Demand = Price increase?

[Clutchy]

Looking for some advice.

 

We have put our prices up this year and seem to average 800-1200 + VAT per day for a mix of 2/3 man days.

 

We are now booked up until January and have had to put a halt on advertising as customers don't' seem to want to wait 10 weeks which is fair enough.

 

How do you know when you're at the sweet spot? As demand increases say passed 6 weeks, should we start adding 20% to future quotes to slow down the amount of bookings? We price per tree rather than as a day rate which helps. 

 

Not in the position to start a second gang as yet, not sure we even want to. Based in North London / Hertfordshire 

Edited November 1, 2020 by Clutchy

[Matthew Storrs]

My method is to increase for the jobs/customers I don’t really want and more or less keep prices the same for more desirable work, that way my diary gets booked up with quality rather than riff raff! Money is not everything to me though- I’d sooner enjoy my work for modest income vs headache high earners!

[Clutchy]

Hi Matthew,

 

That is a very good idea.

 

No idea what is happening with pricing at the moment, we tend to be towards the top end (or so I thought) but we bid and won £900 inc for a reduction that took 2 hours and the other 2 quotes were 1300 and 1900

 

There doesn't seem to be much of a pattern!  

[Khriss]

@Clutchy

Hmmm. Sounds great. But how long have you been trading? Everyone has good years and i know lots of guys doing well financially now, am hoping its not just a silver lining, been a while Matthew since i heard pricing like that. K

[eggsarascal]

The bit that demands the money is 'North London'.

[Clutchy]

1 minute ago, Scottish Cleaning Service said:

Builders usually charge £600 a day so you are quoting around £400 a day per person which I think is pretty cheap especially near London. I feel you could add £100 per person per day with little effect on your future. ?

True, and I don't particularly like working within the A406 so might do that for any work around there.

 

Builders finish at 5 and we finish or aim to, finish at 2pm

 

@Khriss  We have been going 4 years, the biggest increase in our earnings was actually since going VAT registered oddly enough. Trying to get a bit of focus within the business, quite like block management work 

[Clutchy]

4 minutes ago, eggsarascal said:

The bit that demands the money is 'North London'.

We probably charge slightly more, but not a great deal different to further north.

 

Hard to tell/know if we are currently too cheap. I think we win around 50% of quotes but we do offer a very high level of customer service. Is the only way to find out to keep putting up prices until demand decreases.

 

Of course easier/fun jobs come at a more attractive rate.

[Khriss]

@Clutchy sounds good. Yr obvs going in right business direction. Not long established but if yr customers returning to you yr hitting the mark. Couple of our Contractors couple years back were bidding in wages plus diesel prices a d traveling fr over an hour ? K

[Matthew Storrs]

17 minutes ago, Khriss said:

@Clutchy

Hmmm. Sounds great. But how long have you been trading? Everyone has good years and i know lots of guys doing well financially now, am hoping its not just a silver lining, been a while Matthew since i heard pricing like that. K

Well I am a bit of a revolutionary! Just not so good at business!

[Stubby]

I would not stop advertising though . Tell peeps you are booked up to next micklemass and let them choose to wait or not .  Agree bump up shit jobs you don't really want/like . Standard practice .