i sent of my normal quotes that dont include model numbers and just brief descriptions of the equipment/brand name. after dealing with this customer ranting and raving that i didnt provide model numbers so he "can make sure i am choosing good equipment" i said "i dont provide shopping lists, as you already know the first proposal is free after that its our normal design fee, i would be happy to provide you a list of model numbers for $299.99 and if you choose to move forward that will be put towards your invoice 100% granted you purchase every item through us" He grumbled and complained and finally said fine i trust your using top notch components.

for smaller jobs i just do fixed price bids because i can pretty much nail the time on the head, so he questioned my labor rate and asked what our normal hourly rate is. I said it is $165 (i had to raise my labor rates last month due to ever shrinking margin on parts **i didnt tell him that**) at that point he said WTF! you av guys charge that much/hour? (granted before he was fine with my install cost) you have got to be kidding me, that is almost as much as i pay my lawyer, you can go F*** yourself and hung up. i didnt even get the chance to tell him that it was a fixed price bid assuming we dont run into any major delay's

i just find it kind of funny that these people are fine with things until you break them out, I was going to fire him anyway because he was already being a PITA but he did it for me :D what an asshole.

lol man you sure are pissing people off lately :-)

Send him an invoice for your time so far...maybe you'll get another check with a post-it note attached again!

haha nice

my response would have been, your lawyer sucks if he is only 160 per hour!

Is $165 for (1) man?

That seems high.

I tend to bill $100 per man hour

$165 @ hour definitely seems exorbitant for an AV installer... I'm sure you're capturing all of your costs and (hopefully) charging a fair margin, but I think you may be placing the cost basis for those things in the wrong category. If your materials price went up and you're bundling that in with labor, that could be interpreted as you evading tax laws. You should be selling miscellaneous materials as miscellaneous materials and not "installation labor".

$125 - $130 is a high price for a fully certified Crestron programmer with many years of experience, working for a brick-and-mortar AV installation corporation. Of course, there's the geographic differences with labor rates, but $165? To hang run a few cables, hang a TV on the wall, and configure a universal remote? Yeah, pound sand is about the right response.

I think we charge $95 for install per guy. If you are charging for 2 guys with the $165 try breaking that up to $80 or $85 an hour per guy. That pill will be easier to swallow even though its the exact same thing. It also helps say "its a two man job" without saying it.

Go Friend yourself?

$165/hr for one installer is completely outrageous.

I don't think his labor rate was out of line at all considering he knew what he was up against and it was a fixed bid.
If there was little margin in the gear- you need to make your percentage to make the job worthwhile.


3PM,
You may not want to break it out per hour for the next guy who asks the same question. Just give him the ballpark labor portion and make no mention on how long it will take.

No issue here 3PM, you just saved yourself the time and now can move on to someone who appreciates your services.

Im not evading tax laws or anything like that. My accountant and I have discussed numerous times that i need to be raising my labor rate from 125 to 165/hour. It seems like every time i log on to order something prices go up a few cents. i consider my self fortunate if i can sell something with 40 points. making 100-150 for a pretty nice AVR is ridiculous. this particular job was pretty big for such a "small job".

Mike, Were not hang and bangers i provide premium custom audio video services. Ive been turning away hang and bangs because i just dont want to deal with them any more unless its part of a much larger system. With rising taxes, payroll,insurance,professional business sevices/ overhead i HAVE TO CLEAR x amount of dollars for me to live. Margins are just not there to survive on selling equipment alone. If you guys havent realized that yet then I suggest you take a look at what your truely pulling in and clearing/month. You may not be doing as well as you think you are.

I have worked extremely hard over the last couple years to dig my self out of the "amazon/best buy crowd" There are the trunk slamers to service those type of clients, maybe its your client base but it certainly isnt mine.

Labor rate definitely seems high. We charge $89 for most work.

If it was a fixed bid, you have even more flexibility as far as what you want the customer to think your labor rate is.

Also, I am in the habit of proposing WITH model numbers and pricing. I even go so far as to price match anything applicable. It avoids issues like this and tends to build trust with the client. Not only that but they won't question labor as much if they know we have already done everything to be competitive on material. After all, this is how all the other trades keep profitable. The idea of relying too much on material for profit is quickly going away as most on here already know.

Our rates used to be $65/hour when we first started and people complained about that but broke out the check book for the heat and air guy to refill the system at $80/hour.

if your price matching how the hell are you making any money? We have to sell at MSRP just to clear the already ridiculous margins on equipment being direct or through distribution.

BTW: im not being greedy about my income either. I really dont pay my self as much i should be making to deal with all the BS. Also my overhead is cut as much as it can be while still being legal. we are also "storing" the hay so we can service our clients down the road incase the economy takes a shit again, its not much but would get us through a few months of a downturn

The problem areas right now are video. Audio still has margin for the most part. So we take the good with the bad and remain extremely competitive on video.

Also a well designed system has a lot of peripheral or supporting components that keep margins reasonable.

To be honest, Snap has helped a lot with this concept too.