Your quotes as electrician competitive against other businesses, or should you even be worried about other people's quotes? Because there is tradesmen out there that charge a fortune for what they do. But yet there's someone else that comes along and says, Yeah, I can do that for half the price. Now, why is that? Shouldn't every electrician be charging sort of the same to the child price per point or an hourly rate? Well, in today's podcast, that's exactly what we're talking about how to price your work, and why to price it like that. Tool Box Talks for electricians, helping electricians reduce stress, gain back time, and earn more money. Hello, and welcome back. Once again. My name is Ben Poulter, your host. And I've seen this all across social media. And what do you guys charge for replacing a fuse board? Or more people charging these days for a free bed rewire? And I look at these questions and think, yeah, I might answer it. But there's so many different things you've got to take into take into consideration when maybe replacing a fuse board, or when maybe doing a rewire is quite rare, that every job is ideally the same, exactly the same. There's never the same things happen, the same folks you come across, there's always something a little bit different, to be honest, isn't it. Because if you consider a property that's maybe lived in, and they're not going to move out, and you need to rewire that property, and every then you've got a pack or your kit away, you've got to tidy everything back away, you've got obviously made sure that all the floorboards are put down safe enough, so no kids going to fall through the ceiling or no one's going to get damaged, you can't basically rip all the wiring out. Because they're still living there, they need to cook their food at night they need the lights on, it's a lot more difficult. And when you compare that to a property that's completely empty, it's like a dream, you can go in there, you can cause as much mess as you want as much dust as you want with the chases. And you can rip all the floorboards up, leave them up basically all week while you're working. That empty property is 10 times easier than doing it with somebody living in the house. So why would you charge him the same price. But there are electricians out there that price their jobs price per point, a set price for a lighting point and a set price for a socket. For example, if a customer wants maybe six down lights in their kitchen, it's going to take you around three hours to get that work done. Do you think realistically after setting out drilling your holes out wiring them? That's obviously if there's an existing supply in there as well. So we're taking into consideration that maybe there's an existing line up there where you're gonna get a supply from and it's wired safely so you can use them wires, because obviously, like I say, there's so many things to take into consideration. We're assuming now that the fuse boards to 18th edition and metalcraft board RCD protected. And all you need to do is wire them six downlights. So you look at that job and you think yep, I could batch that out in about three hours. Lot. Obviously it never takes that long. Nothing ever goes to plan. It's a bleeding nightmare. But realistically, it'll take you around three hours cable is going to cost you What 15 quid lights 16 pound each and also includes some of the sundries because you might need to patch over a hole that possibly you drilled wrong, or anything like that screws to put the plaster wall backup your Sunday is going to cost you around 20 quid. So that electrician that charges price per point, it will quote for 5555 pound per light. So works out around 330 quid when another electrician will come along and oh price to Job was hourly rate. And again three hours labour average say about 40 pound per hour with the same materials that comes out on his cost or his price in 246 pound

yet but stop a minute, I know what you're thinking I'd rather get paid 330 pound that's a little bit more than 2046. But if you're going out quoting for jobs that are 30% 34% higher than other electricians, and then just going home and wait for the call, because you haven't got much work on, then this is why you're possibly losing out on work. You need to start quoting for your jobs more competitively.

And then just because you do maybe that job for 246 pounds one day, no job is the same. Every job is different. So just because you instal six downlights one year for 246 pound, doesn't mean you have to keep doing downlights all the time for 20 to 46 pounds, even if they they tell their friends and family. Get this electrician and it'll do it for 250 quid Well, not necessarily every job

is different. And over time, you can put your prices up

at the beginning of starting your own business, maybe look into winning the customer, rather than how much money you can earn. Because with one customer, if you keep that one customer happy, maybe say, an old lady than that old lady, she's gonna have plenty of friends, because old people, they love talking all the time. But she's also going to have sons and daughters and grandkids that all turn into maybe five of their friends, and they'll tell five of their friends, and so on and so on. So this will start your business by getting more and more customers every day.

If you ask anyone, you can confidently say that word of mouth is the best marketing or the best thing you can do for your business. It will boost your business and your business's reputation, massively if you keep a customer happy. But it also swings around about it can go the wrong way. Because if you faff a job up and maybe you get angry with a customer, you kick off or you do something wrong.

And don't thought of

make good. Now I've done it before I've worked in someone's house and I possibly this is years ago, I've done it once don't do it all the time. I'll put my foot through the ceiling when we were in house accidents happen. This is what happened. It was a nightmare because the guy was downstairs he was being lived in at a time when I was rewiring it. So the guy was downstairs, reading his paper directly where my size 12 foot went through the loft.

Would love to sorry, it was a two bed bunk tube not to be a bungalow. It was a two bedroom house. But my foot went through upstairs. So we were sitting downstairs in the living room read the paper. Obviously it kicked off, it went a bit crazy to start with, they weren't very happy whatsoever. But I did arise together wholesaling, skimmed. So it's how you deal with the problems, once you come across them keep that customer happy, they were more than happy the end of it, I still got tea and biscuits. So that was fine the next day, as long as you do something about the problem that you cause, it's going to work out in the long run.

But another way of pricing your jobs is to do an hourly rate, where you give the customer saying, Yep, cost me for me to be here, it's going to cost you 50 pound an hour. But remember, that hourly rate, it needs to cover all the costs within your business he needs to cover

in his cover your insurance, the public liability, and all your tools, your travel time to get there. There's so many things that are incorporated in your hourly rate, which maybe the customer doesn't know, with my experience before. When you say to a customer, yep, I can turn up that job will take me two hours, it's sort of 50 pound an hour. They look you've gone out thank you 50 pound an hour. They've gone to Google so electricians get charged and obviously the JRB rates come up. And they'll say we'll get I'll give you 20 pounds an hour doesn't work like that. Not at all that's for employed like, don't think they completely understand. So it's a lot better. Maybe not given an hourly rate or not sort of letting the customer know what you charge per hour, in my experience is 100 times better to give the customer a price for the whole job. So then they know exactly what it's going to cost. They've budgeted for what that maybe that reward is going to cost all that kitchen refurb, something like that. So they know exactly what is going to cost when you're finished and done and dusted. Because if you're on an hourly rate in somebody's property working basically for them, it obviously depends what type of customer or how well you know that customer. But if you take a phone call, and you're sitting out in your van having a 10 minute phone call, they're gonna look at you and think about I'm paying that God to sit on the phone, I'm paying that guy to sit in the van and eat his lunch, or I'm paying that guy if you go the toilet for over 20 minutes, which you know, sometimes there's a guy in the morning you need to sit in the toilet for 20 minutes. So an hourly rate, I think sometimes a customer will look at it and think well I'm going to knock that off. I'm going to knock that off. It doesn't really work out but I'd much rather give a customer a quote for basically the whole job. I have given it a go before where this guy had a new build and he said yeah, I'll pay you an hourly rate to turn up so we agreed on a day rate of what I was going to turn up I'll be there for the day he had to supply the materials so obviously if the materials weren't there I still got paid I got paid to be there and the job got first fixed within four days basically pay me for five so instead of doing electrical work, he said can you jet wash my drive

I was a bit bit gross to do it because I wanted to get off and do other jobs but if it's going to pay me the electricians rate to jet wash his drive he could have went out and got someone else to do it for probably half as much but I didn't mind I got paid to jet wash his drive for something that maybe I enjoy doing on a Sunday I'm anyway

It's funny how it works sometimes, because the customer is obviously thinking now I'm getting my money's worth I'm getting, I've got someone here to do the job, then I want to get my money's worth out of him to get my work out of him. But you're paying me to be an electrician at your property, not necessarily pay me to jet wash the drive. So it's funny to maybe sometimes how customers think. But in my eyes, I didn't mind.

But as with a lot of tradesmen, and women, obviously, the paperwork side of things can be a bit of a pain, the easier and the quicker you can make doing your paperwork is always an advantage. And speaking of making things easier, I have created a Google sheet where you can fill your details in an invoice in a quote, sorry, and then automatically produce an invoice. So if you want a copy of that, I'll leave that in the show notes below, and you can take a look.

But after building a reputation and building your customer base, as an electrician, or as any tradesman, sometimes customers don't even ask for a quote, they trust you that you're going to charge them a normal or a reasonable money for the job, what you're doing. So they'll just ring you up and book you in the time of what they want you to be at their address or the job they want you to do. So you won't have to give them a quote, this is a lot easier.

Because in the electrical trade, you'll know that nine times out of 10, a customer will phone up, and either the electricity has gone off, because yeah, they knew their fuse board was knackered, so they needed a new one. And they need the quote or the price ASAP. So you need to get it to him really quick. But a lot of times when the customers know you or maybe they'll come recommended, then you can just go out and do the job and build them straight after. That's a lot more simpler in my eyes. Because when you get a few quotes, you get two or three, two or three quotes to do a week. And they get stacked up. And the little job sort of seem to get forgotten about. And it's sometimes em little jobs that can obviously lead into big jobs. So you want to keep a track of the quotes of what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. Maybe keep on top of them.

But in my opinion, there's two things you can do. If you're starting to get really busy, like you've got so much work come in so many quotes all the time, so many people phoning you every day. And it's getting maybe a bit stressful, there's two things you can do, you can go out, advertise, find yourself an electrician to give you a hand where you become an employer as well as your own boss, or just keep prices up.

In my opinion, number two has been my best option. I've obviously tried to employ people, I've had employees, and it has caused me a lot more stress. So stock prices up. And basically you're doing the same amount of work. But for more money

and putting your prices up yet, I'll admit it'll get rid of a few people that want you because you're a cheap electrician or you've done it a cheap, you've done a cheap job last time it was quite

cheap. Basically, you don't want to be known as a cheap electrician, it's pants because people will ring you up and expect you to be cheap.

Myself, I've got a lot of friends and family that don't call me up for any electrical work because they say our Ben is a ripoff or good. I've got plenty of people out there that understand the value of the job or the work I do for them and they're happy to pay me the quotes or the money that I charge to do it.

I've been around friend's house before where maybe they haven't asked me to do it. And I'll say well you've got a guide come in and put these downloads in your your living room or your landing or something like that. And I've looked at them and they're not they're not straight what happened there was he like wonky he was so did not wear his glasses that day.

I don't do that I don't like doing that. I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I'd like them lights to be dead straight especially downright ugly when they're off. Always see in hallways, maybe in hotels, when you're going down the hallway and you see the lines just they're just kicked out a little bit. Why would you put a laser up, you can get a spot on every time and I like doing that it's still job satisfaction for me.

But talking about being a cheap electrician again. In the beginning of when I was starting to run my own business, I was going around and I was sticking lights up for 20 pound because it was classed as maybe a drink back then in well 2004 sort of things I was putting lights on for 20 quid, I was leaving my house and it would take me probably 45 minutes of my time to get there to get the kit out to test it all and put a light up and 20 pounds. Thinking about now didn't really cover much more costs at all didn't make any profit out of that there weren't much of a profit after my insurance but public liability and perpetual may be in the van. So

Yeah, I didn't do that for long.

And there was another thing that I never did. As a business owner, myself as my own boss, I never put a markup on materials. If I went to the wholesalers and picked up a socket for 399, well, I'll charge the customer 399. And I don't know why I didn't do it, like I didn't realise you were meant to do it meant to put a markup on it, there's a reason why you put a markup on these materials, because you're given the warranty that guarantee, say, later on, if that socket goes wrong, or that light fittings goes wrong, obviously, the customer is going to call you, the warranty stands for you. So you're going to have to replace that socket. So putting your 20% markup on it, that covers covers you for all this.

All the materials that are using customers houses, they come with a 12 month warranty from me, because I can go remove that material and remove that socket, remove that life in and take it back to the wholesalers because the wholesalers will warrant 12 month warranty as well. But after that, it's down to the manufacturers. Because a lot of these lights like these JCC fittings, they come with a box on the box it says it seven year warranty where you can't call me up in seven years and say scuze me one of our lights is gone. It's not sort of thing I've got to tell the customer that I've got to let them know that that that manufacturer is with the warranty. And that warranty is with the manufacturer or sorry, not with me personally, I'll come round or remove it, but I will need to be paid for doing that.

And another thing to mention that a quote is exactly what it says it's a quote it's a

like an estimate of what that job is going to cost. It can go a little bit over which obviously if it does, you need to say yeah, look to the customer. This is you need it Ryron right back to the fuse board your wiring is no good is rubbish is damaged. I've got a rewire again, the cables not long enough any, anything that you have to do extra, obviously let the customer know first it's going to cost them a little bit more, it's going to entail a bit more time it's going to retail, what more materials, but then it swings around about I've been to perm properties before where I've drilled the holes in the ceiling and found out they've got their Miko joists,

where you can run your rods through perfectly without damaging the ceiling whatsoever. So they've got the best of both worlds, you've let the customer know that you don't have to get a plaster in and fix up classroom because I've got through the Eco choice in this property. And then also took me I don't know, an hour less. So I will I know it sounds crazy. But in my eyes, I like to look after the customer and say yeah, it's cost me cost me less time to do this. So I will charge them less than what I originally quoted.

I'm a firm believer in treating the customers fair, because like your customers are your sort of advertisement, then obviously tell five friends and Teller number five friends are going from there. So your reputation or value that a lot more than the money I earn as an electrician.

And I do like to keep a customer in the loop of if there is an extra cost incurred because of maybe they've budgeted for maybe five or two quid. And if it goes over to 550 You're gonna get our 50 quids, you got to let the customer know first. Because I don't believe that the natural ideal blueprint for pricing jobs. You can't get a thing if someone goes on the line and says how much should six downlights cost in a kitchen? The property is different. Is it a flat roof? Have they got a fuse board that's up to scratch where I can actually serve for the installation, that do up to regulation for the building control that everything's different. There's so many things you've caught taking into consideration. So if every job was the same, then a customer would be able to go onto the internet and go yeah, I'll pay you five in Japan to do this six lights about me it's not going to cost that much. It could cost maybe 300 pound or 700 Pound it depends. Everything depends on so many things to take consideration. This is why pricing and quoting for jobs is a skill in itself. And you'll develop it better and better over time. You've got to work out. Everyone does things differently. Everyone finds things, find things comfortable that works for them. So you've got to try all these different ways of quoting for work. But don't do yourself out of money basically because you got to work out these are worth doing. Is it worth me quoting maybe to Japan to this job, am I going to make a profit

but this is something that you will develop as your business grows, and you'll get better and better.

As I've mentioned in a previous podcast, mastering the trade, self employed electricians and their professional knowledge in electrical repairs. That's quite a good one. You should check it out. I'll leave a link in the show notes.

As below, along with the link to the auto generating of the invoice from a quote where you can take a look at that to see that helped you in your business too. So till next time, see you again