these ships who charge stupid money for the same stuff I work on every day.


For example I am meeting the engineer of one of these manufacturers on site tomorrow to look at a fault on an industrial boiler and they are charging me £120 an hour with a minimum 8 hour charge!! And they wanted paying upfront!!!

 

[telectrix]

OK, so the market will stand a lot more than i suggested. whack your rates up to £60/hour with a min> of 4 hours. anything over 4 hours to be charged as a full day.

 

[Michael Hopwood]

I used to be a one man band until I started doing local authority work but up to 2 years ago on domestic work I would be charging an average of £23 per hour but many charge more than that.

 

[netblindpaul]

Well, doing industrial machinery, plc, cnc, etc. the market will easily stand £45/hr base rate, with enhanced rates out of hours and weekends etc. & more.

 

[SteveG]

When I first started on my own - many years ago, I had no clue what to charge. I knew what my company I had just left charged and wanted to undercut them but I had no idea where to set the bar.
Innocently, I asked a self employed plumber how he decided what to charge.
He said 'What I think I can get away with' That has stood me in good stead over the years.
Work-rates depend on many things. From complexity of the job to how much work they are regularly going to give you.
If you get 20 or more hours a week then your rate can come down to your bottom line.
If it's a one off or technical job then you can charge more and in blocks of 4 hours. (or minimum charge)
But it is always a judgement call and always let them know your rates before you begin
It's better that way than them getting an invoice and complaining to you and anyone else they meet.
That does you no good.

Going in cheap to get the work has pitfalls as you have already experienced and then putting up the rate later is a no no. We all want maximum value but we want to keep the customer too.

My accountant gave me a mathematical formula to work out my rate - ie overheads, holiday and sick pay and profit (lol profit) but it was next to useless.

I have to write my varying rates on a whiteboard in my office because I forget them and there is nothing worse than when a potential customer phones you and asks the rate and you get it wrong or correct yourself. I have fallen foul of that, charging too little too often.

You have to suck it up and do better at the next chance.

Here's one for a laugh: I was kicking my heels one day when the phone rang. I hoped it was a job.
A very camp voice asked me how much I would charge for fixing an automatic bed in a mud wrapping salon.
(eh) I told him my rate (which he gulped at) but also told him 'no fix - no fee' (a sweetener always helps) and he asked me to pop down.
I had no clue whether I could fix it or not but I would know within 1/2 an hour, so not a lot lost.

I had never been in one of these places before.........it was a different world. 50 grand and above cars parked outside. Ladies that lunch having their nails done and stout women bathing in hot mud and then being wrapped in foil. The automatic bed was in a private room right next to where they paid. I could hear the prices they charged every-time someone went to the till. (I never heard one under £300)

This bed had a remote control and could be made to move into any position. It didn't work at all and I very quickly ascertained that the power supply was blown. (probably a foil wrapped fatty had strained it lol) It was no ordinary power supply - it had about 10 sockets on it for various things to plug into.

The owner continued to ask me how much it would be as if I would be taking his life savings.

I was ready to do one.

I told him £80 plus the price of a new power supply - 'how much are they?' I don't know.

Back in my office I had to phone Germany to get a price and it was £120 + postage and payment up front.

I told Jason (not his real name but it fits) that it would be £230 and I needed payment up front.

He went crackers, told me I was a rip-off merchant and would be reporting me to the trading standards.
I had actually tried to repair the supply but the electronics were tropicalised and covered in resin.
I broke the price down for him and he said he shouldn't pay for my phone calls and exorbitant mark up etc.

He flatly refused to pay anything and slammed the phone down.

Two days later, he phoned again demanding the power supply back. He had been in touch with another company that could supply him one for £180 but they needed to know the model number.
I told him that it was destroyed and gone in the skip. I told him he still had to pay the bill for my labour and for diagnosing the fault. He then said I should wait for a summons from the county court for theft and misrepresentation. ???
That was it.. I filed at the county court. £200 for the file and £200 when it goes to court.

He was found guilty (but never turned up) and charged £800 - my bill plus expenses and court costs.
He now had a CCJ against his name but he paid. (the bailiffs would have turned up lol)
So every lady that goes there for their bum hole bleaching will be told what a complete W***** I am.