I recently got an email from a newer SynkedUP user, and I know that more people have wrestled with this question than just him, so I’m sharing it with you all. Here’s the email: —Weston,
Hey, I am getting a lot of No’s for hardscape jobs for this spring since we started bidding jobs through SynkedUP. What should I do? Should I go back to $55.00 an Hour and make my markup less? Let me know what you think. Or do we just have a lot of people that are just not bidding correctly as I was before SynkedUP? Give me your personal opinion. Thanks —
Here’s my reply:
Well… it depends. As long as you aren’t sacrificing your minimum profit goal, then technically yes.
But before you go whacking off your price to win the job, let’s look at a couple of things.
The best way I can describe it is: your budget dictates your “floor”, meaning you can’t charge less in price than whatever your budget says (without going and cutting expenses out of your budget anyway).
The market dictates your “ceiling”.
Meaning you can always charge more than what your budget shows, as long as you can sell it, great! If you are running into the ceiling, aka, can’t sell, then you can lower your pricing, as long as you don’t go below what your budget requires. Going below what your budget dictates and winning the job, might give you the sugar rush, you get the deposit, but it’ll be a slow painful death as you starve your business, and yourself, of resources.
The issue is usually not the price anyway
Competing on price is a race to go out of business. At Tussey, we regularly sold work when our price was over double what the closest competitor bid.
Why?
We were competing on things other than price:
- Being the easiest to do business with.
- Responding promptly.
- Having the most 5-star reviews.
- Having the most high-quality product.
- Maintaining the best client experience.
- Having the most professional crew.
But to sell to those customers, at double the price of our competitors, we had to do a really good job filtering our leads. There are many many people that want what you do but frankly can’t afford it.
Don’t waste your time
We filtered them out by charging a consultation fee, to make sure they were serious. And we also made them fill out the Project Planner on Tussey’s site, to make sure they understood what things cost.
Once they did those things, we knew they wanted what we sold, and were able to pay for it.
$55 an hour is very low for hardscape work. I’m seeing an average of $75-$125. My advice would be before you immediately assume it’s the price that’s getting you a no. Are you…
- filtering your leads?
- educating your leads as to what things cost? (Put pricing ranges on your website…)
- connecting to what the customer REALLY wants on the sales call?
- going and quoting jobs for people that will never be able to afford what you do?
Although I’m not a big Grant Cardone fan, a good book on this topic is “Sell or be Sold” by Grant Cardone. Josh, from “Yes Express”, also has an excellent sales training course on this topic. Did any of these things perk your ears up as a potential solution? Or anything that you feel I missed? Comment below and let me know! Weston
Weston Zimmerman
CEO and co-founder
