Help Guys Please, Price of installing.

[kingsuv]

I've been in enough cars to spot most hack jobs. And in all reality, to my standards, all cars that come to me are hackjobs. Anything added is redo by me reguardless if it was part of the job at task.

If you are good, you check out as much as you can see before you quote the job. You should know damn well that if the underside of the dash is a rats nest of wires and zip ties, that pulling the deck to run RCA's will be more than a plug and play. I know damn well, that no matter who installed a deck, that if I have to pull it to grab remote wire or add rca's that I will have to rewire the deck to MY standards. Which takes about 2 hours for me to properly redo.

Nothing worse than doing a whole install on a car minus the deck, to have the customer come back a week later because his deck stopped working. Even though you didn't install the deck, you were the last to touch it, making YOU on the hook to make it right. Besides, Why would you let the hack of others open the door of your work to fail?

[Keith77]

of course there is some risk in charging a flat rate. Actually making money at it is the art of accurately quoting a job. If you can't foresee issues that come up in a build before you dig into it, then maybe you need to NOT charge like a pro until you can.

It's in no way fair to tell someone you can put together a whole system in 8 hours and then come back later saying it took the whole week so now they need to pay more. How do you justify something twice as long in hours then you quoted?

My blanket statement is this: If YOU can not build as good OR better than all the other shops in your town, then YOU have no business charging people for your time. Period.

How does one go about seeing that which has not been seen? Can you see a hacked up radio harness from outside the car?

I think you mean to say that you should have enough experience to be prepared for common issues. That's true and, it's good advise. But that is not knowing, as you said, EXACTLY what the issues will be. For one to be exact, he would have to know how many problems the vehicle has and what those problems are before ever starting to work on it.

Maybe you can read chicken entrails or something to find those things out but I have, for ~25 years in electronics, been continuously learning and finding new and different issues on most of the work I do whether it be in car audio, home audio or any other construction related endeavor.

Im with King on this. You have to charge by the job. I do it with my business in automotive repair. If I need to replace exhaust manifold gasket and the book time is 3hrs I charge 3hrs, cause that's what it should take. Now with that being said, while im working on the car and lets say a exhaust bolt breaks in the head and its something I have to drill and tap to repair I then call the customer and tell what the issue its and that there will be added time cause that is not part of the job. You don't know it until it happens but you have your base price to start with. Ok now I also pay the guy working on the truck 3hrs (without broken bolt) and for what ever reason it takes him all day then that's his problem cause I pay him flat rate. That's when being good at what you do comes into play.

[kingsuv]

I'll give you another couple examples.

Say you build a simple box for a kid for his trunk. Come to find out after the fact that it doesn't fit through the opening. (which we have all done at least once) So you either have to rebuild it to fit, or build it in the trunk. Are you going to charge the extra time it took to redo it correctly? Should a customer pay for someone elses fuck up?

How about time management? Say you start on a system that you quoted to take 8 hours to do. Then your GF stops by and wastes about 2 hours of your day. When you get done, you feel like it took 10 hours and want to charge the customer a little more. Should a customer pay for that? Or are you going to clock in and out every time you stop working?

Should a customer be paying by the hour if you are busy texting or posting pics to facebook? A couple of hours fuckoff time might not mean much to you, but an extra couple hours added to a customer's bill might to him.

[bbeljefe]

Guys, I get what you're all saying and I agree with much of it. I too have flat rates that I charge for things like a basic head unit installs, amp installs, et al. And I quote custom work before hand... if I know exactly what is expected of me and if I will be the only one working on the vehicle. On a large build, sometimes the customer wants to run the wiring and wants me to do the final installation and that's fine, I can quote based on that. And on those sorts of jobs, I write an explicit contract outlining what I am and am not responsible for... for my protection and that of my customer. So I get all that.

I'm not arguing with that. I'm arguing with the blanket statement: "First of all, if you don't know EXACTLY how long it will take to build, then DO NOT charge by the hour." As stated by kingsuv.

To begin with, one cannot know exactly how long an install of anything will take. And you've all confirmed that by saying you don't charge extra on quoted work even though it might take longer than you thought. We can have a pretty good idea and we can be pretty damn close almost all of the time but we cannot be EXACT. Moreover, it doesn't matter whether you stop working and call the customer to tell them the job will be more expensive or, you bill the job by the hour because as has been repeatedly stated here... you should know it's gonna be a basket case before you start. Right? And wait, what about the I don't charge extra part? Do you not see the contradictions in those statements?

Either you quote the job and don't charge extra or you quote the job and do charge extra. Or, you quote the job by the hour. And if you know what you're doing and aren't irresponsible or dishonest, you can quote the basket cases by the hour and not charge the customer for when you're fucking off. It's really not terribly complicated to to not charge someone for eating lunch or being distracted by your woman. I mean seriously guys... you can do all this technical work but you can't remember what you did over an 8 hour period? I'm an old man who writes things down on paper but I bet most of you can make notes on your smart phone faster than I can find a pad and pencil...

;-)

But that's not my argument, my argument is with the fact that an individual who may well be one of the best techs out there (I don't know him, do you?) but whom isn't familiar with how to price things is being given inaccurate advice and on top of that, in the form of a condescending demand. I mean the guy came in here asking for advice on how to run his business... side job or not, and he's been met with demands and accusations of not being a good installer, albeit some of them rather poorly veiled.

And I'll repeat... the only argument I have is with the presentation and content of the above quoted advice. I'm well aware of when charging by the hour is the safest for my company and my customer and when it is not and I learned it over a quarter century's worth of pricing too low & losing money, pricing too high & losing work and, pricing just right & making happy customers. I've done it for $50.00 simple amp jobs, $500,000.00 telephone switches and most anything with wires connected to it between. So thanks for all the advice on running a business gentlemen, but you were arguing with a position I didn't take and preaching to the choir.

[kingsuv]

Fact of the matter is, the OP isn't running a business, he is installing for friends and locals. I am assuming that his experience is limited based off his questions posted. With that being said, He should NOT quote work by the hour and set customer expectations when his experience in the work is limited.

I run a business. I can tell you with in a couple bucks on EXACTLY what I need to do a job. I've been at it long enough as a hobbyist as well as shop owner to parts list a car from end to end. I can also tell you how long it takes me to do every section with in a project. I also teach a few guys as we build. So I know that any part of the car can and will take twice as long or longer depending on the complexity of the task.

Do I charge my customers extra because we take more time? Hell no. Should ANYONE who is learning on others cars charge by the hour? Hell no.

I am all about people starting out in the garage building for friends. Its how some of the best builders got their start. But to pass the expense of "learning" to others by charging by the hour is not fair to the customer.

[bbeljefe]

Again, I never made the assertion you're arguing against. And again, you can either be exact, or within a few bucks.

Accuracy is important to me as I assume it is to you. Saying things like exactly with a few bucks is like saying 2+2 is always 4, except when it's 5 or 3.

And one more time, the guy doesn't need to be condescended to, he needs to have things explained to him in a rational, civil manner. If he's going to be dishonest, your yelling isn't going to make him honest.

[CarAudioFab]

[scooter99]

Again, I never made the assertion you're arguing against. And again, you can either be exact, or within a few bucks.

Accuracy is important to me as I assume it is to you. Saying things like exactly with a few bucks is like saying 2+2 is always 4, except when it's 5 or 3.

And one more time, the guy doesn't need to be condescended to, he needs to have things explained to him in a rational, civil manner. If he's going to be dishonest, your yelling isn't going to make him honest.

So basically you're arguing with one of the best installers on this site, as well as anywhere, over your interpretation of a vocabulary word? That's a good reason to derail a thread. Nice work! Way to be technical!

OP, King is one of the best of the best around here. I'd highly advise you listen to what he's said, originally, not all the bs brought on by BB. But that's just my $.02. Good luck with your endeavors!

[genesis]

there's not enough money to make me install something in someone else's car. I will NOT be responsible for any nonsense that should arise. i spent a lot of time in an audio store years back. ive seen customers come in 3 months after an install claiming a blown speaker was the shops install fault.

not worth my time.

[kingsuv]

Hardly close to some of the best installers on here. Hell i wouldn't make top 25 just on SMD. What I can tell you is from MY experience, it is a bad idea for anyone starting out, to price jobs by the hour.

Start only with small jobs. Track your progress on jobs as you do them. Keep your customers expectations from the start. Sometimes not making money but doing the right thing is better in the long run, than to be "that guy" always asking for a little more on the back end.

Nothing condescending about it. The questions the OP asked are basic starting out questions. Not from someone who has been at it long enough to understand how to bid a job.