Les, the big players here are;

Henckles and Mccoy
Armour and sons
HB Frazier
Donald Posey

Each one of them know the others labor rate, they know each others overhead, and they know how each bids jobs.

If these guys know thier costs and the competitions costs, why would you not apply the same thinking to your business?

Is it a scale thing, if you want to be big, you take these into consideration, if you want to stay small, you don't bother?

Or is it because the nature of the job and customer your dealing with?
Ie. typical resi customer with no experience dealing with contractors vs degreed engineers with vast experience.....

Dnk...