ito,
i feel you. but there are some very vocal opponents to us making money. some of them are right in our own industry.
now for residential service calls, where our job average is about $400/ticket. I couldn't justify having a salesperson/estimator look at every job. it would bring that ticket avg to $500. Thereby costing the customer more money.
if we did this work at T&M, our avg ticket would be about $300, but that would leave us pretty much bankrupt.
my guys can add up all they want, but they also know what most of the costs are. They know what the advertising is, what the trucks cost, etc.
I look at it this way, if they are gonna go on their own, they are gonna go on their own. nothing i can do to stop them. keeping them in the dark won't stop them. it'll only make them ignorant competitors when they do.
if they know the deal, they won't start out trying to work for $50/hr and wonder why they can't seem to make any money.
but that's just what works for me. but, we've been a union shop before, and it's a different world. most of those guys are not going out on their own, except to moonlight.
big difference.
