Massively undercut on job! But why?

[oldwoodcutter]

Its a joke. Just quote what you believe you are worth and let the idiots get on with it. Some muppet advertises tree reports on google every now and again for £79!!! Just devalues the industry.

 

The whole treework industry has been devalued for years.

[Mark Bolam]

Things like this used to wind me up, and still do a bit, but in a different way.

If 2 blokes take 2 days for £200 it's stupidly cheap.

Your best price of £500 is still stupidly cheap.

 

Companies start up all the time, borrow cash from granny or whatever and just work for wages.

They don't last long.

That doesn't bother me.

 

What does is that word gets around that a team should cost £300/day.

 

It's taken me far longer than it should to build a decent customer base so I can quickly walk away from customers who favour the 'we can beat any quote' brigade.

 

Weirdly, we complete some jobs to find out we were cheapest.

 

'I can't believe you did all that in a day! Those nice young boys with the Halfords trailer said it would be a weeks work!'.

 

 

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[Daythe trees]

I am finding out that I am generally the middle quote but closer to the cheaper ones than in between. Sometimes I am the most expensive and this is usually jobs that the have a go brigade don't understand, I generally win these as my explanation gives the customer confidence.

 

I also have a minimum price of 320 for two men, chipper, saws and climbing kit however I only rarely work for this rate in areas I want to win work to expand my footprint.

 

Had a customer recently tell me the timber was worth the value of my quote therefore I could have the timber and sell it. Ok son, go and buy a chainsaw and crack on then sounds like you don't need me and could make an earn. He called me later, I suspect I was the middle quote.

[skyhuck]

£320 for 2 men and gear?????????:confused1:

 

Are you guys the ones we keep hearing about who are using the food banks??????

[hamdogg]

£320 for 2 men and gear?????????:confused1:

 

 

 

Are you guys the ones we keep hearing about who are using the food banks??????

 

 

Totally agree!! Busy fools

[john p]

Me and my lad went and reduced a birch today, £330, home by one o clock, £70 for his wages, £50 costs/etc.So made a bit of profit and was able to pick my boy up from school and enjoy life, I could easily run on £ 1650 a week. Some times it's more often it's less. Works for me.

[john p]

Totally agree!! Busy fools

 

 

Weren't you working for £100 a day?

[Hodge]

Weren't you working for £100 a day?

 

 

Oooh, handbags...

[skyhuck]

Oooh, handbags...

 

[aspenarb]

Ha, ha! I stumbled off to bed!

 

Stephen sums it up very well I think!

 

In a bracket:

 

if it was a "friend in need", do it for a fry up! (Although I still haven't had the fry up I was promised last time I did a job for a friend 😬)

 

If it was Mr awkward and I wasn't really bothered, could be £150-200 / tree + weigh in for green waste.

 

It's an interesting one, with your big kit, time on site could be a day or less, stick it in a corner, sort it out later.

 

Mondeo man could be there a fortnight faffing around.

 

On reflection, 1500-2000 if there were no "difficult" customer issues I guess and there's still wiggle room if it was a job that I really wanted to challenge for.

 

 

You lot are all singing off the same Hymn sheet. The guy with these trees had quotes of between £2k and £4k, we did it for £2000 inc the vodka and tonic. All our kit was on a clearance job next door, the lot was felled into his drive, then grabbed with the telehandler and dumped next to the timber trailer roadside. I crunched them up whole with the grab and stuffed them into the trailer, the boys gave the trailer a quick trim and we were gone all in a couple of hours. GDC had way too much leaf in their chip at the time and were desperate for wood so that was a free tip on the way home and some browny points for later favours.

 

Without the kit being there already it would not been worth doing, I heard through the grapevine later that we were being accused of undercutting but if thats not charging enough for your time what is. As a tree surgery job it may have taken a two man team a week so where does the 4K come from?

 

Bob