Please share your opinion on price/time to complete this job

In my industry, Various Business Management positions, I often had a contract were i could not approach any existing customers for 6 mths, and in 1 contract a year after contract/employment finished.
 
DM7 said:
In the past year or so I have had to deal with so many scammers and liers trying to rob me/my friends. One American guy robbed some of my friends of around £70,000, my old landlord robbed my belongings (long story), a takeaway owner tried to steal my tools, another guy had me pay for his plane ticket as a temporary "one day loan" when he got in a difficult situation - but never paid me back (long story) ...

If someone is taking the mic, and I see that it is intentional I will usually go down hard on them.. I am trying to control my temper though, even with scammer types.. life is certainly a test!
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It reads as if you leave yourself open to being robbed/scammed/under paid and etc..
 
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DM7 said:
In the past 2 months, I have spent around £1700 on expenses
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If you worked 35 hours a week for 8 weeks = 280 hours.
£1700 over those hours is £6 per hour.

What you charge people is totally different to what you are getting paid.
If you charged £10 per hour, you were only getting £4, the rest goes on those expenses.

If you wanted to get paid £10 per hour, you would have needed to charge at least £16 per hour to cover those expenses.

Minimum wage from next April is £9.50 per hour. If you really want that, there are plenty of jobs which pay that with no expenses at all. Turn up, do whatever the work is and then go home. With paid holidays included.

DM7 said:
So with this agency, I feel they are just mistaken, probably a bit scared to charge landlords (who like to haggle) propper prices for repair jobs as it is, so don't want to go back to a landlord and increase the price (although really they now need to stick to the £200 they agreed with the landlord), but once the agency realizes they made a mistake with me I think they will correct the mistake they made.
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Tell them to pay the amount you originally invoiced (which was actually far too low anyway).

They are not making a mistake - they know exactly what they are doing, which is paying you £200, and billing the landlord £500 plus their £15% charge on top.

For the future, 'customers' who want everything for nothing and haggle the price down to zero are the ones you never want to do any work for, because it will always end up with a pile of problems.
If they start complaining about the price, walk away. They can find someone else to do over.
 
Harry Bloomfield said:
They are taking the p***, all agencies do it. Never good people to work for, the less they pay you, the higher their profit level on every hour you put in. They charge the customer a great deal more than they pay you, but the customer has the advantage of just being able to ring the agency when they need someone.

Have a word directly with the customer, they might be willing to tell you what they are paying per hour for your time via the agency and ask if they might be willing to bypass the agency for the work. Maybe better, if they don't suddenly stop using the agency completely, rather they gradually transfer to employing you direct - a bit at a time.

In my life, I only ever once worked via an agency and that was strictly for a limited term of 3 months - I made that clear at the start, after which I said I would be gone. At the end of the three months, I made it clear I would not be there next week to the customer (a company), unless they offered me a contract within the week. I had my contract within the 7 days.
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I only ever really see the tenants of the houses, as the estate agent is the one dealing with the landlord and I've just been going to the houses to do the repair jobs. I wouldn't ever try and take the client from the agency though, a bit unethical, but I completely agree with you and the others on £10 per hour (or rather £6.90 per hour on the last job lol!) is very much taking the mic, and not acceptable at all.

The agency should treat the workers with the same respect that they treat landlords with.. never would they turn round to a landlord, (or a tenant) and demand more money, or risk offending them by breaking an agreement.

I do know though that the agency staff do get worried about billing the landlords after a repair job, as it isn't the most comfortable part of their job. The other day I was in the office and one of the managers was saying to us that his staff need to be more upfront with the landlords, get agreement on things like price/work before its carried out, and he said something like "I know why my staff dont do it.. its because they are too scared" (or something to that effect)

So I think that's partly the issue, that when they found out that my invoice was for 29 hours, the staff member who was dealing with the landlord was probably a bit scared to negotiate it with the landlord, and instead wanted me to take the loss as Im much friendlier and easier to deal with as they know me on a more personal level lol..

I do get on well with the agency, they are nice people, but they defiantly 100% messed up on this occasion.

We all make mistakes, we're only human.
 
flameport said:
If you worked 35 hours a week for 8 weeks = 280 hours.
£1700 over those hours is £6 per hour.

What you charge people is totally different to what you are getting paid.
If you charged £10 per hour, you were only getting £4, the rest goes on those expenses.

If you wanted to get paid £10 per hour, you would have needed to charge at least £16 per hour to cover those expenses.

Minimum wage from next April is £9.50 per hour. If you really want that, there are plenty of jobs which pay that with no expenses at all. Turn up, do whatever the work is and then go home. With paid holidays included.


Tell them to pay the amount you originally invoiced (which was actually far too low anyway).

They are not making a mistake - they know exactly what they are doing, which is paying you £200, and billing the landlord £500 plus their £15% charge on top.

For the future, 'customers' who want everything for nothing and haggle the price down to zero are the ones you never want to do any work for, because it will always end up with a pile of problems.
If they start complaining about the price, walk away. They can find someone else to do over.
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You're exactly right there. Customers who want to pay ridiculous low amounts should be avoided like the plague. I remember a while back I went into the Dulux decorator center and was chatting with one of the staff members who I often talked to and got on well with. I told him I was raising my prices for decorating work to £100 .... he was like What?? are you serious? he then shouted other to his colleague and told him what I said and they were all laughing. Not in a nasty way, but it was just shocking to them. The Dulux guy explained that even he as a non-professional decorator gets paid £100 per day if he goes and helps someone as a subbie, and that I should be charging way more as a full-time trader. He said I must be in the wrong market - like what your saying, the customers who want to pay pennies are to be avoided.

I also figured that there is no point working for daft wages tiring myself out, whats better is to just charge a decent amount, work fewer hours, and end up with around about the same or more.

I think after that I did maybe only get the job of 3/10 quotes I gave, but at least I got paid better for my hard efforts!

Will need to stick to that methodology from now on.

Maybe £30 an hour for the one-time call out jobs or £130 at a day rate (which probably reflects well my level of skill/speed)
 
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DM7 said:
I only ever really see the tenants of the houses, as the estate agent is the one dealing with the landlord and I've just been going to the houses to do the repair jobs. I wouldn't ever try and take the client from the agency though, a bit unethical, but I completely agree with you and the others on £10 per hour (or rather £6.90 per hour on the last job lol!) is very much taking the mic, and not acceptable at all.
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I didn't means estate agents, rather I meant agency work - but the principle is exactly the same. The work is not worth having, if you are working at a loss, even if the do seem friendly. Set a viable rate for your time and stick to it.
 
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DM7 said:
...when they found out that my invoice was for 29 hours, the staff member who was dealing with the landlord was probably a bit scared to negotiate it with the landlord, and instead wanted me to take the loss as Im much friendlier and easier to deal with as they know me on a more personal level...
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You are in business. You have a right to expect that if you do a reasonable job you'll be paid a reasonable amount - and promptly. If they have messed up - that's their problem. You have to be a bit harder or they will continue to walk all over you. What's the betting that the branch manager of that estate agency is driving round in a £30k+ motor - and who do you think has paid for that (at least in part)?
 
Harry Bloomfield said:
I didn't means estate agents, rather I meant agency work - but the principle is exactly the same. The work is not worth having, if you are working at a loss, even if the do seem friendly. Set a viable rate for your time and stick to it.
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Oh ok. I wasn't sure at first if that was what you meant when you said agency.

Thanks for the advice.
 
You are definitely under pricing yourself. The job you described you should have kept the Estate Agents fully informed every time you found additional work and costs. Also don't forget the Estate Agents are most likely adding a premium (8 to 20%) to your costs to the landlords they are acting for.

There is a couple of English chaps on Utoob that have given guidance on how they charge their customers :-
Peter Millard and Andy Mac (a.k.a Gosforth Handyman). AM has (or had) a spreadsheet you could copy to do the necessary calculations.
 
DM7 said:
Thanks for the advice. I am based in Preston. There is a wealthy area here called "Fullwood" - lots of Rolls-Royce and Bentleys drivers.
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Although people will say that rich folk are tight, the truth is that they would not employ you at £10 per hour as they would see you as too cheap: ergo not very good.

Charge a proper rate and stick to it. Better to work 15 hours at £30 than 40 at £10
 
Notch7 said:
What sort of work do you like doing?

are you in an affluent area?

Around here in Sussex, People are crying out for handyman services - jobs that tradesmen cant be bothered with.
.
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East or West Sussex ?
 
DM7 Working for landlords and the like will generate a lot of work fast, which is good experience with plenty of different aspects of home improvements.
But you won't make any money! so if you feel that you have gained enough experience then move on to people who own their own houses, as they will have more pride in their homes than a landlord who just wants a cheap job/botch.
 
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