Rick, Congrats on the apparent success of your business. It sounds like you're doing well. I'm not one for giving away my services and I've thought about your Starbucks analogy many times myself. Tim Hortons can also get away with charging premium prices for their coffee because they offer an exceptional product compared to others (at least in my area). My biggest point was not being afraid to charge what we're worth according to our market area. 10-20% profit is great but 30-40% is better if the local market will bear. Apples and oranges aside, I highly doubt Bill Gates or Warren Buffet limit themselves to a 10 -20% profit with their businesses. Another example is Simplex Fire Alarm company. Around here most electrical contractors have rates at 50% of what Simplex charges. I don't believe that the overhead is much different between a decent size electrical contractor and Simplex. But I'll bet their profit margin is much higher because of supply and demand. (and propietary reasons of course). My main point is really not to sell ourselves short. You can bet physicians, lawyers and accountants don't, and they all have competettion as well and in reality the level of training and education and business risk associated with being an electrical contractor is close if not equal to those examples.(although they're held in much higher esteem by the public).
