Thanks for your input, I'm thinking of charging £25 an hour on hourly basis including 10% for any complications ,not an easy thing to do is pricing, never know if am charging too much or too cheap
I have a fixed invoice duplicate sheet i had printed up for small jobs(from an hours call out up to a day)
it has a fixed price for a call out and first hour, up to two hours, up to three hours, half a day then a day
plus a column for materials , then plus vat
it really helps with keeping your rate and profit margin consisstant, you dont want to be doing a job then a customer says 'how much mate' then puts you on the spot and you say somthing silly like £30 when really it should of been about £65
oh and and nearly all my rates/ prices etc end in a 5 too so, £55, £85 ,£2455
as if you get a customer pay in cash they most likely will only have a ten, i always offer the change mind, but 9 times out of ten they let you keep it, over a year this will probably add up to a few hundred quid
pricework
any bigger jobs then learn your capabilities and speed and if your reasonably fast working, always work from a fixed price quotation as youll earn more money that way, well you should do!
Email
always communicate everything through email too if you can, it provides you with a nice record if there is any discrepancies later, go into detail on exactly what you are and are not allowing for within the job your pricing, verbal agreements are dangerous and you will be amazed at how peoples memoryies change over time
Invoicing
get yourself a good invoicing program, i use SLIQ its pretty cheap, looks very professional and you can email pdf quotes and invoices to customers easily, it also does alot of your accounts too
certificates
much the same as invoicing, get a decent program and email them along with your invoices
DONT hand write them out if you want to make any sort of impression on your customers, especially if your hand writing is like mine, and also if they lose it they can print off another one
materials,
you need to put at LEAST a 20% mark up on general materials such as cable etc, smaller items like back boxes etc i mark up by 100%, but i buy as much as i can it bulk and the price i charge the customer is around the same as what they would pay in B&Q etc
scrap
keep all your off cuts and ripped out cable put it in bags in the shed, make a habit of this, i take it down and weigh it in around 2/3 times a year and get around £1k a year from this(it will depend on how busy you are but its a good habit to get in to)
Look the part
get a half decent van, get it sign written, get decent business cards printed, keep them in your wallet,
get shirts with your bus.name and scheme logo on,
get a website and a proper bus. email account
NOT
[email protected] etc you want
[email protected]
Invest in looking as professional as possible, the more like a business you look the more you can warrant charging, and you can set yourself apart from all the local'sparkys'
And remember every part of your business that takes your time and effort needs to make you money
