Are you asking because you fit into one of these categories and hope to be told how much you should be paid? I think it would benefit us to know why you ask. But I also think you won't get any helpful answers because this is a public forum that is often visited by clients, and most of us don't feel the public understands how much expense there is in our business and therefore would not understand how dollar answers to your question translate into the dollar figures that custom installation companies charge for labor.

Let me paraphrase one of the other posts and say you have described me. And when our company looked at growing, I said that what we needed first is another all-around person like me, not a helper. This means that a person like me is invaluable to the company, and literally keeps it in business. If there were two like me, two of us could work together or each of us could work on different projects simultaneously. The THIRD person would be of the helper variety. There is just not enough for a helper to do when there is only one installer.

This means that, as you add more people, you can work on more projects at once and you don't need everybody to know how to do everything. Then the over-all knowledgeable person either can learn to manage, as he understands how to do the whole job, or he might end up being replaced by several lower-paid people who, as a group, can get the job done. If that person grows into management, he becomes more valuable to the company. (If not, the owner has to do the management.) That doesn't mean he can necessarily be paid more, though; that depends on the company as a whole and how profitably it is managed by those above him.

Don't misunderstand me: everybody is replaceable, but the timing and exact situation of the replacement could cause a knowledge shortage, a work shortage and a cash flow shortage that could kill a business.

I tried not to be too specific in my post in hopes of getting real raw responses and reactions to the posts without asking for specific answers.

I am the tech that I describe but I do not want to be told how valuable I am or that I should make more money (that would be nice). I am not looking for props! I really want to know if I am commonplace or an exception.

In my scenario, I have been propping up a small business in a great market with no vision, plan, growth, goals, etc... for a number of years (yet we still have great references and return work) and because I wear so many hats I am often hindered from being as effective as I should be allowed to be. Hell, I might as well be the owner considering the uncompensated hours and headaches that I endure.

If you have techs like this do you utilize them to their potential or do you use them to clean up your messes or lean on them to do your job as well as theirs.

If you are a tech like this, are your skills used in positive and effective ways? Do you find that your employer know less about the business than your apprentice?

In my view, the success of a small business depends on the entire team. Owner or not, the business succeeds with everyone and benefits everyone. I guess I really wanted to find out candidly what is going on everywhere else.

I have heard these words from my mouth many times.

If you make this much with me, just think how much you could make with two of us!

If you are an owner, do you not have to spend a good chunk of time running the business and getting someone to handle the daily details? Especially as it grows?

There is rarely any useful measure of employee worth unless you are talking about productivity. Obviously a person who can make or sell two widgets an hour is worth twice as much as the person who can make or sell only one widget per hour. You have to ask yourself questions like: If this guy leaves, will he take key customers with him? How much will it cost to hire and train a replacement? How will my P&L and/or cash flow change if he leaves? What is the value of the training and or motivation he contributes to other employees? How much will it hurt if he leaves and bad-mouths my company? What is the actual $ return on his compensation?

My experience managing service-based businesses has convinced me that the "hidden" costs of losing an experienced, reliable employee can be huge, and the smaller the company, the bigger the impact. I'll give you my boilerplate line: "Make the punishment fit the crime."

I'll add an addendum to your above comment. I interviewed for a job with a large CI firm where they wanted someone to act as manager of installation and programming departments. They were very clear. If I wanted to earn top dollar I'd have to be a salesman. This struck me as ironic. Clearly, you need to generate new sales and sales commissions are an incentive. Yet, if a job is not managed well, if programmers don't get the code right ( and I was guilty of leaving a few signals off of a symbol this past week ), if the sales force make expensive promises, if purchasing does not know about all of the miscellaneous widgets that are often necessary to bring a job to completion then the potential gross profit on which that sales commission is based my yield an illusionary net profit. I was struck dumb by this very large company's foolish commitment to the sale while they were not nearly as concerned with the back end process upon which the ultimate sale's profitability would be determined. Sure they understood that someone like me--who can program, install, sell, trouble shoot, was valuable to them. They were,after all, interviewing me to "run" daily operations but they did not see this engineering management as nearly as valuable as a job where actual sales were generated. This struck me as a sure fire way to go out of business or hemorrhage money. I suspect that this bias towards sales and taking for granted engineering --even management of the engineering process-- is not unusual.
Alan

It is said you can sell your way out of cash flow problems, and I believe that. However, if you're losing money on the installation side selling more only postpones the crash, and likely makes it a harder landing.

What is a good tech worth? As much as a good accountant.

A few years ago, I revamped my entire payroll "scheme" so that the really good techs & any techs who sell the work are rewarded for everything they do. At the time I instituted the current pay scheule I was chasing around 6 to 9 techs who were doing the work that was the result of all the sales which were mostly made by me. Tired and worn out at the end of every day made my think about how things could be better. Where as I could work smart and not hard.
About 25 years ago, I had a real estate licence and got paid about 40% of my brokers fee of every thing I listed or sold. It's a system that has worked well for that industry for years and 1 that I have adapted to my business.
My lead person (who used to have a business like mine but shut it down when money was tight) currently gets 3% of the grossprice of his sales, a 3% bonus on all sales made when we hit a certain $ figure per week, plus 1/3 of the labor after paying the help, plus $50/day for showing up on time. So far this has worked well. This person is making a fairly good amount of money, and my business is up over 33% through the 1st 9mos of the year. He treats the business as his own. Although I am making a salary comparable to 3 years ago, I'm a lot less stressed.

So here's an idea. All of us SUPER TECHS are going to get together under cover of darkness, throw a dart at a map of North America, and set up a new CI company wherever the dart lands. It will be the Justice League of custom firms, the Super Friends of integration. The top brands will clamour to have us sell their products. Panasonic will open a division with the sole intention of supplying us with panels. Crestron will create a new line of products exclusive to our company. We will do one job per year. We will accept bids from potential customers who wish to have us work for them. The highest bidder gets a walk through. The first 5 months of the year will be devoted to design and proposals. The 6th month will be set aside for prewire, with every wire labelled and pulled to the highest standards. Months 7-10 will be for preracking and extensive testing and programmign. Month 11 will be the installation. Month 12 will be client instruction, additional documentation etc.

... um.. sorry... getting a bit carried away....

We need to squeeze a month in for golf and an month in for snowboarding and I am in. ;)

Well since we will all be super mega competent and efficient, the work won't take nearly as much time as we would be billing for.... so we'd actually have lots of extra time for all of our expensive leisure pursuits.... and it would all be "on the clock".

PS If any of my clients are reading this... please read the entire thread before fire-bombing my showroom.

Alan...

Been there done that... in reference to your last post. I'm sure a few have read my threads about nearly going out of biz from my last business partner relationship. This guy was in charge of business development yet he treated it like he worked at a retail shop. When he sold a job he washed his hands of it and left it up to us to make good on all of his whacked out promises (he also wanted a check). If he was low on funds (which was all of the time because he was in debt up to his eyeballs) he would work hard to sell something else without even taking a pulse check on the existing projects or manpower issues currently affecting the company.

Thats old hat... thankfully he's gone and its only cost us a few hundred thousand dollars to wipe up the s--tpiles he left. We now act as a collective on all projects from sales through completion. My techs do more than just install but I still work many more hours than they do and take the lead. Without them I'm sure I'd have to rescale the business quickly as they are not in any way immediately replaceable. I think I do a really fair job of compensating them but more so I try to constantly reassure the fact that I need them and heavily appreciate their input, work ethic and results. I share all client feedback with them (Thankfully most is good lately), I fly them to CEDIA with a weeks pay in tow, I trade restaurants gear for food and give the coupons to them, I use miles to fly them to vacation spots free and whatever else I can think of that doesn't necessarily cost more in cash flow.

I see many posts and threads here from techs who feel under-appreciated and the general advice is to collect a little ammo here and then talk to the boss... openly. I welcome this feedback from my guys, even if it hurts a little but my lead guy has been with me for six years now and I'd like to think that this open door policy helps.

RHM9

Damn... next time your hiring.. give me a call!

:)

Owen, you beard is not nearly long enough to pull off such a line...

All you techs out there that think you're really hot stuff might want to try independant contracting. I use sub-contracted labor almost exclusively now and it works great. The really good ones make top dollar and can set there own schedules. I don't have to baby-sit them and worry about hurting their feelings and they don't have to be worried about getting paid what their "worth", because they set the rate. So, if you really are all that and not just whining this could be a profitable way to go.