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| 1. |
Don't forget that your best insurance against a job done at a loss is the time and expense taken to make a thorough and accurate estimate. |
| 2. |
Remember to consider and allow for designing time; your customer's job may require more of that than he (or you) realizes. |
| 3. |
Don't waste time and money on a customer who will not allow your a profit. Cut him out entirely. |
| 4. |
Don't forget that some firms fail and don't pay their bills. Some never intend to pay in the first place. A sure way to get rid of the second type, and a good policy in any case, is to get some money up front. Make this an iron clad rule and you will save yourself some losses and much aggravation. |
| 5. |
Don't expect to get every job you bid on. A lot of business is not worth having. If you get every job you bid on, you are probably bidding too low. A rule of thumb is greater than 20% and less than 80% wins puts you in the ballpark related to your competition and compensation. |
| 6. |
If you are asked to forge an object for some purpose and to price it as cheaply as possible, remember that the only chance you have to get paid for your time and effort is when you sell the object. If you sell your work at the lowest possible price, you do not see your skills in the same light as those who have asked you to create the object. The question is value, where is the customer's in relation to your talents. |
| 7. |
Any time somebody introduces their job with the phrase "all you've got to do is ... " you can be pretty sure your are about to be stung! It will probably turn out to be the classic 5-minute job that takes an hour. And if it does, and if you get paid for 5 minutes work, you have been stung, well and truly, have you not? |
| 8. |
Also, if you do a job for somebody for less than it's worth, you are subsidizing him. If you choose to do that, that's up to you. If he expects you to do that, show him the door. Retain your free agency! |
| 9. |
If you're not making money at it, you might as well be doing something for yourself... Think about that one the next time there is something you want to work at for yourself and John Jakeson asks you to make up some small item for his $80,000 motor home. Better still, think about it before John comes along. Do you want to spend your time on his hobby or yours? (I have a feeling that this may sound terribly selfish to some guys who read it. I've got nothing against doing the other guy a favor, but if it gets to be a one way street, I can lose interest awfully fast.) |
| 10. |
If somebody asks if you could do a job tell him to bring it around to your shop and you'll take a look at it. If he is willing to do that, you may have a paying customer on your hands. Never offer to drop around and have a look at the job at his place. If he is not interested enough to bring his work to you, he's not very interested. This is a tactic that took me long while to tumble to, but I have found it to be a good measure of the prospect. It applies most strongly to the "new customer". If you have done business with the guy before, and figure the possibilities are good, then it may not be out of place to go see the job at his place. Think about it: when you want something done, do you not take it to the guy who you want to do it, or expect to pay him for coming around to your place to give you a quote? |
| 11. |
Michaelangelo, who was a pretty fair hand with a cold chisel, apparently said: "I finally realize the world would have paid me anything I had asked ... if only I had asked". Put your own price on your work. If it's a fair price, it'll be paid. If it's too high, you'll starve and lower your prices. If the customer is too cheap to pay a fair price, spend the time doing something for your self. Which goes right back to the first point - if he won't allow you to make a fair profit, show him the door. |
| 12. |
Make it a monthly practice to give a generous break on materials and/or labor to a customer. At job pick up time or final billing let them know about it, this generates good will, retains customers, generates new business - more than you will give away. It works! |
Adapted from American Machinist magazine, may 7, 1931 through the Machinist's Bedside Reader, Vol 1, p. 179, Supplemented by R. Kern.
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